Amongst other things, I:

• Pulled out of MMO/virtual currency just around when WoW came out. WoW became so big it spawned a ton of Chinese gold farmers that significantly hurt margins.
• Pulled out of blog directories etc right before Google slapped them all out.
• Pulled out of CSS just as it went from “cool” to “commodity”
• Pulled out of local before Google slapped everyone around with Panda

Really though, the above post was just so I could pimp out Examine. We’ve been getting the most random search engine phrases as referral, a sample of which include:

• “dimethylamylamine drug test” (for DMAA). A stimulant used to increase workout performance. It also causes you to fail drug tests as it results in a false positive for amphetamines. An ingredient in the popular pre-workout supplement “jack3d”.
• “quercetin dihydrate bioavailability” (for Quercetin). A “healthy to have” supplement found in fruits and veggies, especially apples and onions).
• “Alpha 2-antagonist compounds and lipid mobilization: evidence for a lipid mobility” (for Yohimbine). A popular fat-loss supplement that helps you target fat loss in stubborn areas like your stomach.
• “Ketonic Bodies adrenergic lipolysis” (also for Yohimbine like above). This one is cool because the Google results specifically link to a section under our “Compleat Summary” that explicitly discusses Ketogenesis and Lipolysis.
• “fish oil protein synthesis” (for fish oil) A popular blogger recently summed up scientific research that indicated omega 3 fatty acids could help in adding muscle.

Anyway, completely random stuff, but the sheer breadth of information and the million+1 combinations of keywords has me pretty excited. The site performance is quite solid (4 pageviews per visitor, over 3:00 on site per average user, ~50% bounce rate), and I think in the long run this could end up being one of my biggest sites ever (and not to toot my own horn, but having done this for 14 years, I have built some pretty big sites).

I found it rather interesting that the man who supposedly bought Men.com for over a million dollars has been busy scamming people for a thousand dollars here and a thousand dollars there.

It’s funny. Often times the domain industry talks about a lack of respect, and then coddle and protect people who bring disrepute to that very industry. You have people running scams through auction houses, shill bids (Snapnames), people poking into privacy information, and other random shit.

So yeah. Kevin Leto – a fraud.

To me, the best two sessions were ‘Keynote Address: Lessons From the Leaders’ and ‘Uncovering Local Lead Generation’

The first was an interesting story – how things were done, how much FreeCreditReport.com cost (hand regged!), and so forth. Personal stories of success and development are always good.

The second was interesting in the sense of mechanics – the background work required to make local lead generation work. What is expect from businesses, and what is expected from consumers, and match the two.

The rest in the middle, while executed well (I much prefer talk sessions than podium preaching), was boiled down to two core issues:

1. Teeth gnashing at what meanies the FTC are and how they hate us
2. Teeth gnashing at the mortgage industry explosion, and looking forward to the housing market coming back

It was, in my opinion, far too retrospective, when it should have been more forward-thinking. What I got (and remember, this is my perspective), was that the only new thing was lead scoring.

My intent in coming was of course locally-oriented – local lead gen, while a tougher nut to crack than the traditional ‘financial’ categories (mortgage, debt, loans, financing), is also potentially far more lucrative (higher margins, repeat customers, word of mouth effectiveness). Yet every single established company I talked to had the same boiler plate answer – we think it’s great, it’s on our list of things to do, but not in the year 2008.

It reminded me a lot of the domainer industry. All those PPC companies are basically the same (their ads come via Google or Yahoo), and they all sell the same services. Instead of trying to evolve the market in new ways, it seems like everyone is content sitting on their laurels fighting each other for the same leads, instead of trying to work on new areas where there is no competition.

Yes there were most definitely some individuals who want to try new things, who are looking at new types of leads. But the local space requires scale and operations – a one man operation won’t make much of a dent in local lead gen.

At the end of the day, this just elucidates the level of disconnect happening between some of the major industries I travel. Local companies should be interested in domains (readymade traffic – just look at Marchex), and should be interested in getting the most money out of a consumer (lead gen!). Yet I saw almost zero local-oriented companies. Domainers should love local (‘unlocking’ the potential of their domains) and lead gen (leaving the Google/Yahoo duopoly) … but again, few domainers. Lead gen should love domainers (source of traffic) and local (higher margins, new areas) – but again, little interaction.

I almost feel like a trailblazer trying to connect the three – anyone else actively participating in these three areas?

It now redirects to a site called Assista. A kind of meld between a search engine and Yahoo Answers. A site owned by Sahar. I wonder how Yahoo feels about this?

I am sure the fact that the landing page uses the exact same colors as the Dallas Cowboys is just a delicious coincidence.

Perhaps time to sell their non-local domains? Are are there non-local domains bringing in the revenue?

Classic example: ‘MV-M.COM a premium name for sale’

In what reality is ‘mv-m’ a premium domain? Hell the domain was registered just over 10 days ago – are you telling me premium domains are for sale like that?

I’ve been a long believer that the easiest way to differentiate between serious and dumbass is price. SitePoint has sort of gone that way – adding a ‘Premium Sites for Sale’ category. The problem is that it still only costs $40 to list there. You still end up with stupid sales like Torrentaholic.com. If the site BIN is $500, that isn’t premium. Quite the opposite – certifiable crap.

Same rule applies to any other marketplace – from DNF to NamePros to WebHostingTalk.

I wish one of the forum operators would be willing to take the flak and create a premium listing that requires $500 listing fee. These are established sites. They push a lot of traffic. They have generated millions in transactions. Why not?

Oh an addendum too – provide an Escrow service.

So – SitePoint, DNF, NP, WHT, etc – please provide us with a real premium listing service, and also a built-in escrow service. You have the traffic and brand – it seems to be an obvious extension.

[I'm good friends with the new DNF operator - I will try to get his response here.]

So when I see posts like this which somehow make it as if Rick Schwartz put the domainers together – I shake my head. It was Eric Rice, not him. But that isn’t the real point – it’s the hidden move by Rick Schwartz.

According to his blog post, he chipped into this consortium, putting up 11% of the amount. 11% of $370,000 = $40,700. A sizable investment.

However – Rick Schwartz gets 10% of the net sales during the auction process. At $370,000 that means he gets $37,000 back. So really for under $5000, he ended up owning 11% of Cowboys.com.

Congrats to this new team of investors. They saw opportunity and seized it. The American dream is alive and well and this will go down as one of the worst decisions in corporate history.

Beyond the typical hyperbole, if this was an opportunity for anyone, it was for Rick. Well played.

Following the debacle that has been Cowboys.com, there was one user on Domain Name News defending the decision – all under the pseudo-name ‘Innocent Bystander’

Innocent my ass – his IP resolved directly to ‘DALLAS COWBOYS FOOTBALL CLUB FON’ This of course begs the question if it is the attorney himself.

So – if you are going to troll – remember your IP can tell a lot about you.