I was watching the World Baseball Classic yesterday and saw the Dominican Republic vs. Panama game in Puerto Rico.  Behind home plate, there was a url being advertised: GoPuertoRico.com.  Personally, I am not a huge fan of most call to action domain names, but I really don’t like this one, because the keyword phrase “Go Puerto Rico” doesn’t exactly make sense.

I decided to take a look at some similar sites, including PuertoRico.com and VisitPuertoRico.com. Both sites look professionally done, and I was intrigued by the “inquire about this domain name” link found on the second site.  The link took me to Most Wanted Domains, so I knew it was one of Mike‘s great domain names. If you don’t know already, Mike has one of the nicest privately owned domain portfolios assembled.

After a bit more searching around the site, I saw that it is a custom-built Trafficz site.  I really like what they did for Mike, and it goes to show that if you have a great domain name that gets traffic, you might want to ask your parking provider to build a custom site.  Not only can you build something that’s more likely to be listed in search engines, you will also create a nice looking site that is compelling to click through for more information.

Thumbs up to Trafficz and to Mike on this one.

Let’s face it.  As domain investors, we are a part of a small community, where nearly all of us are connected in some way. Some companies have partnerships, many people are close friends with others, and some people have known others via forums, chat board and industry functions for years.

No matter what someone writes nor where they write it, there will always be some sort of conflict of interest due to friendships, partnerships and other relationships. With that said, it’s important as shrewd business people and entrepreneurs to see where conflicts of interest exist and to note them in the back of our minds.

Just about all of us have created our own path to get to this little known industry.  Using the same gut instinct that brought us here, we should also use it to determine if someone’s blog post, news article or other public statement is self serving or if its going to be genuinely in the interest of the industry. I have found that while some posts may appear to be self serving at first glance, the content of the post is actually helpful and informative.

For the most part, most of the public domainers (those who keep a public profile) do so to help and encourage others.  While some might have conflicts of interest, people shouldn’t be so quick to publicly knock that person down simply because of a known overlapping business entity or relationship.

It’s difficult or impossible to not have any conflicts in certain posts that I make (especially those where I interview friends or discuss products/services I use), and it would be ridiculous if I had to put a disclaimer in every post.  We need to use more common sense before being so critical and judgmental.

Advertising industry publication Advertising Age weighed in on the impact of the proposed gTLDs today. Although I would have thought an article about the creative possibilities of new gTLDs would have been more appropriate for Ad Age to cover, they focused on the costs associated with gTLDs – both in terms of applying for a gTLD and the cost of brand protection.

While their advice about research is smart, surmising that an up and coming energy drink company would could use a new gTLD (.powerdrink is their example) is pretty far fetched.  I can’t imagine a new brand spending $150k+ to apply for a gTLD such as this – not including costs of managing their registry.

I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered before gTLDs are approved, and Ad Age is correct in advising that their readers look into the implications of new gTLDs.  For readers of my blog, I will be posting an interview with Antony Van Couvering in the next few days, which should provide some good insight into new gTLDs.