New Web Suffixes: Increase in Competition or Monopolization of the Web

Posted on September 9, 2012 by michael

Last year, ICANN the not for profit organisation that coordinates the global Internet’s systems said “it would take applications for new domain names to foster growth and competition online.” One company owning a domain suffix could potentially wipe out the online presence of their competitors. It suggests more a monopolization of suffix names rather than the growth and competition predicted by ICANN.

The commonly used .com suffix provides open competition as you only have to purchase the domain. If there is an online cultural shift to use these new suffixes then companies may be pushed out of the online market by a competitor who holds the rights to that suffix. These outcasts may have to remain on the .com or their region specific suffix to continue to do business online.

An impartial body could be set up to regulate the distribution of the new suffixes. For example if there was an apple suffix, Microsoft could in theory register a website called www.microsoft.apple which would be no use to anyone. I feel that there would have to be an independent body that controls the suffixes and distributes them on an individual application basis. The alternative is to allow companies to buy a suffix outright with the risk of eliminating their competitors.

Amazon has applied to gain control of 76 suffix names, one of them being .book. For example imagine a local bookshop called Easy Read that also runs its own website. If one day they decided they wanted to call their website www.easyread.book they would have to gain Amazon’s permission to use the suffix .book. This would result in most likely an extra cost to Easy Read that would not have existed if the .book suffix was regulated in the same way .com and .co.uk is. The cost to Easy Read would depend on how much Amazon considered them a threat.

There are clearly commercial ethics involved in how ICANN deals with the potential problems that will be created with these new domain suffixes. They are however charging a whopping £117,401 ($185,000) per application. ICANN has received 2000 new web suffix applications and if you do the math it works out at £234,802,000 ($369,601,828) in total.

Google tops the list of suffix applications with 101 of the 2000. Meaning Google has spent in the region of $18.7 million on the application process to gain control of these suffix names. Some of these names include .mom, .dad and .kid.

Click Here to view the complete list of new domain name suffix proposals and find out if your business could be affected by these new domain name suffixes.

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Edinburgh Olympic Torch Route

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Alan Gillespie

With only a few days left before the Olympic flame reaches Scotland’s Capital, we’ve got a couple of quick tips for businesses and individuals who want to maximise their Olympic Torch experience.

1 plan in advance where the Olympic torch route will be in Edinburgh. A torch route schedule is available by going to this site: Edinburgh Olympic Torch Route – 13th June 2012.

2. Embrace the crowds – the majority of the Edinburgh torch route is going to be busy, if you’re a business owner think of the impact that will have on your business – access to the property, reduced or even limited parking.
More importantly, can you get additional signage or advertising in place to help promote that extra footfall which will be near you and possibly even getting discreet media coverage?

3. Pick a vantage point in advance – we all know the Edinburgh torch schedule (see link above), so find a spot and be there at least 30 mins in advance – especially if it’s outwith the main 9-5 working hours, as there will be more of crowd.

4. One final tip for business owners – take advantage of this rare opportunity – find a smart and witty way to embrace the Olympic fever as it comes through Edinburgh. Use your facebook page or Twitter account to tell people about your business and offer them something for free. Everybody loves something for nothing!

Most importantly monitor your website traffic before and after the event, to see if the extra work you’ve put in has been worthwhile. Knowing how to read the information is as important as getting visitors to your site in the first place.

Need some help with maximising your ‘free marketing’ with the Olympics or reading your website visitor stats? Give us a call on 08700 50 25 62

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Standing out from the crowd with the Olympic Torch

Posted on June 6, 2012 by michael

Unless you’ve been living on the dark side of the moon for the past couple of months you will in all likelihood be aware that the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games is nearing. From the end of May 2012, bricks and clicks businesses all over the UK will be gearing up for a sixteen day commercial marathon involving Olympic merchandising and equally themed promotional campaigns.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics commanded an estimated global audience of 4.7 billion, which is expected to increase for this year’s games. The Olympic Games will provide clear commercial benefits for businesses in the UK. The ongoing nationwide torch bearer events will pull in extra revenue for shops in and around the route. Similarly themed events will provide great exposure for the businesses taking part. The Olympic Torch is coming to Edinburgh and the Scottish capital is gearing up for what will be a busy day on the streets.

One example of businesses grasping this opportunity is the sponsored concert at Edinburgh Castle, with the headlining act Emile Sandi likely to pull in a large audience. The main question businesses should be asking themselves this week is “using technology are we make the most of it?”

