Since the Widgets.com auction on Ebay didn’t reach its reserve, Rick Schwartz opted to develop the name, and Widgets.com has softly launched. The site is currently seeking widget submissions in exchange for cash prizes:

“Starting In May! Widget Contests! Exciting CASH Prizes!!Widgets.com Presents Weekly Contests For College Students
To Develop The Most Innovative Widgets!
E-Mail Contests@Widgets.com For Details!”

I think this is a cool idea, and I think they could even take it a step further. Yesterday afternoon, I spent a few minutes searching for a flight tracking widget. When I develop Burbank.com, I am going to devote a page to Burbank’s growing airport, and I thought it would be neat and helpful to include a flight tracking widget. Well… no dice. It doesn’t look like anyone has made a flight tracking widget for use on another website.

I would like to suggest that Widgets.com allow people to post requests for widgets. They could create a contest forum where website owners (like myself) could post a request for a widget in exchange for a fee. The buyer could choose to pay extra to keep it as an exclusive widget, or they can pay a reduced fee and allow others to use that widget.  I think this could create stickiness to the site.

A lot has been said about social networking sites being huge opportunities for advertisers. There is a captive audience who navigated to a particular website, and they spend countless hours meeting up with friends, sending messages to friends old and new, and building their own online homes. It would seem like a great place for advertisers to get their messages out and attempt to generate interest in their brand or product.

The social networking sites typically have the consumer base, and the advertisers wish to reach these consumers. The problem is converting these users to paying customers, and that might be harder than first imagined. I haven’t heard about or seen a very successful business model that is mutually beneficial for the website, the advertisers and the website’s visitors. I know there are countless people trying to monetize this traffic, but what happens if they can’t? I sure hope someone can identify a successful model integrating social networking and ad spend, because there is a lot of money banking on it.

For me, I am sticking to the “old fashioned” directory type of site. It will evolve with time, but I think there is still a place for it even in 2008 and beyond.

My great-grandfather, grandfather and father were and are in the home textiles business, and each built and owned his own retail store. While growing up, I visited many of the Manhattan showrooms of my father’s suppliers, and I attended many tradeshows at the Javitz Center, domestics buildings and gift buildings. I spent my summers in high school and college working in my father’s store, which is one reason he and I are so close.

Although many people speculated that I would end up taking over my father’s business, my entrepreneurial spirit led me to become a domain investor, where I found this neat little niche. I didn’t think I would follow in my father’s footsteps in the home textiles business, but this assumption may change due to a timely introduction.

A few weeks ago in my “5 With Mike Berkens” interview, I mentioned the success my friend Mike Berkens had with his affiliate development of LuxuryBedding.com. He built a relationship with Torrey Commerce, an ecommerce affiliate site that builds, maintains, and operates websites as an affiliate. Many of the brands offered on LuxuryBedding.com are brands in which I am familiar, due to my experience working with my father.

After speaking with Torrey Commerce and Mike, I am going to try an experiment. I recently registered a *nice* two-word domain name related to the home textiles business. I am going to use Torrey Commerce to build an affiliate site on my domain name. (I know what you are thinking - not impressive. Even if 100% of the traffic converts and buys product, 100% of 0 traffic will yield $0.00.)

Here’s where my experiment comes into play:

Instead of hoping or wishing that people type this domain name into their browsers when they haven’t before, I am going to do keyword research and build content around many of the pages. My goal is to build a hybrid site around the affiliate site, helping my site rank higher in the search engines. Torrey’s content management system will allow for easy insertion of text, and I will try to optimize the pages as best I can with unique content.

I will focus on the highest value luxury products, as the margin is the greatest. Incidentally, based on a bit of research I have already done, there aren’t many searches for many of the luxury brands, and there aren’t many developed sites either. While traffic will presumably be light, by focusing on the smaller niches, I hope to convert this traffic. I intend to use Google Adwords to buy niche keywords where the potential payoff is greatest.

