Numeric domain properties: the next 5th Avenue

If registration of a plurality of TLDs - for a brand, word, name, phrase, etc... - is any indicator of the perceived value of a domain, then numeric domains that spell common brands and words have been growing in value over the past decade and skyrocketing over the past 2 years.

A few years ago, only a fraction of the dotcom wordnumbers for the top ranked websites in the U.S. were registered. The past 48 months or so has seen the registration of the .com and slowly the .net, and in some cases .mobi and other TLDs, for the wordnumbers of the top 10 and many of the top 100 most visited websites in the U.S.

Below is the list of the top 10 most popular websites in the U.S. per the ranking company Alexa. Next to the brand name is the number of TLDs (com/net/org/info/biz/us) that the corresponding wordnumber has been registered (including the .com).

Google 4
Yahoo 6
Myspace 2
Youtube 3
Facebook 3
Live [Windows] 4
Ebay 5
Wikipedia 2
MSN 6
Craigslist 2

For the top 10 websites in the U.S. per Alexa, each brand's wordnumber is registered at least in the .com and .net, and in some cases registered 'across the board' of TLDs, as is the case with 92466, Yahoo's wordnumber.

If we expanded this analysis beyond the top 10 websites, it would yield few surprises. We know that well over a thousand wordnumbers for brands and many tens of thousands of wordnumbers for generic words have been registered in the .com TLD and that it's rare to see more than that (the .com) registered. So, when we learned that ChaCha owned its wordnumber in the .com TLD, 242242.com, as well as all other common TLDs and also a few dozen typo-variants of 242242.com, we thought that was a special item to report, especially since ChaCha.com isn't a very popular website. Today, Alexa gives it a rank of 27,317. By most accounts, that ranking is a pretty disappointing one for an alternative search engine that is trying to break out of the pack. And it is probably deserved too. I tried ChaCha this past week for the first time. My inaugural query was a simple one: what is the toll for the Tappan Zee Bridge? The answer came back within 45 seconds and stated that the toll was $4.00. I'm glad I didn't count exact change before leaving to get in my car because when I arrived at the toll both, I learned the toll was $4.50.

ChaCha registered 242242.net/org/info/etc... late last year and bought the 242242.com domain not from us, but from a relative of Scott Smith, who is CEO and President of NumericDomains.com.

DigitURL goes 2D

Read DigitURL's blogpost about 2d barcodes

The many uses of 2D barcodes:
http://www.scanlife.com/whatAreEZcodes.html

By phone, by web...by golly, what a good idea!

3663 First for Foodservice, the largest foodservice distributor in Britain, doesn't use the domain 3663.co.uk just because it's easy to type and it spells the company's core product, 'food.' The main service hotlines of 3663 actually include the numeric string '3663.' Enquiries to 3663's corporate headquarters for a multitude of services are made to 0870 3663 XXX. For instance, independent caterers may enquire about 3663's services at 0870 3663 100, while catering chains dial 0870 3663 720, catering equipment enquirers call 0870 3663 960, human resources is reached at 0870 3663 358, the business support center is 0870 3663 100, etc...

How easy is that? Caterers, restaurant owners and other clients of 3663 find that it's a cinch to remember the phone number to make enquiries, and even easier for the domain name (3663.co.uk). Do you know of any other company name that is a brand, a domain name, and part of the telephone number?

Other companies can learn from the success of 3663 First for Foodservice, which was recently ranked 19 in the 2007 Sunday Times list of the UK’s Best Big Companies to Work For. Although a vast majority of companies won't go so far as to simply drop their name in favor of a numeric one, companies could consider doing what 3663 did: register both a telephone hotline number and a domain name that are your brand's wordnumber. So, let's say, you are the CEO of Sproose, the 'user-improved' search engine. Why not obtain the phone number 1-888-777-6673, or one of the other toll-free equivalents, and also register the domain 7776673.com? 7776673 spells Sproose on most phone keypads. Once you 'spell' it out, customers will 'get it' and ever after remember your phone number and type your domain name with ease.

A numeric domain typo generator?

This past week on Jamptap, we have been discussing the fact that ChaCha Search, Inc., has been defensively registering a multitude of typographical mistakes of its numeric domain, 242242.com, to benefit from future type-in mobile traffic. We wondered if there was a way to develop a tool to help with such a task. A numeric domain typo generator hasn't yet been developed but good, ordinary domain typo generators exist on the net and tweaking them for the purposes of discovering numeric domain typo-variants works pretty well.

