Verisign Raising Prices of .COM/.NET in October 2007

Verisign has announced today that they will be raising prices of .COM/.NET in October 2007.

This 7% increase means that Verisign will make an additional $27 million per year.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Apr 5, 2007 — VeriSign, Inc. (NasdaqGS:VRSN - News), the leading provider of digital infrastructure for the networked world, today announced, effective Oct. 15, 2007, an increase in registry domain name fees for .com and .net, per its agreements with ICANN.

VeriSign announced that as of Oct. 15, 2007, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $6.00 to $6.42 and that the registry fee for .net domain names will increase, from $3.50 to $3.85. This will be the first registry fee increase for .com and .net since the fee structure was put in place by ICANN in 1999.

Since 1999, the volume of Internet traffic and domain name system (DNS) queries on VeriSign’s global infrastructure has increased from an average of 1 billion queries per day in the year 2000 to nearly 30 billion queries per day today. Traffic volume continues to increase with the emergence of consumer-driven services, the surge in web-connected wireless devices and the proliferation of DNS-centric technologies and services. In addition, the .com and .net infrastructures are continually being fortified and scaled to defend against increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks. Security exploits have grown by 700 percent since 2000 and are projected to increase by 50 percent in 2007 and 2008.

To address the increase in both DNS volume and cyber attacks, VeriSign recently announced a major initiative entitled Project Titan to expand the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by ten times by the year 2010. Under Project Titan, over the next three years VeriSign will increase its daily DNS query capacity from 400 billion queries a day to over 4 trillion queries a day and will increase the aggregate network bandwidth of its primary resolution centers around the world from over 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) to greater than 200 Gbps per second. VeriSign will also expand its deployment of Regional Internet Resolution Sites to over 100 locations across the globe by 2010.

Facebook Buy Passed up and Mozilla’s COOP Launch: I bet you Missed these Important Marketing Developments Today

Facebook was a goldmine – and Yahoo passed on it!

Co-written by analyst Mark May, an analyst report that covers consumer Internet, references Facebook’s most recent traffic numbers (about 1.5 billion pages/day) and says social networking could one of the most important growth areas of the Internet over the next five years.

By referencing Facebook’s doubling in growth, the reports also implies Facebook may be worth twice what it was last year, suggesting the business may have a $3 billion value to a buyer based on last year’s supposed $1.6B Yahoo “offer.”

Was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerman ready to sell? – Maybe, should Yahoo have wined and dined him until he was willing to sell. YES.

Mozilla released a new product called the COOP – which is social networking for your browser.

Check out Mozilla’s Coop!

ScanScout Backed By $2 Million In Funding; Launching Tool That Monitors Video Topics For Advertisers

ScanScout, a Cambridge, MA-based startup that has developed a tool that lets online video publishers target the topic of a video, has received $2 million in angel investments, according to Mass High Tech. One of the participants in this first funding round was angel investor Ron Conway, who said he generally invests about $50K in tech companies, but decided to invest $150K in ScanScout, citing growing demand for online video and its ability to attract advertising.

Two former MIT classmates, ScanScout’s president Waikit Lau and CTO Steven Lee, developed the technology, which launches publicly next month. ScanScout monitors the content’s spoken text, audio and images and then select related advertisements that run just below the video screen.

Russia’s Largest eCommerce Site Raises $18m

OZON.ru has raised $18M led by Index Ventures with Holtztbrinck and Cisco. Baring Vostok, a private equity investor, did a $3M acquisition in 2000 of a controlling stake in OZON.ru. OZON.ru claims to be Russia’s largest eCommerce site. It sell books, CDs, DVDs, software, games, electronic products, etc. It says that it delivers more than 3K orders per day. OZON plans to use the capital to build out more distribution centers in Russia.

If you think the Russian eCommerce market is new, take a glance at CISCO’s announcement from Tuesday that they would focus on Russian Venture Capitalism opportunities.

