Month: February 2011

This Day in Domains

Posted on by jbourne

Thirty-one years ago today, on February 22, 1980, the U.S. Olympic hockey team did what no one in the world thought they could – they bested the USSR to win the gold medal in a 4-3 match that came to be known as the “Miracle on Ice.”

Miracle

I was reminded of this fact through the History Channel’s “This Day in History” segment. Turns out, the History Channel also owns some gold medal-worthy domains. The History Channel homepage can be found at History.com and the domain ThisDayInHistory.com points to the “This Day in History” page on the channel’s website.

We’re big fans of the Olympics here at FairWinds, and we even have two aspiring Olympians on our staff. Both are rowers and are vying for the chance to represent the U.S. in London next summer!

Static on the Radio

Posted on by jbourne

Driving into work this morning, I saw an advertisement on the back of a city bus, pictured here.  The domain name caught my eye, more than anything because I couldn’t seem to figure out what it actually said.

HMM Radio

My first impression was that it was HamRadio.com, or perhaps HNMRadio.com.  Neither was correct; the first domain hosts a site that sells ham radios and the second is not registered.  As it turns out, the domain pictured here is actually HMMRadio.com.  According to the website, the HMM stands for Hometown Media & Marketing.  Unfortunately, the site does not offer much in the way of content (none of the links work) and I was unable to find any information on Hometown Media & Marketing.

Clearly, the company has invested in the HMM Radio endeavor, at least enough to advertise it on the back of a very public bus.  So I’m finding it hard to understand why it chose a design that obscures that domain name to the point where it’s nearly illegible.

If an average person, sitting in traffic behind a bus, can’t read your domain name, then he or she will never be able to use it to reach your content online.  Domains are an integral part of a strong marketing strategy, but they can only be successful when they are properly communicated to the public.  If you happen to get a great domain, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by displaying it in a way that people can’t decipher.

Batting .200

Posted on by jbourne

It may only be mid-February, but spring is here for baseball fans.  Spring Training, that is, which kicks off this week in Florida and Arizona.

The start of Spring Training got me thinking about baseball players and whether they or their agents own their names as domains in .COM.  I consulted Sports Pundit for the list of the top ten highest paid players in 2010 (not surprisingly, the top four all play for the Yankees).  They are, from highest salary, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Johan Santana, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Howard, Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano.  Then, I ran a check on all their corresponding .COM domain names: AlexRodriguez.com, CCSabathia.com, etc.

As it turns out, only two of these domains – DerekJeter.com and JohanSantana.com – point to the players’ official websites.  In both cases, the players’ representatives (a talent agency and a law firm, respectively) registered the domains, which is understandable; who has time to think about domain names when they’re busy winning the Golden Glove?

But among the other eight players, almost every domain name is squatted.  Most are registered by a third party and used to host parked or pay-per-click sites.  AlfonsoSoriano.com is a prime example.  Moreover, in almost every case, the domain was registered after the players began playing in the Major League, and therefore were already public figures.

The one exception in this set is MiguelCabrera.com, which belongs to a New York realtor who has the same name as the Detroit Tigers’ first baseman.  Miguel Cabrera the realtor has owned the domain name since 2000, three years before Miguel Cabrera the baseball player made his Major League debut with the Florida Marlins.

I was surprised to learn that ever Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid player in the MLB, not to mention one of the most famous, does not own AlexRodriguez.com  Fortunately, though, ARod.com redirects to his official page on MLB.com.

The best usage of a domain name by a pro baseball player that I’ve seen is by Albert Pujols.  Pujols will likely be among the highest players in the MLB next season.  He owns AlbertPujols.com and directs it to the website of his charitable foundation at http://www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org/.  Even better than monetizing your personal brand is using it to give back.

Palin Trademark Applications Held Up

Posted on by slevy

The issue of celebrities being able to enforce their rights to their names, when the names are copied in a squatted domain, comes up fairly frequently in my work.  However, in order to reclaim a squatted domain, through legal channels it’s critical that a celebrity be able to show that their name has trademark rights.  Recent attempts to register former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s name as a trademark serves as a great case study on the requirements that must be met before a famous individual can officially trademark his or her name.

On November 29, 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an office action rejecting a trademark application for the phrase SARAH PALIN in relation to public speaking services and providing a website featuring information about political issues (Ser. No. 85170226).  The USPTO Examiner stated that the specimens submitted along with the application did not show that the mark had been used in connection with the services listed.  Specimens included screenshots of Palin’s Facebook page, a Fox News story announcing her joining the network as a contributor, and a copy of Ms. Palin’s book “Sarah Palin: America by Heart.”  The office action also notes that Ms. Palin did not, herself, sign the trademark application nor a consent to the filing of the application.

