Pulitzer Prize Photo

Cyndie rocks her dying son as the song, "Because We Believe," plays on a cd. She sings along with Andrea Bocelli in a whispery voice. “Once in every life/There comes a time/We walk out all alone/And into the light…” From left, family friends Ashley Berger, Amy Morgan and Kelly Whysong offer comfort as Cyndie tells Derek, "It's OK, baby. I love you, little man. I love you, brave boy. I love you. I love you.“ Derek died soon after in his mother’s arms on May 10, 2006. 

For more photos of Derek's short life, click here.  

google acquires Web conferencing company

What's next, Webconferencing integrated with Googletalk and Videoconferencing? What's the next step for Cisco (who just bought Webex)? Or Skype?

Google has bought online video-conferencing software company, Marratech, the latest in a barrage of software application announcements by the online giant.

Google announced the acquisition on its blog, saying the Sweden-based Marratech will be great for Google’s own workplace because Googlers “thrive on casual interactions and spontaneous collaboration.”

Video-conferencing is a logical next move for Google, given its dive into online video recently with the acquisition of YouTube. It’s just the latest front in its battle against Microsoft, which has its own web conferencing software Live Meeting. Cisco, meanwhile, just acquired another major player in the industry, WebEx, for $3.2 billion.

The difference, of course, is that Google paid pennies relative to what Cisco paid. As a consumer oriented company, Google can presumably distribute the software easily and perhaps even for free. Marratech, founded in 1998, raised at least the equivalent of $10 million. Investors include Slottbacken Venture Capital, the investment unit of Telia Sonera, the Sixth Swedish National Pension Fund, Emano, Hagstromer, and Qviberg.

Britepic

Interesting simple product from AdBrite. Use their Javascript when you embed an image in your blog, and you get zoom/pan functionality on your pic. In exchange, Adbrite will serve Ads to your pic. Hmmm. 

skype launches click-to-call feature

this is a bit old, but still good news. Via a Firefox extension, Skype adds "click to call" icons beside each visible phone number on the site that you happen to be browsing. Click on the icon, and your Skype client launches and a SkypeOut call is made (via your Desktop Skype client). I need to check if this works also for regular Skype to Skype calls? For example, Dotph has a skype-to-pbx gateway. Dial our Dotphofc skype account, and you'll get our regular PBX greeting. 

Here is  a review. And here is the press release. 

Moguling

Buy lots of interesting domain names first (especially ones that will do well on Google searches), slap on some blogging and search optimization techniques, then look for Bloggers to put content on the site. This technique seems to be catching on since Jason Calcanis sold his blogpubishing empire (of 50 sites - including the popular  Engadget) to AOL for $25M in October 2005. At that time, Calcanis claimed Weblogs Inc was making $1M monthly in Google Adsense  clickthroughs.  

i've always wondered what the business arragement is like on these blogs - what happens if the blogger/writers leave and set up their own competing blog? The answer seems to be, as far as DotVentures is concerned, is that - it doesn't matter  if the writers leave, new writers can always be found  - it is the domain that matters. The domain  has the google ranking and will bring in the hits. 

Dotventures calls this technique "Moguling". More info here and here. 

hiking in Ronda (Andalucia)

Pics from our recent trip to Lisboa and Granada (Spain)

One of the most impressive palaces I've ever seen is the Alhambra, in Granada, Andalucia. It is hauntingly beautiful, set amidst the snow-covered Sierra Nevada (and the highest mountain in the Iberian Peninsula, Mount Mulcahen - which I briefly considered climbing, till I realized I needed crampons).  It was built by the Moors back in the 12th-13th century. Quite surprising were the hammams  (aka Saunas).  I didn't realize this technology was actually applied way back then. The saunas were massive - perhaps enough to service 250 people. Water was piped in, from several miles away. Servants would burn firewood  to would  heat the hammam's floor. Then cold spring water, when allowed to flow through the hammam's floors, would burst into steam. The Hammams had curved glass roofing, so you could see the sun while enjoying a steam bath. When we were there, temperatures were at 5 degrees Celsius; you could very well appreciate what a luxury these baths were.  Man, these guys really knew how to live!  

Even more impressive, were the painstakingly ciphered halls. Upon close inspection, you notice that the arabic print on the stucco walls repeated the same phrase over and over. Over and over, room after room, from bottom to the valuted ceiling. It said "There is no Winner but Allah". How about that. The moors build this achingly beautiful palace, set it at  a high promontory, fill it with well-manicured gardens, and the best creature comforts that 12th century technology can offer, subjugate the Spanish, and in the end, this is phrase they chisel into their walls over and over, millions of times, to remind them to be humble; to remind them of their place in the world. Makes you wonder why the Spanish conquistadors thought of the Moors as barbarians.  

Google Developer day!

Are you into mashups? If so, you'll want to check these upcoming conferences out:

Ignite Where - May 28 (San Jose, CA)

Where 2.0 - May 29 and 30  (fairmont hotel, San Jose , CA)

google developer day  - May 31  (mountain View, CA)

 Where camp - June 2 and 3 (San Francisco)

More info from Radar O'Reilly.  

People sometimes ask me, why go to  these conferences, when one can read up on them on the Web. The answer, my friends, is that there are many things you learn by talking to people at conferences that you won't get  from reading RSS feeds. Like what other developers think of Googe Maps vs Yahoo Maps.  Or what new products will be coming out in the next 9 months (that they'll gladly tell you over dinner or whisper conspiratorially, but will never tell the press). Or which companies are throwing a lot of marketing behind a product, and which ones just happen to have an impressive Webpage.

Apple WWDC schedule

It's June 11-15

Early Registration ends on April 27.

Will they be previewing the Iphone?

Almost 25% of Europeans use Firefox

The images above are from xitimonitor.  Once Microsoft loses control of the browser market, things may unravel quite quickly for the Redmond based company. IE  is integrated tightly with MS Office, and, I suspect  Microsoft's .NET strategy .  (after all, if innovations need to made, it's nice to make modifications on both  the server side and the client (IE) side).  With Microsoft now forced to make its online  offerings work with Firefox, Microsoft is now at the level of any other Web 2.0 company, without any of its usual built-in advantages. 

It'd be interesting to see at what point MSFT stock starts to tank. Will we see Bill Gates rush back from an early retirement?  

A possible showdown between ICANN and the US Government?

For the longest time, many ICANN observers have felt that ICANN was not a truly independent organization,  and that the ones really calling the shots was the US DoC. This became evident when the Bush administration successfully blocked the .XXX domain.  Now comes an even more potent dilemma:

 Who gets to sign the ROOT? That is, who keeps the DNSSEC private keys that authenticates the root (and thus, every gTLD and ccTLD, and by inference, every domain and subdomain thereof).  He who holds the private key to root will be the only person able to successfully spoof a cached Nameserver entry. The person holding the root DNSSEC key could, theoretically, spoof the PH nameservers, and then spoof the  Nameservers handling malcanang.gov. If that person were to spoof the MX as well, he could then intercept all incoming mail for gma@malacanang.gov. The only indication that there was an interception would be in the SMTP header (and even then, code can be easily written to alter that).  Interesting, eh? (who knows, the CIA may be spoofing GMA's mail as we speak…)

If the US governent were to hold the keys to the root,  then only the US Government would be able to intercept mail to a DNSSEC domain.

So it's really interesting. Some people are expecting ICANN to move its HQ out of the US (to prevent US meddling). My guess is, either (a) DNSSEC is delayed interminably while this is debated over and over  (thus allowing ICANN to save face) or (b) the US will agree to let some neutral entity like the UN Security Council to hold the key (or even ICANN).

My preference is (b), of course. But my guess is that the Bush Govt will push for (a). Should be interesting.

Afilias to raise .INFO prices as well

In a letter to Paul Twomey, ICANN’s CEO, Afilias advised the fee charged to registrars for a .info domain will rise to $6.15 on 15 October 2007. This follows VeriSign’s announcement of a fee increase for .com and .net domains effective on the same date.

For the letter, see:
http://icann.org/correspondence/laplante-to-twomey-13apr07.pdf

Verisign recently raised prices for COM domains. What's next? A .EU price hike?  A recent study (made available at Lisbon two weeks ago) by Verisign showed that a huge % of COM domains were actually in use (as opposed to being "just parked").  I believe the number was hovering around 85% (this includes domains owned by domainers, and being monetized through companies like SEDO, DomainSponsor, Parked.com, Skenzo, et al).  I guess Verisign sees that if they raise COM prices to $10, probaby 95% of their clients would keep their COM domains. (What's the alternative? Get a cheaper domain and -  Junk our calling cards? Redo our marketing brochures? Invalidate all the advertising money we've spent?) 

It could just be that the only reason keeping Verisign from ratcheting up the price of COM is political. Verisign has to be "nice", or at least, perceived as being "nice", otherwise the DoC may get on their case.  

Google launches click to call

This  is supposedly a free service on Google Maps (perhaps for a promo period, or only within the US). What will probably happen is that Google will tie this in with Adwords and Pay-Per-Action (now on beta). The idea being that if you find the Ad and click on the call button, then Google will charge the Advertiser a premium for the Call (similar to  the pay-per-click adwords model).  Original post is here.

dotAsia sunrise period

A few local domainers have expressed interest in joining the .ASIA sunrise  for trademarks and registered companies.  If you're interested, please send me a private email at jed@i.ph, and we will contact you once we are ready. 

Here is the latest info from DotAsia:

.ASIA Sunrise Period for Trademark Holders to Launch in September  
The dotAsia registry has released a draft launch schedule for the new .ASIA top-level domain name, as well as proposed registration requirements and processes for trademark holders and other organizations before registrations become available to the general public in next year’s Land Rush. 

The Phase I Sunrise Period is expected to begin in mid-2007 with registrations for local government agencies, followed by Phase II in September for trademark holders. The registry has indicated that companies may be asked to provide such details as owner name, trademark name, filling date, registration date, trademark class and type, and country of registration, but has not confirmed if copies of documents will be needed.

The Phase II Sunrise Period will have three stages:

• Reserved for trademarks applied for before March 16, 2004 and registered at the time of the domain name application.
• Reserved for trademarks applied before December 6, 2006 and registered at the time of the domain name application.
• Reserved for trademarks applied for during phases "a" and "b" with the actual class description. For example, Trademark ABC registered under a class for chemical goods could apply for the domain name “ABCchemicals.asia.” More than one application will be possible based on the number of classes in which a given trademark is registered.

The Phase III Sunrise Period for legal entities is tentatively scheduled for November 2007. The registry has indicated that a copy of a business registration certificate will be required and posted on the WHOIS for third party objections and challenges, but details have yet to be finalized.

Much as .EU is restricted to members of the European Union, at least one of the contacts for .ASIA domain names will be required to have a presence in one of the 73 countries defined by ICANN as being part of the Asia-Pacific region, including India and China as well as Australia and Japan. Global Reach estimates that more than 64 percent of Internet users are non-English speakers and that Asian languages alone make up 33 percent of the online population. While current gTLDs tend to focus on a vertical group (e.g. commercial entities, network providers, organizations, etc.), .ASIA is designed to allow organizations and individuals to demonstrate membership in the Asian community.

 

 

global domain performance in 2006: 32% increase over 2005

Domain Name Industry Brief Reports 32 Percent Rise in Registrations Over 2005  

The latest issue of the VeriSign® Domain Name Industry Brief reports that as of the end of 2006, total domain name registrations reached 120 million, representing a 32 percent increase over 2005 and an eight percent increase over the third quarter of 2006.

The domain name industry continued to experience strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2006, with more than 11.6 million new registered domain names, a three percent increase year over year and a 23 percent increase from the third quarter.

Registrations for ccTLDs increased 31 percent year over year to 43.7 million, and 10 percent from the previous quarter with more than four million registrations. China alone added more than 500,000 domains in the fourth quarter, a 43 percent increase over last quarter.

The base of .COM and .NET domain names grew to 65 million domain names by the close of 2006, representing a six percent increase in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2006, and a 30 percent increase year over year.