We used the domain typo generator at DomainTools.com and created this five step process that should take under five minutes to complete:

1. Convert your dotcom wordnumber to the alpha representation of the wordnumber; 242242.com becomes agaaga.com
2. Enter this - 'agaaga.com' - as a search term and unclick only the one box next to 'QWERTY typos' since users will likely be switched to numeric mode on their mobile phone when typing dotcom wordnumbers.
3. Copy the results and paste into a program like Excel where you can carry out a 'replace' function
4. Replace the letters with numbers again
5. Weed out the results that include the original domain, and also its plural - i.e., 242242s.com - and the typos generated for the 'dot' - i.e., wwwl242242.com. There may be other results to weed out including ones with the suffix 'co6' (i.e., NNNNNco6.com).

And there you have it: a list of typo-variants of a dotcom wordnumber for cell phone users who have sticky keys, and problems with letter swapping and letter doubling.

So, how did ChaCha do so far by this method? They currently own 8 out of 21 typos, which is a 38% success rate (provided our typo generator tweak method is a viable one). (We placed a 'Y' next to the domain property currently owned by ChaCha Search, Inc., and omitted the '.com')

24242
42242
22242
24224
24222
242-242
422242 Y
2422242
www242242 Y
ww242242
2242242 Y
242224 Y
2442242
242422 Y
2422442
w242242
2422422 Y
242242com Y
224242 Y
www-242242
www242242com

We must take into consideration, however, that these NNNNN.com's are pretty scarce these days and the current registrants probably won't let them go very easily, especially since a good portion are zip codes and set up as portals for that purpose. Furthermore, buying up typos for usage with the 'www' prefix isn't necessary since cell phone users - most of them - know that 'www' is not required.

Reducing the field according to these restrictions brings the total number of typo-variants to 11 domain names, which are below. ChaCha finally gets a passing grade (at least in our book), with a 'D' at 63%.

242-242
422242 Y
2422242
2242242 Y
242224 Y
2442242
242422 Y
2422442
2422422 Y
242242com Y
224242 Y

Certainly the prized typo-variant of 242242.com is the five-digit domain 24242.com, and what a happy person that Dutch domainer will be in the future...

Obviously, enhancements need to be made for designing a better numeric domain typo generator, especially to address keypad slips unique to a numeric keypad; a finger (a thumb, for instance) can easily slide up or down while moving right or left, and vice versa and miss certain keys or add other numbers. Also, the 'sticky keys' issue is different on a numeric keypad than a QWERTY one, so when the key '2' sticks, for instance, then the 'c' and the 'a' both stick and, likewise, you get double the trouble. A reliable numeric domain typo generator is a long way off, and good old fashioned manual tweaking and experimentation may do the trick in the meanwhile.

'Tis a good time to be a domain registrar

Jamptap discovered a new 'round' of typo-variants of the domain 242242.com that ChaCha Search, Inc., registered during this past week. They include the following: ask242242.com, ask242242.net, ask242242.org, text242242.com, text242242.net, text242242.org, www242242.com, www242242.net, 242242com.com, 242242net.net, 244442.net, and 424424.net.

While we were searching domains relating to 242242.com, we noticed several active and deleted URLs relating to the phrase '2424Milk.' 2424Milk.com was a consumer education website launched in 2004 about the nutritional value of, you got it, milk. The site was also the 2-year home of the popular Milk Mustache celebrity campaign, which began years before. In 2006, the site offered a sweepstakes to win 1 of 24 trips to the Bahamas.

The domain, 2424Milk.com, marketed as 24/24milk.com, was so named to emphasize the claim that having 24 ounces of milk every 24 hours while dieting would help. The campaign's platform was 'Milk Your Diet. Lose Weight! 24 ounces in 24 hours.' Apparently 24 ounces in a day seemed a bit too much milk, or mustache, for most people and in 2007 the domain 2424milk.com began forwarding to the domain WhyMilk.com, the new official home of the milk mustache hall of fame. Perhaps it was the number '24' that sounded like a lot of (ounces of) milk. The message on WhyMilk.com is still the same, however they just use a smaller number. They advise people to drink 3 glasses/day, which seems like less milk but, of course, really isn't. Per WhyMilk.com: 'Studies suggest the nutrients in 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day can help maintain a healthy weight, plus the protein helps build muscle for a lean body.' Both websites were launched by the Milk PEP (Milk Processor Education Program), which is funded by America's milk processors.

