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Comment Branding, type in traffic, seo juice... (Score 1) 124

Why is it important? First have a look at Coke... their brand is worth millions if not billions. Same thing goes with domains and is on of the highest searched keywords ever on the intertet. Average Monthly Searches: 513,360,000 Average Cost Per Click: $0.51 USD. I happen to have a few domains with type in traffic and it's usually 0.5-3% type in traffic of the average searches. So with you are looking at large monthly checks from just type in traffic. Not everyone uses search engines to visit websites, and when returning to websites they will most likely type the domain in the address bar. People like to develop sites that have memorable, easy to type in, and easy to say domains (word of mouth). is lots easier to remember compared to Website owners want customers to return and is one of the easiest and shortest sex names out there. Also getting top search engine rankings with Google, Bing, etc is lots easier if you have the keyword in your domain (not all cases but in highly competitive markets it will help). I don't think the domain is worth $100m but if properly developed it could be pulling in that amount of profit every year. My guess is a sale around $10m.

Comment Americans are lazy and built around outdated infra (Score 2, Interesting) 533

First of all, bikes in China are not produced to western standards either technically (safety standards: saw one blow up in flames while parked), fashionably (clunky, heavy, etc) or socially acceptable. Majority of consumers in the US ride bikes for leisure purposes. Some take the stand of being environmentally friendly or dissing long commute times, but basically it's for an image. Biking around with 20+kg of weight is neither comfortable or convenient. Exercise = pedaling and consumers pay for light weight bikes, not heavy electric bikes. When you turn on an electric motor the majority would rather hop in a car with air con/heater/stereo/etc. Then you start to get into infrastructure... originally Beijing was built around 90% bikes and 10% cars, people grew up accepting bikes as the main mode of transportation and this gradually progressed into todays ring road system (huge nightmare with the on/off ramps... other story)... the US grew up the other way with cars being the main method of transportation. On top of that you have the US desire for instant gratification... time = money. In terms of cars vs bikes... cars will always win with consumers focused on faster commute times with less energy. Those that don't see this are in the minority. When gas triples in price this might be another story... but by then cars will likely be electric anyway. I can see some Europeans buying into electric bikes due to the city infrastructure but Americans are built around highways and cars... good luck changing this except in very select high density areas.

Comment Re:ICANN is a mess - yes, but why is wrong... (Score 1) 103

Artificial scarcity = competition for a limited marketplace which will happen anyway with opening up the final wave of top level domains. This is no different from the current tld model except ICANN is going to try and gouge big companies for the most amount of money possible. If anything it stops innovation and entrepreneurship in small business who can't afford such ridiculously expensive fees.

In the end .com will still be #1 in consumers minds. Big companies have already invested too much into their .com marketing strategies that it wouldn't make much sense financially to switch to an unproven tld scheme.

Investing in domains is a viable business (excluding spammers, typos) and building up a large network of websites from those domains is no different from investing in speculative real estate or fine art.

Comment ICANN is a mess (Score 1) 103

ICANN messed up tld long time ago by not keeping it simple and putting profits ahead of consumers best interest.

Gov, com, edu etc are essential and geo/ country domains are also required due to the recent localization of search. Who uses .travel or any of the other major tld currently in operation? Nobody because they are not marketed properly and confuse people.

Some new tld will be solid for large niches in the internet (.porn, .xxx, .city, etc) and could be profitable, but the costs associated with having your own tld will be expensive and the risks high. Solid business plans and capital will be essential for the next wave of tld (not the same as regular domaining).

Comment Somali Submarines coming soon... (Score 1) 666

Stock exchange... more like a barter economy that has existed for centuries. I'll trade you 10 chickens for 1 cow on a larger scale.

What's worrying is that they are currently running around in 'fishing boats', but with the type of profits they are making soon it might be something far more lethal.

Possibly in 5 years new headline 'Somali Pirate Submarine threatens to sink all vessels in the straight unless all international cargo companies pay $5 million each'.

There has to be a tipping point where the international community shuts these guys down. Hopefully before they purchase missiles and other advanced military weapons.

With the advanced tracking and radar technology out there can't the US or anyone track the pirates and know what they're doing? Can't be that hard to knock them off.

Comment new search niche (Score 1) 290

So newspapers have the choice to innovate or die a slow death staying with the current model at Google.
How to innovate? Obviously there's a need to shake up the business model and provide value to customers but that's too much work teaching old dogs new tricks.
Other options are form some sort of union and use the collective bargaining power to force Google into an alternative business model for newspapers.
But if you can get all the newspapers and mainstream media together then why not just take all your content and build a new search engine with different revenue models better suited to their needs....
Something will be drastically changing in this niche and it's going to be an interesting one to get into

Comment Outsouring effects... (Score 3, Interesting) 96


Comment Many others going overseas also... (Score 4, Interesting) 757

It's not just Indians and Chinese 'sea turtles' going back overseas.... I have no background in China, born a Canadian of European background and spent the past 5 years in Beijing. Found thousands of Canadians and Yanks just like myself living in China. Who are these people? Most are highly ambitious entrepreneurs from good families that are searching for the new wild west, the land of opportunity. They could easily stay and work in the US but some of (maybe lots of) todays youth are not happy working in mega corporations who don't give a shit about their employees, long hours, little recognition/room for advancement, no loyalty, etc...

