ScienceFiction.com Launches and a Few Other Things

Merry Christmas to my readers and friends, sitting here on Christmas Eve while my kiddos play with all of their new toys (and my daughter takes over my new iPad) I thought I would post a few thoughts from events this past week.

First off congrats to my good friend and fellow blogger Patrick Ruddell for his launch of ScienceFiction.com, Patrick is a hard worker and great promoter and he deserves a big congratulations on the acquisition of this great domain name and the press on TechCrunch.com. I am looking forward to see what he has up his sleeve as far as marketing and plans for this site.

Also, thanks to Morgan Linton for the very kind words on this post today about reflecting and domainers that have changed his life. Morgan is a true friend, as bright and energetic as they come and just all around great guy.

Another random thought, last year Facebook was big over the holidays, but it is AMAZING to me how mainstream it is this holiday compared to last year. Check out your newsfeed on Facebook and it is filled with pictures, videos, and everything else surrounding Christmas, mostly posted by people that last year at this time probably did not know a whole lot about it and for sure did not know how to upload videos or pictures to the site. Times they are a changing.

On a side note, as much as Twitter is great, I see a whole lot less of this holiday chatter on Twitter, which makes sense if you look at how people actually use Twitter versus Facebook.

If you have not read the post at TheDomains.com about the percentage of Christmas sales done over the internet read it now. If you do business online or have a business that wants to stay in business for the long haul you do not want to ignore the shift that is happening more and more everyday. People are looking online and the percentage actually buying rather than just looking online increases everyday.

And one more interesting story to read, the 10 Hottest Private Companies in Tech, if you want to know where dollars are going take a look, hint hint, lots of social.

Enjoy your holiday and be safe! Do NOT DRINK AND DRIVE, remember there are other people on the roads that would like to make it home safe. Do not ruin your holiday by making a decision to drive when you think you are ok but your reaction time says otherwise.

Long Tail Search Results, iPhone Apps, And A Third Grader On Google

I always like to sit back and watch how "non-technical" people use the tools (like search) compared to how people that live online constantly use them. It can be enlightening and show you why certain things work and why others do not.

As many people have shown with various graphs, numbers, marketing data, and other ways to show the same thing, long tail search is growing. The number of people using more than a couple words when searching grows every year which means that people are getting much more sophisticated and using the tools the same way many of us did that were early adopters. I know this is not earth shattering news to those that keep up with this trend, and anyone that buys names for network sites or who does any level of SEO research for high conversion keywords has probably spent a good portion of their time research long tail searches (up to several words or more).

Well tonight as I sat with my daughter on the couch (with both of our laptops out, bonding???) offering to help her with her creative writing home work (seriously, creative writing in third grade?), she shunned my help to use Google to search for writing prompts. I thought this would be a fun thing to watch, here is how the process went:

1) Search for writing prompts

2) Before clicking on one thing switches search to third grade writing prompts

3) Clicks on two entries that look likes made for Adsense sites, starts to click on ads but I stop her (someone can thank me later).

4) Blames Google for bad results. Says she wishes they would show something to help her, her brain works for a few minutes thinking.

5) Refines her search even further to something even longer

Now, even though she was not looking to buy, this is the basic learning process people go through as they search. This is why many smart people focus on the long tail terms for higher conversions.

I know a third grader may not sound like a good reference point, but in reality I think this means alot because if a typical (it is my daughter so I want to say brilliant) 8 year old refines their search to find more relevant searches as she becomes the consumer aged kid (lets say the tween years) how she searches is what matters. I watch her when she browses on her iPod Touch and she will sit in a Paneras on WiFi and search like any other mobile search user. Can you imagine what these kids will be doing in a few years.

The thing I hate to admit here but should be pointed out is that other than a few gaming sites I know my son visits I can honestly say I have never witnessed my kids actually type in a generic domain name. I know that may frustrate some but they are the future users. They hit Google or use an iPhone app for pretty much any information gathering online. Search traffic matters, social media matters, mobile apps matter, do not ignore that, instead think about how you can blend all those together to be successful.

OK, what is my point.

My point is watch what the kids around you do and how they use the Internet. They will be the ones driving how items are consumed online in the near future. Long tail search is just one way that we see all people changing their habits, but with kids using mobile search combined with local long tail search  to find products it may be just the way to determine how to make your next domain purchase or search engine optimize your next project, or even more importantly, figure out how to implement social media and mobile apps into your plan.

Starting A Business Is Bad For Your Health

Wow, what a difference a year can make. I am just kidding about the title of the post but I have been a major failure at keeping myself in shape this year. I just saw some Christmas pictures from last year while we were looking at some digital pics from this year and all I can say is CRAP!!!