ChaCha Search, Inc., probably has noticed in their domain registration frenzy over the past month that a lot of domains with 2's and 4's and the word milk are still hanging around with parking pages. Our favorite is 24224milk.com, which is the URL that a user would type in to get to ChaCha when, suddenly, they realize they haven't had their 24 ounces today and hash out the word 'milk.' It's unbelievable that domain is still registered.

Is that an 'O' or a '0' in your domain?

When dotcom wordnumbers become all the rage in the future, search engine companies Google and Yahoo will have an individual in Washington state to thank for sending them additional traffic.

If you mistype the dotcom wordnumbers for Google (466453.com) and Yahoo (92466.com) by mistakenly thinking the 'o's were zeros (i.e., g00gle, yah00) and therefore typing zeros instead of sixes, you'll end up at the no-frills webpages put up in 2004 by benevolent Seattleite Steve Safarik, who was once described as a 'prior dorkbot presenter of the laser-projected computer game Spacewars.'

Those domains at 400453.com and 92400.com resolve to a stark white webpage with only a single link to Google Wireless and Yahoo Mobile, respectively. The source code for both webpages contains a meta redirect tag that automatically forwards users to the respective Google and Yahoo portals - for 400453.com, the redirect URL is 466453.com; for 92400.com, the redirect URL is mobile.yahoo.com (Yahoo, Inc., doesn't own its own dotcom wordnumber).

Update on ChaCha's 242242.com

Our blog post from Thursday - ChaCha's 242242.com goes live - is already outdated on Saturday. Although ChaCha's typo-variants of 242242.com all seem to still be forwarded to ChaCha.com, we have noticed that the main attraction, 242242.com, is no longer resolving.

Oh well. Here's one theory: one of ChaCha's execs or technicians set the domain to resolve earlier this week, added the URL to search engines, waited until the domain was spidered and then abruptly ended the URL redirection, waiting until a future date when application of that numeric domain will be made official (via a press release). As such, searching '242242.com' on Google now reveals a new result - ChaCha.com/textchacha - that will help, although in a very small way and probably just among Jamptap readers, to boost ChaCha's stream of visitors. The big benefit will be when, and if, ChaCha launches a mobile initiative while simultaneously announcing 242242.com as a mobile 'feature'. Since '242242.com' is indexed by Google, users will see immediately that there's an association in the search results of 242242.com to ChaCha.com.

Important announcement from Jamptap

As part of our long-term goal to establish Jamptap as the premiere newsblog for accurate, insightful, and timely reports on the applications of the wordnumber concept to the mobile arena, we will be initiating several changes during 2008 to our blogging preferences and blog format, which we hope will benefit the industry and our readership.

Since our inaugural post nearly two years ago in March 2006, we have seen a steady increase in interest and also investment in the application of the wordnumber concept by domain investors and internet companies. Our blogging has likewise evolved from our initial interest into Google Number Search to all-things-wordnumber.

Our first change in 2008 is that we are now enabling comments on all our posts, past and present. We are doing this to benefit from additional points of views, facts that eluded us, facts that you decide to make public via a comment and also perspectives from persons and companies that we are reporting on. Our first priority is the accuracy of information that we are providing. The knowledge from other parties is absolutely necessary to achieve our goal.

Later in 2008, we will be making changes to the Jamptap template - from the classic Blogger template - to a newer layout and also explore the idea of guest posts, interviews and a suite of in-depth research products and services for mobile companies and investors. Thank you for your interest in Jamptap and we hope you will visit often.

ChaCha's dotcom wordnumber typo-variants go live too; 242242.mobi joins the mix

Pursuant to our posts over the past 48 hours about ChaCha Search, Inc., titled 'A first: ChaCha invests in its dotcom wordnumber variants' and 'ChaCha's 242242.com goes live', Jamptap has learned that over the past 2 days, in addition to resolving 242242.com to ChaCha.com, ChaCha Search, Inc., is also resolving - with two exceptions - 242242 in all other TLDs and ccTLDs as well as its entire known portfolio of typo-variants of 242242.com to its website.

