New Web .whatever addresses ??

New rules!  Anyone, anywhere can soon apply for new Web address extensions.

I could do .demopoulos for example, Berlin will be able to apply for .berlin, etc. Extensions can even contain non-English characters (i.e. more than the 37 Roman characters now allowed).

If your name is Joe Smith, wouldn't it be cool if your Website URL could be www.joe.smith??

I'm mixed on this. There are a number of issues

• Some already existing new domains like .museum, .aero,  and .mobi are barely used if at all. They are big yawns.

• This will no doubt cause confusion among Internet users as well.

• Who will control new domain extensions? What if both Melbourne Australia and  Melbourne Florida want .melbourne ?

• Non Roman characters in domain extensions are a STUPID idea!! Criminals will have a field day. Imagine a URL that looks exactly like the URL to your bank, but contains a perhaps a Hieroglyphic character that displays as the "o" in ".com" for example on your computer. Think advanced phishing attacks.

Overall I'm positive, but wary.
Choice is good, but it's all up to the implementation.

These new rules were approved unanimously by the Internet authority, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) on Thursday.

More here: Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation

Thanks to Free eBooks Blog

Free eBooks Blog has some interesting free downloads, and I'm printing a couple out to read (I almost always print out ebooks before reading as many others do).

I'd like to thank them for featuring my free ebook Effective Internet Presence: Now required for success in business and life today!

 

Alumni Blogs, a great idea

If Alumni are considered part of a school, instead of perhaps just a cash cow to milk, the importance of open and honest communications cannot be underestimated. Hey, just communications, and I don't mean the mere mountain of mail I get from my Alma Mater, Dartmouth, are important. Communications are two way.

NYU has taken a great step with their NYU Arts and Science Blog -- I love the use of images, something I don't do well myself! 

I also love some of Evan Nisenson's posts, like Ted Allen (GSAS '90), Food Detective. I wish Dartmouth did similar things online.

I reflect on this as I'm both speaking more at colleges, and just sobering up from my 25 year college reunion (OK, I exaggerate), and realize that I went to school with some really old dudes and women, yet a few of us (me included) still look and act as we did 25 years ago :)  All positive :)

I've written a bit about similar topics here:

College Admissions Blogs & Student Bloggers
Social Media and Higher Education

Why I'm Blogging Less

I'm blogging less -- anyone notice?

It's not because I'm overloaded (I am), or because my wife is in a wheelchair for 8 weeks (she is) or because I'm Mr. Mom to my 3 little kids for those 8 weeks (I am).

I''m communicating, actually writing as much, as ever before.

I've decided to write my newsletter more often (subscribe in upper right corner). I know many of you subscribe, but if you don't and you enjoy this blog please do.

Why am I doing this??
You have entirely different conversations in public than among small groups of friends (or at least you should). I enjoy both types of conversations!

My newsletter is not a 'rehash' of the blog. I may point out particularly interesting posts both here and on other blogs, I point to other resources on the Internet, answer reader questions, and am probably even more transparent.

My blog is public -- everyone is invited. My newsletter is free to the world, but less public.

How can it be less public if anyone can sign up??

Well, it's delivered via the Internet (email) but not part of the Web. It's not googleable.

It's a conversation among a few friends in a someone's house, instead of in a public place.

Please subscribe via the signup form in the upper right corner. Your email is secure, you can unsubscribe anytime you want, and the newsletter is constantly being fine tuned based on reader feedback, just like this blog.

Online Reputation Management: Calling In Pros to Refine Your Google Image

How do you bury digital dirt, bad stuff about you online, when there is sooo much of it?

Perhaps you are under online attack by a political foe, a business competitor, some Web 2.0 nutcase that has decided you are evil, or maybe your Web savvy ex-husband?

The techniques mentioned in my free ebook Effective Internet Presence are a great place to start.

Essentially you want to create lots of positive online entries about your self and drive the negative information way down in the search engine pages.

You may want to hire a pro to help -- I've helped people with this problem before.

The Washington Post has a great article on this topic, Calling In Pros to Refine Your Google Image.

I particularly like the notion (when your online reputation is under extreme attack) of creating lots of Web sites that include your name as part of the URL -- this works very well. For example, if your name is Gregory Peccary, you might get and use the URLs:
GregoryPeccary.com,  GregoryPeccary.net,  Gregory-Peccary.com,  MrGregoryPeccary.com,  GregoryPeccary.name, GregPeccary.com and then creating a (short unique) Website for each URL.

