Best HOSTING service for a beginning web developer or domainer

I'm pretty quick, but I have to reserve very technical jobs to my engineering friends. However, after a friend of mine introduced me to her hosting service, I fell in love. I haven't had an easier or better time setting up all sorts of websites -- I have about 6 live now. Anyway, you need to visit Dream host & type in 50OFFDREEEEMY (you may want to cut & paste to make sure you got it exactly like this) for $50 bucks off as well. You won't be displeased.

Most expensive domain names

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Drupal, Joomla, Koobooba, boobsla, drroop, stoop and a million other jargon or acronyms that are confusing me

OK, I can be slow at times, but usually I thought that was with women...

However, I used to think I'm pretty keen on trends, but there are so many new languages and applications or clones of them taking on different names that honestly, I don't know how the IP (Intellectual Property) Attorneys throughout this world will be able to keep up?! I am currently in the process of developing one or two websites. I was planning on using A wiki, but my web developer tells me that a CMS (content management system) like Joomla! would be better. So, he develops the site without even incorporating the Wiki look to it with Joomla.

First of all, let me tell you that Joomla is an incredible tool from the first looks of it. It has lots of easy functionality that will probably be revolutionary (but that's speaking from a guy who isn't naturally technical, but has an avid interest in it, of course -- thus, this website). However, it didn't serve my initial goals.

I also want to host a blog somewhere and had some trouble loading up Wordpress (the tool of choice for me right now) which I use on their site, but wanted to create my own site with more control -- in case they decide to edit me or take control over my blog with one of their "terms of service (TOS)". Actually, I've seen them do it to a couple of my friends & so I just decided to start hosting it myself. However, since I failed to get it running on my "free hosting" service, I decided to ask my developer & friends. My friends offered to do it free, but I don't want to waste their time & decided to pay my developer instead. Anyway, I started to experiment by myself & found there's a tool out there that let's us "dumb people" actually install things like this much more easily. However, the tool doesn't fix problems like Database permissions and other issues -- so I still need my developer.

Anyway, while researching the best tools and applications that may help my developer to get me educated as well, I'm running into all sorts of interesting gadgest, tools, applications etc. I can't figure out if they are the names of hosting companies, people or what. So, I have to research them even more. No wonder there's a wikipedia & why it's one of the highest traffick'ed site out there.

Here were a few:

Drupal -- what the heck is Drupal? Well it's a CMS & for those who already forgot what CMS stands for, it's a Content Management System. And for those people who think Content Management System is still confusing, it's defined by Wikipedia as: a software system used for content management. This includes computer files, image media, audio files, electronic documents and web content. The idea behind a CMS is to make these files available inter-office, as well as over the web.

Mambo -- no, I'm not talking about some form of dance. However, the dance may be the reason why there's currently 30,500,000 references that Google can find with this word. In the tech world though (according to the website Mamboserver.com), it means "First and foremost, Mambo is a Content Management System (CMS). It is the engine behind your website that simplifies the creation, management, and sharing of content...The goal of the Mambo project is to meet most of the requirements highlighted in the above article. As each day in development goes by we are getting nearer and nearer, while at the same time building a solid core which can be extended by third party developers. In the hands of a custom developer, this makes Mambo a powerful platform for a wide variety of Internet applications that go far above and beyond the simple creation of content. "

Geeklog -- with just a short of 4,000,000 entries that Google can find, according to geeklog.net, "Geeklog is a PHP/MySQL based application for managing dynamic web content. 'Out of the box', it is a blog engine, or a CMS with support for comments, trackbacks, multiple syndication formats, spam protection, and all the other vital features of such a system.
The core Geeklog distribution can easily be extended by the many community developed plugins to radically alter its functionality. Available plugins include forums, image galleries, and many more. "

Interact -- well, this one was harder to find because we know what "Interact" means in the regular dictionary. However, what kind of tool is using this commonly used world? Well, according to InteractNetworks, "InterAct Networks is an initiative which aims to increase the capacity of local communities and organisations to deliver effective consultation and consensus-building, involvement and partnership working across the UK. Its core is a partnership of four highly experienced facilitators and trainers. This partnership is founded on a shared belief that the best way to improve participatory practice in the UK is through the building of local capacity amongst those whose jobs require them to consult and involve stakeholders of all kinds, and that classroom-style learning is not sufficient to build that capacity. Hence the focus on the establishment of Local Facilitator Networks and other forms of collaboration which enable participants to build on their training, and the provision of organisational capacity building services to support them in doing so. " At least this is the best thing I can find that represents this.

