Weekend Musings: .XXX Steals The Show and DOMAINfest Offers Fantasy Domaining Contest

Hello everyone and welcome to another weekend musing here on MorganLinton.com. Is it just me or is life pretty damn exciting? There’s a lot going on right now with more eyes on the domain industry than ever before. It’s another beautiful day in Southern California and I just bought a new Digital SLR that I’m looking forward to playing with this afternoon! So let’s get started, from my brain to this blog – here are my weekend musings:

  • .XXX stole the show this week as it topped headlines in mainstream media and of course had strong coverage in the Domaining community. I heard an ad for .XXX while I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius this week, domains are in the news. While there’s plenty of controversy around .XXX domains it’s getting domain names out there into the world and into people’s minds. Our industry has always faced a terrible awareness problem, this increases the awareness and hopefully will inspire more people to invest in all TLDs not just .XXX.
  • DOMAINfest is giving away a a free ticket, $1,000 travel voucher, and four free nights at the Fairmont to the winner of their Fantasy Domaining Contest. If you’re familiar with fantasy football this is similar but performance is judged by PPC revenue a domain generated. Contestants try to pick domains that earned the most PPC revenue last year between December 1st and January 16th, 2011. The contest is already running and you can find-out how to enter here – Fantasy Domaining. Oh and I’ll be playing and if I win, the ticket, travel stipend and hotel stay will go to one lucky reader!
  • Michael Jackness has been rocking and rolling with IRA.com and has done a phenomenal job putting the site together. If you don’t know Michael he’s the guy that bought WebsiteHosting.com for $190,000 and sold it less than five months later for $415,000. Michael builds incredible brands on exact-match domains and he’s making IRA.com his flagship property. The site looks great and they are writing incredible content making this a true leader in the space, which is what IRA.com should be rather than a parked page!
  • I’ve been doing an insane amount of Digital SLR research over the past couple of months. It’s a confusing world if you don’t know much about cameras. I learned a lot, specifically where to find the most reliable reviews. Like anything I don’t know I try to go directly to an expert who can help me get started. A good friend of mine is a professional photographer and along with giving me great advice, he pointed me in the direction of dpreview.com. If you’re looking for digital camera reviews this is the place. After going back-and-forth a bit I finally landed on the Nikon D5100. This camera uses the same sensor as the Nikon D7000 and consistently performed above it’s category. It takes 1080P video and has an external input for a Mic which is critical for me so I can use it to take photos and videos.
  • I am working on a new version of my Domain Monetization 101 guide. This is a completely free guide I’ve been giving-away for over a year now. I thought it was time for an update and think that you’ll all be thrilled with the latest version. I’m adding some great post-Panda SEO tips along with adding some of the cool tools I’ve been using this year to automate my domain search process.
  • Kayaking.org is changing the online kayaking space, our new booking engine has been getting a nice flow of requests from kayakers all over the US. Just yesterday we helped someone find some great kayaking tours around Palmetto, Florida. We had a press release go-out last week and got coverage from Boston.com, Mercury News, The Daily Herald, and about twenty other sites. It’s pretty exciting to introduce an entirely new concept to a market. If you’re a kayaker yourself make sure to take our new booking engine for a spin!
  • Civilized Travel, our travel blog is approaching 1,800 fans on Facebook. This week we added one new writer to the team and are still looking for 1-2 more. If you love to travel and have a particular nack for doing so without being a stressful mess, we’d love to add you to the team!
  • Last but certainly not least is the re-design of DebtEliminationPrograms.com which was finished by my team this week! This is a major improvement with more on the way. I’ll be doing a post soon on the changes we made, why we made them, and what new features we’re adding in the future.

Never a dull moment, and as I said above life is pretty damn exciting! I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton