ICANN still considering options for December meeting.

ICANN plans to hold a meeting in Latin America this December, but it hasn’t yet named a location. Colombia is frequently mentioned as a candidate, and the country’s Minister of Information and Communications Technologies has sent a letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom restating his country’s interest in hosting the event.

On the surface, Colombia might be a good candidate. It’s getting a lot of press as it liberalizes its .co country code domain name. But the negative community reaction due to safety concerns during this year’s event in Nairobi, Kenya, is likely causing the ICANN staff to great consternation. Although the situation in Colombia is much improved over the past decade, it is still a relatively dangerous country with rival factions such as FARC and ELN battling and narco-terrorism is still prevalent in small towns and rural areas.

An ICANN event would likely be held in a large city, which probably reduces the chances of being kidnapped. The risks are somewhat similar to Mexico City, where ICANN held a meeting last year, where ATM and taxi cab robberies are fairly common. I haven’t heard of any major security incidents from either the Mexico City or Nairobi meetings.

Will ICANN play it safe to avoid having many delegates stay home? Or will having an event in Belgium in between the Kenya and potential Colombia event be enough of a breather?

Watch out for April Fools’ jokes.

Psst. Be careful what you read on the web today and tomorrow.

April Fools’ Day is full of bogus stories on the web. Even though it’s still March 31 in North America, many parts of the world have already started April 1. So if you’re reading a domain name article today that seems too crazy to be true, it’s probably made up.

Over the years a number of domain name forum and blog posts have taken advantage of peoples’ gullibility. Last year one such post said Domain Name Wire had been sold. Even six months later I had someone ask me what I was doing now that I sold the site. For the record, I don’t write April Fools stories on Domain Name Wire.

Of course, with all of the zany news in the domain name world today, don’t discount something you read just because it might be a joke. Especially if it’s about Sex.com: the unbelievable might just be true.

Yahoo admits defeat in syndicated pay-per-click ads.

Yahoo is shutting down its Yahoo Publisher Network effective April 30.

The program launched in summer 2005 as a challenge to Google’s popular Google Adsense program that lets any size web site publisher syndicate pay-per-click ads on their web site. The program initially received rave reviews as beta participants received high payouts. Over time, the program languished in beta. One common criticism was poor targeting, which reduced ad relevance and click-through rates.

Yahoo is suggesting that current participants join Chitika as an alternative. Chitika already syndicates Yahoo content match and sponsored search ads. However, adding another middleman into the equation could reduce revenue to publishers.

It’s possible the move comes in advance of Yahoo’s partnership with Microsoft kicking in. It’s likely that Microsoft will create its own Adsense competitor.

The termination of the Yahoo Publisher Network should not affect Yahoo domain name parking partners.

9 comment periods end tomorrow — but commenting is light.

Nine different open comment subjects at ICANN close tomorrow — and four of them don’t have a single comment.

Despite comment period overload, I’m surprised to see certain communities not getting involved in the process. For example, two of the subjects that don’t have any comments concern Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). ICANN’s decisions around IDNs will greatly impact those domainers who have invested heavily in IDNs.

I would think that, had I invested a lot of money in IDNs, I’d care if ICANN relaxes the three character requirement for TLDs and what it decides to do with variants. But then again, many IDN investors are still under the false assumption that IDN gTLDs will be fast-tracked ahead of the new gTLD process, or even that they’ll get IDN TLD equivalents of their existing second level domain names for free.

If you’ve never submitted a comment to ICANN, it’s really easy. Just go here to see all of the open comment periods and how to submit your comment.

Brian Null’s latest internet venture builds on past experiences.

Brian Null’s latest venture has a great domain name — MO.com. But this isn’t the first time Null has used a valuable domain to build a business. He’s bought and developed a couple category killer domain names in the past. In this episode of Domain Name Wire Radio, Null will explain:

-How he bought OfficeSupply.com, built it up, and sold it to iREIT
-His “teaching moment” of the value of a generic, category killer domain name, and how owning OfficeSupply.com got him meetings with billion dollar companies
-The importance of subject matter passion when developing a raw domain into a big web site
-How he built out GolfCourses.com into a large enterprise, ultimately selling out to GeoSign
-His vision for MO.com, an educationald site that interviews entrepreneurs

You can listen to the show by clicking below, or read the transcript if you’d prefer. Feel free to embed this show into your web site using the “publish to my site” feature below.

Show Title: "DNW Radio: Brian Null of MO.com"

Play: DNW Radio: Brian Null of MO.com
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With: Brian Null
Sponsored by: Traverse Legal

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