Jetbox -- is another form of CMS "that has many handy features for fast implementation and reduction of website maintenance costs. " According to http://jetbox.streamedge.com/, the features include:

Powerful contents acquisition, management and presentation
Workflow, publication and tasks
You can lead contents via standard paths thru the organization (create, edit, publish). Assign task for contents creation (with a deadline), receive status information via e-mail.
Archive items
Older content can be archived. This feature is very usefull for reusing older content, instead of deleting it. Archived items are not displayed on the website and are separately displayed in de administration section.
General and personal resources
General design templates and images can be used throughout the entire website and are stored centrally. Other texts and images are stored for personal use.
Planning
Publish and archive are easily to plan. You're website will always be up-to-date even when you are on holidays.
Dynamic sitemap
If new content is published on the website, the sitemap and navigation are instantly updated.
Integrated user management
User rights are easily controlled per part of the website. You can define the contents workflow and prevent unchecked content to be published on the website.
Visitor statistics
Per minute website statistics. You instantly know which pages are most popular.
Search engine statistics
This feature is even more powerfull than the visitor statistics. Get all the information form every search a visitor has made with the integrated search engine. You exactly know what information your visitors is searching for on your website.

Fast implementation and maintenance
Open source based (GPL or Professional License)
To reduce license costs, Jetbox is based on Linux, Apache, Mysql & Php. Jetbox is offered in GPL or Professional license with full professional support.
Design templates
Website layout and design is defined by layout templates. Templates can be changed per page or part.
Change layout
Change the layout of the website by simply changing the template.
Dynamic pages
Contents and design are combined just in time, the webpage is generated on-the-fly when a web user clicks to it.
Separated contents from design
Contents is stored separately in the database, it's easy to use the contents for other publications such as leaflets or power point presentations.
Publish contents in several pages
Publish the same contents in several pages, each with it's own design. Only once create a new news item. Your homepage is instantly updated and all news items are displayed on a separate page.
Integrated search engine
Your visitors can search your pages with an integrated fast and banner free search engine. "

lucidCMS -- "is a simple and flexible content management system for the individual or organization that wishes to manage a collection of web pages without the overhead and complexity of other available "community" CMS options. lucidCMS is designed from the ground up to be easy to install and use. It will run efficiently on shared hosting accounts where disk space and features may be at a premium. Once installed, all configuration options can be changed from the user interface." This comes from http://lucidcms.net/ with a little nice duck icon in next to the url. Whatever those are called...

osCommerce -- "is an Open Source based online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved." The url that goes by the same name with .com at the end provided this definition & probably likes the fact I'm marketing it for the for nothing! There are surprising 39,500,000 entries in google for this.

phpBB -- this is something I've seen around a lot, but never bothered to find out what it was. Now I know "Since its creation in 2000, phpBB has become the most widely used Open Source forum solution. Like its predecessors, phpBB 3.0 “Olympus” has an easy to use administration panel and a user friendly installation process, which allows you to have a forum set up in minutes. With a large and highly customisable set of key features coupled with a standards compliant interface, phpBB will grow with, and compliment your website. With millions of installations worldwide, it is no wonder phpBB is one of the most popular ways to create and support a community." At least this is what phpBB.com tells me.

phpWebsite -- comes from Appalachian State University. It "provides a complete web site content management system. Web-based administration allows for easy maintenance of interactive, community-driven web sites.phpWebSite's growing number of modules allow for easy site customization without the need for unwanted or unused features. Client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative requirements.Founded and hosted by the Web Technology Group at Appalachian State University, phpWebSite is developed by the phpWebSite Development Team, a network of developers from around the world. phpWebSite is free, open source software and is licensed under the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL." Courtesy of http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/

PunBB -- according to http://punbb.org/about.php, it is "a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board. It is released under the GNU General Public License. Its primary goals are to be faster, smaller and less graphically intensive as compared to other discussion boards. PunBB has fewer features than many other discussion boards, but is generally faster and outputs smaller, semantically correct XHTML-compliant pages."

Textpattern -- What is it? According to TextPattern.com, it is "A free, flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even weblogs. When it comes to publishing on the internet, beginners and experts alike are met with a bothersome paradox: word processors and graphics applications allow anyone to do a pretty good job of managing text and images on a personal computer, but to make these available to the worldwide web – a seemingly similar environment of documents and destinations – ease of use vanishes behind sudden requirements for multilingual programming skills, proficiency in computer-based graphic design, and, ultimately, the patience of a saint. Those who soldier on anyway may find themselves further held back by the web’s purported inflexibility with written language, with its reluctance to cope with all but the plainest of text, or by the unpredictable results brought about by using “WYSIWYG“ web editors. Textpattern is a web application designed to help overcome these and other hurdles to publishing online, and to simplify the production of well-structured, standards-compliant web pages."

Well, these may fall off the Internet in the next few years for the lack of use or they may be the engines to future collaboration, great websites & may help solve the world's biggest problems. Let's hope they do all of them!

Also, last note, I copied these directly from the sites for definitions. If you're the webmaster of these or the managers and don't mind the free marketing & links to your sites, then let me know. I have no problems not supporting you guys. ;)

Domaining: still a lot of opportunity left

The need to fill the void

I had a thought earlier today while taking the subway.

If you can't find a decent website in the top 10 results of Google.com when searching for a topic, there is a need for someone to buy the domain and build a website around it. It's that simple.

