The idea buffet at RandyKolb.com » 2007» December
Earlier this year the business.com domain name sold for (gasping for air here!) in excess of $300M US. While that specific instance is a
record, and certainly caught news wind, I continue to doubt its value. But that’s just me. I think it’s an occasion of multiple bidders (and there were several high profile organizations in on the action) at an auction all “perceiving” increased value because the others are also perceiving that sense of value. E.g., is a 1950’s era Les Paul guitar worth $20K to over $50K? Intrinsically, no. However, there will never be another one produced. Others, primarily investors who aren’t even marginally decent guitar players, think that fact adds value, so they bid on EBay to monstrous dimensions. Is that truly shopping victoriously?
We all take risks, that is, if we’re indeed doing our job well. They’re calculated. They’re mitigated. But they’re still risks. Despite my perception that Business.com was overpriced by several orders of magnitude, someone, some group more likely, felt otherwise. Only time will tell if their risks were well handled or foolish.
Let me ask a question. Prior to implementation, promotion, launch, more promotion, and adoption, what were the respective values of ebay, yahoo, google, linkedin, flickr, youtube, etc., etc.? That’s the basis for my perception. Succinctly, I’d rather have some crazy, off-the-wall domain name that I bought for chump change, focus strategic energies into a successful marketing campaign, then promote the site and its value with the cash saved. In general I believe that’s the wisest approach for almost all instances with perhaps the primary deviation being domain names built upon branding or, to a lesser extent, niche markets. Oh, and personal names 
Some businesses handle their approach to digital assets well. They’re the firms that know where they’re headed with branding, with products over their respective life cycles, and the markets they want to penetrate and in which they want to grow. They have a gut feel for global reach. They’re not going to be caught off-guard with email from some back alley domain hoarder, who, attempting to strike hearts with fear, asserts others are laying claim to “their domain name”.cn, .hk, .asia, etc., which he says he can fix for a price, nor are they going to fall prey to a bidding war over online real estate of questionable value. These are the firms that tend to truly win.
Makes me wonder if they also bought Business.cn? If they didn’t I might know someone who can fix it for a price.
Please pass the anti-hoax spray before I get bitten again
Okay, you probably also have good friends, family members and co-workers who love to share everything from amusing to alarming news, photos, and alerts via email. Sharing can be good. Broadcast emails to everyone in your address book is not and particularly so if it’s something intrinsically false.
The following story, although not in the form you see below, was forwarded to me by a good friend, which was forwarded from a forward, from a forward, etc. Despite the trust I have in my friend I do not trust forwards from unknown sources, so, being the annoyingly cautious person I am, I bothered to check it out. It’s not hard to do. Just (please!) Google some of the text in your amazing/alarming message or visit some of these hoax-busting sites:
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
http://urbanlegends.about.com/
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/
The email that was sent supposedly reflected a holiday confession from Ben Stein. Perhaps you’ve seen it. The message, at least the basic thrust, is marginally corroborated at http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/benstein2.asp (an excellent location for the original context of this message) as well as at Ben Stein’s website (benstein.com).
As with many, many forwarded messages, what you get in your in box is easily tainted by the opinions and good intentions of so many others along the line. And, occasionally, someone with the compassion and integrity of Catbert. So for the real story, I’ve omitted the message that was forwarded to me and just present the transcript. It’s good and worth a read. The incidental lesson: always check your sources; if you’re not sure, don’t quote them. A basic journalism principle that has applicability in what we broadcast to others in email for you never know who will forward what you’ve written to the world, with your name and email attached. What’s really weird but unfortunately not too surprising is that the errant version of the quote (which is also available on the snopes site) was included in its entirety on a number of blog sites, again errantly attributing to Mr. Stein words he never spoke or wrote.
One more thing, if you feel compelled to forward a message to all your friends & family (all 143 of us), please, please use BCC email distribution. This isn’t rocket science. Like me, you may be painfully familiar with internet based scams/attacks/security risks because of your line of work, and I guess it’s incumbent upon us with that experience to instruct and warn those who are not. Unless you really love phishing attacks and endless gigabytes of spam over the years we at least need to try.
Oh, to those of my friends and family to whom I forwarded that web vid about charging your blackberry from an onion and Gatorade (which was a…er… ahem, a hoax—honest, I didn’t know!), you know what you can expect from me under the Christmas tree this year
–@–
Origins: Ben Stein, a lawyer by training, has also served as a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon, has to date authored sixteen books (both novels and non-fiction efforts), and continues to write editorials and columns for a number of prominent publications. He is perhaps best known to the world at large, however, for his in-front-of-the-camera work as the dreadfully dull economics teacher in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (and his similar role as the monotonic science teacher Mr. Cantwell on the TV series The Wonder Years) and as the keenly competitive host of the Comedy Central game show Win Ben Stein’s Money.
Mr. Stein currently offers occasional commentaries for the CBS Sunday Morning news program, and the item quoted above is based on one such commentary, entitled “Confessions for the Holidays” and delivered by Mr. Stein on that program on 18 December 2005, one week before Christmas. However, the version widely circulated via e-mail includes some transcription errors and modifications that were not part of the piece as originally aired. Here is the full version as broadcast, taken from a CBS News transcript of the program:
CHARLES OSGOOD (host): We all have our own thoughts about the holidays. Here’s Ben Stein with his.BEN STEIN: Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.(Footage of People magazine; Us magazine)
STEIN: I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I’m buying my dog biscuits. I still don’t know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don’t know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they’ve broken up? Why are they so darned important?
STEIN: If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that