I also plan to work with my father to build a blog on the site in phase two. My father is an expert in the home textiles business, and this would be another differentiating point to drive traffic. Additionally, I may work with my father to meet potential vendors for my website. Perhaps my father can open doors for some of his smaller suppliers, and he could receive a small percentage of ALL sales from these vendor across the Torrey network of websites and affiliates, similar to a brokering fee. This is well down the road, but there are many opportunities.

The cost for me is fairly minimal, as I am basically only paying for the domain name ($7.50) a unique logo ($150), and Adwords (TBD). Of course I plan to spend my own time building content for the landing pages, but I think the potential benefit will outweigh the risks. And, one of the best parts of this project is that it will allow me to work with my father again! I guess some people were right about me going into this business after all.

Following up on a post from a few days ago, it was revealed that Rick Schwartz sold the name iReport.com to CNN for $750,000.  Also included in this price is the hyphenated version, i-Report.com. These great domain names will be used by CNN to supplement their i-Report program.

Founded in August of 2006, i-Report encourages viewers from around the country to send their own videos and photos of breaking news stories in their cities and neighborhoods. This user generated media feature has become popular, and it frequently allows CNN to break news stories before other networks are on the ground.

One lesson that Owen Frager taught me was how important a headline can be in attracting attention. An article in Sports Illustrated shows just how important a headline is. John McVaney is a football playing high school senior, whose college football prospects projected him to play in Division I-AA, as a fullback or a linebacker. When he began looking at colleges, he put a video on YouTube called “Jeff McVaney Highlights.”

After Jeff’s older brother re-watched the video clip, he thought the play reminded him of Heisman Trophy winning, University of Florida quarterback, Tim Tebow. He decided to change the name of the video clip to “Jeff McVaney - The Next Tim Tebow,” which is now the top result on Google for “the next Tim Tebow.” By changing the name of the video, Jeff has garnered the attention of several Division I schools, including Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and National Champions, LSU.

Simply by changing the title of his recruiting video, Jeff was able to go from Division I-AA football prospect to Division I hopeful. This shows the power of a headline, something that everyone should keep in mind when writing articles.

*Yes, I do realize that Owen’s situation is different, however, this was one of the first blogging lessons he taught me.

Several weeks ago, on the eve of the strike by the Writer’s Guild of America, I mentioned that the writers strike could be a boon for websites as people tune in online rather than watch reruns and countless reality shows. Now that the strike has been in place for weeks, there are some signs that writers may opt to move to the online distribution channel instead of waiting idly for the contract issue to be resolved.

According to a recent article in The Guardian about Hollywood writers moving online, “Seven groups are thought to be working on forming companies to challenge the dominance of the studios.” It appears that some writers are choosing to bypass the studios and create direct to consumer content via the Internet. Just as direct marketing does, this content can be highly targeted to a specific niche. Writers will have the creative freedom to express themselves, and they will be able to produce material of their choice, without the normal studio oversight.

I don’t have the time to do this, but I think it would be neat if someone set up a website specifically for the striking writers to distribute their work. YouTube and other video sharing sites are great, but it would be neat to have a specific website devoted to the striking writers, to give them the opportunity to display their skills and allow visitors to compensate them.

According to an article in CNN, the gaming industry is capitalizing on the writers strike, and I don’t see a reason why Internet television couldn’t see the same gains.

I sometimes reflect on just how incredible the Internet is with its reach across the globe  I am doing some work at Starbucks right now, and the guy who stands on the corner collecting money for the homeless walked in to get a cup of coffee. He and I frequently nod to each other and wish each other a good morning, but I know absolutely nothing about him.

As he was leaving Starbucks this morning, he saw me on my computer and asked if I had heard of YouTube before.  After telling him I was familiar with it, he gave me a piece of paper with his name on it and told me to check him out on YouTube.  Low and behold, there he was beat boxing. His seven videos garnered a few hundred views in about a month, no doubt intrigued by his beat boxing skill and cool personality.

