Perry Marshall
This great newsletter came through to me yesterday from my mate Perry Marshall and is well worth a read. With Perry’s permission I have reproduced it here for you all to read. Enjoy!
Ed,
I just returned from Maui Hawaii, 100+ customers from a dozen countries face to face and palm to palm for 3 days. [...]
Now that the Super Bowl game’s “Brand Bowl” is finished, the polls and opinions are popping up everywhere. This year there seems to be a lot more reactions and buzz bubbling on the internet, more so than in year’s past, thanks in part to social media sites.
Who had the cleverest ads? Who was the funniest? Facebook, Youtube and Twitter (and maybe even a few old-school water coolers) will be buzzing the rest of today with chatter about both an amazing game and some good and some not so good ads. Youtube’s voting is still going on and you can catch all the ads that you missed. There were some good ones that got a little chuckle from me, but generally speaking the creative wasn’t outstanding. The companies that advertised on the game and matter most in this little “domain world” were Google and Godaddy. . .
On Twitter a lot of people seemed to like the Google ad but like Jeff Jarvis in this article, I wasn’t really super impressed. It was a clever use of story to demonstrate the product and was classically simple, but really does something so simple as using Google need to be demonstrated? Jarvis makes a point about France and Football not being a great matchup. It could have been more audience targeted, but CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that the ad wasn’t created for specifically for the Big Game. Also, doesn’t Google already TOTALLY dominate search ? I get that it’s a great branding opportunity and the ad endeared many to the brand, but Google has a lot of other offerings to showoff to that the average guy on the couch may not have a clue about. Did they just release a phone or something ?
Overall, Google winning the love of most viewers is okay by me and it’s surreal to think that what some are calling the #1 advertisement is for a “new media” brand that has chipped away the base of “traditional media” revenues and completely changed the advertising landscape. To me, Google’s ad running on the Super Bowl gives the idea of Super Bowl advertising more legitimacy.
Most disappointing to me (and to several others) was the Godaddy commercials. Ok, we get it Godaddy. You like to have controversy and you like to have your ads pulled so you can get more PR before the game, but really come on. It’s done. It used to be impressive to me that a domain company had the money and guts to invest in expensive Super Bowl ads, but I’m over it. Godaddy released several ads this year. One ad got cut and two that didn’t get cut made it on air during the game (one posted below). Personally, I would have preferred the cut ad. It does a better job explaining the product and isn’t all about popping open shirts.
Back to the ads. The premise for these ads is basically pretend to show some boobies at the end and leave them hanging with ” See More at GoDaddy.com” . . .and I’m sure MANY went hoping to see more. Like one blogger points out “Not only do these cliffhanger endings generate buzz and capture the audience’s attention, it also gets people to actually visit GoDaddy.com to see what its all about.” Only problem is, like crying wolf, you can only pull this “trick” once. The viewer doesn’t get anything special when they go to the site.
You got the viewer to your site with the same “1 horse trick”. Now what? The viewer thinks “I went to the site and I didn’t get what I wanted”. They now remember you and your brand as being a company that teases them into thinking they were getting a “free porn show” . . . oh and maybe remembers you sell domain names. As Brian Clark from Copyblogger.com said, “Thanks GoDaddy, but your target audience already knows where the best porn on the web is“.
Fear not though, Godaddy is ready to give you the chance to show them how to do it better. In a similar fashion to other brands before them, Godaddy is holding a contest and awarding prizes for the best ads. Hopefully they have judges that aren’t the same 72% that voted in the previously mentioned poll.
If anyone has a camera, a ski boat and a pet shark, I’ve got a good idea for a commercial :)
As promised a few weeks back I have just finished interviewing my mate Perry Marshall who I consider to be one the worlds leading authorities on the subject of Google AdWords. I have learned a great deal from him over the years regarding Google AdWords and my AdWords Consulting business would not be where it is today if it were not for his help and guidance...
Hi All,
Happy New Year!
Over the past 2 + years since I started this domain names blog / podcast I have had many people email me who know I am a Google AdWords Consultant asking if I can do a podcast on Google AdWords relating to the synergies that it has with domain names...
Internet giant Google.com has lost an arbitration case over the domain name Groovle.com. In a decision released today, The National Arbitration Forum, dismissed Google’s complaint which claimed that it was entitled to the domain name Groovle.com. Google claimed that the domain name is “confusingly similar” to its trademark for “Google”.
The unanimous three person panel ruled that Groovle.com “is not confusingly similar” to Google’s trademark, “Google”. Google has commenced 65 similar domain name disputes and this is only the second time that it has ever lost. Domain name lawyer and Internet law expert, Zak Muscovitch is responsible for successfully defending the “little guy” against the mega-corp Google.
The domain is owned by Canadian entrepreneurs Jacob Fuller and Ryan Fitzgibbon, who launched Groovle.com in 2007. As Fuller explains, “Groovle was created to provide users the ability to upload photos and customize their Internet start page. We thought it would be a cool feature to have a nice photo of friends, family etc., every time you launch your web browser”. Says Fitzgibbon, “since we launched Groovle in 2007, Google, Bing and Ask.com have each come out with something similar”.
