Neustar, who oversee the .biz and .US domain name registries, has launched a new website at DotYou.biz to promote the forthcoming release of newer alternative tld’s (top level domains). Their choice of the .BIZ web address makes good use of the business-centric focus that .biz represents.

Raleigh, NC was voted the #1 city in America by Businessweek. Factors included green space, cultural amenities, and school performance. Raleigh.info is a premium web address currently available through the Menius Enterprises, Inc. domain name portfolio and the PremiumDomains.US website.

Update: The www.Methadone.US website, which launched earlier this year, exceeded its own monthly record for consumer traffic in August with that month seeing the largest number of visitors since the site’s inception. The largest single day for unique site visitors also occurred in August.

DomainSherpa.com

Most entertaining & informative are two interviews, one with Ron Jackson, and the other with Mark Ostrofsky. Ron is the editor of DN Journal (the popular domain industry trade magazine), and Mark is the domain pioneer who sold Business.com for multi-millions during the early years of the internet’s explosive proliferation.

In the DomainSherpa interview, Ron Jackson discusses his domain name portfolio and his interest in the .US domain space. Following Neustar’s public release of the .US extension in 2002, Ron used various strategies to secure nice quality domain names like Reno.US, GreenBay.US, and three-letter domains like AFI.US. Ron shared having hundreds of three-letter .US domains in his portfolio, many of which would be ideal fits for a wide variety of US-based companies.

In the Ostrofsky interview on DomainSherpa, Mark informed viewers of his recent release of a new book he authored entitled Get Rich Click!. Mark also spoke of his affinity for .BIZ domains and his belief that the .BIZ domain space is significantly undervalued. I share this sentiment, and have held that the internet’s official Business (.BIZ) web address is stealthily expanding year after year. dotBIZ presently has 2,254,284 worldwide registrations.

Also quite thought-provoking & informative on the DomainSherpa site are interviews with Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire and Elliot Silver of ElliotsBlog.com. Both domain investors offer their unique experiences and views on domain investing and website development.

My only criticism of the DomainSherpa site is the inclusion of a guest article which references Estibot, an automated domain appraisal device which has been criticized for producing distorted, unreliable domain valuations based on limited, simplistic metrics. Unfortunately, the guest writer article fails to emphasize the illegitimacy of automated appraisals, particularly in regard to premium domain names. Since DomainSherpa aspires to be an authoritative domain information site, any endorsement of Estibot detracts from the site’s credibility and integrity.

That being said, I very much like what DomainSherpa is offering. Michael Cyger is personable and an excellent interviewer. I encourage all to check out the site and to enjoy his interviews with domain industry veterans.

For more on domain investing, negotiation, and domain appraisal, read:

• Domain Appraisal Myth
• Domain Name Negotiation
• Domain Seller Considerations

GeoPublishers is staffed/led by some familiar names in the geodomain industry including the Castello Brothers (David and Michael) who own such greats as PalmSprings.com and Nashville.com, Fred Mercaldo of Scottsdale.com, and Jessica Bookstaff of PigeonForge.com.

GeoPublishers aspire to become the new voice of the geodomain industry. Many of its members and/or partners were previously involved with the Associated Cities network although differences led to an eventual split.

Geodomains are a special interest of this writer as well as a focus of investment for Menius Enterprises, Inc. (dba PremiumDomains.US). Pure generic city and state domain names offer a unique angle since they have natural appeal to local residents & businesses as well as those planning to travel to a particular city or state location.

GeoPublishers will be open to geodomain owners in a variety of top level domains. Already listed in the site’s membership directory is Louisville.US, an attractive website providing information on local business, attractions, restaurants, hotel booking, etc.

GeoPublishers will provide periodic conferences for its members for the purposes of networking, learning, and information exchange. The first such conference is already being scheduled, and is entitled “GeoPublishers.com Expo 2011″. It will be held in Chicago on October 1-2. More information is available here.

However, the real subject of this piece is another premium domain name owned by Abbott Laboratories, a U.S. based pharmaceutical company who describe themselves as a broad based healthcare company. The domain is RA.com and it too focuses on treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, a disease which affects about 1% of the world’s population.

RA.com was originally registered on June 16, 1993 making it one of the earlier domain names secured well before the rapid expansion of the internet. Whether Abbott Laboratories had the foresight to acquire the name back then is unknown. I would not be surprised to learn that Abbott purchased the domain name some years later via private transaction. In any case, RA is the common abbreviation for “rheumatoid arthritis”, and much easier to spell. So credit to Abbott Laboratories for going the common sense route, and taking advantage of the power of premium domains.

PremiumDomains.biz recently sold InjuryAttorney.biz and PersonalInjuryAttorney.biz in private deals, as well as MedicalMalpracticeLawyer.info through an online brokerage.

On a different note, www.Methadone.US which was developed in the first quarter of 2011, has experienced consistent week after week growth since going live January 23rd. The site has a wealth of original content, a U.S. city clinic directory, online assessment, and several other tools & resources.

