Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

The economy might be bad but there is one piece of the industry that remains solid and healthy in its revenue: the gaming industry.

I won’t bore you with the usual news about gaming domains acquired by domain investors to build gaming portals – we all know that Bill Karamouzis is the #1 player in the game

For a while now I held onto a LLL .com that started with the letter “X” – apparently not the best of letters according to some domainers that believe in the Easter Bunny as well.

The fact is, not only is “X” popular in China and several Hispanic countries, it’s also a very “Xtreme” letter in the gamer’s lingo.

And that’s exactly why a gaming company from Canada acquired my domain via Sedo, paying a fair price in the low $xx,xxx range that by far exceeded my acquisition cost. The buyer has created some very successful “augmented reality” gaming apps for the phone market and they’ve been on my radar for a while now, as a potential buyer.

Bear in mind that the same gaming corporation applied recently for the trademark for the acronym; instead of going the usual route of bullying and attempting to wrestle away an aged LLL .com they did the right thing and placed an offer via Sedo. After very little negotiation on my part, the deal was closed and I’m very satisfied with the sale.

Thanks, Canada – time to set up my gaming gear and get fragging!

It was in late September, 2005 that I heard of MillionDollarHomepage.com – an odd project of a financially-strapped college freshman from England, Alex Tew.

The Million Dollar Homepage project started on this day five years ago – August 26, 2005 – with the intent of collecting one million dollars from an ingenious method of online advertising.

The beginning wasn’t smooth but within 30 days the news spread like fire on dried crops. By collecting $1 per pixel, Alex Tew discovered that people’s budgets can be stretched in order to obtain more visibility; the larger the image one placed on the Million Dollar Homepage, the more it cost.

When I realized the short term & long term potential, I spent $900 on a 30 x 30 pixel block that to this day resides at the top right side of the Million Dollar Homepage. I was lucky being able to reserve a premium spot right against the top; you can’t miss the white capital “A” against a black background with a bold red outline

It generated thousands of clicks and the generation of several business leads. Not to mention, that $900 spent on advertising was yet another business expense when tax time arrived. Therefore, my cost was zero.

Five years later, we have reached the exact point in time that Alex promised to keep the web site alive. In fact, according to Alex this would be the *least* amount of time that the Million Dollar Homepage will be live for; his intention is to keep it going “forever”.

Regardless of whether the web site vanishes or not, Alex Tew proved that small ideas possess the quality of genius and that one can make lots of money, even if the individual amounts are small when there is volume involved.

So Happy 5th Anniversary, MillionDollarHomepage.com – thanks for being a part of Internet history and legend.

That quote from the 1998 movie, The Big Lebowski always cracks me up. Perhaps, because it’s one of the funniest movies of the late 20th century.

Also, because the quote is perfectly usable when one expects a large amount of money and it doesn’t arrive regardless of any inquiries and attempts to locate it.

I’ve been muttering this quote – where’s the money, Lebowski – since a sale was finalized on Sedo. The amount involved did not justify waiting for a check in the mail, so I changed the payment method to “wire” instead.

Sedo is very prompt with delivering the funds, no question about that. But normally, it takes 2 days maximum for domestic wires to hit one’s bank account.

In this case, I was muttering “where’s the money, Lebowski” for the better part of the week.

Finally, I decided to call my bank and I was told that the routing number for “ACH” wires is different from that of regular wires. In fact, without that proper routing number money will never hit your account.

So next time, before you start mumbling to yourself and others “where’s the money, Lebowski” – pick up the phone and call your bank.

Apparently, domain sales at TRAFFIC Dublin weren’t that great. Objectively speaking, compared to DomainFest’s recent record sales, the TRAFFIC Dublin auction results were pitiful.

But really, who cares?

While it’s important for the conference organizers to make money from auctioning domains, TRAFFIC – or any other conference big or small – isn’t all about the auction sales.

TRAFFIC is my favorite conference due to both the style and the type of its attendants.

I witnessed the organizational style of the two Ricks, and they are doing a great job gathering the important members of the domain community, allowing them to share a physical common ground to establish new business relationships.

A domain that can be sold outside of an auction does not make or break a conference’s quality or status. The afterhours meetings, the brain-storming, the sudden formation of business alliances – all these are elements that in my book are more important than the total number of domains auctioned.

TRAFFIC Dublin is an opportunity to forge alliances, especially between American and European domainers; there is a lot of potential in that convergence of talent, regardless of the auction totals that seem to be occupying the minds of some domainers to the point of obsession.

Without doubt, the biggest event of the year will be held in Miami in October. TRAFFIC is the domain conference paradigm and it will prove itself once again, in less than 2 months from now.

Since the introduction of the so-called “social media” Internet users are spending increasingly higher amounts of time being “social” online.

Which translates, of course, to less real-life socializing.

Regardless of whether your friends, buddies, followers or readers share that same feeling of connection to you, there is a certain danger lurking in the shadows.

Trojans and viruses.

Although on very rare occasions there are incidents of malware existing directly on the social media platforms themselves – e.g. Facebook or Twitter – the real problem is email.

Email is still the #1 source of computer infection from trojans, viruses and other malware, delivered in the form of an attachment or as a URL forward to web sites that contain code which in turn infects the unsuspected visitors.

With social media being a daily source of communication, there is a huge increase in the number of fake emails that appear to be coming from Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc. These emails mimic the notifications sent by the respective social media web sites, and more often they are carrying the little germs that will attempt to take over your computer.

With subject lines such as “You have a new message on Twitter” or “John Doe has sent you a message on Facebook” these emails are relying on a user’s instinctive reaction to a message that they are familiar with receiving many times a day.

Be careful with these messages – ensure you have a quality antivirus installed and active at all times and preferably never open such emails. Instead, just go to Facebook or Twitter or Myspace directly and check to see if indeed a message is waiting for you.