All of these domains, listed below, were not resolving ('Problem loading page' error) earlier this week.

242242.com
242242.net
242242.org doesn't resolve
242242.info
242242.biz
242242.mobi
242242.co.uk

2242242.com

2422422.com

224242.com
224242.net
224242.org

242422.com
242422.net
242422.org

244242.com
244242.net
244242.org goes to a parking page, yet it is owned by ChaCha Search, Inc.

242224.com
242224.net
242224.org

422242.com
422242.net
422242.org

The information provided about the above links may change at any time, however was accurate at the time of posting. Also, more numeric domain typo-variants, not listed here, may exist.

ChaCha's 242242.com goes live

When we checked yesterday, 242242.com didn't resolve.

We checked today and that changed.

242242.com now resolves to a webpage at ChaCha.com at the following URL, http://www.chacha.com/textchacha, which discusses the basics of ChaCha's 'mobile answer service' and its shortcode, 242242.

Although ChaCha has not yet launched its mobile website and so no pages on the ChaCha website are optimized for mobile, ChaCha's decision to finally resolve 242242.com - its dotcom wordnumber - to its website further demonstrates that ChaCha intends to incorporate its dotcom wordnumber into its overall mobile strategy. It is quickly becoming more believable that when ChaCha Mobile launches any cell phone user anywhere will be able to enter 242242.com into their cell browser and be connected directly to ChaCha's mobile web site. 242242 is a 50% 'savings' in taps over the word 'ChaCha' and, pending adoption of the wordnumber idea among its users, ChaCha stands a chance of leveraging its dotcom wordnumber to catch up to its competitors.

How much more market share ChaCha can gain through its incorporation and implementation of the wordnumber concept is the million dollar question. Two of ChaCha's competitors, Live and Yahoo, are at the mercy of WordDial, which owns their dotcom wordnumbers and apparently will perpetually insist on resolving those domains to one of its portals. Therefore, both search engines' users will always be an extra screen away from any mobile destination. That is a somewhat significant disadvantage when compared to Google, for instance, which owns its own dotcom wordnumber, 466453.com, which has resolved directly to Google.com (and its mobile version) for many years.

When ChaCha.com goes mobile, ChaCha's 242242.com will stand toe-to-toe, tapwise, to Google's 466453.com. Although Google has more experience as a search engine company, a mobile search engine service and as innovator of mobile tools such as Google Number Search, ChaCha has two advantages over Google. ChaCha, as a young organization whose founders are playing an active, daily role in its growth, is nimble; it can react more quickly to demands and forces in the marketplace. Second, ChaCha is more apt to take risks since it has less to lose than the search engine juggernauts. Not weighed down by fears of tarnishing its reputation or eroding shareholder confidence, ChaCha can take risks and do what Google hasn't done in more than six years: advertise its dotcom wordnumber. Although 466453.com resolves to Google, that is a fact not advertised by Google for many reasons including one we discussed in May 2007 that 'It's a daring move to associate a nearly billion dollar asset to a string of un-trademarkable numbers.'

Associating a brand with a string of numbers that is a shortcode is one thing, to tell the world that your online property IS a set of numbers is another. ChaCha may not be burdened by these 'large cap' internet company concerns and so has all the trappings of the little search engine that could climb to the top of the mobile search world. Having decided to purchase and resolve its dotcom wordnumber and also register a near-complete set of numeric domain variants, ChaCha's next step is to navigate the dance floor with the daring move of marketing 242242.com to the masses.

A first: ChaCha invests in its dotcom wordnumber variants

ChaCha Search, Inc., the internet corporation known for its human-powered search engine at ChaCha.com, which recently launched a 'mobile answer service,' appears to be the first company to apply the traditional corporate domain acquisition strategy of registering trademark-domain variants to dotcom wordnumbers.

The dotcom wordnumber for ChaCha is 242242.com (242242 spells ChaCha on a phone keypad), which Scott Smith of numericdomains.com said earlier this month on his blog was owned by a family member who received an anonymous offer through a broker late last year. Smith believed, at the time, that the broker was the proxy for ChaCha, and made the decision to sell. Smith turned out to be right - it was a broker for ChaCha - and ChaCha added 242242.com to its portfolio of numeric domains relating to its wordnumber that it had been building that included 242242 in 'TLD and CC extensions including .net, .org, .co.uk, .info, .biz, .mobi -and potentially others.'