On my way home today, I am going to give him something more valuable than a dollar or spare change.  I am going to make a suggestion to him. He should buy the .com of his beat boxing persona (I will even buy it for him). He should then overlay this domain name on his videos to bring traffic to his website. If he adds his contact information to his new website, perhaps someone across the globe will be intrigued by his skill and offer him some work. Even a simple blog site with contact information could give him the exposure he needs to break out of anonymity.

Assuming he takes advice, this will be one time he is happy that I didn’t give him a dollar.

An English cheesemaker has capitalized on a great marketing campaign by auctioning off a slab of cheese that had been the focus of 24 hour web television coverage seen by visiting cheddarvision.tv. After receiving over 1.65 million views on the website since December of 2006, and countless other views on its dedicated Myspace page, the 44 pound block of cheese is now listed for sale on Ebay.

This has to be one of the smartest interactive marketing campaigns I’ve seen in a while. The cheesemakers created interest for the past year using a .tv website, a Myspace page and a YouTube listing, and now they are using their website to direct interested viewers to the auction. The bidding is currently up to £520.00, and I can only hope that the typical scammers that place shill bids leave this auction alone.

When the Writers Guild of America held their first labor strike in 1988, television viewers turned to cable as an alternative to the regular shows they were missing, and they clearly embraced the programming.  That first strike lasted 22 weeks, and the impact of it can still be seen today in America’s television viewing habits, which continue to rely on cable television as its main source of entertainment.

How will the Writers Guild strike of 2007 impact us in this day and age of the Internet?  If the first strike was indicative of what will happen, people will probably spend more time entertaining themselves online rather than watching reruns on television.  User generated content, which is always well stocked, should be in high demand.  Sites such as YouTube will certainly benefit from the strike.

Unique content will be key to turning eyeballs into dollars.  People will be looking to satiate their viewing needs, and if they can get their fix on the Internet, they will certainly be back for more. This could be a great opportunity for some websites to become more mainstream and capture a new audience of Internet savvy viewers.

I think Doug Aamoth said it best on Crunch Gear,

“To those of you in the Writers Guild; whether or not I agree with the reason you’re striking, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you consider creating content for the web. And if you do, I hope you’ll realize that you don’t need the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to get that content onto the Internet.” – Source: Crunch Gear

In 2004, CollegeHumor.com was (and still is) a clever up and coming social website targeting college students, skewed towards males. One of the big draws to the site was the photo section, frequently filled with topless girls with naughty notes on their chests expressing their love for College Humor.

During the 2004 presidential election, girls (mostly) started submitting topless, bottomless, headless, and even “Bush”less photos with the name of their preferred presidential candidate. I did my research and saw slogans like “Boobs for Kerry,” “Vote Kerry ‘04 - Bush can’t touch this,” and of course “NO MORE BUSH IN 04′ - Election Erection 2004.” These photos were all submitted under the theme, “Election Erection.”

In August of 2006, Barry Diller’s IAC purchased a 51% stake in the company that founded CollegeHumor.com, Connected Ventures, LLC. According to the press release at the time:

“NEW YORK, Aug. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI) announced today that it has acquired a 51% stake and full voting control of Connected Ventures, LLC, parent of leading comedy site CollegeHumor.com. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. CollegeHumor is the first site to join IAC Programming, launched earlier this year to buy and build branded online content properties that engage passionate communities.” — Source: Gawker

Shortly after the success of “Election Erection,” Connected Ventures, LLC purchased the domain name ElectionErection.com. Thinking it might all link back to CollegeHumor.com and the photo section tagged “Election Erection,” I navigated there and surprisingly found an adult site needing me to certify I was of proper legal age (well, that’s not the surprise). To my surprise, it forwards to a male gay adult site (LikeMyGayPhoto.com) owned by FriendFinder.

My question…. why would a site whose name was founded on the premise of girls flashing the camera be a gay adult site? Shouldn’t they leverage the brand they created and celebrate the 2008 presidential election accordingly? I guess it might be strange to see a topless girl with whose boobs are tagged, “Bush is Gone; Vote Hillary!”