To my surprise, it was a box full of goodies from the King of Shaves!

goodies from KoS

Will King, founder of King of Shaves (KoS) is not just the usual business man you’d meet everyday.
I first came to know about him through his products KoS, which are quite well known in the UK.

The man has a vision! One needs balls of steel to come up and challenge multi-billion dollars companies
like Gilette.

A few months ago, he launched his first razor (He called it the AZOR), or HARDWARE, after his SOFTWARE products
(Shaving Oils, moisturisers, etc..) became well established. He is well on his way to create a BIG name on the shaving scene.

Imagine a world where someone sends an email to the CEO of Gilette and gets a prompt reply! Yes, that’s Utopia :-
Dream world.. and that’s what makes the CEO of KoS different. He IS on the battle field, he replies to queries
and helps as much as he can. That’s a different way of doing brand awareness,and an effecive one too.
(Makes me think of the guys at ZAPPO’s!)

Will King entered the shaving business in 1993 with nothing but a real passion for what he wanted to do. 16 years later, his fast growing company is becoming a serious competitor to one of the most well known brands in the world.

Why do I see him as a visionary?
Well just type in SHAVE.com . He owns the category killer, generic domain for this business.
When I approached him some years ago for ‘the best SHAVE in the world.com’ , his reply was ” I already own
‘theWorldsBestShave.com’! ” -(which he points to SHAVE.com)
I was even more impressed!!  the man knows what he’s doing! And he is fully harnessing the power of the internet,
social media, to achieve his goals. That’s a perfect example of someone being ‘one step ahead!’

You can find more about him here : … his blog
His Facebook profile: WillKing
and of course,  SHAVE.com

and a token of appreciation from me,  www.theAZOR.com ! (Hover your mouse over the blurry spots )

Happy Shaving from Delicious Mauritius!

Thanks XR.com <– pretty cool to spread the word if you need to sell something quickly. I  used XR.com/BuyMyCar which I forwarded to my friends and acquaintances. (Let me know if you are selling yours, I’ll redirect it to the online ad- page)

Where am I going?  Home, which, for me is ..  Delicious Mauritius. Tons of plans in my head that I’m trying to put on paper. – and hopefully online soon

I have been busy building one of my domains as well. The guinea pig was thebestVODKAintheworld.com and I’ve been surprised by the result and the response. Thanks to those who got involved by voting! I can say I’ve learned a LOT about Vodkas lately, brands I didn’t know existed, and How Marketing clearly influence people depending on where you are in the world. (that’ll have to be another post!) .

I also learned about the power of a developed domain. thebestVODKAintheworld.com was in my portfolio for a couple of years with almost zero traffic since I hand -regged it, and now.. it has a nice trickle of visitors everyday + a few Vodka companies are watching it    . So,.. go vote if you haven’t yet Thanks.

I admit being tempted to add Google adwords on the site to monetize it, but I didn’t . I do not like sites serving google ads. Sorry if I’m going to offend anyone here, but for me, a website serving such ads lose their professional touch instantly (just my honest humble opinion)..

I am still investigating ways to monetize thebestVODKAintheworld.com though. Maybe selling the links on the result page? or offering banner ads ? .. We’ll see..

From what I’ve seen so far, Americans seem to prefer the Goose!

Anyway, back to Delicious Mauritius. Yes, I did manage to get the .com after a long cat-and-mouse game ! I secured the domain name lately and be sure I’m gonna make something out of it

Delicious Mauritius is how the media  has been calling my country (Mauritius) the last few years – mainly in Europe-. And indeed , it is a Delicious place to be.  If you’ve heard of Mark Twain, maybe you are familiar with one of his famous writings,  Following The Equator . He wrote “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”

That says it all!

So yes, I am moving back to some warmer temperatures. I really did enjoy my time in the UK, and will surely miss all my friends (and the Snow!) . Bless the internet, to keep in touch!

So here it is,.. my last post from the UK. Next time you hear from me it’s going to be from Mauritius, Indian Ocean. I just hope it doesn’t take long to sort out a decent internet connection once there !!

Happy Easter!

Best,

Ritz.

PS: please do let me know if ever you are planning a visit

here’s a recent article written by Andy Moreton of Luxique.com . I like this one too, but unfortunately I do not have ‘the best JOB in the world.com’

The live football game (soccer for my American readers) just ended with Liverpool trashing  Real Madrid 4 – 0  in the second leg of the UEFA Champions league to seal their place in the last eight of the Champions League.  -Liverpool did win on Real Madrid’s grounds 1 : nil – So really, its quite humiliating for the Spanish side (nine-time European Cup winners).