Jamptap has just discovered that last week ChaCha Search, Inc., bought two typo-variants of 242242.com. Those domains include 2242242.com and 2422422.com, which were registered on January 14, 2008. While researching domain registrations, we also learned that in October 2007 ChaCha registered 224242, 242422, 244242, 242224 and 422242 in the following TLD extensions: .com, .net and .org. Other permutations may exist.

Also, we found that last week ChaCha registered 8002242242 (800-2-ChaCha) in at least 5 TLDs, which may indicate that ChaCha is considering providing a breed of toll-free voice-activated search in the future.

What does this all mean? As we learned from the happenings of New Zealand-based WordDial, when a company realizes that a domainer/company/investor beat it to its own dotcom wordnumber, then they tend to over-react. When Yahoo, Inc., discovered that WordDial registered (before it did) the domain 92466.com , which spells among other things 'Yahoo' (which has several definitions in the dictionary, not just 'a leading search engine'), Yahoo, Inc., proceeded to buy 92466 in every other TLD and an incredible array of ccTLDs as well.

Our impression is that ChaCha reacted in a similar fashion. ChaCha even succeeded in purchasing its dotcom wordnumber. Yahoo didn't but has a continuing content partnership with WordDial.

The difference between the ChaCha and Yahoo 'case studies' is that ChaCha bought not only its dotcom wordnumber in various TLDs but also mistypes of its numeric domain. This is a development in the numeric domain field that is significant for two reasons. First, by registering the many typo-variants of 242242.com whereas no other company is known to have done this (with dotcom wordnumbers), ChaCha is demonstrating an elevated intention of actually using 242242.com as a mobile portal since the company is apparently concerned with redirecting (type-in) traffic from mistyped URLs to its mobile webpage. Second, and perhaps most interesting, this new piece of information may mean that since ChaCha is registering these typo-variants, then there could be a market for dotcom wordnumber mistypes in the foreseeable future.

ChaCha's actions indicate that its dotcom wordnumber is not some 'crazy' idea but that it is serious about using 242242.com as a key part of its mobile strategy. ChaCha's actions, therefore, may serve as a catalyst to the numeric domain land rush and inspire investors and internet companies alike to not only put their money into numeric domains but, like ChaCha has done, also numeric domain variants.

466453.com reappears on Alexa radar

466453.com, the URL shortcut to Google Mobile that spells the letters G-O-O-G-L-E on your phone keypad, is once again ranked by Alexa. In October 2006 the domain was listed with a rank of 4,181,472 and then abruptly fell off the Alexa traffic ranking radar screen and didn't re-appear until about a month ago.

On December 30, 2007, 466453.com was the 8,145,411th most popular website on the internet per Alexa. Today, January 23, 2008, its rank is 7,941,626, which translates to a minor one-month gain in popularity. Alexa warns, however, that 'Traffic Rankings of 100,000+ should be regarded as not reliable because the amount of data we receive is not statistically significant.' Time will tell if 466453.com is rising signficantly in popularity amongst mobile users.

Test post - please ignore

This is a test post - I'm experimenting with blogger templates - don't bother

All data is public records data obtained via Secretary of State websites.

Connecticut:

CHILD SAFETY INNOVATIONS INC.
bus. add.: 175 CLEARBROOK RD, SUITE 126, ELMSFORD, NY, 10523
Inc. date: Nov 13, 2006
Officers: LARRY ZEISS, Pres., res. add. 54 WILDEY RD. APT 2, TARRYTOWN, NY, 10591, agent bus. add. 1227 BURNSIDE AVE #1, E. HARTFORD, CT, 06108

CHILD SAFETY USA, INC.
bus. add.: 1227 BURNSIDE AVE., EAST HARTFORD, CT, 06108
Inc. date: Aug 23, 2005
Officers: LESTER A. SMITH, Pres., res. add. 1227 BURNSIDE AVE., EAST HARTFORD, CT, 06108

