The .tk top level domain

Jonathan Bowers, September 19th 2007, 9:26AM

I have mixed feelings regarding the story about the little island of
Tokelau and the way an entrepreneur has boosted its GDP by 10% by
selling the top level domain name. Already there have been more than 1.6m
domain names ending in .tk sold. It brings about the question of whether
the people buying these names are diluting the search market for others.

If the dotcom, .net, .co.uk and others have gone for a word like
'guardian' should anybody be allowed to buy guardian.tk. We know that many entrepreneurs have tried to buy Italian top level domains in the past,
more for creative reasons than any other, but have found the process quite
stringent.

Should ICANN have allowed the rights to .tk domains to be bought and used
in such a liberal way? It's wonderful that the Pacific islanders in
question have gained great opportunities but what does it mean for search
if in the future there are many similar domain names. If Google responds
by putting less emphasis on the domain name within a search then many
businesses will suffer.

Tags: search_terms, top_level_domains
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PR builds your online presence

Jonathan Bowers, September 17th 2007, 12:48PM

As Communications Director at UKFast, I occasionally do presentations to
businesses on the ways they can boost their brand using the Internet. At
the end of last week I did a talk with the CIPR in Manchester on
podcasting as part of an Online PR evening. We did a similar event back in
March this year and when I came to look through the original slides it
amazed me how much has taken place since then.

Having spoken just on audio podcasting earlier this year I knew that
videocasting and the potential of viral video would have to play a part in
this session. I also had to update all statistics about the industry and
it became clear that the various forms of online PR are in some ways
converging. Sites like YouTube, Facebook, Digg.com bring a variety of
functionalities that businesses are really beginning to harness with some
great results.

It was exciting to see a tremendous mix of people in the audience. Present
were some of the North West's largest PR agencies as well as
representatives from some of the regions biggest companies. Some of them
were coming completely fresh to online PR, others had success stories and
enthusiasm with them.

Hearing stories from the audience, two things stood out. One delegate
revealed that the mix within a PR pitch a few months ago was four fifths
offline and one fifth online. Now, they are looking at closer to a
fifty-fifty split. Another told of using Facebook to develop awareness and
how they had not received instant results.

The online PR landscape is developing so rapidly that a lot of what we try
is experimental at this stage. Personally, I think that what is most
important is that we do try it and in many cases, those who persist with
it will be the ones with the most impressive results.

UKFast

Tags: , online_pr, podcasting
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Anita Roddick and the Papers PPC

Jonathan Bowers, September 15th 2007, 6:39PM

We were talking about how some of the national newspapers used pay-per-click tactics to appear on searches for Pavarotti in the days following his death. One paper in particular seems to be using this strategy on a weekly basis. Lawrence Jones has an insightful blog about Anita Roddick and The Telegraph, which is one of two papers that used her name as key words to drive traffic to their site and improve awareness of their brand.

I wonder how this will develop over the coming months and whether others media brands will utilise the same techniques.

Tags: newspapers, search_terms
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Pavarotti - how the internet responds

Jonathan Bowers, September 7th 2007, 12:07PM

This week has seen the death of a man who reached the absolute pinnacle of his career. Probably the world's favourite operatic tenor. The internet has allowed the public to share their feelings in a way that fans of Caruso would never have been able to when he passed away in 1921.

Observing my own web browsing on Pavarotti in the last couple of days, I've noticed that I've been much more interested in videos put online by members of the public or skimming blog posts than I have reading articles from traditional newspapers or organisations. Perhaps I'm hoping to grasp some tiny individual insights from people who really really cared rather than biography pieces that do not seem enough for such a moment.

Or maybe it's because a blog search actually brings up more relevance on this topic than a normal Google search. The first page ranks only six entries that link to an up-to-date story acknowledging Pavarotti's death. Two are his official website, two are YouTube videos, one is Wikipedia and the other admittedly is a link to news stories on the death.

It's at the side of this first page in the sponsored links that we see the likes of The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, The Times and The Sun as they bid to win readers on the issue. But this just appears to widen the divide.

The ability to share with a community and unite in a collected admiration of a talent is not best achieved through recognised official bodies anymore. Pavarotti dominates the Viral Video Charts today because we collectively put him there. We feel a part of a community because we see the thousands of links to these videos or read the many comments left on blogs.

Maybe this is why The Sun can't seem to make up its mind whether to keep paying for rank in the sponsored list. Or maybe they just feel out of depth in the company of broadsheets and real people?

Tags: pavarotti, web2.0
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Analysing a client base geographically

Jonathan Bowers, September 6th 2007, 10:00AM

Every six months I take a look at where our new clients are coming from geographically and try to ascertain any factors that are leading them to choose their server hosting in Manchester. Naturally, the findings can help us with our marketing but the figures alone can also be quite interesting.

Yesterday I mentioned that 33 per cent of our new enterprise clients are coming from overseas and today I'm going to look at some other useful stats. It's not surprising that more dedicated server installs were undertaken for London companies than any other area but the capital is also the only area where over 95% of new solutions were for brand new clients.

Other areas such as the East of England were more notable in the first half of 2007 for existing clients buying extra servers to strengthen their solutions. And while the North West has historically been the second fastest growing region for clients, the South West is now bucking this trend in its favour.

As internet marketing becomes more and more sophisticated it plays its part in connecting us with new businesses across the UK and beyond and it will be interesting to see how we use the knowledge gained in early 2007 to influence the figures that we see in early 2008.

I'd be interested to hear from others who are using similar statistics to strategise for future growth and what successes they're experiencing.

Tags: client_analysis, marketing
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