I have not watched a football game since long,. (domaining is to blame mainly ) and did enjoy this one a lot.

At every advertisement break , Heineken , one of the major sponsors of the cup was very prominent . And their hammering of their catch phrase in our minds.. Great Together!

Rubbish ads, imho, but Great Together WELL visible.

No need to guess what I did next…

fire on the laptop..(well that’s a lie,. it’s always on!).. open my web browser and type in GreatTogether.com

Nice Website!  And notice that GreatTogether.com simply redirects to   greattogether.heineken.com  . Good use of domain forwarding.. just like Visa gets it

The tournament started in September 2008 and Heineken launched the ‘Great Together’ campaign around that time. Amazing that they bought this name just weeks before, according to the DNJournal sales report for week -Mon, August 18,2008 — Sun. August 24, 2008.

click to enlarge

… for $4250 !!! Bargain indeed.. for them,.. a billion dollar end user!: 

source: Wikipedia

watch the whole set of ads here

If only the previous owner knew … if only..

then again… its hard to predict the future use of call-to-action domain names.

as for me , I know what is  thebestFOOTBALLTEAMintheworld.com .. you’ll never walk alone!

Famous domainer, Frank Schilling, dropped out after the bids rose to 2.9 Million.

This seems to be a battle between 2 giants, Toys R Us and National A-1 . Current bid (at time of writing) has reached 4.9 Million . (I think we’re reaching the peak 5Million, my estimate)

National A-1 seems to be using a precise tactic, of raising  Toys R Us bid by 5K everytime…

That’s a great psychological game. ToysR Us now knows whatever bid they place, National A1 will raise it by 5K.

they’re determined and showing it!
and so far, I see National A1 winning this.. psychologically.. they are .. so far (I see frustration and hesitation, when someone raise their own bid!)
.. or maybe Toys R us have not yet played their trump yet…

(after auction update: seems that National A1 had their limit at 5 Million -great match! they indeed gave Toys R Us a good run for their money!)

toyrsrus bids $ 5,100,000  – bidding finishes..

National A-1 bids $ 5,000,000

National a-1 asks for 10 minute break

toyrsrus bids $ 4,915,000

National A-1 bids $ 4820,000
toyrsrus bids $ 4,815,000

National A-1 bids $ 4,530,000

toyrsrus bids $ 4,525,000

National A-1 bids $ 4,505,000

toyrsrus bids $ 4,500,000. they raised their own bid

break…

toyrsrus bids $ 4,300,000

national A-1 bids $ 4,155,000

toyrsrus bids $ 4,150,000

5 minute break announced

national A-1 bids $3,755,000

toyrsrus bids $3,750,000

national A-1 bids $3,555,000

toyrsrus bids $3,550,000

national A-1 bids $3,305,000

toyrsrus bids $3,300,000

Special thanks to Larry from DirectNavigation.com

Well here’s an inspiring little story which my domainer friend Helen experienced first hand. Helen teamed up with me on theBESTSintheworld.com project some years ago. Before that, we both shared a similar interest in photography.

On the domaining side, we both agree on the fact that just buying a domain and waiting for offers is not good enough! You need a solid plan and work hard, keeping at it everyday to make it happen!

We believe that the future is in development. Users are not stupid.
They know when they’ve landed on a parked page.

What can be more off putting (from a user point of view) than typing in a domain name in your web browser and landing on a page filled with ad links that are,..sometimes,.. irrelevant to the domain name ??

‘Might as well use google next time!’ is what one will think!
Does google return parked pages?
No. They return pages filled with contents, relevant to what the user is looking for. And they’re good at it.

Has anybody noticed that the click conversion rate keeps decreasing (relative to number of visits) on a parked page?

So, back to our story!..Helen’s been down the route of developing a ‘short’ , ‘catchy’, ‘brandable’ domain into a coffee shop style meeting place where visitors would come and chat about various topics of interest but with a main focus on photography.

But doodarz.com failed miserably! While it is short and brandable,. it didn’t mean anything! ..and it was a pain to spread the word!

Brandable is fine, as long as you have the funding to turn your domain into a brand that is.., and are prepared to shell tons of cash on advertising.

Some would simply quit after tasting such a failure, but not perseverant Helen.