Actually, it's not really, when you consider the click through rates of inventory of people seeing the ads on the page, the type of people who are searching for the terms and if they are consumers or clickers or not, the % of people who are searching for those terms are people who directly navigate to the site or not, if your site is especially pleasing for them to transact on the click through model and a bunch of other criteria.

However, I'm thinking for anything significant in traffic volume & the domain exists, I think it's worth a shot given the price of domain registrations these days.

For Domainers (advanced topic): So, what does it take to justify buying a domain?

Well, this topic may not be that advanced, but some of the concepts may be new to someone outside the domainer/domaining world. Basically, a process I apply (which may be a secret to some domainers or something they might not like to share so eagerly) to purchasing domain names is:

1) simply conducting a keyword search to see how often it it it is searched monthly. Of course if no one is searching for the phrase, it probably doesn't justify buying it because that's the primary indicator there' s no interest in it. There's a reason why Sex.com sold for $12 million. It's regularly the #1 or #3 searched term on the Internet. Make sure you check "unfiltered" on any site that helps you figure out what search words are the top words if you want doublecheck this somewhat known fact.
2) if it is popular, I evaluate to see if the people who would "directly navigate" to this domain by typing in the words and then adding ".com" to the end of it would actually see something they might want to click on for a domainer to monetize it.

However, the question I pose to domainers and experts out there in the field is how many searches justifies making efforts in creating a website around it. One hundred (100) searches a month? 1000 searches? The latter is not as common as the former in terms of actual statistics. So, how do you know if you are looking at domains that appear like "diamonds" (diamond.com coincidentally sold for $7.5 million dollars) or "gold"? Is it when you see a phrase that's searched 1000 times a month and the domain is still available? Hhow about the lower end of 100? How about 300?

It's a question that needs to be verified & I'll pose it to some common domainers and key figures in the domaining business. Look for a follow up on this post later on.

Introduction to the team: New Writer

Copying over...so this is Bradd "pasting" Brandon's post. Sorry Brandon...

Greetings...

Bradd, the GM for this new blog asked me to write up a little bit about myself before he hired me to start writing for the blog. He thought it would be a good idea for future readers of the blog so they would know the qualifications of the person who was writing about these posts which may have a large impact on the domain industry moving forward.

Briefly, I am currently a Director of a small company in South Korea. Before starting work at this organization, I worked in the dot com field for about 8 years in one of the largest online advertising companies (where I first met Bradd), the largest retailer online and the largest (at the time) travel company online. I have been doing off and online property valuation since 1993 and have even spent a couple years in Real Estate to apply the offline expertise where I successfully built a business that attained the #2 ranking in production in our office. Our office, by the way, was the city which included Bill Gates little suburb Medina.

I got my first taste for domains & their value in 1996 when the Internet boom started to take off. I didn't stick with it because I didn't have the capital to support all the interest along with the little bit of cynicism that perhaps these would not be as worth as much as they are now. And boy was I wrong with that small thought -- I should of gone with what my gut tells me & from this point on, I'll be writing about what my gut tells me for all the readers benefit here.

In terms of Keywords, the other topic we will write about, I fell in love with these at my time at Expedia (oops, did I let the cat out of the bag? I'm sure you can guess the other two companies as well). A coworker of mine who was the SEM Manager at the time introduced me to Overture's Keyword suggestion tool & since then, there's been no turning back. Keywords to me basically represent what people want online. The trends, the numbers and the statistics in one form or another represent the human psyche in the virtual world. While it may not be keywords forever or Google dominating the world wide web landscape in terms of search forever, there will always be something that translates our semantic seaches into websites or whatever provides us the information we are seeking. I love spending time evaluating keywords.

Thank you for taking the time to read my writings & good luck with all your purchases of domain names. Like offline real estate, property is limited online in domain names & until the future tells us differently, the value will only go up. If you even slightly believe in the economic principle of supply & demand, you should definitely believe in the value of domain names moving forward.

Lawsuit could change the "domainer" landscape

A party called "Vulcan Golf LLC" is trying to sue Google and it's adword program, along with 4 leading Domain registration services companies: Oversee.net, Sedo.com, Dotster.com (aka RevenueDirect.com) and Internet REIT (d/b/a [doing business as] IREIT). The lawsuit primarily says that the defendents (everyone above minu Vulcan Golf LLC) are violating Vulcan Golf's trademark. The lawsuit also contends that the AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protection Act applies in this case as well.

I just typed in both vulcangolf.com and searched for "vulcan golf" (with and without the quotes). In all cases, this company seems to come up first in the results & there doesn't seem to be any pages that mislead the consumer to think there is "another vulcan golf" or anything that seems to "diluted their trademarks" in any way. It looks like Vulcan Golf is just a little jealous they didn't buy some Google stock before it shot up over $500 a share. They know that Google has money & thus, their need to file an overzealous & unreasonable lawsuit. What's the use of filing 121 pages of complaints. Honestly, either the legal system is getting out of hand or jealous little companies who see riches are being abusive.

Regardless, if you want to read more of the 121 page filing, feel free to go here: http://claranet.scu.edu/tempfiles/tmp32687/vulcanvgooglecomplaint.pdf