It is time to get my no excuses attitude back towards staying in shape and eating right. It is something that for several years I have been almost religious about after seeing the difference it made in my life. When I was 29 years old (I am 36 now) I was 244 lbs, in comparison in 2008 between September and December I did a triathlon, multiple half marathons and a full marathon along with a few bike races and smaller races.

Not only that, running, biking, and eating right makes your brain work better, period. It has been proven over and over again. I can say without a doubt that I focus much better when I am running or biking everyday.

Well, this year I let it all go, as much as I am much more sane now that I stepped away from my past world I am really unhappy with the fact that I let myself make excuses for not staying in shape. I am not back where I was at  when I was 29 but I am not where I was last year at this time.

This is not a New Years resolution (New Years resolutions are crap, if you want to stay in shape you make a LIFESTYLE change). This is me realizing that I improved my life on one side by starting a business but failed miserably by letting one side of my life go in a bad direction.

Time to fix that. I think it is time to pick a marathon to run and start training, I like goals....

Getting Back In The Groove

I have tried to be as disconnected as possible the past few days which has now put me more than a bit behind on email and basically every other communication method I use.

We live in the same area the majority of our family lives in which means we had three places to visit on the 24th, three on the 25th, then two on the 26th. I am Christmas partied out. Which means it is time to start getting back in the normal groove, although I made promises to the kids to NOT work or be on the laptop as much this coming week since I now have more say on my own schedule than in past years. I will keep that promise to them.

As I prep to get back in the after-Christmas groove I am reviewing as much end of year data as possible on local search, online advertising, mobile search and areas related. Although most data you find this time of year is estimated only (since there is a whole week left....) I like to have an idea how the trends have looked over the year so you can find things to take advantage of going into the New Year.

Long story short, make sure you watch the trends and plan your attack for the New Year, review what has worked, what has not worked, where various trends are headed and plan your strategy accordingly.

All that said, as I get back into normal blogging this week I will show some of the interesting stats I have been finding (some not just end of year but just local search related trends in general).

Continue to have a great Holiday!

Old School Freestyle BMX Riding Circa 1989

Headed to LAX to fly back home to St. Louis but I promised some old school freestyle BMX riding videos of me from my high school days and I searched the archives and found it. I really cannot believe I am posting this. I really wanted to find my half-pipe riding videos but this is all I could find so it really is not the good stuff more the funny stuff.

I am NOT the blond guy. I am the other one:) You will see my ride up walls, up fences (ok I crash) and a tree and check out the mad 360 down the stairs. I really wanted to find some good videos of me crashing and then some good half pipe ones but they are all still on video tape (I do not even have a VCR anymore).

Anyway enjoy, laugh or whatever you want to do. Sorry it is not domain related but I did promise....

Do You Still Read Print Magazines and Newspapers?

Sunday afternoon I was spending a lazy day around the house (we all deserve one) when I realized I was holding the devil in my hands, I was actually reading a print media magazine. One of those old school things that we had before this Internet thingy.

Obviously there is a major shift happening in the news and print media world that everybody could see coming except for the people actually in the middle of it. That shift is the accelerating move of people reading news, opinions, and everything else online. As much as we that live in the online world would like to believe that everyone reads online the major move did not happen until the last couple years and it is accelerating every quarter, and this is not just due to the economy. The shift is here to stay.

Well, in reality I have only ever subscribed to the print newspaper for maybe a total of 6 months, this was around 1995 or so. Pretty much directly after that my news world started to come from media sites online. But I always continued to subscribe to several (ok probably 10) print magazines because for some reason I found them more useful than print newspapers. News is real time, much of the articles in magazines were more story and research based so real time did not matter as much.

Over the years though I have continued to shift until I got to the point where I subscribe to only 2 print publications, those are Wired and Fast Company.

Those 2 magazines are my 2 favorites and I think they still have very good, interesting, and forward thinking articles. I really wish Business 2.0 was still around since that was #2 only to Wired for me.

Anyway, I am sure over the next year or two I will likely quit subscribing to those as well and move completely online.

As the majority of my readers are from a pretty tech savvy online crowd, do you still subscribe to any print magazines or newspapers? How much longer and if you care to share what are they and why?

NOTE: After I wrote this Cate sent me a link to a great story that has about every link you would ever need to understand the shift and what it means. Thanks Cate!!!! I have reading material (online) for awhile.

Dell Cyber Monday Deals Tough On Site Performance

I thought I would try to get some quick Christmas shopping done tonight/morning and as I headed over to Dell I realized the clock had ticked or to Monday which means Cyber Monday deals at Dell. Good timing I guess, I really do not think this puts me in the same camp as the people that camp out for Black Friday deals though but hey, I thought by accident I would be fortunate and grab some of the deals Dell had going for the occasion.