During our frequent domaining discussions, I once introduced her to GoDrops.com, where one can see live (well,..with a small delay) domains that are not being renewed. (btw, thanks Jason!) We both started catching domains that previous owners have decided to let go.
And one night, Perfectly Captured.com appeared on the drop list!

Spot on!

No need to tell you what happened next. After a lot of sleepless nights spent coding and tweaking the site,
PerfectlyCaptured.com opened to the public. With word of mouth (easier with such a domain), the website started growing quickly!

Here are some stats as at time of writing:

Members 195
Photos 1,570
Comments 6,923
Views 54,731

Not bad really, for just 3 months of being online and Zero $ spent on advertising!
(and that’s just the start!)

Who would believe that this same domain, that was abandoned by its previous owners, would flower into such a buzzing website! That’s the beauty of domain names!

some lessons from this experience..

-sometimes real gems can be found in the garbage. (the garbage is getting even better in this tough economic climate )

-Failure is Success ‘disguised’ . You learn!

-While it’s usually better to learn from other’s mistake, there is nothing more enriching than experience!

-Perseverance pays. Keep at it! You never know, the big breakthrough could be just round the corner.

bestS,

Ritz.

PS: If you are into photography, do have a look at PerfectlyCaptured.com ! It’s definitely a perfectly captured domain name

It is time for my first post of 2009.

Apologies for not getting back on the blog earlier, but things have been manic since I came back from holidays. Hope you’ve had a great start of the year so far!

Let’s get straight to domain names in the lime light.

if you are reading from the UK, you might be familiar with the website ‘compare the market.com’ . I’ve used them myself to get a good deal on insurance. What they do is basically compare insurance quotes from multiple car insurance companies based on the details you provide them.. It saves you from going to each individual company website and ask for a quote, and it is big business. Have a look at this bbc article.

“Price comparison sites: deal or no deal?” 

PRICE COMPARISON SITES – MONTHLY HITS*  
Moneysupermarket.com – 4.046m
Gocompare.com – 1.039m
Confused.com – 1.026m
Uswitch.com – 0.701m
Comparethemarket.com – 0.304m

*Monthly average Oct 2007-Oct 2008, Individual visitors aged 15+, Excludes traffic from public computers, mobile phones & PDAs
Source: comScore

So, to my surprise (agreeable surprise I should say) I saw an advert on tv lately showing  Alexander who owns  “compare the Meerkat.com” where they compare Meerkats – sort of a dating site for meerkats., I guess!

I was so used to seeing advertising about ‘compare the market’ that whenever I saw one on TV, I just didn’t bother. But when I heard about Alexander’s site, I had to rush online to see it.

Watch the video here!

love the accent ! It’s been a long time since a domain gave me such a big smile! Obviously it is yet another way to bring attention to “compare the Market.com” and a nice way. The smile they’ve put on people’s faces will certainly rubb off on their brand.

Compare the Market.com may be lagging behind their competitors on number of  hits per month, but that would change if they keep on delivering such creative  ad campaigns.

So be careful people if you are looking for car insurance go to  “compare the market.com”  and not “compare the meerkat.com”. And if you  are a meerkat, you know where you need to go

 
See you later,
alligatorS..

PS: for those not on my facebook  friends list, here’s a video of  a few shots I took in Dubai! 

Also, note what’s written on my shirt     Ritz and Wife in Dubai

Thank you for these priceless minutes of attention you have given me . Thank you for your comments, and thank you for making me your friend.  This year has been busy and I am very grateful for being busy. thebestBLOGintheworld came to life this year and through it,  I made a lot of domainer friends and got to  meet a few in person.

Every domainer is an island,.. but bridges are being built. We need to work together to make ‘our world’ known.  Educate those outsiders so that we are better understood and can all reap the fruits of our investments.

2009 is looking to be as exciting, if not more! with new TLDs coming in, the tough economic challenge , parking in turmoil, Mr Goog shaking things up, . . we all have a lot to look forward to!  The Game is changing once again,..  to test our patience and our perseverance.

I am very optimistic, to those in doubt, I’d say :  Each domain is a piece of the internet puzzle, each piece is unique, each piece has its place. We domainers are building something BIG. There will come the day where EVERYBODY will need a domain name. Just like everybody needs an email address today. And when this time comes, we will have had a headstart on a lot of people. WE will be there! It may take time, but it will happen. Good things come to those who wait, .. and I’m not saying that because I’m a fan of Guinness..

what i'll wear at the airport

Friends, this is going to be my last blog post for 2008. Tomorrow, I’m flying to Dubai-Malaysia-Singapore to enjoy the end of year celebrations. If there are any domainers reading from these countries, shoot me an email if you fancy meeting up over a drink.

