Mediaboss Marketing

By SANDRA GUY sguy@suntimes.com March 23, 2012 8:34PM

Jeff Schmidt, CEO of JAS Global Advisors, poses for a photograph at his company's office on N. Michigan Ave. Wednesday, March 14, 2012, in Chicago. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times

storyidforme: 27767139 tmspicid: 10031222 fileheaderid: 4547343

Updated: March 24, 2012 2:16AM

A Chicago company, JAS Global Advisors, is playing a key behind-the-scenes role in an unprecedented expansion of Internet domain names the webs equivalent of real-estate addresses dominated by .com, .gov, .org and .edu.

The expansion will open the way for new domain names ending in just about any word imaginable from .chicago for people looking to identify themselves as Chicagoans, to .jeans to .security to .YourNameGoesHere.

The process is highly charged: Critics say the expansion will offer new opportunities for cybersquatters, Anonymous-style hackers and trademark and patent trolls, and give pornographers their own .xxx suffix.

Supporters say the new names will give businesses new marketing opportunities and, if run correctly, tighten up online security.

A controversy also surrounds the nonprofit group that runs the Internet-naming process. The board of ICANN, the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is battling U.S. Commerce Department concerns that its members may have too-close ties to companies that will bid on the new domain names. A board spokesman said the members operate under strict ethics rules. Separately, a national retailers advocacy group has complained that ICANN hasnt given clear direction on how businesses should apply for, appeal or otherwise respond to the new domain names.

As a March 29 deadline nears for applications for the new domain names, JAS Global Advisors, headed by international online security expert Jeff Schmidt, will be one of three companies nationwide that will evaluate applicants for their technical and financial qualifications.

See the rest here:
Local company playing key role in adding Internet domains

CEO Aaron Levie got lucky: The company that owned the dot-com of his company name wanted a lot, but not as much as they could have held him up for.

Just Box.

I just had a nice talk with Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box.net. I mean, Box. I had to ask him how much it cost for the company to drop the ".net" and become a ".com," a change that happened in December of 2011. I expected that the three-letter common-word domain of an already-successful, well-funded company would go for a lot, several million dollars possibly.

"How many zeros?" I asked.

"Six," Levie said.

How big an integer in front of those zeros? I asked.

"The lowest. And actually, it was five zeros with the highest integer."

Levie said he bought the domain nine months ago from Digimedia. "We got to know the guys who owned it over a couple of years," he said.

"You've been working them for a while, eh?" I asked.

No, Levie said, it wasn't like that. He said the Digimedia guys were really cool.

Continue reading here:
How Box.net became Box.com for just shy of a million bucks

Twelve years ago, a total of $5 trillion in market value was lost when the "Dot-com" bubble burst. Many investors lost their life savings, their kid's college funds, or their retirements as a result.

Flash-forward to today, and I'm convinced many investors are running the risk of making the same mistake that caused those trillions of dollars in losses a decade ago.

Let me explain...

You've undoubtedly heard about the new multi-billion dollar "Web 2.0" companies like Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn and Facebook. The mainstream financial press can't get enough of them...

For the past several months, investors have been blindly throwing money at these companies.

Take Zynga for example. Zynga is up 25% since it started trading back in December... but the company doesn't even turn a profit .

In fact, Zynga has lost $400 million during the past year. The firm's net loss came out to $1.40 per share... or more than 10% of its current share price.

LinkedIn (Nasdaq: LNKD ) , a social-networking site for professionals, is up slightly since going public . But it's been a wild ride. The stock trades at a P/E over 800.

G roupon (Nasdaq: GRPN ) doesn't even have a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio... because it has no earnings . In the past year, the company has lost $350 million or $0.97 per share.

Facebook -- considered to be the "hottest" of all these companies -- hasn't gone public yet. At this point, we can only guess what sort of enormous valuation it might see. Estimates are calling for a valuation of $100 billion. With net income of $1 billion in 2011, that means the stock could sell for 100 times earnings.

View original post here:
Forget Facebook... Buy This Instead

22-03-2012 16:26 Follow me on twitter! twitter.com Theme tune by isinclair Music by Kevin Mcleod

Here is the original post:
no homo - Chris Kendall's Internet Show - Video

Iberia Express (I2), Iberia's (IB) new subsidiary for short and medium-haul flights, will start scheduled flights Sunday with four A320s operating from Madrid (MAD) to four destinations in Spain, despite opposition from IB mainline pilots and unions representing cabin crew.

IB pilots so far have staged 12 days of strikes since December protesting the new carrier. They announced a further 24 days of industrial action between March 16 and May 28, but this was called off after they agreed to new talks led by a government-appointed mediator (ATW Daily News, March 14).

The problem with the pilots is not solved, IB CEO Rafael Sanchez-Lozano confirmed to ATW. He declined to comment further, noting the negotiations are under government mediation.

I2's first routes are from Madrid (MAD) to Palma de Majorca, Alicante, Malaga and Seville. The network will gradually expand to 17 destinations this summer. The first international gateways are slated to be Dublin, Naples, Mikonos, Riga and Amsterdam. Other domestic destinations will include Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, Granada, Minorca, Ibiza, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and La Palma.

By year end, I2 will operate 14 aircraft, all leased from IB, to over 20 destinations. The new airline is a 100%-subsidiary of IB but managed independently. It will utilize IB's maintenance and other services.

"It has not been an easy project but today is a day of birth and this has to be celebrated," Sanchez-Lozano told a press conference in Madrid Friday, stressing that I2 "will be a success story that adds value to the Iberia Group. It will restore profitability to short- and medium-haul routes, add new destinations and connections, and feed traffic to the long-haul network, where Iberia is focusing its growth strategy."

See the original post:
Iberia Express set to launch Sunday