Iminent Brings Video-add-ons to Instant Messaging

Iminent, startup based in France provides video-add-on applications for instant messaging systems. Do you remember the old days of IRC or ICQ? Well, imagine those on steroids! Iminent has secured nearly $4 million from French-Italian investment group 360 Partners, AC reports. Iminent’s video system, which is currently in beta test mode, allows users to make short videos and attach them to IM when chatting. IMer’s can use “emovids,” which is a short animation that is intended to serve the same function as an emoticon. The company’s website says that the application is free, though it offer any other details about how it is to be marketed.

Russia’s Yandex Acquires Biz Social Networking Site

Yandex, the Russian portal and WiFi network operator, has acquired Moikrug.ru, which claims to be the country’s largest social networking site for professionals. This is much like Linkedin, but in the Russian business space. Moikrug roughly translates to MyCircle.
Regular and active a:c euro reader Yakov Sadchikov, co- founder of Russia-based search company Quintura, uses the term ‘acq-hired’ to describe the deal, suggesting the know-how and experience of the team at Moikrug was the attraction. Moikrug is said to have some 100k registered users.
No disclosure on price but rumors range from $1.5M to up to $5M including cash and Yandex stock options.

Read the full story - Yandex buys social network MoiKrug.ru

Top University Sites that Google Trusts (Top 20)

Check this out!

Alexander Fedrov has posted the top 20 universities (American), that have the highest Google “Conditional Trustrank”.

1. [uic.edu] trust [673]
2. [uiowa.edu] trust [580]
3. [byu.edu] trust [564]
4. [mit.edu] trust [457]
5. [loyno.edu] trust [428]
6. [umn.edu] trust [383]
7. [uoregon.edu] trust [345]
8. [ua.edu] trust [340]
9. [stanford.edu] trust [312]
10. [ucdavis.edu] trust [312]
11. [cwru.edu] trust [269]
12. [vjc.edu] trust [263]
13. [dongguk.edu] trust [245]
14. [case.edu] trust [239]
15. [harvard.edu] trust [223]
16. [cie.edu] trust [210]
17. [ucne.edu] trust [199]
18. [sdsu.edu] trust [199]
19. [cmu.edu] trust [197]
20. [sage.edu] trust [184]

Rick Schwartz Launches Blog - Domain Blogs Worth Reading

Rick Schwartz has launched his new blog, you’ll find valuable insight into how Schwartz runs his business and other domain related activities, including T.R.A.F.F.I.C.

In addition, there are 2 other blogs that you should check out to stay on top of the domain world!
Owen Frager runs a really nice blog with plenty of funky things to keep you busy while you’re working. =)

Frank Schilling is a top notch domainer that you should always be watching and reading to stay on top of whats going on in the industry.

* On a side note, the DNJournal released this week’s top domain sales, the top of the list is Greeting.com @ $350k - this one is from the last Moniker/TRAFFIC auction in Las Vegas.

Korean Video Site PandoraTV Closes $10 Million Financing

Sometimes billed as “the Korean YouTube,” PandoraTV has completed a second funding round of $10 million led by Silicon Valley-based DCM. Previous investors Altos Ventures, STIC International and Saehan Ventures also participated in the round. The funding will be used to support the company’s growth, expand its service offerings and finance the further build-out of its network infrastructure. PandoraTV also reported that David Chao, co-founder and general partner of DCM, has joined its board of directors.
The Seoul-based video sharing site was founded in October 2004. PandoraTV claims to have 12 million monthly uniques.

One aspect that differentiates PandoraTV from other video sharing sites is its concept of “personal TV stations” that allows users to post video clips, run their own TV shows, and even advertise products or services in each personal TV channel. Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom recently launched programming on PandoraTV’s viral service. Release
– The financing comes at an interesting moment for Korea’s entertainment industry. The Hollywood Reporter notes that one aspect of a Free Trade Agreement signed with the U.S. lifts restrictions on the programming of foreign content, while another steps up pressure on South Korean internet service providers to protect intellectual property.

Venture Hacks Guides You Through The VC Process

Started by 2 entrepreneurs, Venture Hacks is worth taking a look at!
I spent some time checking out their site last night and found it to be a great start for anyone that’s looking to learn more and attract some VCs.

Get Caught up on Search Marketing & VC

Kontrib Offers a Digg Alternative for Non-English Speakers

One thing that Digg lacks is foreign involvement due to the interface being in purely English. Kontribb offers the solution!