See you in 2009,

Merry Christmas,  Happy Hanukkah,  Happy New Year,  Happy Whatever,.. the most important thing is, I wish you Health and a lot of Happy times in your life..

on another note, I don’t know if you                                       . . . . . . . .     have seen the news lately,.  <–click

(I’m loving the domain name they use :)  )

I’m working towards it

my BESTS ,

Ritz

Usually we think , one domain name, means one website.

One would visit  an online store  called,  say, MAMAZONE.com and land on the  index page. Then if visitors want to contact that online store, they would look for the contact us button which would take them to the contact page, (e.g http://mamazone.com/user/contact.php)

If that store is running a promotion at the moment, they would surely advertise it on their main index (home page). The user would click on the promotion banner  and that would take them to the promotion page where details of the promotion is provided ( e.g http://mamazone.com/promo/buy2getEverything3.html)

Well today I saw an ad on TV showing something I saw coming a long time ago.
I’ve seen smaller websites do it, but today on tv, it was a major brand.

WinWithVISA.co.uk 

video here: (click image to see video)

Great, memorable call to action.
I checked it.. *mind you, its a .co.uk*

and guess where it took me ?

http://consumer.visaeurope.com/promotions/win.html

which is actually a page on VisaEurope.com . Great use of domain forwarding here!  ‘WinWithVisa’ works much better than ‘VisaEurope.com/promotions ‘ . WinWithVisa is catchy, memorable and the VISA people GET IT! – (except maybe the use of the ‘ALL-CAPS’, as my friend Aaron would surely point out!)

if a visitor had to go to that page from VisaEurope.com there’s what they would have had to do.

1.go to VisaEurope.com

 2. chose a country

3.click on promotional offers

4. click on find out more

and finally,… 

But visa wants to make life easy for its uk customers..
and it advertises  WinWithVisa.co.uk  which takes you … straight there.

thanks for this short cut VISA! Love it!
We will be seeing more and more domain names being used this way soon..
(if you know other examples, please let me know )

 
On another note, It’s Christmas soon, and plenty of Christmas do’s and dinners for most of us. Plenty of good food and drinks.

Some might not be as lucky unfortunately, but still,

we can try to give them…

thebest DINNER intheworld (donate if you can)

thank you.

——–

*13th Dec 08 update: they get it too!  www.FeelitWorking.com  , video here

What are they trying to prove by attacking a hospital, opening fire on ill, defenceless people?

I can’t find the words to explain how hurt I felt today when I saw reports of the attacks on the news.

They killed indiscriminately. Indians on the street, tourists in cafés, commuters in a busy railway station. 

Tourists and businessmen taken hostages in the Taj and Oberoi ,two of the best hotels in the world (one of them in flames at the same time I am writing this).

Attacking Mumbai was an attack on the world.

I am worried since I’ll be walking on those same streets in exactly 1 month. Those same streets I saw today on TV, covered in blood of innocent people who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time..

Despite the horror these attacks have brought to the world, some sad people are trying to profit from them.

 MumbaiTerrorAttacks.com -parked. regged 26Nov08

 MumbaiAttack.com – parked.  regged 26Nov08

(Please do not visit, I would not want to give them any additional traffic)

This must be a gruelling job to be staying up in front on the laptop for such long hours..
[well hey, that's what a lot of us domainers do anyway ]

We obviously talked about theBESTSintheworld.com and he gave me his impression about the concept.

He opened my eyes to something I didn’t think of!
When he checked ‘the best CAR in the world.com’ , he was agreeably surprised to see the result.

 He found the car amazing but more interestingly, … he’d never heard of the brand itself!..

Well now, that came as a surprise to me!

It is quite a well known brand in Europe! When I ask people around me what is the best car in the world? I almost always get that brand as answer.
I thought it was well known all over the world, but apparently not.

This gives some more weight to the concept. We will have some of our domains forwarding to websites that would be well known, giving the concept credibility, as well as some websites that would be relatively unknown but provide such high-quality products that we feel it’s our moral duty to tell the world about them.

In any case, there will always be someone discovering something new!

To take Jamie’s own words,
‘I’ve never heard about them, but hey I guess now I know what is the best car in the world ‘

Do you know what is
‘the best HOLIDAY in the world.com’ ?