Similarly, an application for the name BRISTOL PALIN claiming motivational speaking services (Ser. No. 85130638) was initially rejected because Bristol Palin’s consent was not on file and the submitted specimen was just a page with the mark typed on it.  Both applications were filed by Thomas Van Flein of the Clapp Peterson Van Flein Tiemessen & Tho firm in Anchorage, Alaska.

It is a well-settled principle of trademark law that a name must be used in connection with the public offering or sale of some kind of product or service in interstate commerce in order to meet the requirements for trademark registration.  Simply being famous is not enough to merit a trademark of one’s name.  This is one big reason that well-known political or business figures have had difficulties in registering their names as trademarks – they have not actually sold anything to the public under their own names.

Here, if former Alaska Governor Palin and her daughter can submit proof that they use their names, not merely as public figures, but as true brands in commerce, they should be able to get their trademarks registered just as so many other famous speakers, authors and performers have done before them.  It will be interesting to follow these applications to see what sort of additional specimens are filed and whether the USPTO eventually deems them worthy of being registered as trademarks.

‘@TwitterPRCrisis

Posted on by jbourne

We all remember the debacle that BP went through this summer when an anonymous individual set up a Twitter account under the handle @BPGlobalPR and began posting satirical tweets about the company’s handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, posing as a BP public relations executive.

Recently, Kenneth Cole has found itself in a similar pickle.  On its verified @KennethCole account, the company tweeted the following:

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo – KC”

Since protests broke out two weeks ago, Twitter users have been using the Cairo hashtag, #Cairo, to discuss the events in Egypt.  Kenneth Cole has received a good deal of backlash for the tweet, including its very own parody Twitter account.  @KennethColePR began tweeting on February 3, posting off-color messages such as “Our looks are dropping faster than the World Trade Center” and “Our Tuscon store is locked and loaded with Spring looks”.

So for the second time in less than a year, we’re seeing a public relations crisis spawning a parody Twitter account.  In both the BP and the Kenneth Cole cases, the accounts garnered thousands of followers in a very short amount of time.  Perhaps we all should learn from these instances and consider proactively securing relevant Twitter handles; maybe even names such as @brandPR.

World Intellectual Property…Database?

Posted on by jbourne

Scammers are constantly searching for new and more deceptive ways to trick people into giving away their money.  Most recently, FairWinds received this notice from the “World Intellectual Property Database” urging our DigitalDNA business, which brokers domain and website deals, to renew its international trademark registration:

Some of you might have picked up on the fact that the “WIPD” looks a lot like “WIPO,” the World Intellectual Property Organization.  They even mimicked WIPO’s font and logo.  DigitalDNA has an international trademark registration pending with WIPO, and that is likely how WIPD found us: the people behind WIPD appear to have pulled information from WIPO’s public database and sent fake notices seeking registration renewal fees from trademark owners.  Aside from recognizing the obvious discrepancy in the name and acronym, what really tipped us off was the URL the notice directs to.  WIPO – the real WIPO – would never use a .BIZ domain.  As a specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO uses the .INT extension.

We wanted to post this to make sure other companies are aware of this scheme, and to warn them not to fall for it.  We have also gotten in touch with our contacts at WIPO to alert them, and they are working to stop this scam.

Where My Pepper Spray At?

Posted on by jbourne

For those of you who look at geo-location apps with a wary, stalker-fearing eye, I encourage you to head on over to TechCrunch and read the article on WhereTheLadies.at, a recently approved iPhone app that – you guessed it – shows users where the ladies are…at.

Metal Detector

WhereTheLadies.at uses Foursquare’s geo-location functionality to aggregate check-ins made by females – er, ladies – at nearby locations (bars, clubs, etc.).  It then ranks those locations based on the number of feminine check-ins made in the past thirty minutes.  And just in case your raging testosterone clouds your navigation abilities, the app includes a giant compass that points you in the direction of the lady-laden hotspot.

That’s right, guys.  You can now turn your iPhones into chick-finders.  (For those still holding out for the chick-magnet app, I’d guess it’s only a matter of time at this point.)

Here’s what really gets me, as a linguist: when a user who has not specified his or her gender checks in, WhereTheLadies.at will use a “dictionary crawl and permutation logic” to determine if the user is male or female.  This must be how microbiologists feel when terrorists use their formulas to make anthrax.

As I sit here and ponder what our hyper-connected world is coming to, and whether or not I should finally invest in some pepper spray and/or nunchucks, I also have to wonder, what does Austria make of the WhereTheLadies.at developers using their .AT ccTLD for their domain name?