There are obvious benefits the torch will bring to the local retailers and amenities in Edinburgh. The route that will go through Edinburgh will pass many shops resulting in a vastly increased presence on the streets. Companies should use this opportunity to make themselves stick out on these two days where a TV presence is likely.

Businesses should make the most of FREE location based check-in services such as Foursquare, Google Places and Facebook Places to get as much online exposure as possible. These services can be used to get customers involved in the promotion of a business. Businesses can set up a place that represents their business on these services and advertise various deals and promotions based on a rewards scheme. These rewards are collected in some cases by users who check in at these places regularly. For example this month, special Olympic promotions to customers who show loyalty via said check in services can gain rewards for their actions. Users can check-in and recommend businesses where they have had a positive experience to friends who are also present on these services. With potential customers likely to be travelling in groups, deals that involve bringing new customers along to your place of business would likely boost the chance of new and repeat business. The fact the two day event is being hosted on the streets of Edinburgh makes it vitally important that businesses are getting exposure to potential customers who are involved in said online check-in services.

Although Princes Street will be closed due to tram works popular shopping streets like Lothian Road and the Royal Mile will bear a large proportion of the crowds whose intention is to get a good view of the Olympic torch. This increase in number of potential customers will undoubtedly bring the chance of an increase in revenue for the two day event. Equally the congestion on the streets may cause supply chain issues for local businesses if they are not properly prepared.

There is just a week to go until the first day of the Edinburgh Olympic torch route. There is still time for businesses to prepare for what should be an enjoyable day for the people of Edinburgh and the local businesses.

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The immergence of Twitter as a vital business tool

Posted on June 1, 2012 by michael

Twitter increases to be an important business tool with every passing tweet. Via the use of smart phones the mobility and ease of access to the application makes it is much easier for businesses to see what people are saying, when and where they are saying it and who they are saying it to. According to Statistics from January 2012 there are 225 million active users, 55% of these users gain access to twitter using their mobile phones. From these statistics it’s safe to say that the market for mobile twitter users is approximately a whopping 120 million users. It’s these kinds of statistics that get advertising executives brimming with excitement. This obviously provides a massive marketing opportunity for businesses that want to get as much exposure for their product/service as possible.

Twitter played a vital role in the civil uprising across the Middle East and North Africa often referred to as the Arab Spring. The attempted closure of twitter and other social media sites by some of the regimes in power only increased traffic to these sites due to the sense of injustice felt by those trying to broadcast their messages of peace and democracy. As useful as a revolutionary tool it was and will continue to be, connecting rebels and their leaders to the masses isn’t its only function.

Two of the tools that can be used when doing research into a target market is the hash tag (#) function and the search function. A lot has been made about the hash tag which is predominantly used to tie together topics of conversation as opposed to individual items. So if a company selling a wide range of organic fruits is doing research into their target audience, they may find the twitter search tool very useful. A company using the search tool can effectively drop into other people’s public twitter conversations – that may also include organic fruits; this means the company doing the research can get an idea of the topics and possibly other products that their target group enjoys and consumes. For example it may be apparent that a large proportion of the target group are active in the recycling process and have concerns about climate change. If applied correctly this information combined with the product that the company is trying to promote could potentially lead to a successful advertising campaign for that product.

The use of the search function may also give businesses an insight into peoples’ thoughts in general rather than a view based just on those who use twitter and on that specific product. Information like this could prove to be pivotal in the success of future campaigns.

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Website tune up for Glasgow Piano Tuner

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Alan Gillespie

D.S. Love has been tuning my piano at my home in Lanarkshire for a few years now and we eventually got around to having a conversation about how he finds new business for piano tuning in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Cumbria areas.

In addition to their preferred word of mouth referrals, they previously relied on placing online adverts through Yell.com, but after Ireckon did some research on the potential business they should be drawing it, D.S. Love decided that optimising their small and simple website, would be a better long-term solution.

Ireckon carried out the keyword research on the various terms: Piano Tuner Glasgow, Piano tuning Glasgow, Piano Repairs Cumbria etc. and made a number of recommendations to D.S. Love, including using Google Analytics to monitor the number of visitors they have to their website. In addition Google Analytics will also provide information on how customers found the website, using which keywords and their geographic location, which is very important as D.S. Love with their piano repair and tuning service, cover quite a large geographic area.

Ireckon have now made the first set of optimisations and are eagerly awaiting Google and the other search engines to update their indexes, so we can review and monitor the improvements in visitor traffic and hopefully conversions to the piano tuning website.

Needing a piano tuned? Click here to visit D.S. Love’s website.

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