Well, guess I was wrong, it looks like my accidental Cyber Monday early morning shopping is being killed by people actually planning on shopping in the wee hours on the Dell site, such is the beauty of online commerce. You do not actually have to get all presentable to head to Cyber Monday deals at Dell like you had to for the 3am line ups at Wal-Mart.

Anyway, what do I mean by killed, well if server timeouts and transaction troubles are any indication it looks like Dell is doing pretty well this Cyber Monday. Not the most scientific evidence ever but I have read a few reports the past couple days where people measured ping times and server response times during peak periods to track how online retailers were doing (Toys R Us had the only noticeable slowdown from what I read).

This year so far, if you believe some of the reports, has been much better than last year as far as this kick off to the holiday shopping season goes. I know for Dell it must be good so far, try number 7 now on actually completing a transaction.

Happy Thanksgiving Now Get Away From That Keyboard!

A real quick note just to say Happy Thanksgiving to all my domaining friends. I truly appreciate you taking the time out of your days to read what I have to say.

I am still shocked that people read what I put out here and due to that I am very thankful that you do.

But most importantly as much as I appreciate my readers I am thankful for my family, my wife and kids are very understanding of my crazy schedule and long hours and during holidays it is about them. It is time to get away from the keyboard for awhile and remember what is really important.

Now if I could just figure out how to make it to dinner at 3pm and 3:30pm, why can families not figure out how to coordinate eating times.

Happy Thanksgiving, go eat some Turkey!

And go get free backlinks at Backlink.us

Why I Am Not Afraid To Think Different

I have had people tell me I am a bit of a goof ball because I approach things a little different. I do not post the same thing all the other domain bloggers post or people say that I am nuts for saying invest in .COMs, .NETs, and .ORGs but then I go and build a business on .MEs.

Well, it is all about thinking different, most of the very successful people I know have always thought differently, they tend to have quirks and they tend to say or do things that people think are just a bit odd because, in the end, they did not think of it themselves first.

Most startup companies that do great things are successful because they were different, their founders were different, their idea took an old idea and made it something new. People said no way but by looking past that and seeing what could be (having vision) they succeeded in showing people that they need to quit looking back and start looking forward, or thinking different.

Well, I have a long history of being just a bit different and people telling me so at the time but I always felt my direction was going the right way even if I had headed down a different fork in the road than the person that went long before me.

A few examples of where I was a little "different":

I road Freestyle BMX (back in the day, mid to late 80s) before it was part of the multibillion dollar alternative sports industry. On a domaining note, I own BmxFreestyleBikes.com:)

When my mentor at AT&T told me to focus on something other than the Internet because it was a fad like the CB radio, well I did not listen. Good thing huh...

While at ATT I was asked to work on the first VoIP network team, all the 30 year Bellhead guys said get away, it is not going to work, you are wasting your time. Well I made it through the several years of telecom layoffs without ever losing a job because VoIP took off and grew. Heard of Skype or Google Voice, yep VoIP services.

In other words, I am ok with people questioning why I choose to do things a certain way that may not be the same path they took because in time a different approach may be needed for people just entering a certain area.

The point here is at times a different fork in the road may be needed to find success. In many cases the people that came before had a different set of circumstances that led to their success. But in most cases it took someone thinking differently, its ok, be different. Build that .TV or that .ME. If you cannot afford that 100K .COM find a new way to build your business.

One Blog or Many Blogs – Should the Network Begin

One of the things I have been noticing lately is there are quite a few topics I want to blog about but based on the domaining and domain development focus of my blog and the niche viewers I really do not want to alienate my typical readers by discussing other things in my life. Whether it be my renewed focus on training for a triathlon or marathon or topics that tend to be more gadget or even travel focused I am not sure they fit on my own personal blog anymore, kind of a weird situation to be in.

That said, I really like the fact I have branded my main site under my name, I think its important to standup and be seen under your name when doing business and really think the benefits have outweighed the negatives. Although the one thing I have noticed is that BruceMarler.com should really be treated as a business and I have not really been doing that too much at this point, yes there has been money made on it but that has not been a real focus.

All that said, I would like some thoughts from my readers, I have a few names that I think I would like to build into blogs about various topics with a combination of my own personal writing and outsourced writing. I think building a network of real blogs would be valuable, but I am having a hard time determining if it would be possible to combine all into the BruceMarler.com "brand". Also gotta make sure it does not distract from my main projects (hence the outsourced writing).  I am not sure if my domainer friends would want to hear me write about my training plans and swim/bike/run workouts I will be hitting hard over the next few months and think it may be better to put them on RunMarathons.com (gotta remember to make that a link when it launches:) )

Would like thoughts from my readers, to build a network or bore you guys with other topics. Yes this is all just me thinking outloud.....

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