Ouch! Even though $8.5 million to Google isn't very much, I'm sure they were hoping for a better response, in general, to Buzz.
]]>I hope to start developing more Drupal modules soon. Nothing as advanced as Views or Panels, but perhaps some extensions to them.
]]>Well maybe he’s not a billionaire, but he has brought Google to a really great place. I’m interested to see what Larry Page will do as CEO. Yes, he’s a wicked smart d00d, but can he be a crazy zany executive like Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer?
Let’s watch the Google Show and find out!
]]>Its a friendship bound with around $500 million!
]]>How about that?!?!
Oracle has always been a corporate sales team. They've done a remarkable job selling big, powerful, sophisticated, and expensive databases to big companies.
Now, with their acquisition of Sun Microsystems, they have a truly remarkable product and service offering:
Watch out Novell!! Watch out Microsoft!!
Errr.... watch out Google! Oracle is suing you for infringing on their Java intellectual property!
]]>Could this have been an elaborate plan on Mark Hurd's part? Although it seems like Mr. Hurd has had a tough go at it, he's actually made bank with his departure from HP and will no doubt make more bank from Oracle.
]]>Ouch! Even though $8.5 million to Google isn't very much, I'm sure they were hoping for a better response, in general, to Buzz.
]]>I usually only "leech" off the site and don't contribute to it because I have no extra time to contribute to a website like that (but I'm not a total leech, I contribute to many open source projects on multiple levels). Even for this review, I tried finding some questions I could possibly answer though I found it taking way too long for me, I did notice that their system was slowly filtering out irrelevant questions in lieu of questions I might know the answer to.
Recently a friend of mine suggested I register with them and post my resume to Stackoverflow careers section. In doing so, I took a closer look at the site in general and thought I'd share what I saw.
Beyond the beauty of it, how is the Stackoverflow user interface structured? Upon first glance, its sort of like a blog-forum hybrid, and in my humble opinion, that's a good thing!
]]>Let's review:
I guess there could be a match, but it still surprises me. Frankly I think software like McAfee is more harmful than helpful. Sorry - I have to save that explanation for another day!
]]>I knew Flippa before it was Flippa because it used to be a part of SitePoint - a website about websites. They still have a marketplace, but apparently due to the popularity of their website sales section, they spun off those auctions into a separate site: Flippa.
I'm not totally disappointed with the fact that my first website didn't sell, but I am re-thinking the cost of listing small, inexpensive sites with them. The site I listed is CyberPulpit.com, and while I value the site, I can understand why it didn't fetch the price I'd hoped because it doesn't have a ton of traffic or revenue. I'd hoped to sell it for at least $250, but the bidding only reached $30. With a listing fee of $19, plus a success fee of 5% and a minimum of $5, the least a sale can cost is $24. If I sold the site for $30, I would have taken home $6 - not really even worth the time it took to fill out their forms.
Fine. All that is well and good, caveat emptor, right? However, I'm finding the apparently relentless upsale efforts Flippa uses to try and get sellers to buy more extras - from $5 for a bold listing to $50 for a twitter post. The first offer was fine, but they keep sending these to me, and I've had enough. I even emailed their support staff letting them know that I have many sites to sell, but I'll take my sites elsewhere if they don't stop overselling me.
I was about to list another site with them (Telecom Rebith, a site about the telecommunications industry, cell phones, the internet, and wifi) when I realized that my "trust" with Flippa was reduced from a "9" to an "8" for apparently no reason. I wasn't upset because I'm not really sure that anyone even cares about their trust factors, but it was just enough that I decided there just had to be other website brokers out there and wanted to try one. A quick search turned up WebsiteBroker.com, so I gave it a shot!
I only just listed Telecom Rebirth with Website Broker so I can't say too much about them, but there are some obvious differences from Flippa. Here's a quick comparison:
| Flippa | WebsiteBroker | |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Price: | $19 | $9.95 |
| Featured / Premier Price: | $48* | $29.95 |
| Success Fee: | 5% ($5 min, $495 max) | None |
| Listing Length: | 30 days** | 90 days |
* - Flippa has an extra called "featured" that costs $29 on top of the $19 listing fee.
** - Flippa also has private sales that last up to six months.
Naturally most folks like me who like to pinch a penny or five will notice that WebsiteBroker is much cheaper. The higher price would be justified if the broker can sell the site for a higher price, but I'm not sure that Flippa can do that. After a few experiments with other brokerages, I'll find out.
