Tech news outside the mainstream
Uncommon news and information with a technical twist and some topics that are a bit out there. Enjoy...
Drones - The Evolution of Transportation
If you read my blog you know I'm into flying cars and with traffic being what it is, they can't come about soon enough. Doesn't matter what city you live in, it's not any better anywhere else. Either too many vehicles on the road or a failing infrastructure. In this article on DailyMail.co.uk mega drones are being tested with multiple passengers, pilot-less control and with the ability to take the helm in an emergency. The aircraft technology is producing a much needed benefit for air traffic control a well as other industries.
This is an epic shift in society, like going from horse and carriage to automobiles and entrepreneurs need to plan on this trend. In less than 5 years it will be at consumer price levels and in 10 years, common place. High rises and condos need to start being built with landing pads as the new garage. With growing populations, pollution, the need for the use of alternative energies, infrastructure issues, drones and personal aircraft are a great solution to easy all of these problems. And, aside from natural disasters and terrorism, one of the biggest problems our children will face in their life time that you can be certain of is population growth.
Handling and managing all the demands on resources that population growth will bring are where the opportunities lie. If you think traffic sucks now, don't do anything about it. Everyone knows it's gotten worse in the last few years, and that's everywhere. So, forget the race to Mars, let's race to be the first country ready for the 22nd century. Embrace it. This is what will make America great!
Match Your Brand to Your Domain Name
A nice case study about Zelle.com expressed on DotWeekly.com about matching your brand to your domain name. There are a couple of other articles about the importance of branding on Dotweekly that a worth the read. And the tag line says it all, It's More Than a Name. With your domain name the goal is to make your brand stronger, not weaker. In addition to branding, author and operator of DotWeekly Jamie Zoch provides some other great info on the domain industry regularly, be sure to follow up on domain movers and start ups.
Branding and the relation to your domain name cannot be stated enough for design into your website and the success of your business. If you can, acquire the domain names for your products, too.
Advertising in 2018 and Beyond
With the Super Bowl Lll just around the corner, I am always interested in what 30 seconds of air time is selling for and what the best commercials will be. Last year companies spent up to 5 million to get in front of the 111 million viewers watching in the US, and then their money was gone. Advertising online has more than begun it's shift upward while other mediums, aside from radio, are sloping down. In an article on MediaPost.com The Winterberry Group states 2018 will be the year of digital media and spending will surpass all off lime marketing. In 2016 online spending surpassed television, now it's growing overall. That's because online advertising works and everyone is on all the time.
As a business owner you know you need to be online, but finding your customers in this digital ocean is the next challenge. SmartInsights.com just released a digital marketing mega-trends guide and they have several digital marketing tool kits. The article was scientific citing the effectiveness of Amazon's trial and errors as they grew. One point not expressed enough is to acquire a memorable and easy to pronounce, easy to pass along domain name. (Note: KeyInsight.com is for sale now.
Don't delay building your brand, what you put off now, will later only be more difficult and increasingly competitive to navigate.
Go Eagles!
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Brand Building is Web Development
When setting out to develop a new website for a client the first thing to consider is their brand. Defining a brand is a lot like writing a business plan for an organization. Who's their customer, what is their demographic, current corporate culture and visibility across all media along with consistency regarding these representations. Sometimes a client expects development of a website to be just stamping out code, but it's much more artistry and expertise than that going on to get it right. I wouldn't just start nailing boards together if I were a builder, the site, direction, watershed, parking, permits and a 100 other items need to be considered before breaking ground. The same holds true for web development and I would recommend reading up on these sites listed below about building your brand before developing the wrong site for your business.
First, have or get the right domain name. Brandgy.com can clue you in as to why that's so important. Learn about branding your business with these no nonsense guides available through HowToBuildABrand.org These folks out of the UK know what they are doing and it's explained in a way that you can see how it effects other facets of your business. SearchEngineJournal.com puts the technical edge on your brand strategy. Their site maybe a good read for the more technically inclined, but getting found is what it's all about going forward into 2018 and beyond.
While searching for tech trends and investments opportunities I discovered an article from Deloitte Insights about the technology growth in unstructured data. Unstructured data is essentially chaos, but if you're able to show relations between data elements, it's no longer unstructured and helps build a better picture of what's occurring. Commodities make a good example. Analyzing wheat yields without rain fall or soil erosion factored in, leaves a lot of questions when interpreting results. By adding more variables to the equation, the results are calculated with greater accuracy. Tapping into this vast amount of information that is becoming available from everywhere on the web, dark and deep web included, (data that is not currently included or information sitting idly), analytics experts can gain much greater insight into customer behavior and market movement.
