If and when it comes time for businesses to decide whether to apply for their own gTLD or register domain names in other new gTLDs, one question marketers will have to ask is how they will spread the word about new domain names.  Specifically, how will they persuade Internet users to type new combinations into their browser bars, as opposed to sticking with standard forms like .COM, .CO.JP and .FR?

Here’s another question: if and when marketers do accomplish that goal, how will new gTLDs affect the way everyday people perceive certain messaging?  It stands to reason that once Internet users get used to seeing a variety of words or phrases to the right of the dot, they will begin to perceive any word.word construction as a possible domain name.

I thought of this because I recently saw a Sony ad that featured the slogan “Make.Believe,” pronounced “make-dot-believe”.  (The accompanying website is sony.com/makedotbelieve and Sony also owns makedotbelieve.com, although it currently doesn’t point to the campaign site.)  Because I regularly deal in (and constantly think about) domain names, I thought it sounded like a domain name, and wondered if Sony had plans to apply for a .BELIEVE gTLD. 

I’m willing to bet that right now, most people who see the campaign do not interpret “Make.Believe” as a possible domain name.  But if the proposed flood of TLDs become reality, then five or ten years from now, once they become accustomed to seeing anything.anything advertised as a website, they just might interpret it that way.  If Sony plans to continue the “Make.Believe” campaign beyond the next few years, and ICANN’s unpopular plan becomes reality, I wonder if they will look into securing the .BELIEVE TLD – not only to create the make.believe domain, but perhaps to extend “Believe” to customers who could offer loyalty in exchange for personal websites and email addresses.

Last weekend, I started building a tree fort for my children.  It turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated, and I only got as far as partially completing the subfloor, which you can see pictured here.  Building around a tree presents some serious challenges in terms of keeping everything level, square and sturdy.

During my third hardware store trip of the day this past Saturday to buy supplies I didn’t realize I would need, I decided to pick up some wood shims to help level things out.  (For those of you who, like me, aren’t master carpenters, shims are small wooden wedges that are designed to fill in gaps or spaces between objects – in this case between the joists that will support the floor and the perpendicular boards that tie into the tree with 8 inch lag screws.)  I bought Nelson brand shims, and when I looked at the package I noticed the company uses the domain name shims.com.  For a company that specializes in shims of all kinds, this is a great domain name to own.  Here’s a picture of the package:

While the company is called Nelson Wood Shims, both nelsonshims.com and nelsonwoodshims.com are available, which I thought to be particularly interesting.  They own a great marketing domain that makes it easier for people looking for “shims” in general to find their product, but they don’t own the obvious domains that would help protect their brand and reputation.

I’m going to get back to building this weekend, and I’ll be sure to post a picture of the finished product here on the blog when I’m done.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently ran an article titled “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets” about new types of tracking technologies that gather personal information about Internet users.  The companies behind these technologies then sell that data to other companies to be used for highly targeted advertisements.  The WSJ calls this “the fastest growing business on the Internet”.

Most people have heard of cookies, the small bits of text stored in a web browser that retain information like passwords and the contents of online shopping carts.  These new technologies, referred to as “pixels” or “beacons,” work in a similar way to cookies in that they track users’ behavior online.  But instead of just recording what websites they visit, beacons record what they do on those sites, like what they type in or where they move the mouse.  The beacons then build a highly specific profile of each user, and companies sell these profiles in bulk on exchanges similar to financial markets.

The companies that purchase this information use it to disseminate very specific, targeted advertisements.  Ad networks also engage in this practice, and collect fees from the targeted ads they place on websites.  In the profiles, users are not identified by name, but that fact does little to ease feelings that their privacy has been violated.  Internet users report that they find some of the ads “unnerving”.

This may have to do with the type of information that passes through these beacons.  Previously, many online advertisers felt that targeting consumers according to health or financial information was off-limits, but that is no longer the case.  And now, many tracking companies have expressed interest in moving into social media sites to mine the vast quantities of personal information that users share there.  With no legal limits on how consumer data can be used, it is unclear how far tracking companies and advertisers will go.

Internet users tend to associate questionable practices like this with disreputable websites, assuring themselves if they stay away from suspicious-looking sites, they will be safe.  This rule of thumb does not work with ad tracking.  The WSJ conducted a short experiment and found that the top 50 U.S. websites placed 3,180 tracking files on its computer, 2,224 of which came from tracking companies.  The biggest culprit was Dictionary.com, depositing 223 files from tracking companies.

There is clearly a significant ethical dilemma here.  Even though the files do not store information by users’ names, it is conceivable that they could obtain other forms of personally identifiable information.  Moreover, the ads that users see as result of the profiles the trackers develop can be harmful: the WSJ cites one example of a teenage girl – a minor – who gets bombarded with weight loss ads every time she goes online.

The companies that develop these technologies and sell the information they obtain do not see it as a violation, but rather as a service to consumers.  Targeted ads, they say, are what consumers want – they provide highly relevant information as opposed to annoying clutter.

Certain advertisers are struggling to come to terms with this conundrum as well.  According to another WSJ article, Google is having a particularly hard time.  Until now, the company has been hesitant to tap its enormous pool of user data, but competition may force it to reconsider what it means to live up to its unofficial “Don’t be evil” motto.

We would really like to know what our readers think about this issue.  There are points to be argued both in favor of and against ad tracking, and we welcome your input.  Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Like most cities with humid climates, Washington, D.C. experiences a lot of thunderstorms during the summer.  While I was driving home after one storm had cleared, I noticed this rainbow over the Lincoln Memorial.  I thought it looked inspiring, especially since it seemed like the rainbow was coming out of the top of the Memorial.

As it turns out, the U.S. Government does not own a unique domain name for the Lincoln Memorial (or any other memorial for that matter).  LincolnMemorial.gov does not exist, and both LincolnMemorial.com and LincolnMemorial.org point to parked pages owned by unrelated parties.  All these permutations should be registered and owned by the government, and resolve to the National Park Service’s official site for the Lincoln Memorial.

FairWinds recently performed extensive research on domain names related to various government institutions, and we will be publishing a report later this year.