By many China is seen as the new wild west with new opportunities, challenges, and a sense of adventure that can't be found back home. One billion people where everyone needs new products and ideas. At least that's what the new expats believe. Easy road to riches... but that's not the case. I never met anyone over in Beijing that made a fortune off of China except the expats on big overseas packages. Most small foreign start ups are loosing or breaking even... and as a foreigner in China your chances of success are severely crippled because of your lack of Guanxi.

Benefits of living in China: Cheap cost of living, nice modern apartments with all the amenities (pools, gyms, squash, etc), extremely safe, maids, cooks, drivers, cheap taxis, new restaurants opening every day with fanatical service, rapidly expanding nightlife, modern architecture that puts most US cities to shame, cheap shopping, ability to grab weekend vacation flights around Asia for cheap, holidays like the Chinese new year with all the fireworks are amazing, etc. It is possible to live very well on $1-1500/month. Most foreigners just out of university get by on significantly less. Overall there is a great sense of adventure in daily life, nothing is routine.

Disadvantages: pollution! ...remember some days not being able to see 5 feet in front of my face, most days not being able to see a building 200 feet away... covered in smog. Hard to find quality western groceries. Chinese people are very friendly overall but it takes lots of time to build up connections and guanxi. You can't just go over there and expect to start up the next Google in a year because the locals will shut you out. In Beijing there is little life on the streets except for Wanfujing... central development has left most streets deserted because there's no shops or culture around lots of areas. Old Beijing and the hutongs are disappearing at an alarming rate to put up shiny new skyscrapers. Office culture is a nightmare in terms of productivity. Trying to get anything done that requires innovation is like building the great wall because nobody will stick their neck out and take a chance. Managing most local Chinese people is difficult and requires detailing every aspect of their job, productivity is slow. Government regulations require you to hire so many locals and it is becoming harder to fire non performing people. Office rents can be as high as in the US. Overall I found the overall cost of doing business in China was on par with costs in the US. Also government policies are highly unpredictable and can severely cripple your companies ability to do business. Long terms there are many risks and uncertainties.

Why did I leave China? Got fed up with the quality of life and lack of opportunities in China. Also there was some Chinese government visa changes. When I left about half of my friends were also planning on leaving. Lots of expats were planning on moving their business out of the country to places such as India or finding work in Dubai or elsewhere in Asia.

US is not the land of opportunity it once was. The bush era has left a bad taste in everyones mouth and it will take a long time to get over. Where are all the opportunities in the US if there's no commons (manufacturing, R&D, etc) in things like solar, electric cars, electronics, etc? The US needs to keep these hubs of innovation in the US or the talent will keep going overseas.

Comment Re:Compare Beijing and Vancouver.... (Score 1) 1040

None of the above. She got a visa to the US a few weeks ago. Canada will not give her one.

She is a university student in Argentina (not exactly a third world country) and the Canadian government requires sufficient proof that she will be returning to Argentina (understandable).

Proof = original bank statements, letter from employer, property titles, etc. Or I could sponsor her, which I tried to do... but then they started asking me show original bank statements, property titles, etc. Think this is a huge invasion of a persons privacy asking for so much detailed info.

If a person from Canada or the US had to supply this amount of info just for a tourist visa nobody would travel.

Sure Canada has high immigration (full time residents)... but probably not tourist numbers due to the complexities and invasion of peoples privacy.

Comment Compare Beijing and Vancouver.... (Score 2, Interesting) 1040

Lived in Beijing for 5 years then the Olympics came around and the Chinese government decided to switch around the visa regulations. Myself and lots of expats on a T/F visa had no choice but to leave the country during the Olympics (many never went back). Had a friend that was in the Olympics for rowing and his grandparents were denied a visa to come watch him in Beijing!.

Now living in Costa Rica and wanted to take my girlfriend to NY and Vancouver. US was relatively easy to get her a visa. Canada was not... they required original bank statements, property titles, etc... so she didn't get a visa. Ridiculous! I'm Canadian and ashamed of our visa policy.

Both these countries got the Olympics with very bad visa policies... Maybe US visa policy is brought up to cover the other problems such as the US shrinking international reputation...

Comment Switching to Bing (Score 1) 129

I'm been trying out Bing for the past month and prefer their results. I have to wonder if Google timed this new update because of the focus Bing is getting? Google thrives on media attention and this release puts the webmaster focus back on them.


Google results are not as clean and relevant as they once were...some result pages show video, news (plus it's irrelevant news most of the time), and some domains have sub domain search results. What happened to clean page results?


Also one of the main reasons I'm switching to Bing is because Google always pushes local results. I'm living in Costa Rica and have no interest in local spanish search results (yes when I type in English in Google some/half of the results come back in Spanish). For 90% of my searches I am after authority world results...not crappy local Costa Rica results. I would like to set my search results to Google International but can not (yes I can type ' international' in the search bar but why can't I permanently set my Google page to international?. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Comment Re:Highlights one of the problems.. (Score 1) 195

School email needs: 1) Security (no eyeballs in the background screening and datamining personal information...which Google does) 2) Under no circumstance should school email have advertising in their email system...which Google does. Privacy and protection from corporate greed is essential in school email systems and under no circumstance would I ever recommend incorporating Gmail.

You will lose an important tape file.