The explosive growth of IoT (Internet of Things) is expected to surpass 44 Zettabytes in 2020. That's 44 trillion gb of information, which is 10 times more than today, and hopefully will be used to make better decisions (before the AI bots make them for us). Read the full article at Deloitte Insights for more information.
Three great domain names currently for sale related to analytics:
DatabaseTools.com
KeyInsight.com
XLMetrics.com
To make an offer on all four premium domain names as a package - contact.
According to this article by Alan Dunn on Quartz, we are almost out of good domain names. I'd agree but, you can purchase domain names from companies and individuals just at a premium. This article uncovers a few domains that you think would have been purchased with by larger entities and the real take away is “The thing about domain names is that they have become a precious commodity in their own right,” says David Taylor, a partner at Hogan Lovells and domain-name panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Good domain names are assets and I wouldn't put much stock in other extensions, it always drives traffic to the dot com version of the name. Read the full article here.
I have been looking at domain name predictions that were made in 2016 to measure how well the analysts are keeping up with actual market movements in 2017. Being now that we're enter into 3rd quarter, it's good time for a halftime report. Overall, the results are on track and moving in the right direction. It's a difficult area to measure as most sales figures are not reported and have NDA's attached to them, but corporate purchases are up and companies are strategically placing themselves for additional accessibility into mobile and online services as workforce's are more distributed along with trying to increase their customer base.
Take a look at these 3 sources and draw your own conclusions. Huge growth is anticipated going to 2024.
Strategyr's Domain Name Market Trends
Verisign's Domain Name Registrations in Q1
Hover's Domain Name Expert's Point of View
Excellent article by Andrew Rosener of Media Options on the brand value of domain names to your business. Andrew makes several key points on why you should own the the matching dot com domain name and what it costs you when you don't.
This is a great read for all C-level executives looking to gain a 15% market share in their niche. Business is online and good domain names will never be any less than they are today. Position your company and your brand for success before your competition snaps up the key generic domains that can impact your sales.
Great domain names are powerful assets that appreciate while generating revenue through brand recognition, as an authority in your field and have so many other marketing advantages that justify the cost. Allocate your advertising budget in the domain name sector for exponential growth and appreciation.
Check out these premium domains names for sale here. SouthernHomes.com FloridaBeachHomes.com DallasTech.com AtlantaConsulting.com LakeStyle.com LongLashes.com YourSiteBuilder.com DatabaseTools.com KeyInsight.com and many more.
Time to get back to business. Hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready to work. The two times a year that I take a deeper look at business trends and economic forecasts are at the end of the year and at the end of 2nd quarter. End of the year is more a reflective time for some reason, like after the game. End of 2nd quarter is like taking inventory during half time while there's still time to change the results before year end, mid game.
No one that runs their own business, or is directly responsible for one, can ever really take their mid off the game. Sure you might go on vacation and spend time with your family, but you just can't help thinking about what you have going on. Sometimes it helps to get disconnected, a fresh perspective, see from a different angle and get some rest, but successful people rarely take their eye off the ball if ever. You love what you do and you know your competition is constantly grinding. So while relaxing, I try to take a closer look at what my competition is doing right and measure what's working for me.
One of the things I do at these two points is look at the big picture. Reading through economic forecasts for different industries and countries can give you great insight to why your efforts aren't measuring up to predictions or worse, the numbers are climbing up and you have no idea why. According to The World Economic Forum, Forbes and The Balance to name a few, the economic outlook for the US is strong and set for steady growth.
No matter what business you're in, investing in yourself is never a bad choice. Educate yourself, educate your people and increase the advertising budget. Hope you are off to a great year, game on.
The only people I hear spouting about new domain name extensions (gTLD's) are the one's who have a stake in their success as a registry or those looking to recoup their investment. Truth is with the scarcity of good dot com extensions dwindling at less than insane prices, good .com domain names are going up in value. The time to buy is now while traffic is slower over the summer months and before the market starts to pick up again in the fall. If you're unaware of all the other extensions and when they came about, there is an info graphic here at Key-Systems.net from a few years ago.
When buying a gTLD, ask yourself when was the last time you went to one, and where does the the majority of spam come from? I think you'll find that the answer is a .garbage extension. Registering one of these will drive help traffic to the .com, .net or .org domain names respectively above it. There are 882 domain extensions at last count, but your customers just know of the top three. If you're looking to increase your brand or to expand a product line, while the US economy is beginning to soar again, buy now before prices return to pre 2005 levels. There is a market correction coming that will swing .com names up beyond any levels we've seen them at. Get them before they turn into gold.