There are also simpler and cheap/free techniques that work wonders for most people mentioned in my ebook  Effective Internet Presence, like signing up for LinkedIn and creating a profile and reviewing books on Amazon.

Getting Search Engine Traffic to a New Website -- a case study

So, how long does it take to get search engine traffic to a brand new Web site or blog, especially with a brand new domain?

An often asked question, with an answer of "it depends," but here is a short case study where it took about 48 hours!

I started a new Web site called Fly Rod Striped Bass at http://flyrodstripedbass.com, a Domain I recently purchased. I'm now, within 48 hours, the #10 hit (that means first page results) on Yahoo and have already gotten search engine visitors for the term "flyfishing for striped bass".

This is important because search engines drive most of the traffic on the Internet.

The Web site has one page so far and is very very beta, including buttons that don't work, misspellings, etc.

So, what did I do to start the search engine traffic?

1) The main and only page has good keyword density. In other words, I mention Striped Bass and flyfishing a lot (although in a very natural way, it doesn't seem stilted or unnatural). I also use the same keywords in the two pictures "alt image" text.

2) The title tag -- what shows up in the upper left hand corner of the browser window, is critical in EVERY blog and Website. Here it says "Striped Bass Flyfishing" -- note the use of keywords.

Almost every Web designer on the planet gets the title tags 100% wrong -- which is why most Web designers drive rusted out purple Gremlins instead of Ferraris!

1) and 2) are "on site" or  "on page" optimization. I also did some offpage optimization, #3 below.

3) I created links from two of my blogs to the Website with link text of "Striped Bass Fly Fishing" -- note the keywords in the link text.

I also bookmarked it using a few social sites, maybe 3 or 4 max, such as Mister Wong and spurl, which created additional links. Links matter a lot to search engines.

So that's all I did, and the search engines (at least Yahoo! so far) are already sending me search engine traffic.

Long term plans for the site? Well, I'm passionate about Striped Bass fishing, so I'll be (very slowly) producing a lot of content, and hopefully running some advertisements and affiliate programs and making a few bucks. It's really all an experiment!

Update: After 3 days, it's started getting Google traffic too. Not a lot, but it's trickling in.

Maybe this site will never be in The Google Sandbox?

The Reality of Social Media

Excellent perspective, and 100% right on, from Chris Brogan's Newsletter go ahead, subscribe, it's worth your time):

The reality of social media, at least how I've seen it since 1995 (when it was called different things) is that a lot of what we do is done on our own time, for passion, and because we have some ideas that aren't exactly breadwinners yet.

It doesn't make us wrong. It doesn't make the market less viable. We're still in our own respective labs, creating new things, working on the model. PodCamp co-founder Christopher S. Penn is always at it, thinking of new ways to drive revenue to his business. The only wine seller I know with a Hollywood agent, Gary Vaynerchuk is in his lab, finding new ways to extend his brand and deliver more value back to his organization.

This stuff isn't for people looking to punch in, do their job, and go home. Sure, you can use the tools that make sense to you, once you hear about them, once someone else demonstrates them, one you get your hands on them. But to be out there innovating, thinking, pressing forward, and sharing the results requires a lot more hours than we receive in any given day.

But this isn't "woe is me" stuff. I'm telling you this for a reason. If you want to "get it" early, you've got to live it a bit more.

Some of you can disregard this entire section, because you're just observing the trends. That's perfectly fair. My day job is deciding what's has impending business impact and what is still fringe tech. Believe me, a whole LOT of what I explore in social media isn't much more than an interesting toy. Only, that toy might well be the breakthrough to something far bigger.

In not too many years, a lot of the shine will be off these apples. We'll be calling this stuff something else, and it will feel the way email does to us today. Mundane. Just there. Partly a nuisance. That's the shape of curves. We're on the ride up right now. Stick around. Figure something out ahead of everyone else. Innovate. But be ready for the other side, and decide whether you can jump to the new rising curve, or if you're going to ride the old one down.

Me? I'm too busy with this upcurve and with a few ripples behind it to worry about the down yet. Stick around. There's lots more to talk about between now and the next 1:51AM.

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