City domain names and state domain names are among my favorite internet properties. Dan Pulcrano of Boulevards New Media hit the gold mine in the 1990’s acquiring many .com city domain names in advance of the eventual dissolution of print media.

Boulevard’s portfolio of city domains is simply stunning, and the collective value almost priceless. Examples of their properties …

Following some years later came the official releases of .info (information), .biz (business), and .US (United States) domain name extensions. The competition was global and intense for city domain names in these addresses. Many individuals and companies had “seen the light”, and recognized the incredible opportunity before them.

A parallel story which was unfolding alongside the domain name evolution was the unraveling of traditional newspapers and print media. Many newspapers did not understand that their own demise was at hand. In short, their print advertising plummeted. Moreover, newspapers failed to grab the brass ring … which was to acquire a pure city domain name and to adequately position themselves for the internet future.

There were exceptions, however. The Charlotte Observer obtained Charlotte.com, The Boston Globe acquired Boston.com, and the former Knight Ridder Publishing (who owned the Miami Herald) captured Miami.com. All good moves.

Further illustrating the current emergency underway with print newspapers in America is the recent bankruptcy declaration of the Denver Post. They are the 13th newspaper bankruptcy filing by a U.S. newspaper publisher in only 13 months. Read about it here.

Menius Enterprises worked diligently beginning in year 2001 to acquire a number of high value geo domain properties, including: Charlotte.US, Detroit.US, Portland.US, California.biz, Miami.biz, NewOrleans.biz, NorthCarolina.info, Indiana.info, and Sacramento.info. Since then, we have sold a number of pure geo domain names and geo-targeted domains.

Morris Communications (based in Augusta, Georgia) obtained cities such as Nashville.biz, Cleveland.biz, and StLouis.biz.

City domain names are rare and have few substitutes. They appeal to a large clientele yielding relevance for local residents, both local and global businesses, and international travelers to the area. Cities have their own unique personality. And a timeless, enduring quality.

Geodomains city domain names, geo domains, geodomain

Developing a geodomain offers many options and requires many decisions. These choices typically revolve around website content, website structure, and the site’s identity as perceived by visitors. My overriding goal with this project was to settle on a development model and “unique personality” which could be duplicated across many cities.

In building Charlotte.US from the ground up, I reviewed both the positive and negative aspects of a number of other geo sites. I also considered the platform on which to build Charlotte.US such as “static html” files vs. Wordpress.

Content can be modified much more easily than can site structure. Structure is something which you will be married to and which cannot be easily converted. For this project, Wordpress was selected due to its many automated features, plug-ins, publishing options, and excellent universal compatibility.

Actually, I had been looking for a geo portal template for some time that would allow me to add and subtract content components. Eventually, I found a news oriented portal, built on Wordpress, that I could heavily edit. The current version, now viewable at Charlotte.US, has been dramatically modified from the original template.

The site is in what I consider a workable early form right now. There are a variety of auto-updating feeds & content such that revisiting the site numerous times per day will provide the user with new material. This concept I hope to take to an even higher level over time. I have had good success obtaining permissions where required, and I plan to develop partnerships with local businesses as time permits. Local advertising revenue will be pursued though no hurry on this at the moment.

Future upgrades will aim to customize the content sections especially in the real estate, apartments, entertainment, and online services area. Currently, these are linked to local service providers via Superpages content. The Ticketmaster section is fairly well done as is.

Interested readers may also like to follow Detroit.US which is being modeled after the Charlotte site.

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Warren Buffett has weighed in on the declining newspaper industry. Here’s the scoop taken from his comments at the Berkshire Hathaway stockholder meeting which occurred this past weekend.

Buffett states that newspapers run the risk of “unending losses“. That’s a pretty powerful statement. This collapse of the American newspaper industry is an odd development. Local geo domain portals are most likely going to take news in a new direction as traditional newspapers die off. Buffett also said …

For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price.

I am not aware of the status of newspapers in areas outside the U.S., but my suspicion is that this decline is not confined to only the USA. Probably a global occurrence tied to internet proliferation in every country.

I took my family to Wilmington last weekend and we went to several newly released movies. Ironically, both movies had prominent scenes addressing the rapid decline of hardcopy newspapers in America. Check out State of Play (Russell Crowe & Ben Affleck) and The Soloist (Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr). You’ll see what I mean. It’s obviously a hot topic in Hollywood.

Internet Domains geo domain, geodomain

Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, is the owner of the geodomain, KansasCity.US. Kansas City is a major metro destination with a surrounding population of approximately 2 million people.

Sprint Nextel Corporation have their world headquarters based in Kansas City. Other major companies operating out of Kansas City include Applebee’s, Hallmark Cards, H&R Block, Russell Stover Candies, Bayer, and many others.

Andrew’s Kansas City geodomain is in the official United States web address, dotUS. He recently developed a minisite for Kansas City which contains information on travel, sports, attractions, shopping, and real estate. Minisites are scaled down versions of a full featured website, and they present an affordable first step for getting an undeveloped domain name up and running.

Andrew selected a minisite developer, Minisites.com, after having perused the field of web development companies working in this area. He writes about KansasCity.US and minisite development in his blog piece entitled, “Minisites.com Delivers: KansasCity.us“.

The .com version of this domain name is owned by McClatchy Interactive who are the third largest newspaper publisher in America. McClatchy, among others, have been struggling with declining newspaper revenues as a result of internet users choosing to go online for their news & information.

No doubt, geodomain websites and domain names are the future of media. So Andrew’s acquisition of KansasCity.US represents a Class A business decision. ccTLD’s are gaining increasing global recognition. And nothing is more impressive than having a huge metropolitan city or exotic travel destination.

