How to impersonate friends and influence enemies.

scbarnes — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:33:36 GMT

I’ve never really been a fan of sys-con.com and it’s approach to content vs. advertising. If anything, it’s probably the best example of an online site carpet bombing the end user with advertising that well basically offends.

They’ve now turned it up a notch, to a level that even I am absolutely amazed about – not to mention Aral Balkan from <head> fame is absolutely livid about and with cause to.

They’ve spun up ulitizer.com which seems to be an offshoot the stupidity of sys-con but now with even more subtle bad form. In that they’ve taken folks whom have allowed them to use certain articles etc and made them look as if they are authors whom run a micro-site on the said domain.

My name is on there and I'm somewhat offended by it as i think they’ve abused the trust and relationship I’ve given and If I could get our LCA folks to act with grounds i would of.

None the less, Aral’s fighting the good fight here and i think all should stand behind him on this one. As it’s very unethical what they are doing.

http://aralbalkan.com/2095

example of advertising stupidity.

So… once wasn’t enough, twice? all on a page that has absolutely no content? it just looks tragic & desperate.

You lost your $35 domain, but you can have it back for $5000 USD

scbarnes — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:36:13 GMT

I have this really bad habit of buying domains for projects I plan on working on for 1 year only. I recently accidentally lost BeyondTheBrowser.NET and SilverlightCoders.com due to not only moving between US to Australia (i.e. lost track of my inbox) but also due to being extremely busy.

Ok, that's life no problem. I decided to see if could buy back the SilverlightCoders and BeyondTheBrowser domains from the new owners.

SilverlightCoders response:

Am certainly open to selling, is this for corporate use? A very quick search of equivalent domains at sedo.com has bids ranging up to $5000. What terms were you thinking of?

Ok, I could go LCA route and pull an Adobe Trademark infringement / protection route, but really it's not worth the hassle or negative PR and in the end it's not that important to me fight that battle.

Yet, after speaking with the current owner, he was more friendly then the most domain squatters I've encountered:

Completely understandable - might also we willing to barter the domain for some Silverlight training. I'm currently a Flex programmer so you'd be converting me and potentially some collegues/coworkers in the process. Let me know if that is of interest.

I'll do that for free with or without the domain bartering, so some positive output came out of this.

I then move onto BeyondTheBrowser.NET and see if I can buy back this domain:

Thank you for your enquiry.
A search for "designers block" shows approximately over 119,000 results from Google.
Names such as designersblock.com are very much in demand especially as
there are more than 60 MILLION domain names currently registered.
If you consider that just recently Fish.com sold for $1,020,000,
MyPremierCard.com for $135,250, JMM.com for $55,000 and
HorseSupplies.com $52,500 etc there have been many other
5 figure sales - I'm sure that our asking price could be considered
an investment for a domain of this quality.
The price of this domain is £7,000 Great British Pounds or US$13,670
(close offers may be considered).
This is a one off payment for the rights to the domain, however you
will be responsible for paying the yearly registration (approx $30).

If you pay $5000.00 USD for any domain, especially of the above, you're a damn fool. Adjust your wording, re think your project strategy and don't encourage these folks to continue to hijack the Internet for silly potential "profit" margins.

Domain names are over-rated :) and Silverlight.NET vs Silverlight.COM are a prime examples of marketing true power vs random direct URL key entries.

I rate domain squatting for money up there with Viagra spamming. I must confess, I've had a few offers for Spidaweb.com a domain I own as well as Pvpers.com. I won't sell and I have plans for these post Microsoft, but the numbers have been quite interesting.

Should I ever decide to give them up, I will only do so if there is merit in the new owner having them, like they have an actual plan other than "..I want to create a bidding war.."

Any who, I've adjusted my project ideas, the branding and so on, now to move forward and not pay the extortion money above.

The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Bottom Feeders

How to impersonate friends and influence enemies.

You lost your $35 domain, but you can have it back for $5000 USD