Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

There is nothing wrong with parking domains.

Shocked? I am too.

Actually, I am double-shocked because I am a developer. But the truth is that domain parking costs nothing and can produce a hefty amount of revenue, even today.

The secret? Get yourself domains that have traffic or the potential to convert existing traffic into a continuous flow of revenue.

Some guy registered the .ORG of a .COM that I own. His site is about video streaming of TV shows. My .COM picked up a nice amount of traffic and clicks – even for a parked domain. All I do is adjust my .COM’s template, at Parked.com, to match his layout.

Instant money. My cost: zero.

Anyone who tells you that your crappy long tail domains once developed with a push-button WordPress theme can effectively produce revenue that will pay your bills, is flat out lying. I would never make that promise to myself, let alone to clients!

Domain development means one thing: dedication to your project. There is no “mass development” solution and there is no golden chalice that works across the board, for every domainer and every domain. If you paid to have your domains “mass developed” ask for a refund.

If you can get it.

I’ll admit to having plenty of geeky and nerdy elements: I love ‘Office Space‘ and I once had a calculator wristwatch. With the entire world pushing for twitter, facebook and other social media, one might expect that I anticipated ‘The Social Network‘ unlike no other movie.

The truth is that anything that portrays today’s world through the current technological prism is not mature enough to be in a movie.

In the past, movies about the future were full of exciting predictions regarding technological achievements; when I watched ‘The Net‘ in 1995 everyone was raving about how fast all web sites were downloading. In a world of 14.4k modems, that was a tease unlike no other.

Unfortunately, a movie about facebook’s creation and success is like reproducing recent events – albeit blown out of proportion in order to achieve the ‘wow’ factor that is needed in order to sell theater seats. With the movie’s protagonist not even being an active facebook user in real life, one has to wonder what type of connection does a movie about ‘virtual life’ has to do with real life fans.

With regards to its valuation and role, facebook itself is way over the top; when in fact it’s simply a depository of an astounding amount of personal information. Despite the glossing over of its image, facebook is in fact an anti-social network; an illusion of proximity between people that are not only physically remote, they are often mentally and intellectually disconnected as well.

So much for being friends, tagging each other’s pictures.

On the other hand, ‘Middle Men‘ possesses the type of insight that ‘The Social Network’ lacks; it’s a film that does not pretend to mimic the pseudo-reality of the facebook movie but offers instead a rare view into the world of truly opportunistic entrepreneurs. Instead of tech/geek speak it’s loaded with realism, facts and figures about the online porn industry – the true powerhouse behind the Internet’s proliferation and success.

And yes, for better or worse, it does have a facebook page.