Very interesting article... The rise and fall of a company based on online ads...

[PeterMan]

A record $160-million VC investment. A rich Web strategy. A quirky founder. For a few weeks last spring, Guelph, Ont.’s Geosign had it all. Then mighty Google stirred. And it was over

http://www.financialpost.com/magazine/story.html?id=324817

 

[tonyfloyd]

wow...Peter...great article!

Thanks for sharing....

Tony

 

[a2zdomain.net]

Thank you for sharing...indeed a very benefiting article.

 

[Jeffreyw]

Sadly, it focused too much on making money that it had to create fake websites with fake contents filled mostly with ads.

Just like this site www. shoping. in - this is worse though since it has no content.

 

[Deleted member 5660]

Sadly, it focused too much on making money that it had to create fake websites with fake contents filled mostly with ads.

You just described the entire domain parking/direct navigation industry.

 

[PeterMan]

This is my favourite part of the article:

According to Niki Scevak, an analyst at Jupiter Research in New York, the majority of those initially involved in search arbitrage were small players. "These were guys running search arbitrage out of their basements, making maybe $20,000 a month," he says.

I would love to be small time making $20,000/month!

 

[ARMG]

This is my favourite part of the article:



I would love to be small time making $20,000/month!

Haha I agree, so whats Normal? $500,000/month?

 

[Sinfully Wicked]

That really doesn't surprise me with Google just closing the door like that.

 

[a2zdomain.net]

so, the domain parking industry is actually at the mercy of Google?

 

[katherine]

Not only google but yahoo too. They are the major ad providers.

 

[tonyfloyd]

Sadly, it focused too much on making money that it had to create fake websites with fake contents filled mostly with ads.

Just like this site www. shoping. in - this is worse though since it has no content.

how is that site not banned???

 

[stock_post]

how is that site not banned???

he has a decent domain - just need to add some content so, he can make money.

 

[Find A Date]

I wouldn't mind owning these:

Quote: "assets with little value" - a few domain names, such as hockey.com and golfcourses.com"

What do you think Hockey.com and Golfcourses.com would sell for on todays market?


Robert

 

[PeterMan]

I wouldn't mind owning these:

Quote: "assets with little value" - a few domain names, such as hockey.com and golfcourses.com"

What do you think Hockey.com and Golfcourses.com would sell for on todays market?


Robert

I was thinking that too... those are valuable names for sure, but nothing compared to the value of the "empire" they had built, at least before Google shut them down... Still, I bet you could easily make rent money from parking those two names...

 

[tonyfloyd]

wonder how many people/co's are still doing this successfully...?