technology Archives - Page 40 of 40

Domain name speculating

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

I recently got an email from a domain name provider called hostess.com.au. It was about selling domains names with some recent examples. The title of the email was ‘Your domain name could be worth big dolllars’.

Here’s a screen grab.

It’s easy to think that this type of behaviour is ‘unethical’. But the reality is we live in a capitalist society. Speed and noticing opportunities is a key business skill. So my view is if you’ve savvy enough to find and speculate on domain names and make some cash – good luck to you. There is no shortage of examples of people who’ve made a bundle doing it.

So how to do it? Well, here’s a couple tips on some people have done it:

Spelling mistakes of popular domains. Then sell advertising or back to original (Tiwtter.com)
Buying the .com of popular country specific domains. Eg www.theage.com – they sell advertising.
Moving quick on new words, phrases entering the common vernacular. (eg tweet, roadrage, soccermom)
New brand name launches
register technology advances, and economic terminology. (GFC.com?)
Short words of a made up nature. Popular for startups.

I’m sure you can think of some other ideas, or methods used in such speculating…. be sure to add them in the comments.

I am on Twitter – Click here to follow me

Idea Borrowing

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Some of the entrepreneurs of our time haven’t been the inventors we believe them to be. It’s not a criticism, entrepreneurship goes far beyond inventing and ideas. In fact some of our most revered entrepreneurs are simply good at cross fertilization.

Let’s take Steve Jobs for example. He didn’t invent the GUI (Graphical User Interface), the mouse, icons, paint, folders or any of the ‘user friendly’ things that Apple became famous for.

He ‘borrowed ideas’. By looking at related categories Jobs was able to adopt new thinking and bring it to his market in a way that made sense. He was a great normative thinker. The best example of Jobs in action was when he was invited into the Xerox PARC office for a study tour to ‘share knowledge’. In essence, they gave Jobs the key to their kingdom. This is where Jobs vision of the future of the personal computer grew from.

The first GUI was on a Xerox office workstation called the Alto. Closely followed by the Xerox Star in 1977 – see picture below.

Look Familiar?

The trip to Xerox by Apple computer’s Steve Jobs in 1979 led to the graphical user interface and mouse being integrated into the Apple’s Lisa and, later, the first Macintosh.

Jobs borrowed ideas, ideas born in a photocopier company.

Ebay took the excitement and quick sale of the auction process from real estate.

Craigslist made an electronic web based newspaper classified.

So the question begs to all entrepreneurs, what new technologies, ideas or systems can we borrow from adjacent industries?

Inventing the future

Posted on August 22, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Check out this vision from 1969 I found on youtube.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pPfyYtiBc]

Sure the usability is different, but conceptually it’s pretty accurate – even with the touch screen. It probably seemed fanciful at the time, even ridiculous or pointless. But people with vision created the infrastructure that we rely on today.

Maybe your startup has it’s detractors, it might just be too much for people to comprehend. What you can be sure of is that plenty of the ideas which seem ridiculous now, will eventuate and become part of our everday lives. Our job as entrpreneurs is to ingore the opinions and invent the futre.