COMMUNITY EVENTS, INC.
bus. add.: 199 SHUNPIKE RD SUITE 2, CROMWELL, CT, 06416
Inc. date: May 02, 2006
Officers: CHRISTINA STEELE-KURTIN, Pres., bus. add. 1227 BURNSIDE AVE #1, E. HARTFORD, CT, 06108, res. add. 273 TOWN STREET, E. HADDAM, CT, 06423

NY STATE:

CHILD SAFETY INNOVATIONS INC.
DOS (Dept. of State.) filing date: MARCH 17, 2006
County: Westchester
entity add.: LAWRENCE J ZEISS 175 CLEARBROOK RD SUITE 126 ELMSFORD, NEW YORK, 10523

CHILD SAFETY OF AMERICA, INC.
DOS (Dept. of State.) filing date: APRIL 22, 2005
County: Suffolk
entity add.: CHILD SAFETY OF AMERICA, INC. 94-C EAST JEFRYN BLVD DEERPARK, NEW YORK, 11729
Registered Agent: KEVIN MCCAFFREY 94-C EAST JEFRYN BLVD DEERPARK, NEW YORK, 11729

COMMUNITY EVENTS, INC.
foreign business corporation
DOS (Dept. of State.) filing date: NOVEMBER 22, 2006
County: MONROE
Jurisdiction: CONNECTICUT
entity add.: COMMUNITY EVENTS, INC.
1227 BURNSIDE AVE SUITE 1
E. HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, 06108

ISLAND EVENTS INC.
DOS (Dept. of State.) filing date: SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
County: Suffolk
entity add.: MICHAEL J BEATTY 94C E. JEFFRYN BLVD DEER PARK, NEW YORK, 11729

**************************
The Stamford Advocate
www.stamfordadvocate.com

Shoppers confused by Toys for Tots helpers; Worries raised over delivery of gifts

By Angela Carella
Assistant City Editor

December 22, 2006

An agreement between the U.S. Marine Corps' Toys for Tots program and a marketing company is creating confusion among some holiday shoppers in Stamford and Greenwich, and among some of the former Marines who collect and distribute the toys to needy children. continued

Jamptap on your mobile

We wish we could take credit for this (we didn't plan it this way), but it just so happens that the word 'Jamptap' actually uses the same alphabet of letters as Pa.am. If you look at your phone keypad, each letter in 'Jamptap' only requires one-tap on each button. What this means is that you can get to our blog by going to any mobile search engine and typing (Jamptap) just as you would on a QWERTY keyboard. Jamptap will be the first result. How easy is that? Try it!

Will we be seeing more brands being created with permutations of this alphabet of A, D, G, J, M, P, T, and W? If so, you can be sure that words such as tap, map, and wap will be in the mix.

DigitURL. Meet Pa.am. Pa.am is much prettier.

DigitURL, the URL redirection utility for mobile phone users, has met its match. And it's match is a whole lot prettier.

Introducing Pa.am, which uses a very simple approach to alleviating keypad pressing woes on your mobile. Pa.am uses the 'alphabet' of mobile-optimized letters on a phone keypad to create short URLs that are exceedingly easy to type. This alphabet comprises the first letter assigned to each numeric button (from 2 to 9) and contains only the following: A, D, G, J, M, P, T, and W. This innovation, of using the one-tap-only letters for mobile URLs, isn't new: Ameritrade was smart in registering amtd.com, which is a cinch for mobile phone users to type in, and amtd.com went to Ameritrade's mobile site for many years. What Pa.am - which requires only 4 taps (w/o the dot) from the user - does is make creative use of third and fourth level domains to assign a 'tinyURL' that is mobile friendly. We created the shortURL of 'dwm.j.pa.am' to get to DigitURL. That URL is just 8 taps (w/o the dots). Other URLs generated via Pa.am are even shorter. Certainly Pa.am's utilization of the '.am' tld - dot am is the ccTLD for Armenia - is a vast improvement over '.com'.

Now, if you're a mathematician, you'll probably be quickly figuring in your head that Pa.am could only work for a few thousand URLs if they were to keep the total domain length short (8-10 digits). All of them would be used up in a few weeks. What Pa.am does to solve this problem is an expiration date, of either 48 hrs or 'single serve.' Per the site: 'Single Serves last just 30 seconds after first use, with a 15 minute maximum.'

