creative_pic01.jpg I guess I really like to challenge Ms. Draper’s 6th graders. I have found that every challenge I offer her students seem to rise to the task.

So today I created another challenge for Ms. Draper’s class (this makes number three). The challenge is to think of a cool name for a new website I want to create.

money.jpg Many of you may remember Ms. Draper’s sixth grade class I taught in March. Well, Ms. Draper has asked that I return to teach. This time around I plan to teach the students in depth about Affiliate Marketing.

Last time I issued the $100 Challenge and the kids did a good job of cleaning me out (I was really impressed with their eagerness and creativity). However, in today’s class I issued a new $100 Challenge and also a $5 Challenge. Below I have outlined the new challenges with their rules.

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grave.jpg Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I wrote a post about how we can help relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people. Due to this post I pondered a great deal last night on the freedoms I currently enjoy here in America.

Whether you are for or against the war in Iraq really means little to me. What is important is our responsibility to freedom—both at home and abroad.

I am a grandson of a World War II vet. My grandfather spoke little about the war before his death (even at the great prodding of his grandsons). The atrocities he witnessed and the emotional and physical strain he endured was too great for him to relive.

iraqi_girls.JPG As marketers we often get a bad rap. Mainly, I believe this comes from having the image of being totally money centered and focused.

I guess it’s easy for this to happen. Most marketing success is easily gauged by how much money a campaign generates. Large amounts of dollars equal—wine pouring—fantastic success; whereas, no dollars equal—pack up your desk—miserable failure!

iraqi_children.JPG Well, I have recently been asked to redeem all marketers and change this poor image. Currently, my close friend, Scott, is over in the scorching deserts of Iraq providing humanitarian aid. He has asked that I use my nunchaku marketing skills in providing high visibility for their humanitarian effort.

domain01.jpg Before I go into the results of the case study I want to personally thank those that participated. For two weeks I had a core group of volunteers who faithfully checked on five different whois search engines. Their assistance and suggestions really helped in putting all this together. To get some background on the case study read this post and this post.

My case study was based on the belief that shady whois search engines were being pinged whenever a domain search was being conducted. If they saw numerous pings they would snatch the domain and try to sell it back to you.

With this belief, a group of about 20 people for two weeks did whois searches on specific terms. Here are the terms and the whois search engine we tried the terms in:

In March I wrote about Yahoo’s announcement of unlimited space for their email accounts. This week Yahoo has stated that the migration to an unlimited reality has began. Yahoo has promised to have everything moved by the end of August.

I am not sure people are aware of the monumental significance of what Yahoo is doing. So, true to the fashion of the Internet, I am going to give the top 10 reasons of why you should be excited about Yahoo Mail Unlimited:

10. You no longer need to have 10 email accounts to store everything.
9. You finally will now have space for all the spam you receive.
8. Terry Semel will have enough storage for all his resumes.
7. You now have a place to store your extra Gmail emails.
6. You finally can save all the emails you are never going to read again.
5. The Billionaire Russian widow will have room for all the helpful emails she receives in spending her fortune.
4. You don’t care now that your mother sends you 12 gigabyte emails.
3. You no longer have to worry about salvation—Yahoo owns your soul!
2. Yahoo has finally done something worthy of Google copying.
1. When Yahoo “accidentally” erases your emails you will have a legitimate excuse for suicide.

corplogo01.JPG The rumors are happening again. Yesterday, Slashdot reported that Apple’s stock dropped today because of a fake e-mail.The fake e-mail purported the delay of Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X. The e-mail also declared a delay for the iPhone, perhaps the most hyped gadget of all times.

The e-mail went out to thousands of Apple employees and one of the employees forwarded it on to the online magazine Engadget. Engadget published the information and Apple’s stock dropped 2.2% in mid-afternoon trading.

Does anybody else find it as strangely coincidental that this is the third false rumor that has affected a billion dollar company within a three-week span?

unplug.jpg My apologies for going dark this last week and a half. There is a lot going on with the Internet, but sometimes it’s good to unplug.

Okay, okay, I didn’t really unplug from cyber world (I don’t think I could if I wanted to!). However, I did unplug from my blog. Some of my clients needed some attention, and therefore, my love affair with blogging suffered—such is life!

We are on the second to last day of the domain case study. This has proven to be quite interesting. In fact, two of the participants of the study have come up with additional studies to try on domain grapping. I will keep you posted, and I plan to launch the results on Monday. ~Paul W.

Yahoo Microsoft Merger On Friday rumors were flying across the websites of the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal of renewed merger talks between Yahoo and Microsoft. Both Yahoo and Microsoft refused to comment on the rumor, but as Friday came to an end it became apparent that something was brewing between the two companies. According to one article, “[Microsoft is] tired of being left at the altar. They now seem more willing to extend themselves via a transaction to get into the game.”

This is really interesting to say the least (not to mention really good for Yahoo’s stock)! I read a lot of articles concerning these rumors, and most of them felt that it would be a bad move for either company to merge.

I am not sure that I agree. Below are the top #10 reasons of why I think Yahoo and Microsoft should merge:

Case Study In yesterday’s post I blogged about my theory of shady companies becoming registrars and then stealing people’s good domain names. Today I hope to see if we can show conclusively if this theory is true.

I propose that we do a case study to see how long it takes for a domain name to be stolen when numerous whois searches are being done on that name. Yet, I want to chose a name that no one would possible want, like: jibjobnoblobhogsog.com. This way we can be certain that the names are being stolen.

I also want to test this on the five major whois directories: InterNic, Network Solutions, Register, GoDaddy, and Whois. This way we can see if certain directories are being targeted. It may also help us form some other possible theories.