Readers will be interested to know that Andrew is also the owner of SanFrancisco.US. Well known domain investor Rick Schwartz purchased Nashville.US in recent years, and Miami.US was auctioned off earlier this year via online domain broker, Sedo.com. This writer is the owner of Charlotte.US, the largest city in North Carolina (currently my home state).

.US Domain Names geodomain, kansas city

I love a majestic city skyline. Could be any major city around the world. There is something special about the unique architecture, angles, and composition of a city that gives it a distinct personality and individual appeal.

I am an avid geodomain enthusiast and investor. For those of you who are examining geodomain investment opportunities, you may find yourself a bit puzzled as to the most appropriate choice when it comes to “city abbreviations”.

Which is best? StLouis or SaintLouis, FortWorth or FtWorth, FtLauderdale or FortLauderdale? This is where the internet really shines and can provide good information on which to base a decision. For a variety of reasons, some cities gravitate to the common abbreviation while others opt for the full name (non-abbreviated). Before moving forward, let us agree that both versions (abbreviated & non-abbreviated) will generate traffic and user recognition.

Using our friend, Google, let’s compare the number of indexed web pages to find our answer.

• St Louis (101,000,000), Saint Louis (27,500,000)
• Fort Worth (52,700,000), Ft Worth (5,630,000)
• Fort Collins (12,300,000), Ft Collins (984,000)
• Fort Lauderdale (27,500,000), Ft Lauderdale (10,700,000)
• St Paul (45,400,000), Saint Paul (19,700,000)

Both varieties in the above examples produced ample web pages with “St” and “Fort” seeming to be most in use. I remember being somewhat indoctrinated to “St. Louis” while growing up due to seeing lots of TV ads for products that would be ordered out of St. Louis, Missouri.

So “St” became quite familiar particularly in reference to the St. Louis Cardinals (StLouisCardinals.com) and eventually the St Louis Rams (StLouisRams.com). My conclusion is that this same logic holds true as well for geo-targeted domains like StLouisJobs.biz or StLouisRealEstate.com.

Internet Domains cities, geo, geodomain

The Sedo auction for ParisFrance.com has concluded with a final purchase price of $15,644 (12,100 EUR) and Mr. Omar Haddedou being the winning bidder. 

PremiumDomains.biz just featured Mr. Haddedou and his prime geodomain portfolio which includes SanDiego.biz, Tulsa.us, and PebbleBeach.us. Omar will now add a world class .com tourist destination to his collection with the acquisition of ParisFrance.com.

The urban population around Paris is nearly 12 million people. But it’s the traffic from Europe and abroad that make up the 45 million annual visitors driving the local tourism industry. Omar confirms there will be an upcoming website. This domain name is what investment is all about. Congratulations Mr. Haddedou!

.COM Domains, Domain Sales geodomain, paris

San Diego is a truly great American city. It is ranked the 9th largest in the country with a population close to 1.3 million people. The greater metropolitan area is estimated at just over 3.1 million. With pro sports and a world famous zoo, San Diego has more than its fair share of tourism.

SanDiego.biz is the geodomain website of Mr. Omar Haddedou. Omar is a domain name investor and website developer who builds many of his web properties around the travel and tourism industry. He first began investing in domain names in 1999 beginning with various City+Restaurant.com combinations (since he had previously been a restaurant owner). At the time, Omar was not heavily involved in the internet and consequently sold the restaurant domains for a nice profit.

In 2001, Omar created New Marketing Online and began to develop websites for customers. He also began investing in .BIZ and .US as he recognized that the growth of the internet would eventually exhaust the .com pool. Omar noticed that .com’s were consistently selling for high premium prices. This led him to invest in the newer web addresses that would eventually attract greater attention as the internet’s good .com’s became unavailable.

In addition to SanDiego.biz, Omar also owns and operates a number of other geodomain websites: Tulsa.us, SantaCruz.us, and PebbleBeach.us (world famous for golf and slated to be the site of the 2010 U.S. Open).

Omar acquired San-Diego.us in 2003 and developed the property using some of the skills he honed designing sites for others. Having learned about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), San-Diego.us now enjoys the second position on Google for the search term “San Diego Hotels”. Nice! Stats research indicates that San-Diego.us drew between 5,000 and 12,000 site visitors per month through 2008.

Never one to sit idle, Omar continues to innovate and develop … recently moving into French geodomain destinations like Vallauris.com and Poitiers.com. Other high-quality domain names from Omar’s portfolio include: WashingtonDCLawyers.com and CaliforniaRentals.us.

.BIZ Domain Names, Internet Domains .biz, geodomain, san diego

Dubai is an opulent, luxurious city located in the United Arab Emirates. A resort paradise with beaches and high rise hotels, it is the most populated city in the UAE. The domain name, Dubai.info, was purchased in January 2009 for $35,000 through one of the online aftermarket sales sites.

In 2005, the gross domestic product of Dubai was $37 billion. While initially constructed using oil money, oil now accounts for less than 6% of total revenues since the local economy has become diversified … significantly funded through financial services, real estate, trade, and tourism.

At this point, we can only speculate as to how Dubai.info will be utilized. Information on tourism and travel booking would be logical options considering the Dubai International Airport served over 34 million passengers in 2007 alone. That’s an average of over 93,000 passengers per day.

A premium domain name like Dubai.info leaves the door wide open for development and monetization. Geodomain names are a beautiful fit for .info, the internet’s official information extension.

.INFO Domain Names, Domain Sales .info, dubai, geodomain