Comments on: Rick Latona Hiding Reason Behind AEIOU Getting Out of Web Design

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:12:33 +0000

Good post. RL’s company tries too much to run the domain business like a pawn shop. Yea, I know Rick got his big start because he was one of the first people to offer pawn loans on digital assets and took his risk doing so. I do not trust him or his company. He is a merely a high end pawn shop. Some of the domains they had in the recent NYC auction where a joke to me but that is just one’s personal opinion. They declined to list several good NYC related names I have. I was willing to go no reserve to ensure a sale with them but I guess they would rather list sercuritydevices.com for $5000 than solid “Wall Street” theme names for no reserve. WHAT?

Now in RL’s news letter back when he started, it stated: “RULES”: “Here’s the Skinny, I DO NOT appraise names, I AM NOT a appraiser. If you DO NOT include a price you want for your domain you will be ignored” — well ok fine I said, after all it is his company. He can c’mon as firm as he wants to be like a back door loan thug. It is his right to do so. About a month went by and I heard a recorded interview I think it was on webmaster.fm. The great RL stated in his own english words: ” I am one of the BEST and top people to place a value on a domain” WHAT!!! Is this not a self appraisal in a opinion considering values and numbers?

Again a while later I got the “New Digiloan Offer” by the creators of DigiPawn, by yours truly RL! We are loaning at 1%, I thought wow I got to try this! I sent the digi people (RL) a name with PROOF and SCREENSHOTS of monthly income and was told no.WHAT!!! again! I thought. This is making money! Here is the past 6 months of proof!

I sent his digi people a couple of names for his newsletter. They seemed very eager to publish them, as a matter of fact so eager they jacked up my suggested prices 3x over what I wanted. (remember now, I set my prices so I would NOT BE ignored. I did this by the RL skinny of the rules) and yet they broke their own rules and reset the prices! It was priced so high I could not get a BUYER!

Again I was contacted over and over by one of his aeiou cookie cutter website wordpress developers and simply kept telling him “How can I work with you when your company can’t even work on the level.

Sorry RL. I use to admire your business accomplishments but you have been caught in your own lies once too many. The smaller end domineers in this industry don’t need your bullshit. Also he don’t need to read articles by you about how to shit on a plane in your blog. Go take a dump in your PawnShop

By: Bruno Ascari

Bruno Ascari — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:07:47 +0000

Well, you have to give it to Rick Latona. Every domainer will eventually need to think of ways on how to make money. But like any entrepreneur, not all money-making ideas will actually take off. Atleast, now we now that this kind of scheme doesn’t work!

By: rich

rich — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:31:52 +0000

Hats off to you for honesty. Rick Latona is ALL hype. You should get refunds if you did not get what was promised. Tired of people kissing ass to guys like this.

By: nSathees

nSathees — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:29:13 +0000

The problem with mini site is that the price of development is cut down to mini as they offer mini site. A web site is a web site! There is no such thing as mini site. SEO is hard. If you thing with your 5 post the site is going to rank well and stay where it is? I bet, Google thinks otherwise. Updating the site is important. The Articles got to be written with SEO in mind which is not in the capacity of domain owners.

The other problem is the overhead. How can you pay a developer 20 hrs on a mini site $20 / hr and charge the client $99?

The only solution is to setup a mini site developing firm in a developing country like Sri Lanka to take the advantage of low paid high talents.

Yes, that is where I am living now. I returned to my native country in Dec. 2005 after living 13 years in Swiss and 8 years in Canada.

In Sri Lanka, you can have an entry level developer for $220 a month. That’s 160 hrs for $220 and high end developer for $ 500 a month.

If anyone wants to establish a mini site development firm in Sri Lanka, contact me. I can help you.

By: Dave R

Dave R — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:12:29 +0000

AEIOU SUCKS! I agree with it all, I bought 3 bigger sites and in 2 months , NOTHING and I mean NOTHING was finished and I sent them screen shots etc of everything I needed, how simple is that and talked to them on the phone so many times I lost count……….ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE and I dont care that Latona was a Premiere domain person..SO WHAT…he didnt care about my situation and I dare him to call me and explain his indifference at any time…By the way he never did and never will because he is hiding behind excuses.

I hope his other stuff goes in the drain just like he treated me on my projects …good riddance

By: Arlen Bischke

Arlen Bischke — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:49:50 +0000

Wow! I am very impressed by this posting of your honest opinion and evaluation of his over priced mini-sites. I admire people who call a spade a spade. Way to go! Sounds to me that what Whypark offers for free is worth more than these 250 dollar mini-sites.

By: SteveC

SteveC — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:38:32 +0000

Same results here from 3 other so called “developers”. They seem to be using a product called xsitepro or a clone. Templates. The developers seem to have NO experience with the revenue stream they are addressing. I had AEIOU working oin a GEO project but I pulled the plug when it was obvious they were beginners.
One guy charged me 25.00 and did the best job using XsitePro. The rest are nothing. All of them need much more development to make money.
We are set up using the full Adobe Master Collection and work to produce world class web sites. I guess I will go back to doing them the old fashionded way. Hard work but we love it.

By: Steve Fox

Steve Fox — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:59:15 +0000

I know he will read it. Its like politics, you will never know the real reason since no one shares what goes on behind closed doors. Although you have a special view because of an experience. Intriguing.

By: Ryan Young

Ryan Young — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:41:16 +0000

Great article. I agree with a lot of what you say in your post. I had AEIOU do a development for me as well and it was much of the same as you talk about. I wrote about my experiences on my blog today as well.