August 2010

August 2010 – Issue #61

WhyPark Debuts Domain Apps

WhyPark announced in July that they have new “Domain Apps” that can be installed on WhyPark domains. These widgets are automatically installed, either on the home page of the domain or on a separate page.

Domain Apps let you instantly add relevant widgets to your domains, and in some cases you earn money from the app. The comparison shopping feed is one example that lets you earn money. The full list includes:

Comparison Shopping – perfect for product domains
A Hotel Directory for your area, great for geo-domains
Local Business Listings – good for categories or geo-domains
Online Flash Games
A Twitter stream about the topic of your domain
Weather for a given city or region
A Web Directory: “Develop a new revenue stream by including a paid directory on your domain. Customize categories and subcategories and charge a monthly listing fee.”
YouTube videos based on keywords related to your domains.

The apps are easy to install, but I have run into problems on some of my domains. The apps are reported to be installed, but they don’t show up. It turns out that domain apps don’t install if you are using AdSense or another third party monetization mechanism. You need to be using the WhyPark/Parked feed. I find that this feed does not target quite as well based on content as the AdSense feed on many of my domains, and that income is better with AdSense in many cases, Your mileage may vary, of course.

All-in-all, Domain Apps are a great new tool to easily create landing pages with custom content that makes your domains shine. In some cases you may even make some extra money.

Sedo Announces World Tour

SedoPro announced last month some new get-togethers for their SedoPro members, In the past SedoPro held annual “Partner Forums” in resort locations. Their new strategy seems to include multiple shorter events, the first coming up in late August at Sedo’s U.S. headquarter’s in Boston.

Boston – August 31 – September 1

Seoul, Korea – September 10 – 11

Tuscany, Italy – October 7 – 8

London – November (dates to be announced)

Cologne, Germany – February 2011

More information is available at www.sedoproworldtour.com/en/

Verisign on the Death of PPC

Verisign CEO Mark McLaughlin is quoated as stating that “PPC is a dead thing.” in an interview about the financial performance of their .com registry. Essentially McLaughlan is reporting that people are no longer registering increasing numbers of .com domains in order to earn pay-per-click parking income. Andrew Allemann has more extensive quotes from the interview in this article.

I’m not sure that McLaughlan is saying that PPC is completely dead. Certainly some people are still making money that way. He is saying that PPC and related practices such as “domain tasting” are no longer contrbuting to a growth in the number of .com registrations. That makes sense to me.

Share this:

Like this: