Business

Toronto Star: Only 100 Blogs Make Money

A story on the business side of blogging in today's Toronto Star makes a wildly inaccurate claim -- only the top 100 blogs make money. Many blogs do make money but a vast majority of them don't, according to Derek Gordon, vice-president of marketing for Technorati, a San Francisco-based Internet search engine for blogs. The site tracks about 65 million blogs. It also ranks them. "Typically, the top 100 blogs do some form of monetization," says Gordon. There's money being made in blogging beyond ... (read more)

2007/02/26

Domain Owner Keeps Pig.Com in UDRP Dispute

In a UDRP dispute decided Monday, the New Pig Corporation failed to take away the generic domain name pig.com after previously trying to buy it for $21,000. I'm hoping that the National Arbitration Forum decision bodes well for my own generic use of Wargames.Com. New Pig owns a Pig trademark registered in 1987 for industrial absorbents used to clean oil spills. The decision sheds some light on the money involved in parked pay-per-click search domains like the one currently at pig.com. Domain ... (read more)

2007/02/01

Dell: Master of 4,264 Domain Names

Nathan J. Hole, the Loeb & Loeb attorney representing MGM in the effort to grab Wargames.Com, has won four more UDRP arbitrations the past eight weeks: Dell Inc. v. Gail Wright for the domains dellcart.com and dellpccart.com The National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Namia Limited for the domain frozenfour.com Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. fslc wf-b for the domain thepinkpanther.com Dell Inc. v. Oguz Ozdemir for the domain dellpc.net In all four cases, domain owners didn't file a ... (read more)

2007/01/30

UDRP Response Filed to Save Wargames.Com

My attorney Wade Duchene has filed our response to the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP) complaint made by MGM Studios over Wargames.Com. We're getting closer to the day where a panel of three arbitrators decides whether to give the domain to MGM, which owns a trademark registered in 2003 for the 1983 film WarGames. UDRP arbitration is an increasingly popular tool for intellectual property lawyers trying to acquire domains for clients, as MGM's firm is attempting here. If they lose, ... (read more)

2007/01/11

UserLand Software's Corporate Shuffle

Dave Winer writes: For what it's worth, I have not sold any UserLand stock, and remain its largest shareholder and a member of its board of directors. I've read, on the web, otherwise. Not so. In my item about UserLand Software's decline, I didn't claim that Winer sold any stock. My understanding is that Winer owns majority interest in UserLand Software Inc., the California company founded in 1988 that created Frontier, Manila, Radio UserLand and Weblogs.Com. He brought in outside management in ... (read more)

2006/12/04

UserLand Software's Shrinking Role in Blogging

Dave Winer wrote this weekend that UserLand Software's still in business: On this day in 1999, MacWEEK (now defunct) covered the introduction of Manila. Believe it or not, Manila is still a product, and UserLand is still operating. ... Sometimes I think Radio, which was initially a success, was another example of breaking users. A year after its release I wished instead we had produced a Manila that runs on the desktop. Creating a whole new codebase and design for a blogging CMS wasn't such a ... (read more)

2006/12/04

Tim O'Reilly and Dave Winer, Peer to Peer

Six years ago, Dave Winer felt like he was wrongfully excluded from an O'Reilly "summit" on the newly emerging field of peer-to-peer programming: David Stutz, Gene Kan, Ray Ozzie and Dan Gillmor were there. I wish I had been. I could learn a lot from each of them. Wouldn't you have wanted to hear what I think about P2P? I'm curious. Are you? If there are going to be more meetings like this, I want to be there. Ask Tim to explain why I'm not invited, and see if you accept the reason. ... (read more)

2006/08/31

Warren Buffett Remarries (or Doesn't)

I received an anonymous news tip this evening from somebody in Nebraska claiming that Warren Buffett just married his housekeeper of 25 years in a private ceremony at his home. My effort to confirm this with sources has been hampered by the fact that I don't have any sources. I wish I did, because I'd love to get this scoop. This is the biggest celebrity gossip involving a man in his '70s since Anna Nicole Smith took a husband. If it has been reported anywhere this evening that Buffett is off ... (read more)

2006/08/30

The Giant Bikini Woman of Peoria, Illinois

I was pleased to discover this morning that the giant fiberglass bikini woman still stands tall in Peoria, Ill., lording over a grimy industrial strip where I first saw her on a bitterly cold day in 1996. Travis Alber's photo best captures the scene. The tire company she calls home has named her Vanna Whitewall, but she began life as one of several Miss Uniroyal women in 1968. Her description on the company's web site provides her dimensions (though they might want to check the math): ... (read more)

2006/08/29

Cry Me a News River, Dave Winer

Dave Winer boasts about earning millions in revenue last year by blogging. Over in another part of the tech blogosphere they're having a discussion about blogs that make big money. I still think Scripting News has the record there, by a wide margin. Last year we did $2.3 million in revenue. Expenses? One salary (mine) and about $1000 per month in server costs. A few thousand for contract programming. Pre-tax profit? Millions. His claim to have made seven figures blogging is a stretch, since ... (read more)

2006/08/23

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