I recently sold a domain through Afternic that transferred into the buyer’s account over a week ago. Afternic is still waiting on the buyer’s “confirmation”. Of course, Afternic have already been informed that the domain is in the buyer’s possession, and a simple whois search shows this.

Sedo, on the other hand, has consistently performed well for me over the years. Consequently, I have both bought and sold domain names through Sedo’s brokerage, with complete satisfaction, including a few premium domains. And I have been very pleased with Sedo’s service in every transaction. As a matter of principle, I will not spend money with a company that fails to deliver acceptable customer service. So Sedo is in, and Afternic is out.

As a result of Afternic’s subpar response and assistance, there will be no purchases made by me through their brokerage. A first impression can open the door for future business. Blow that, and you lose customers. It’s a pretty simple concept: don’t aggravate your customers, or waste their time. Is that such a complicated lesson?

Bing, in particular, seems to give high priority to Yellowpage and/or Yellowbook listings. I find this odd and not particularly useful for searches on a variety of keywords. My own search experience often yields noticeably better results (more relevant) when using either Yahoo or Google.

Another small but recurrent nuisance with Bing webpage submission is the Bing captcha generator. Never before have I had the level of difficulty providing captcha confirmation as I do in Bing. I often have to submit 3 or 4 times before Bing confirms the captcha string. Captcha is the series of letters & numbers one must enter before a webpage submission is accepted by Bing and then indexed in their database. Captcha prevents automated submission of webpages, and ensures that a real human is initiating the submission.

There appears to be a lack of consensus as to how much weight a generic, keyword domain is given in each of the search engines. There is no question that consumer familiarity & recognition always lead toward the generic keyword. Whether one finds desired information at that generic domain name destination is another issue. I have often stated that the perfect synergy is a premium generic domain name that has been fully developed with relevant content, such as Hotels.com, Spain.info, or Charlotte.US. Such sites deliver an excellent user experience.

Below is a comparison of domain registration numbers from February 2009 through January 2011 (just short of a two year period). While every domain space shows significant growth, pay particular attention to the rate of increase for .US and .info, which have emerged as reliable mainstays in the internet world:

• .US (1,385,171 to 1,817,893 -> a 31% increase)
• .biz (2,008,779 to 2,195,953 -> a 9.3% increase)
• .com (79,243,372 to 92,420,283 -> a 16.6% increase)
• .info (5,081,111 to 7,751,574 -> a 53% increase)
• .org (7,392,611 to 9,273,770 -> a 25.4% increase)
• .net (12,077,702 to 13,706,637 -> a 13.5% increase)

It appears that the American economy has picked up considerably based on stock market investment activity. However, the landscape is unclear, and the United States remains in the middle of a financial resuscitation of itself.

Despite lingering questions on America’s long term financial stability, the internet has continued to vigorously evolve during the recession. Domain names remain viable & valuable as the gateways to internet commerce. And companies now more readily explore how domain names can boost marketing, internet presence, and extend the company’s brand.

Ron explained in his DNJournal piece that Mr. Grant had used GoDaddy to broker the deal. The domain had been originally registered in 1996. Pure real estate domain names are top portals & marketing machines for real estate companies due to their generic nature, geo relevance, and instant recognition factor.

Domains like MiamiRealEstate, BeverlyHillsHomes, or AtlantaCondos pair a popular location with one of the highly relevent search phrases … such as real estate, homes, or condos.

Some interesting high-dollar domain name sales from the past include RealEstate.net for $300,000 and MyrtleBeachCondos.com for $120,107.

Available through this site are a number of generic names like MyrtleBeachCondos.biz, MyrtleBeachRealEstate.biz, and Condos.info.

Menius Enterprises

Chemical dependency is a prevalent illness in American society and many of us have encountered it in one form or another, either directly or indirectly. Methadone is a very specific medication-assisted treatment approach used to help those suffering with an opiate dependency.

In recent years, methadone treatment clinics have steadily emerged across the USA as more individuals found themselves trying to cope with opiate withdrawal and the disruption to their lives that addiction brings. Methadone.US aims to reduce the stigma associated with methadone and to provide some basic information on the many benefits of methadone treatment programs.

The Methadone.US domain name is an ideal generic web address particularly for U.S. based residents, families, professionals, and treatment centers. As is typically the case, the time required to develop a comprehensive web portal is hard work. Writing and refining custom content (carefully screened for accuracy and relevance) can become very time consuming. But the effort is worthwhile when the end product provides a valuable service.

Taking a great domain and constructing something of value on that domain (where nothing existed previously) is a gratifying endeavor. Content generation is more art than science and is best approached with a quality, over quantity, focus. This has been a chief consideration in the authoring of Methadone.US.

The site is still under construction, but is taking a definite shape and form. It will eventually be monetized through paid directory listings and direct advertising. But for now is incorporating Google adsense feeds, many of which are an excellent match to the content provided on the website. In terms of easy access and the marketing of a new site, starting with a logical, premium domain name is always a big help.

