Michael Jackson’s Death Bed with a genuine COA

Several items from Michael Jackson‘s estate are up for auction, among them and most controversally, the bed he died in.

Just like most anything you can purchase at an auction, Michael Jackson’s bed comes with a Certificate of Authenticity!

Herman Cain; Not Aware China Has Nuclear Bomb

After just hearing Herman Cain was not aware China had nuclear weapons I am unliking him today on facebook (not due to the recent scandal but only over his incredible lack of knowledge about world events). Most of the public knows China is a long time member of the nuclear club so how is it possible someone of his stature did not?

Where has Herman Cain been for the last 50-yrs? Now liking Jon Huntsman as a good alternative to Mr. Cain. Mr Cain’s surprisingly poor world knowledge seems similar to what Sarah Palin displayed to the public 5-yrs ago during the 2008 presidential election debates.

Major Dilution to Existing .tld extensions i.e. .net

We have been writing for some time about the massive dilution to the current major domain name extensions which will be caused by the anticipated vast number of new gtld’s expected to be introduced starting in 2012.

As an example of dilution, we will discuss the long-time well known dot-net extension. It’s always played 2nd fiddle to the vastly superior dot-com however .net will soon have lots of competitors competing with it and causing general overall dilution to all extensions and to dot-net in particular.

The initial high Icann cost of $185k to buy your own extension will no doubt result in mostly the top brands or keywords being purchased at this time. However, we are sure the cost will drop a lot and more and more mid-size or non-famous brands and keywords will eventually have their own extension.

Using dot-net direct competition as an example it’s likely extentions such as .met (dating?), .let (EU rentals?), .pet (pets?), .wet (water/pools?), .bet (gambling?), .get (search?), .jet (jet sales?), .vet (veterans?), plus longer ones like .mynet .enet .inet .netgear and the real obvious .network will be taken in the future.

With so many similar potential domain name extensions all competing for Internet traffic and marketing themselves it would seem after a few years the direct dilution just to the old dot-net extension will result in many people saying ‘dot-who’ about dot-net. Therefore, we can predict the already low value .net domains will decline even more in general value.

Major Bear Market Expected for Geo Domains

Starting next year unlimited numbers of new domain extensions are scheduled to be sold and some will be up and running. We always assumed major brands such as .sears .apple .microsoft .hp .godaddy .ibm and many others would want to own their own extension, not necessarily to sell domains but for their own product, use and branding.

Now I am hearing many reports about large U.S. and international cities including the cities of .tokyo .sydney .london .newyork .sandiego .la .vegas and others planning to also buy their very domain extension. At an initial cost of $185k it may seem high to you or me but to a large corporation or big city it is not too significant a cost.

Having heard about many major cities with plans to buy their own extensions it would seem logical the end-effect will be to greatly devalue the domainer or investor owned geo dot com’s, including mid-size city dot-coms. The smaller or mid-size cities may not want to invest now or be able to budget $185k but they will likely do so as the ICANN price drops (and I am sure the fee will decline rather quickly and dramatically within a few years).

At that time I believe you will also see many mid-size cities such as Palm Springs, Bethesda, Burbank and Scottsdale for example, getting their own extensions. It’s also possible they may not wait for lower costs and instead apply soon, agreeing to pay the 185k ICANN fee.

Think about this scenario; A visitor (or resident) in Scottsdale Arizona knows many cities now own their own domain so would he be more inclined to typein to a search box or the browser window “Scottsdale.com” or the word “Scottsdale” without an extension? In our opinion there is little doubt as time goes by the word Scottsdale will prevail as the most popular choice, relegating Scottsdale.com to 2nd tier status, which dot-com decline would be ongoing and the scottsdale.com down-trend be more pronounced as time goes by.

In our opinion, this news marks the beginning of a very significant and long term bear market (a likely permanent major drop in geo domain values), impacting mid to large city Geo domains in particular. I would expect a number of them to go on the auction block soon before they decline more in value.

Google Antitrust Hearing Invitations

Senate wants top Google executives CEO Larry Page and/or Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt to testify and are invited to participate in the upcoming antitrust hearings.

The Summer Solstice is Today, June 21st

THE SUMMER SOLSTICE WILL OCCUR TUESDAY JUNE 21ST AT 1016 AM MST. THE SUMMER SOLSTICE IS WHEN THE SUN REACHES ITS NORTHERN MOST LATITUDE OF THE YEAR, TUESDAY, THE 21ST OF JUNE AT 1016 AM MST. THIS IS WHEN THE SUN WILL BE DIRECTLY OVER THE TROPIC OF CANCER IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE AT 23 1/2 DEGREES LATITUDE NORTH OF THE EQUATOR. IT WILL BE PRECISELY 1016 AM MST TUESDAY WHEN THE SUN ENDS ITS 6 MONTH JOURNEY NORTH AND BEGINS ITS 6 MONTH JOURNEY SOUTH.

THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR WITH THE MOST HOURS OF DAYLIGHT NORTH OF THE TROPICS. THIS IS ALSO THE TIME OF YEAR WHEN THE SHORTEST SHADOWS ARE CAST BY OBJECTS IN THE SUNSHINE IN ALL OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE NORTH OF THE TROPICS. THIS WILL OCCUR TODAY WHEN THE SUN WILL BE AS CLOSE TO DIRECTLY OVERHEAD AS IT GETS THIS YEAR. THIS IS WHEN THE SUN WILL BE AT AN ANGLE OF ONLY 10 DEGREES FROM A POINT DIRECTLY OVERHEAD.