If the expiry feature was not a problem, then Pa.am just beat WordDial and DigitURL at their game. Any URL can be shortenend to 8 or 9 digits (w/o dots) or less; and that cannot be outdone.

But expiry is a problem. Users want perpetual, easy access to the popular sites they frequent without bothering with typing in lengthy mobile URLs. Pa.am is more likely targeted to users who want to one-time share a site with a friend, or friends, via an email link. Dotcom wordnumbers are a better solution for perpetual, easy access to popular mobile sites.

Give voice-activated directions a rest: use your thumbs

IAC Search & Media, the parent company of ASK.com, announced on Thursday (Jan. 3, 2008) that it has incorporated the voice-activated technology developed by Dial Directions (Dialdirections.com) into ASK.com's mobile directions service. The press release asserts that "voice input is a natural complement to the Ask.com Mobile Directions" portal and is an improvement (over typing on a mobile device) because it 'eliminates typing addresses, which can be slow, error-prone and, in some cases, unsafe.'

Now wait a second. Typing addresses on a mobile device may in fact not be more difficult. If you think of all the hard-to-pronounce street and city names out there, you'd be certain that ASK.com has not 'figured it out' and users will be wasting away minutes speaking s-l-o-w-e-r and s-l-o-w-e-r before eventually giving up. You can be certain that a percentage of the time ASK.com won't recognize peoples' pronunciation of cities or streets in the U.S., for example cities named by the Native American Indians or early Spanish settlers. Try getting directions to or from Wewahitchka, Florida, from ASK mobile's speech-activated directions search engine...just try.

As we blogged about earlier this week, automated voice-based search directories aren't perfect and neither are automated voice-activated directions services. Unless you're using a live person (e.g., ChaCha), text input will always have to be incorporated into any form of mobile search and only the folks at Google have figured out a way to make texting truly fast, easy and simple.

Using Google Number Search technology to type addresses *can be* (if the technology was applied) quick, error-free and quite safe as evidenced by this simple sample query, '10 3696464 787338,' which spells a popular address on your keypad:

http://www.google.com/search?q=allnum%3A10+3696464+787338

Google simply needs to fold-in GNS into Google Maps Mobile and as a result it would be far more accurate, easier to use and safer than ASK.com's voice-activated directions service.

Google's 466453.com

Alexa rank for Google.com: 1

Alexa rank for 466453.com: 8,907,013

Number of keytaps saved by visiting 466453.com instead of mobile.google.com on your mobile phone: 22

ChaCha launches mobile answer service

ChaCha, the 'human-powered search engine', has launched a SMS search utility, an unique twist on mobile search that SearchEngineLand calls a 'mobile answer engine.' The difference between ChaCha's SMS search tool and Yahoo's, Google's, 4Info's, etc... is that users can send full search phrase (natural language) text messages using ChaCha. ChaCha's competitors still require their texters to construct search phrases using formatting rules and text shortcuts that don't give the user much search flexibility. What's more is that ChaCha uses live search experts to tackle the challenges of mobile searching with a small mobile device. Those challenges include input - abbreviated search phrases, spelling errors ('wiat color's the gr8 wall of china?) - and output - very few (one or two) results fill up a mobile screen. ChaCha can solve both problems with a live person who can understand what the heck the user is trying to say and also sift through the web to find the best-suited web snippet for the user's needs. Google SMS has a 'web snippets' function but that is poorly rated.

ChaCha is also lucky to have a very attractive shortcode, 242242, and ChaCha owns its dotcom wordnumber 242242.com, which it purchased a year ago in late 2007 and doesn't currently resolve; it isn't forwarded to a website or a parking page. ChaCha's ownership of its dotcom wordnumber might not be a tell-tale sign that the mobile search company will use it as its future mobile web domain. It may have been ChaCha's knee-jerk reaction to numeric domain speculators who have been grabbing up all easy to type numeric patterns (i.e., 123123.com) that usually don't mean anything. Or not. Whichever the case may be, ChaCha has the ability to establish 242242.com as its mobile web portal and give their customers a near tapless, text-messaging-cost-less, barrier-free method of mobile searching.