To submit and vote on articles at Kontrib, you first register. After you submit an article, Kontrib’s linguistic machines immediately translate articles into supported languages. These are Arabic, English, French, and Spanish, with more to come later. Kontrib is slick because it translates both the article summary hosted at Kontrib’s site, and the original article linked to. Comments are also translated.

Until now, language translation has remained clumsy. There are text translation sites such as BabelFish, or Google’s language tool. The coming Worldwide Lexicon Project promises to help bloggers translate their sites by mobilizing interested readers. Human volunteers will translate sites with higher quality, argues Brian McConnell, the project’s leader, and they’ll translate into any language. Though, we’d argue that human efforts will vary in quality.

What is FaceBook up to?

Recent traffic statistics at social networking site Facebook are impressive and we’re wondering if there’s a wider story here.

Facebook tells us the site is seeing about 1.5 billion page views a day, up from about 1 billion daily views last month — statistics that haven’t been released until now. That’s a huge jump.
Read more over at VentureBeat

So How Did you Learn SEO?
Here’s part of Rand Fishkin’s Story about SEOmoz:

“In 2001, the company that would become SEOmoz (at the time just Gillian, Matt & myself) began taking on some e-commerce development projects. Previously, we had designed static websites in Flash & HTML and done some consulting in usability, but with the addition of Matt to the team, we were ready to take on some beefier projects. We designed and developed several sites for clients and”

Rand over at SEOmoz would like to know how you got your start!

ZoomInfo - The HeadHunter’s Best Friend Expands

ZoomInfo today launched its Business Information Search Engine, a service that offers information on more than 3.5 million companies. Although the company profiles are similar to those offered by Hoovers.com and other subscription-based providers, ZoomInfo business profiles are free. More about Zoominfo at Search Engine Land

Matt Cutts Blog Hacked on April Fools Day

Ok, I was a bit surprised to see this nice little piece of hacking work done on Matt Cutt’s site by the DarkSEOTeam.

Click for the full size screen capture of Matts Blog:

Once you take a look at Matt’s Site, you’ll want to cruise over to the www.darkseoteam.com site where you’ll see the following:

Of course I’m lying when I make everyone believe that content is King.
Of course black hat SEO and spamdexing are the only Kings.
Google is just a stupid algorithm relying on spammy backlinks.
But you guys had no right to let everyone know. That’s why I defaced your bloody DST site. To show the entire world how evil a white hat can be.

In fact, I’m as evil as my employer
All your backlinks are belong to us !

Elaborate April Fools Joke? Or really good hack job?
You be the judge!

DeepFish Mobile Browser Launches by MSFT

This is a pretty cool little toy that Microsoft has released, under the name Deepfish. This project is compiled with different technology from companies like Sea Dragon and the imaging is managed by the company Photosynth. Both of these are companies that have highly specialized technology for the mobile browsing market.

This is a free little browser being offered and you wont have to wait for it to be sent through your carrier, you can get it now.

From the Microsoft labs:

Deepfish is a lightweight client application that leverages a powerful server side technology for delivery of content such as web pages to a Windows Mobile device. Content is displayed in a familiar desktop format that requires no additional work by the content or site author.

Deepfish provides:
• A familiar look and feel of web pages on mobile as seen on desktop.
• Bandwidth optimized rendering for faster content delivery.
• Address bar web navigation.
• Intuitive zooming, panning and cue map for quick navigation and browsing.
• Support for simple link navigation and form submission.

Link Baiting Strategies Over Take Reciprocal Link Building

Stoney deGeyter has a great post about how Link Bait is the New Reciprocal link strategy. He gives a nice little recap of the history of recip linking and offers some great insight into some of the new strategies for building links using link baiting. Of course, you can’t discuss link baiting without mentioning Rand Fishkin’s extensive discussions of link baiting.

A Little BH SEO Fun

Noah Hinrichs has some interesting results from an experiment that he recently conducted regarding Content Generation. Of course his experiment is on a small scale, if you want to check out some more info on content generation and large scale link building, you’ll want to swing by the blog of my friend and my favorite “massive content generator,” G-Man.