PLDT myDSL call

I recently came across this Odeo post of a myDSL customer sales representative being berated by a customer. The irate customer first begins by repeating and repeating his problems with myDSL. Then this escalates to swearing at the female customer rep. He swears "P* I*" at the rep,  gets her to break down, and not the least bit affected by the girl's emotional state, continues to swear P* I* about 15x!  Not content with that, he later edits the dialog, posts it  online, perhaps to highlight the inefficiency of PLDT's customer service, or my guess is,  as an attempt to get the young girl fired. But what amazes me more, is how the vast majority of comments to this post are unsympathetic and actually  blame the girl - for crying, for being unprofessional, for being uninformed!

 What is clear to me, is that there is a glaring  discrepancy in the way our society treats the poor. Kung hindi lang nag-tagalog yung sales rep, I don't think the (male) customer would have sworn invectives at her. If the girl had answered the phone with Call Center English, the customer would have assumed that girl was educated and perhaps of a higher social strata, and would have probably been more courteous. 

Just because the poor are powerless doesn't mean the rest of us should treat them callously, or  forget they are human beings in the first place.

Dotph prices revisited

It looks like my comment on Yugatech seems to have generated a lot of comments. Now I can appreciate why Yuga's blog has pretty high Alexa rankings (rank = 22,186) compared to say, Cebupacificair.com (27,794),  FHM.com.ph (24,915), or www.gov.ph (43,108).

My original post was addressed  to the SEO/Adsense community, in an attempt to find out what their needs were and to create a product that was suitable to that segment. 

Instead, the responses seem to come more from individuals , and along the lines of "well, what about the rest of us"?

So let me address that.

First of all, there seems to be this misconception that DotPH prices are expensive, vis-a-vis those of other countries.  If you compare how Registrars retail PH prices compare against other ccTLDs, you'll see that PH is actually cheaper than most countries. An adsense ad on Yugatech's page, for example,  leads to this AsiaRegistry pricelist.    You'll see that in Asia, only NZ and Australia  retail substantially more aggressively than PH (and that's not because of the Registry price, but because of the volumes these ccTLDs can command). 

For instance, here are .AU's Registry prices:

http://www.ausregistry.com.au/news/news84.php

 The starting wholesale price for a com. AU domain is AU$50, which is roughly US$40.98. Note that PH wholesale prices start at far less ($27.50), and for both Registries, there is a drop in price the more volume you buy.

So I think the real issue should not be - why is a PH domain expensive, but why can't it be as cheap as a COM domain?

I thought the answer to this was obvious, having been touched before by other posters. But I'll recap.

 The main reason PH is more expensive than COM is that all the good domains in COM are all  gone. You can be  the owner of "Maldita" and use a domain like Maldita.PH or settle for Maldita-clothingforwomen.com.  You might save a little by buying a COM domain through a discount domain company, but then you'll have to spend millions more just to get people to remember your COM domain name. Because in the end, domain names are like 1-800 numbers. In the US, one pays thousands of dollars for expensive 1-800 numbers because they are easy to remember. I will have no problem remembering the URL of Maldita.PH but It will take millions in Advertising for me to remember the URL   Maldita-clothingforwomen.com. So in general, the extra $ one spends on a memorable PH domain is money well spent. 

The other reason why PH is sold at a premium  to COM, and perhaps a less obscure reason, is that Search Engines like Google only have 2 ways of determining if a website is in the Philippines. One is its IP address, and the other - is if it ends in PH. So if you're shopping online for clothes, and you want Google to show you all  clothing websites in the Philippines (by hitting the radio button "only show pages in the Philippines"), Google will not find Maldita-clothingforwomen.com (given that most philippine companies host their websites abroad), but Google will easily find Maldita.PH.  (Note that if the COM domain is hosted in the US, Google will assume that the COM website is NOT Philippine-related.)

So - in a nutshell -  this is why ccTLD domains are priced higher than COM. People may want to save a little buy buying a COM, but if their market is primarily based in the Philippines, and if  Search Engine Traffic is important to them, then getting a PH domain (even at a higher price) makes more sense.

Having said that, let me also point out that DotPH has not forgotten individuals, and the blogging community. Three years ago, we created  the i.ph domain - a Free domain that comes with mail-forwarding, blogging software, customizable templates, photo gallery, podcasting,  free webhosting, and even free livechat support. It's 100%  made in the Philippines, and lot better than Blogger or Livejournal or Myspace, or Multiply. Check it out at http://i.ph.  And feel free to post your comments on our forums.

