Geo web site commercial will start airing next week.

As I wrote about last month, I’m running cable TV commercials for my geo web site Lakeway.com. We’ve completed the first commercial, which you can watch below.

The commercials will run over 200 times each month across CNN, FoxNews, News 8 Austin, and A&E in the local area. The purpose of these ads is two fold. First, we want to drive more visitors to the web site. Second, we want to showcase some of our advertisers. To do this, we structured the ad with an introduction and closing dedicated to Lakeway.com. In the middle we highlighted three of our advertisers located in Lakeway. We will create multiple versions by swapping out the featured businesses.

We learned a lot creating the first commercial. I underestimated how much time we would have to show each business for. I think we can streamline that by grouping like businesses into each commercial. For example, if we show three restaurants we can introduce them all with one sentence, rather than three separate introductions for each type of business. For the first commercial we just used the first three businesses we could film in time.

With my understanding of the Lakeway, TX area, I think these commercials will grab the attention of the close-knit community. Already it has helped us sign up advertisers; we now have about a dozen advertisers on the site. As far as the effectiveness of the ads, I’ll have to report back on that in a month or two.

Survey asks how ICANN can improve its web site.

ICANN’s web site is outdated, and the organization knows it. It has hired an outside firm to perform usability analysis and improve the web site. The organization is serious about the effort; I spent 30 minutes on the phone today with its outside consultants discussing the site.

You can complete a short, online survey here to provide your feedback about the site.

I don’t want to sway the survey results, so I won’t give my specific opinions here. But take some time to complete the survey and provide meaningful suggestions. “This web site sucks” won’t help them fix it. What information are you looking for? How can they organize it to make it easier to find?

A look back at the past month in domaining.

Here are the top five news stories on Domain Name Wire in June, ranked by number of views.

1. VeriSign Gets Walloped in Court, .Com Domain Prices Could Fall - a court ruled that a case against VeriSign could go forward. If VeriSign ultimately loses, the cost of registering a .com domain name could drop.

2. Facebook URL Landrush This Friday Night - Facebook opened up vanity URLs. No more facebook.com/13343953212…

3. I Didn’t Get My Facebook URL Because I was Socially Networking - remember that landrush in #2? I missed out, but for a good reason.

4. Business.com Owner Files for Bankruptcy - R. H. Donnelley bought Business.com, but is suffering under a mountain of debt. Don’t look for an auction of Business.com, however. The company is reorganizing.

5. Bill Clinton Loses Domain Name Challenge - in a controversial domain dispute, Bill Clinton lost a challenge to get three domains including williamclinton.com.

Count your blessings and help someone less fortunate.

If only we were all so lucky

It’s hot in Texas. Last week it hit 105 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. I’ve complained aloud over the past week about the heat. My wife and I have even discussed packing up our bags and heading to a cooler climate such as Seattle.

I’ve complained when my home’s air conditioning struggled to keep the temperature down. I’ve complained about how steamy the car is when I first get into it. I’ve complained about walking the dog.

This afternoon I was lying on the couch reading a magazine, staring up at the ceiling fan. Then it hit me. I’m seriously complaining when the temperature in my house is a degree above what I want it to be? I complain about how my Acura is hot to sit in? I’m lucky to have air conditioning and a nice car.

I quickly searched for a way to help others out. I found a local charity that collects fans for the elderly and made a donation.

So next time you’re complaining about how rough things are, take a moment to realize how great you have it. And while you’re at it, donate what is surely a negligible about of your money to someone who really needs it.

Two articles you should take the time to read.

Over the past 24 hours I’ve read two great domain name articles I want to pass along.

The first is an editorial by Jeremy Rabkin, Professor of Law at George Mason University. Rabkin discusses what ICANN independence from U.S. oversight would actually mean. He points out that independence may be a bad thing, even for countries that disdain U.S. control:

Down the road, one can imagine demands from Brussels that ICANN cooperate with EU efforts to tax commercial sales negotiated over the Internet. Or perhaps it will demand a new understanding aimed at forcing top level domain managers to uphold EU privacy standards against U.S. government security measures. Or perhaps the EU will demand that a certain number of ICANN directors be appointed from a list of nominees provided by the EU, itself.

ICANN might try to defend itself by rallying political support in other quarters. It often talks about Internet “stakeholders.” The term is so amorphous it can encompass a variety of advocacy groups, concerned about Internet policy—or governments associated with national domain names (whether the association is notional, as in Mexico or Australia, or directly managerial as in China). A threatened ICANN is likely to be a more politicized ICANN.

I’ve long agreed with the views Rabkin so eloquently explains. This week at the ICANN meeting in Sydney, the Governmental Advisory Committee welcomed a Chinese delegation back to its club. That should send shivers down the spine of free speech advocates around the world.

The second article worth reading is a post by Rick Latona about new gTLDs. I don’t want to write much to give away the punch line, but you should take a few minutes to read it.