Month: May 2010

Bill Kara of Hallpassmedia, shows how its done with Domains and Development, Wanna be like Bill?

Post author By J.B.
Post date May 31, 2010

"Juegos Gratis" — Bill acquired the domain JuegosGratis.com from South American domain investor/developer Chris Chena who was profiled in DNJournal's July 2005 Cover Story.

Bill Kara is a lot different than many domain investors who buy up domain names for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It’s development that’s key to his success, and that means developing his “casual games” internet properties and getting those names out of parked and into the top of the search engines.

Bill Kara is a fan favorite here on Fusible, and he recently updated his Hallpass media site again with news updates – such as the launch of CookingGames.com, the DNJournal Cover story, and more. In his latest news section, he also links to quantcast, sharing how in just five months after development, his Spanish gaming site JuegosGratis.com has topped the charts.

Quantcast Directly Measured Data has Juegos Gratis ranking as one of the most viewed websites in key Spanish markets, 140th in Mexico, 71st in Argentina, 179 in Chile and 135th in Columbia…

Casual Games is anything but Casual

The Casual Games industry is big money as Bill Kara can tell you. If you’re looking to get into the gaming industry, you can actually find WordPress themes that can help you get started especially if you’re on a budget.

RestaurantGames.com (a property not owned by Bill Kara) uses MyArcadeBlog Pro. Owning RestaurantGames.com may not be as important now anyway, now that Bill owns the macro level domain for restaurant type games with his recent acquisition and launch of CookingGames.com. For those looking for a script to start your own games portal, the MyArcadeBlogPro theme lets you transform a boring WordPress Blog into an amazing arcade games portal using Mochi Media, HeyZap, Custom and IBPArcade games.

The theme is cheap, but powerful – however it does require quite a bit of configuration and setting up and if you’re unfamiliar with WordPress, it may take you longer than the average user.

News

Six Months Later: Domaining.com statistics show interesting results about Reader’s preferences

Post author By J.B.
Post date May 28, 2010

Domaining.com is the best website to get up-to-the-minute news and information from over 100 blog and website feeds in the Domain Industry.

Last year Steve Morales wrote a story titled “Is Your Blog Popular on Domaining.com? Content Kings Identified”. The story caused a stir in the comments thread when Steve listed his findings from the popular Domaining.com website – statistics that many didn’t know existed since they had been recently introduced.

Domaining.com Statistics: Six Months Later

Six months later from Steve’s initial story, and now with 132 feeds listed on Domaining.com, the website offers up some interesting data for those who are curious about reader’s preferences.

There is no smoke-and-mirrors approach in the data. Of course, some blogs have been listed longer than others, some shorter, some take out sponsored ads, some don’t…

For now, what you see is what you get, straight from the Domaining.com Preferences section.

Most Headlines for the past 30 days
Domain Name Wire 106 posts

Top Article Blogger (2 – 19 posts)
Rick Schwartz 12 posts 338 unique click average

Top Serial Blogger (20 or more)
DN Journal 27 posts 205 unique click average

Most Blocked Blogger
DomainGang.com blocked by 51 subscribers

Least Blocked Blogger
SullysBlog.com blocked by 1 subscriber

News

Professional Poker Player Dutch Boyd Gets Back to Poker, Blogging and …Domain Names

Post author By J.B.
Post date May 26, 2010

WSOP Bracelet Winner Dutch Boyd returned to one of his favorite past times on his personal blog: domain names.

Dutch Boyd began the month of May with a new website look on DutchBoyd.com. The website title even has the word “Domainer” added and reads “A professional poker player and domainer”. The website redesign while simple and clean, introduces readers to the thrilling adventures of a professional poker player who is also a domainer – a phrase many of his site’s visitors may have no idea about.

Readers scouring his blog though, will certainly be surprised to learn he discusses domain names as much as he discusses his poker career. Though his blog has gone quiet the last couple weeks, his two most recent entries discuss two of his domain names – one that he put up for auction and the other, a hand-registered domain name which he built into a Q&A website.

The name Dutch put up for auction was Pokerai.com, which sold on May 12 through Sedo for $700. VegasAnswers.com is the name he registered months earlier after it had expired. The website now provides answers to frequently asked questions by would-be visitors to Las Vegas.