The pair are elated with the decision. “We were stunned when Google launched the domain name dispute as we have great respect for Google and have always had a good relationship with them”, said Fitzgibbon. Fuller added that, “Google never had anything to fear from our web site. The arbitrators’ decision that the two domain names are sufficiently different should put Google at ease and we look forward to a renewed positive relationship with Google”.
Muscovitch concluded “Google clearly miscalculated here however my clients are prepared to put this behind them”.
My guest today on Domain Names Podcast is Andrew Miller co-founder & President of Internet Real Estate Group one of the men behind (along with Zappy Zapolin) leading internet brands such as Beer.com, Computer.com, Music.com, Debt.com, CreditCards.com, Diamond.com, Chocolate.com and many many more...
Goodle has now launched it’s own URL shortener under the goo.gl domain in the ccTLD of Greenland. The service is not offered as a standalone service at this point, but is instead embedded into Google Toolbar and Feedburner. The new product also automatically checks to detect sites that may be malicious and will warn users.
Google has just launched a Public DNS service according to a post on the Official Google Blog. The goal of the service is “to benefit users worldwide while also helping the tens of thousands of DNS resolvers improve their services, ultimately making the web faster for everyone“. On their product page they promise that the service is more secure as well as faster than many traditional domain name service resolved provided by the ISPs.
The OpenDNS like service will as a side benefit Google would also be able to see and track DNS queries of the users on the service and potentially redirect unresolved searches into Google Searches, similar to what many ISPs already do today. The company does promised not to use the data for anything else, but does state that non personal data will be stored for an indefinite period.
Google would also be able to block sites through the service that are for example suspected phishing sites. Depending on adaption the service could even introduce alternative TLDs, comparable to alternative root systems like new.net. For now their policy states that their service “never blocks, filters, or redirects users“. ICANN has recently issued an memorandum speaking out against NXdomain resolution for new gTLDs.
The Australian domain after market is relatively new to the TLD market and has only been around for less than 2 years now. The only Drop service that I am aware of is www.drop.com.au (formally www.domain8.com.au up until a few weeks a go when it was sold to www.fabulous.com)
There have been many names dropping over the past weeks and months that should just never have been allowed to expire, someone has taken their eye off the ball...
In June of last year, Google and Louis Vuitton were engaged in battle before the Cour de Cassation (France). The French court requested the opinion of the European Court o justice (ECJ) on three matters. Today, the European Advocate General issued an opinion advising the ECJ regarding its anticipated ruling. The AG opinion available here (Opinion) included the following:
“The selection by an economic operator, by means of an agreement on paid internet referencing, of a keyword which will trigger, in the event of a request using that word, the display of a link proposing connection to a site operated by that economic operator for the purposes of offering for sale goods or services, and which reproduces or imitates a trade mark registered by a third party and covering identical or similar goods, without the authorisation of the proprietor of that trade mark, does not constitute in itself an infringement of the exclusive right guaranteed to the latter under [the Directive]”
“Article 5(1)(a) and (b) of Directive 89/104 and Article 9(1)(a) and (b) of Council Regulation … 40/94 … must be interpreted as meaning that a trade mark proprietor may not prevent the provider of a paid referencing service from making available to advertisers keywords which reproduce or imitate registered trade marks or from arranging under the referencing agreement for advertising links to sites to be created and favourably displayed, on the basis of those keywords.”
“In the event that the trade marks have a reputation, the trade mark proprietor may not oppose such use under [the Directive].”
“The provider of the paid referencing service [Google] cannot be regarded as providing an information society service consisting in the storage of information provided by the recipient of the service within the meaning of Article 14 of Directive 2000/31/… in particular electronic commerce, in the internal market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’)”
What could this mean for Domainers? As we know, domain names in PPC serve as keywords for PPC results. While some PPC providers allow owners to categorize domains or add additional keywords, Google and Yahoo require that the added words bear a contextual meaning to the actual domain name. In essence, domain names used in PPC serve the same function as Google’s keywords as used in advertising. LouisVuitton.com is thus served up as “louis + vuitton”. The PPC advertisement links appear because advertisers who have paid Google/Yahoo to have their advertisements appear on pages in the domain channel when such keywords are used in a search.
We must of course wait for the official decision of the ECJ but it is nice to see when people “get it”, particularly when they are in such authoritative positions.
So, one may ask….. How is the PPC system any different from what the European Attorney General sees as infringing activities? In a real sense of course there is no real difference other than one keyword is purchased from a list and the other is in the form of a registered domain name (and of course you are you and Google is king).
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the various sectors of the Internet. Of course, UDRPs and the like are based on a different standard. However, even the panel decisions remain subject to court decisions. Now if only we could convince domainers to pursue legitimate claims in court, we might have something that would benefit everyone.