.US remains one of the premier web spaces for United States focused websites. While obviously appropriate for American companies & businesses, .US is often identified by foreign internet users as a default web address for the U.S. due to the popularity of two letter country codes in other parts of the world such as .cn for China or .ca for Canada.

A key selling feature of .US is its instant familiarity to American internet users, its uniquely American identity, and the ability to utilize a high-quality .US domain name as opposed to settling for an awkwardly long .com domain name alternative (see graphic above).

The dotUS logo change is good timing going into 2011, and would appear to follow the recent logic that dictated the .BIZ logo redesign and associated tagline “Better Name. Better Results.”

However, there exist creative and fanciful domain names which are so “catchy” that they can take on a unique life of their own, such as Yahoo or Google. I recently ran across a website for a company that provides online personalized greeting cards. Their name is MoonPig! I had to laugh as the name caught me so off guard. I repeated it to myself several times and it stuck.

MoonPig’s official site is located at MoonPig.com. The company are a UK-based outfit who opened a branch in Australia in 2004. They have a hi-tech production facility located in New Jersey, USA. Moonpig.com allow users to fill out greeting cards online with a personal message or caption, and the card is then mailed directly to the recipient.

The company have a standard sized card which costs $3.99 and a large card which runs $7.99. There are many cute greeting cards to select from on their site and a number of neat mock-ups in which you can embed your friend’s face on the cover of a magazine or some other comical picture.

Catchy domain names can be successfully branded in the marketplace. While they may not receive natural direct navigation traffic or describe the product being sold, they can become synonymous with a product such that the consumer instantly knows what is being offered. Like McDonald’s with hamburgers, Zappos with shoes, UFC with martial arts events, or GoDaddy with domain name registration.

Hotels.eu sold via Sedo in 2006 for $329,509 and exemplifies the high value attached to the “hotels” keyword in the domain name sales industry. SydneyHotels.com was acquired earlier this year for $100,000 while hotel portal redirects such as HotelPortal.co.uk fetched $8092 in 2009.

Online hotel reservations were one of the earliest and most successful business models available on the internet with many hotel affiliate programs springing up in the budding years of the web.

Hoovers reports that there are approximately 50,000 hotel & motel lodging facilities in the United States. Collectively, they bring in an estimated $120 billion dollars per year. Marriott, Hilton, Holiday Inn, and Hampton are but a few of the well-known hotel brands in America and abroad.

Geo-targeted hotel domains that contain the name of a city act as a regional portal that can list all of the hotels in operation for a particular destination. Huge metropolitan areas like New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles can provide tens of thousands of available hotel rooms. So, online comparative price checking is a recommended method for beginning one’s travel plans.

Pure geo-targeted domain names in the hotel category qualify as premium domains since they represent superior marketing attributes and are so easily communicated to consumers in writing and in oral communication. To browse premium hotel domains available in the domain aftermarket, visit PremiumDomains.US.

Culinary is the general food industry term used for those things related to cooking or the kitchen. It has been refined somewhat to refer more specifically to the art of cooking. The industry itself has exploded in popularity with television food programs enjoying high ratings and artisan chefs becoming a household name while enjoying their own successful lines of cookware. Think Emeril!

Established websites like Culinary.net offer a wide variety of online recipes while domain names like Culinary.biz will eventually become the portal for an entire industry of culinary arts, culinary products, culinary schools, restauranteers, and aspiring students.

Generic domain names of course make excellent business launchers. They also excel as marketing tools since the general public instantly recognize them and often type them directly into the internet browser address field. Food domain names are fairly specific and have certainly attracted attention within the domain name industry.

It appears that Playboy are now positioning themselves for the next big step in internet advancement. That would be the condensing of media & communications signals into a single digital portal coming into the home or business. This will be a huge game changer and will become the equivalent of a nuclear war between countries. Except the war will be waged between large media conglomerates each vying to become your TV-phone-internet provider of choice.

There was a time when a family would subscribe to a hardline phone service (like AT&T), have dial-up internet, and maybe a separate cable company running a line into the house for cable television. Anyone with a home-based business might also have a separate phone service on top of all that. Times have changed though. For example, I know obtain all these services through one company, Time Warner. Multiple digital signals, multiple products, packaged as one service, and with only one bill. This is the future.

Playboy acquiring Playboy.TV is possibly one of the best moves they have made in recent times. .TV is the single best media web address on the internet for obvious reasons. To fully appreciate this move one must understand that web addresses will be the “channels” on that all encompassing single digital portal coming into your home.

In other words, Playboy.TV may well become the worldwide channel for their brand, and subscribers will pay for the channel à la carte. Imagine ordering your complete TV lineup direct from TV networks and programmers thus bypassing the traditional cable companies completely. The big winner here is the single portal digital access provider who will be bringing internet into your home and to all of your mobile internet devices. That is the holy grail of future media. And .TV may likely be at the very center of it all.