So I've listed Telecom Rebirth and was a little surprised, maybe even impressed, when I learned that WebsiteBroker reviews sites before they are actively listed. This may be the same process that Flippa automates by asking would-be sellers to upload a verification file, but I like the idea that there are some people behind the service.
There are some other differences, too:
Oh I just noticed that WebsiteBroker has the ability to automatically verify sites, but its not working for me. At the top of the screen I see this:
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /home/websitebroker/html/verifySite.php on line 29
Uh-oh! Here's a screenshot of the problem:
I also happen to own a bunch of potentially valuable domain names and I'm interested in selling those too. Both Flippa and WebsiteBroker allow the selling of domains, but being the frugal SOB that I am I was attracted to GoDaddy's low low prices. To sell a domain through GoDaddy's domain auctions, a one time fee of $4.99 is required to "join" and listings are free (don't you just LOVE that word??).
Listings are only seven days long, and if the domain name sells, GoDaddy gets a 5% cut for sales under $500, and 7% for sales over $500 (though that includes Escrow.com service).
I've joined and am currently trying to sell parti-federaliste.com. While the words are French, the domain has tons of backlinks and a pagerank of five, so I'm hoping it fetches a couple hundred dollars. Its been on the market for about a day and a half with no bids, so I'm starting to wonder if it will get some soon? Aha - actually I just noticed that UrlTrends was getting blocked by my default robots.txt file, so I just unblocked it so that potential buyers can easily get more information about the domain.
If you are interested in buying parti-federaliste.com, you can bid on it here:
Make a Bid to Buy parti-federaliste.com!
Note: One downside to selling with GoDaddy is that they hold payment funds for at least twenty days after a domain has sold.
UPDATE: I'm also using Dynadot to sell a domain and small website, but I'm not going to mention it here because actually I'm not too concerned if it sells there or not.
While the Dynadot marketplace may work for some, I'm not interested in really using it right now because the proceeds from the sale is only issued as Dynadot credits - there is no payout option.
]]> My Request to FlippaHi,
Please stop sending me emails to buy extras for my auctions. Thanks anyway, but I can make my own decisions. I have a lot of sites to sell, and if you don't stop sending me these emails, I'll find somewhere else to sell my sites.
- Albert
Their response:
Dear Albert,
Thanks for contacting Flippa Customer Support.
Currently we don't have an option to stop the automated emails being sent to users to confirm the placement of their listing. Should we receive further requests to cease the sending of this particular email communication from Flippa, we will look further into this issue. We do hope that you will stay a Flippa member, and please let us know if we can assist you further in any way.
Kind Regards,
Flippa Customer Support.
Yeah... I'd like to find another company to do business with. Hopefully WebsiteBroker comes through, but I'll probably keep looking in the meantime.
When I try to verify my site TelecomRebirth.com, id 999974874, this error appears at the top of the screen:]]>
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /home/websitebroker/html/verifySite.php on line 29
The verification file is there:
http://www.telecomrebirth.com/wsbverify.txt
I'm not seeing any attempts to access the site in the logs.
Please advise,
- Albert
The main selling point is the unique content, custom design, and pagerank of 3!
Check out the site here:
If you'd be interested in buying this site, please make a bid over at Flippa:
http://flippa.com/auctions/103210/Cyber-Pulpit-PR3-Niche-Politics-and-Technology
UPDATE: Bidding only reached $30, so I didn't sell the site. I listed it for only seven days as I wanted to witness what happens at the end of an auction as I'd imagined that most of the bidding occurs then. Like I expected, there were no bids until the auction had less than two days to go, but I guess because the site doesn't get too much traffic or revenue, the demand wasn't there. I'll hang onto the site and leverage it to support some of the other sites I own because it does have a pagerank of 3.
]]>http://flippa.com/auctions/102683/Shes-Creative-Wordpress-Site
]]> 
While I find that almost everything that works in Firefox works in Chrome and vice versa, I decided to try it in Iceweasel (the Debian version of Firefox). Surprise - it worked!
]]>Google, what's up? If you keep promoting the "next big thing", only to have it fizzle shortly thereafter due to the lack of popular interest, I'll have to question whether or not the company actually stands behind its statements.
Its like they are saying "This is great", without actually believing it themselves, trying in vain to fool others into thinking that it is great, which may ultimately make it so.
How about they come up with something that really is great, without requiring everyone else to think so. Like the movie "Field of Dreams", if they build something great, people will use it.
UPDATE: I just read some news that states Google has bought a company named "Slide, Inc." How ironic?
]]>