Beware of entering passwords at local Internet Cafes!

Here's a report I saw on ISAW:

ISAW reported about the proliferation of keyloggers in almost all Internet cafes in Manila. I have experienced it first hand yesterday. By pressing CTRL + ALT and A, a password dialogue box will appear for administration, to my surprise the password of the Perfect Keylogger of that internet cafe is "password1". I tried their other available computers and all have the same passwords.

It seems that for Internet Banking, Online Stock Trading, or any Online Financial Service to take off in the Philippines, financial institutions will need to  use something like Brian Cartmell's mypw.com. Brian Cartmell is the former CEO of DotCC; he sold his shares to Verisign around five years ago. As of Domainfest Los Angeles in January 2007, Brian said they were still in Beta. (if memory serves me right). 

Are you a webdesigner who wants to service foreign (eg US) clients more effectively?

I know there's a huge community of Philippine webdesigners out there seeking to make good $$ by getting foreign contracts (while working remotely in the Philippines). If you're one of them, you know that one of the biggest obstacles you face is that clients like to talk to you face-to-face, to discuss design changes and alterations. Programming contracts are easier to complete remotely, but Webdesign contracts require a lot of artistic input from the client, and sometimes face-to-face meetings is what your client will demand! If you're in this category, then check this out.

It's a tool for collaborating artistically remotely - it allows your client to annotate your artwork, suggest different colors or designs, or paste a link to the kind of design he prefers. It'll never replace face to face meetings. But it may be good enough! It's called Conceptshare.   

Visa invests in DotMobi

Originally posted on CircleID: 

dotMobi, a consortium to offer the first and only Internet address created for mobile phones, today announced that Visa International has made an investment in dotMobi and will have a representative on dotMobi’s Board of Directors. This investment adds Visa to a consortium that already represents 13 leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and internet content providers.

The addition of Visa to the range of dotMobi investors represents a vital addition to dotMobi’s mobile “ecosystem” represented by dotMobi’s investors. Visa brings to dotMobi extensive mobile commerce and payment capabilities, including solutions for contactless mobile payment, Over the Air (OTA) personalization, coupons and direct marketing.

“Visa’s strategic alliance with dotMobi puts us at the forefront of working with mobile operators and technology providers to develop practical and achievable best practices for the delivery of enhanced mobile commerce services,” said Patrick Gauthier, senior vice president, innovation, Visa International. “This alliance, coupled with our recently launched Visa mobile platform, positions Visa to advance the adoption of mobile services that provide convenience to consumers and value for those within the delivery chain.”

Neil Edwards, CEO of dotMobi. “We’re absolutely delighted to welcome Visa on board as our fourteenth investor. As always, our goal is simply to make the internet mobile. The addition of Visa to our company and to our board is the next step in making that a reality.”

With more than 450,000 domains having been registered with dotMobi since the .mobi domain launched to the public in September and with mobile web sites going live on a daily basis, accessing the Internet on mobile phones is fast becoming a day-to-day reality.

 

I saw the dotMobi presentation at the ICANN Lisbon conference and came away unimpressed. It's not clear to me what the need is for a dotMobi domain. When will a mobile user want to visit a company's dotMobi site?  The only uses I see are (a) to see where a company - eg - dotph.mobi - might be located, and to get that company's contact info.  (b) to click-to-call once the contact info is found.  

 Unfortunately, this isn't useful for big companies - like IBM - who have multiple locations and contact info. Yet it is these companies that will be buying dotMobi. The SMEs will probably just  put their maps/contact information on their existing COM websites. Webservers can detect if the browser is a mobile, and return the simplified page. So I expect more COM websites to be mobile enabled, than dotMobi sites!  This means that the mobile domain that most users will search first will be the COM domain (or the ccTLD domain), rather than the dotMobi site!

It's also clear at this point that DotMobi doesn't have an m-commerce strategy, which to me, is the key rationale for a mobile domain. (This was our conclusion with our  dotPhone foray). Unfortunately, dotMobi's answer is to create dotMobi policy formation group, external to DotMobi and composed of members of various industry groups. This will only make it more difficult for dotMobi to come up with a cohesive and innovative strategy. Innovation isn't really possible when left to industry committees.