Daniel Felice

Google Nexus One in Australia

// January 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Phones

As usual, living in Australia means that we are the last country to receive anything. It has been better in recent years with regards to television and movies, but technology still seems to take at least 3-4 months if not more to catch up with the rest of the world.

Living in Ireland, they were pretty much on the same schedule as the UK, so I got things when they came out and not 6 months after the rest of the world was already sick of it.

The Google Nexus One was released a few weeks ago to 4 countries. One of them not being Australia, and probably not the fault of any Australia telco. Looking at reports from various online sources, Vodafone look like they are going to carry the phone in Australia but have said it will be available to us “sometime in 2010″. That means they probably haven’t even seen the phone yet, let alone be in the process of testing it.

With no confirmation date, and with no date likely to be annouced for a while I am going to get a friend to buy me one from the US and get it shipped here. It will probably work out cheaper for me anyway, with the final cost of the phone plus shipping to be somewhere around AUD$650, maybe even cheaper.

I have been waiting for an Android phone for a while now. In a post  a few months back I mentioned that I was waiting for the next generation of phones from Acer, Motorola and SE. Following that, HTC announced their new 2010 lineup and I was set on the Bravo, now I want the Nexus One.

By the time Vodafone Australia launches the N1, it will be old. The Nexus 2 probably would have been announced, or even released and I’d once again be wanting the latest device. There is always going to be something better, so I figure I will get the N1 now from the US before I see what is coming later this year, or I will never get an Android phone.

I am going to order it next week, I”ll let you know what it is like. But before then, I have to find to Aussie carrier that won’t charge me an arm and leg for data. That’s another thing we are behind in, the falling of mobile phone costs! I’ll leave that rant for another day.

Competition Heats Up

// July 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Domaining

In the past few weeks alot more Australian’s are realising the potential in capitalising in on the Australian domain name market and alot more domainers and webmasters are noticed that demand is starting to increase.

Nameseek.com.au was first domain name aftermarket that offered Australian’s a place to trade their domain names. I caught on early and the site was in developing a few weeks before the policy was due to change on June 1.

In the past 7 weeks a number of other websites have come along offering a service that is pretty similar to Nameseek. I think their results have been fairly similar to Nameseek, and their marketing doesn’t seem to be any different either.

Out of the 5 or 6 websites that now exist, I only considering one of them a threat to Nameseek – and for obvious reasons I won’t mention the name of the site here, but if there are any Aussie domainers out there you will know who I am talking about.

I think this website is a bit ahead of Nameseek at the moment. Nameseek relies on users submitting their domains for sale, and users bidding on those domains. This other website came online with 1500 .au domain names, which they own.

Competition is heating up, which I knew it would. There was no way Nameseek was going to be the only website selling .AU domains, and now domain registrars are catching on and are going to start selling their expired and dropped domains. I even was approached by a fairly large Internet company asking if I would help them – due to me being out of the country it wouldn’t work for both of us.

So as competition heats up it will be interesting to see how Nameseek performs. Hits have not been affected since these new websites have come along, though I would like domains listing and more people bidding.

I am not going to let the site run itself just yet. I am looking at ways to market the site and create awareness about the .AU domain market in general. I will be looking at adding a number of features to the site over the coming weeks, so we shall see if that makes any difference.

Commission Monster

// June 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Making Money

Last week I signed up to Australia’s largest affiliate marketing network – Commission Monster. I decided to go with an Aussie network this time as the ads I could choose are more selected and specific to my audience – Australian’s.

As my primary website is an Australian Domain Name Aftermarket, I thought if I want to make any money via advertising I should probably find some ads that my users would actually click on. Don’t get me wrong, the MarketLeverage ads are very good however are mostly specific to the USA and Canada, with only about 30 ads or so for the rest of the world including Australia.

The selecting of ads to choose from is fantastic. From ANZ to AMEX to Vodafone, and many many more. Alot of the bigger companies require you to submit your website for approval before you can show their ad on your site, though the majority are there for your choosing.

Signing up to the network was painless. Just a quick form to fill out and then I received an e-mail the next day confirming my application. Unlike MarketLeverage, CM don’t give you an account manager – however help is there if it is needed.

The user administration is fairly easy to use, with the ability to select the ads by categories, campaign, banner size and region. Statistics can be sorted by today, yesterday, week, month, quarter, year or you can just select your own period. You can also sort your ads per campaign.

I have 3 or 4 ads on Nameseek. Hits are good, however I am still yet to make my first sale. I will stick with the ads I have on the site for the moment to see how they perform over the next week or two. I think it takes a few weeks to figure out what your audience is interested in. Once I find that out, I will be able to select my campaigns a bit more specific to what my users are going to click on.

So why don’t you sign up for a free affiliate account and monetise your traffic with Commission Monster`s affiliate network

With online marketing, the website hosting companies have benefitted the most, especially through services like pay per click as well as email marketing.

My New Project

// May 8th, 2008 // No Comments » // The Internet

Over the past few weeks I have been working my new internet project. Earlier this year it was announced that the Australian Domain Name Administrator would be allowing the sale of the .au domain names for the first time.

Having been buying and trying to sell .com domain names for a while I thought it might be a good idea to attempt to get into the selling and brokering of the .au domain names.

With over 1 million Australian Domain’s registered there will definately be a market for the trading of domains so hopefully if I get in early enough it might be a bit of a winner.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone selling the .au domains at the moment, so I think it will be a niche market and getting in early will be the key to some success hopefully!

So the site will be launched in the next few weeks. I have called it Name Seek: The Australian Domain Name Aftermarket and it will be available at http://www.nameseek.com.au.