BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Last week I was running a test campaign for one of my clients and a full week after I wrapped it up a notice from Google came in stating that some of my ads are out of trademark compliance. The site in question is http://www.americatoystore.com/, the owner is a registered affiliate of McFarlane Toys and Neca (which gives him rights to promote their merchandise using whatever he can find on their web sites). The words in question were NFL and NHL.

Next thing – I open the browser, search for “NHL action figures” or “NFL action figures” and the paid ads are full of “sacred” terms. So my question is – if myself and my client get slap on the wrist and others don’t this means Google’s adherence to its own guidelines and policies is very spotty. I realize that big guys’ money are better then mine, but why don’t Google come out straight about that?

Posted the question on their forums, but I don’t hold my breath.

Yesterday I noticed that the very first domain I ever tried to own, but never did – CatBegemot.com (it’s coming from here, if you must know. Not that I am infatuated with Woland figure, it’s just that specific character – Cat Begemot – is very appealing to me.) is actually free (as in Deleted and available again), so I decided to waste no time and grab it. Unfortunately, the place I am working from right now blocks the access to all three domain registrars I am using – GoDaddy, Moniker and NameCheap.

No problem, I said, I have a smart phone (it’s AT&T Tilt at the moment, equipped with Windows Mobile 6), so I’ll just go get it from there! Yeah, right.

Namecheap loaded fine, but refused to acknoledge my credentials. No matter how many times I reloaded web site and tried to sign on – no luck. I was thrown back to the same page requiring login and password. Sorry, Namecheap, no business for you today.

Moniker loaded fine too, even allowed me to sign into my account. Next step – check if domain is available. I never realized it until that day that every time you check for domain name Moniker checks for all the available extentions. Guess it’s an upselling technique. What threw me off was those AJAXy boxes that roll for a moment and then present you with a checkbox – empty if domain is available or filled if it is taken. Obviously, boxes never got their AJAX stuff to work, so no way to register domain there too. Moving on.

GoDaddy was the scariest place to go on my smartphone, mainly because you can hardly see any useful features behind heavy advertising. Just imagining all that mess on a tiny (comparing to 1920×1200 24″ screen I have at home) smart phone screen was giving me creeps. Nevertheless, I jumped on the task. Quite a few minutes later, when all the junk loaded over my 3G connection, I was able to log in and submit a domain search. As you might have guessed, another button was teh culprit. The Go To Checkout button happened to be powered by some AJAX or JavaScript or whatnot and simply doesn’t work on mobile version of Internet Explorer. Sorry, you loose!

It wouldn’t be me if I left the problem unresolved. A little search around turned up two unblocked providers – Joker and Name.com. While I’ve stumbled on more than one occasion of negative feedback about Joker on WHT, the Name.com sounded like a reasonable choice, so that’s where I went. The whole transaction took no more than ten minutes and ta-da! Finally, after almost 10 years of exile, the catbegemot.com is in my posession.

The inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama, aside from logistical issues, will create a communication nightmare. The anticipated 3 to 4 million people are expected to overload whatever networks Verizon and Spring might have available in Washington, D.C.

The problem with the cell phone companies is not that they can’t supply the pipe. I’m pretty sure they can. Even more so, I am pretty sure they will not only supply the pipe, they will be also ones reaping all the rewards (even undeserved ones). And I don’t even have problem with that.

The problem I have with cell phone companies is that the pipe is “just good enough”. There’s not much of an extra capacity, and too quick roll-out of an iPhone showed just that for AT&T. I am quite sure Verizon isn’t going an extra mile just to beat the competition in the peak demand game. So their pipes are also “just good enough”.

What I would like to see in a year or two is the constant 3G sign on my phone. Anywhere. Even in tunnels or just 50 miles outside of NYC. I want to see 3G everywhere in Brooklyn too, even on the subway as I go there. I also want this 3G to be real solid connection, not some flickering on-the-verge-of-breaking-up connection. One way or another I’ve seen Verizon and AT&T guilty of all of the above. This is not to start a holy war “Verizon vs. AT&T”, it’s just that cell phone providers have formed de-facto cartel with crappy phones, nonsense pricing models (5GB limit for cell phone broadband with $250 cell phone modem card? Puh-leese!) and questionable service quality.

Those of you who are going to inauguration – slip a note into Obama’s pocket: we need reasonable cell broadband structure. Now!