As much a Domainer as he is a Poker Player

Dutch owns domains like HeadsupPoker.com and Cured.com and had described plans in August 2009 for unveiling a Domain Registration service through his GoDaddy affiliate account on JackNames.com, but the “Under Construction” page hasn’t changed since then.

Dutch Boyd has been the subject of several stories here on Fusible and having domainers who get media attention helps bring more attention to the domain industry, which is a good thing.

From Dutch Boyd’s Blog Bio

I’m a Vegas pro poker player. A part-time domainer. And the greatest Photo Hunt player to have ever lived. I am recovering from a nasty cigarette addiction that I gave up when I discovered that smoking causes cancer. They knew it all along. I drink Cherry Zero ™ now instead of Pepsi because I don’t want the calories. I am the 2nd youngest law school graduate ever. I am a Blood Elf Rogue. I lived every poker player’s dream by winning my World Series of Poker bracelet in 2006, going headsup against the then reigning world champion Joe Hachem… all in front of the ESPN cameras.

I am just like you. I put my pants on one leg at a time. Except after I do that I crush souls at the poker table.

I live in Vegas with my beautiful girlfriend Michele and our two puppies… a shipoo named June and a puggle named Stuey Ungar. Just a 29/m playing through life trying to make the right moves.

Tags dutch boyd, poker, poker player, wsop

News

Corporate Blunder by Bloomberg leads to Valuable Domain Expiring: PersonalWealth.com

Post author By J.B.
Post date May 26, 2010

Bloomberg the company that was the winning bidder for BusinessWeek magazine in 2009, recently incorporated the Bloomberg name in the logo and updated the BusinessWeek.com website.

As some writers suggested, the acquisition of BusinessWeek presented Bloomberg with a challenge of having to incorporate an outside operation since Bloomberg hadn’t made an acquisition of another business since the late 1980s.

Bloomberg’s First Internet Blunder with BusinessWeek

Not renewing PersonalWealth.com, could be the first major internet blunder by Bloomberg.

The URL personalwealth.com redirected visitors to the Investor section of BusinessWeek since the early 2000s – but now the name has expired and is up for auction at NameJet.

The name expired May 3, 2010, just weeks ahead of the staff at the former BusinessWeek magazine moving to its new Bloomberg headquarters.

News

Are owners of “Group Buying” domains poised to cash in?

Post author By J.B.
Post date May 24, 2010
1 Comment on Are owners of “Group Buying” domains poised to cash in?

Groupon — DailyBargains.com a much catchier name in some regards compared to even "GroupBuying.com" recently sold for $10,500 on Sedo and currently shows an Adsense for Domains page hosted by Google. If the owner doesn't have plans for development, the name itself could possibly get flipped for a nice return as more companies enter the market.

Do owners of “group buying” domains stand to cash in on their relevant domain names? Type in GroupBuying.com into your browser and a parked page hosted by Parked.com appears. Type in GroupBuy.com and a blank page with whitespace appears.

One reader asked the question, “I wonder how much GroupBuying.com would sell for at auction right now.”

The free domain appraisal service Valuate.com used by many domain investors to help gauge the buy and sell price of names, only places the value of the name at $1,700. But that’s not really an indicator of the name’s value. GroupBuying.com would likely fetch a large sum of money if it went to a major public auction website as the “group buying” trend picks up and continues to recieve lots of news, and even more venture capital.

New “Group Buying” sites, aren’t all relying on keyword domains

With the rising number of sites launching, many aren’t necessarily relying on keyword domains related to the Group Buying concept – they’re depending on their brand and marketing to do the selling – and a lot of paid advertising on the web. LivingSocial.com with nearly 80 million daily users, didn’t use “daily deals” or “bargains” in the name. The company doesn’t even own BuyingSocial.com.

Type in “daily deals” or “group discounts” and none of the top Group Buying sites rank well, but they have paid out for sponsored ads on search engines like Google.

HomeRunDelivers spent six figures to buy and brand their group buying online business with the domain HomeRun.com.

And while there are several sites gaining attention like BuyWithMe.com, Kevin Ham who owns over 400,000 domain names, and who likely owns something very relevant to daily bargains or group buying – instead went with GoodNews.com. A name that sounds a lot less like a group buying site offering discounts or coupons, and a lot more like a site offering hope for visitors — which would’ve probably been a better fit for his Gospel Media network.