A numeric domainers association as a means of raising industry stature

Last week we reported on the idea of a professional association for numeric domainers, which was prompted by the discovery of several recently registered domains by a WordDial co-founder. The block of registered domains includes monikers that you'd associate with a professional association including the actual phrase 'Numeric Domain(ers) Association' and also 'forum' and newsletter (we discovered another domain in the block, DailyNumericDomainer.com).

Professional or industry associations generally serve to elevate the skill sets, networks, ideas exchange, and careers of its members and also promote trade and good business practices (ethics) in the marketplace. An industry association is the first place the public often goes to seek general information, consultant or business referrals, jobs, learning opportunities, license verifications, and even position statements. All of these services increase the visibility, professionalism and stature of the field.

Visibility, professionalism and stature is what the numeric domain industry needs most and for two main reasons.

First, the visibility (and stature) of the numeric domain industry needs to be raised because a significant amount of investment and web development related to numeric domains has occurred yet it hasn't been enough to garner the attention or interest of news outlets, large internet companies and wireless carriers. Of great concern to numeric domainers is the lackluster marketplace and lack of liquidity for numeric domain properties in general.

A second reason the numeric domain industry needs added visibility, professionalism and stature is that numeric domainers automatically inherit the lack of trust the public places on all members of the domain industry, which has a tarnished image from the actions of cybersquatters and trademark violators. Numeric domainers ought to be viewed as upstanding businesspersons who follow best business practices, business ethics and all applicable laws. This is one of the core goals of the DNOA (Domain Name Owners Association): 'the building of trust and professionalism of its members.' DNOA's webpage is littered with confidence-inspiring words and phrases such as honesty, integrity, ethics, scoundrel-free and professionalism. Although a few nice-sounding adjectives on a website won't build trust, a code of ethics abided by all members would help. So would a dispute resolution service. Another way to significantly boost the numeric domain industry's image is by emphasizing the fact that numeric domainers have immunity from copyright and trademark violations - this would add much needed legitimacy to the efforts of current and prospective numeric domain owners and web developers.

Certainly a numeric domain association would help by educating the public about all the reasons why one ought to invest in numeric domain properties. It also could help match buyers and sellers via an online marketplace or auction events.

If numeric domainers want investors to realize the utility and worth of their properties or products, it will help to raise the industry's visibility, professionalism and stature. An industry association is the obvious means to those ends.

Marketing wordnumbers for use with GOOG411

As automated voice-based search directories grow in popularity, businesses with exotic and hard-to-pronounce names may be at a disadvantage. For instance, if you call a typical automated voice search directory and want to find the phone number for a restaurant called 'Oaxaca' or 'Ame' or perhaps a nightclub called 'ThéâtrO' or 'Babalúu', you may have a pretty hard time getting the voice recognition software to understand you. 'Voice searching' instead by generic categories such as 'restaurants' or 'nightclubs' might also be a lost cause since it may be too onerous to listen through the long list of results.

Goog411 - Google's free voice search service for business telephone directory information - is the only automated (sans a live person to help you) voice search directory with a unique feature that provides users with the ability to search for the name of a business by entering its wordnumber. A wordnumber is constructed by spelling a word using the numbers on your keypad, such as 9256278 for Walmart or 8294 for taxi.

Businesses with hard-to-pronounce names might circumvent voice recognition obstacles by marketing their wordnumber for use in combination with Goog411. (This is assuming that customers know how to spell the names of the businesses they frequent.) How would this work? Since Goog411 works by first narrowing the search to within the user's preference of city and state, a restaurant or club named 'Babalúu' in a certain city will likely be the first, and possibly only, result if the user entered its wordnumber, 2222588. Goog411 conveniently offers to connect the user to the telephone number and also to 'Map It' (receive a SMS message with a link to a map).

Babaluu's customers don't even need to memorize the wordnumber - customers only need to know what to do after calling Goog411. "For reservations, call 1-800-GOOG-411 and press the numbers that correspond with the word Babaluu" might be part of the restaurant's marketing message on advertisements. Certainly branding the wordnumber might even work if the wordnumber is easy to remember. Registering the dotcom wordnumber at 2222588.com, which would redirect the user to the business homepage, would be a natural extension of this idea.

There are literally thousands of companies in every country that may lose business because automated free voice search directory services will be stumped by callers who - for a myriad of reasons - are stumbling with the articulation of business names. The wordnumber is the perfect solution.