After logging into Facebook, I saw a link posted by a friend of mine leading to a website with a .me extension. She isn’t in the domaining industry, and it’s not everyday that I see someone outside the domaining industry surfing websites that aren’t based on a gTLD. Being curious as I was, I decided to click on the link. The link led me to her profile on FormSpring.me. The website had an interesting concept, but that is besides the point.

The thought that somebody not in the domaining industry could’ve found a website on a ccTLD was still bothering me because I just couldn’t imagine it to be possible. This is when I decided to check out the website’s Compete rankings. The website was formed in November of 2009, and over the few months of its operation, it has grown to have approximately 2,000,000 visitors in a single month.

This is a website that is clearly seeing success with the .me extension and is making great use of it. I’m also shocked to see such a rapid growth in a website as simple as FormSpring.me. Feel free to submit your comments on the FormSpring.me website or (preferrably) the .me extension.

Head over to GoDaddy.com, and use the coupon code BUY2010. These coupons normally only last for a day or two, so make sure to grab your domain before the promotion ends.

An interesting twist to promotion that we haven’t seen with GoDaddy’s $0.99 promotions in the past is they are allowing you to use the coupon code with any domain extension that they offer.

In this case, New Yorker Mike Grimaldi owned a vintage Camaro that was in need of repairs. When searching on Google, he found an ad for Mr. Guinn’s reapair shop in Pennsylvania. Grimaldi called Guinn and spoke with him about his car. After deciding to choose Guinn to do the repairs for his Camaro, Grimaldi shipped his beautiful Camaro to Guinn and didn’t hear from Guinn for about 14 months. Now 14 months later, the only thing Guinn has done is took the car apart to a point where it needs more repairs than before and has lost value.

Grimaldi decided to file a case against Guinn for the loss of value of his car. The place where Grimaldi screwed up is he filed the case in Brooklyn, near his home. Guinn’s attorneys told Brooklyn courts that they didn’t have jurisdiction because Pennsylvania is Guinn’s place of business. Grimaldi’s attorneys responded that by advertising on Google AdWords in the state of New York, they are conducting business in the state of New York, therefore giving Brooklyn courts jurisdiction.

The county court where the case was originally filed denied Guinn’s motion, finding that advertising on Google AdWords in the state of New York and doing business with a person in the state of New York means that Guinn is doing business in the state of New York. When Guinn appealed, the Second Department upheld the lower court’s decision stating, “Despite the fact that Guinn was not physically present in New York, the exercise of jurisdiction over him by the courts of this State does not offend due process.”

Although there are other reasons for the finding of this case, do you think that by advertising on Google AdWords in another state and then conducting business with a person from that state means that you no longer have the personal jurisdiction you thought you had? My take on it is this; if you’re advertising in another state and providing any type of goods and services to a person in that state, then the courts are absolutely right to say you can be tried or sued in that state. If you are just advertising using Google AdWords in another state and not conducting business or providing goods and services to a person in that state, then you should be able to keep personal jurisdiction. What’s your opinion? Make sure to comment below.

Take a popular Chicago radio station like 103.5 Kiss FM. They’re always giving away concert tickets and money to the 103rd caller. Then the next thing you know they have thousands of people calling in and they have them all anxiously listening to the radio station as they sit on hold.

It’s simply a great idea to give away huge promotions to mark milestones. Apple’s promotion will probably get more people buying songs on iTunes, in hopes that they’ll win this gift card instead of illegally downloading the song off of freeware like limewire. Good job Apple. Feel free to comment what you think of promotions during milestones in a company’s lifespan.

While many people can barely afford a lawyer in the first place, for those of you who can afford a lawyer for transactions or lawsuits, you shouldn’t only consider lawyers known amongst the domaining industry. This isn’t meant to insult any of the firms who do often blog about domain transactions and trademark, but do you really want a lawyer who has that much time on there hands. Normally, a lawyer with a lot of free time and few clients isn’t the lawyer you want representing you. That probably means he or she is not the best lawyer in the world.

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. Take Traverse Legal for example. You’ll see a blog post from them every once in a while on Domaining.com. They happen to get a lot of clients, and somehow squeeze in the time to post a blog post. There are plenty of other exceptions, but nonetheless, it’s something to think about.

I just think many intellectual property lawyers from big and small U.S. firms who don’t necessarily specialize in domains, but have tried cases including domain names, go overlooked a lot. And you shouldn’t only be looking into the names that Elliot listed on his blog post, but doing some research and calling some firms that you’ve heard of before and talking to general intellectual property lawyers. You’d be surprised, you might be able to afford them. Rates are going down, so now’s the time to get hooked up with a good attorney if you need one. Elliot wrote a well-researched post, but you need to be the one to take his research 1 step forward.

That’s right, Facebook.com has been hacked. Or at least, that’s the way it appears here in Chicago. While it could well just be hacked for certain internet providers or geographic areas, it has been hacked. When typing in Facebook.com, it comes up as whats shown in the thumbnail of this post.

I’d like to hear if the same page is coming up when you go to Facebook.com. It’s always interesting to see someone hack into a website as big as Facebook.com. It requires a lot of knowledge, and I’m sure there will be news reports on it when an interesting story comes out of it. Make sure to share whether Facebook.com is working for you, or if it’s forwarding to this page I posted, by submitting your comments below.

The other question I think is important to pose is, how does a website as big as Facebook.com get hacked with all of their security measures. It sure looks like their security measures in this case just weren’t strong enough.

UPDATE: Facebook.com is back up and running normally again.

First off, you need to accept that Domaining.com did add technology blogs to their feed. If you’re angry about this, Domaining.com has a tool that allows you to block feeds. God forbid you have to click once or twice to get rid of a feed. But keep in mind that technology blogs are useful to most internet businesses. Domaining is a type of internet business, so Francois (the owner of Domaining.com) is simply expanding his feed to include other information that can potentially help domainers.

Late last week, Domaining.com put a donation button on the top of their feed. Surprisingly enough, this outraged a couple of domainers for one reason or another. In my opinion, if you were outraged by a donation button, I’m going to recommend you go to anger management classes. If donation button on a website is troublesome to you, you may want to step outside for a change and smell the coffee. Domaining.com removed this button at some point during this weekend or today. The amazing thing is Domaining.com had every right to put that donation button on their website. They provide one of the most useful, popular feeds to the domaining industry, and most-likely don’t make much (or as much as they should be).

Anyways, sorry for the rant. I think it’s necessary that domainers understand that they should stop complaining Domaining.com, but actually thanking them for their helpful, free service. I look forward to comments.

The Undercover Boss sends people in high-end corporate positions, such as CEO or COO, to work undercover with the employees of their business. While it was an interesting premier last night, this article is not a review of a reality television show. Instead, I’d like to emphasize the lesson learned in this reality show and how you can implement these concepts into your business module to increase productivity and employee morale.

Lesson for the Week

When creating company policies, don’t only think about what’s best for you, and others in similar high-end positions in your business. You need to think about the people who are going to actually have to follow and work around these new policies. You could take a survey to see what your employees think of a new policy. Bring in an employee or a few employees to get their opinion on the policy. My main point is, policies are made to be followed. If the people who have to follow them don’t like the policies, they won’t be happy, which will lead to employee morale issues. Employee morale issues lead to decreased productivity. It’s a chain reaction that will only hurt you, so it’s important to make sure your employees are happy with any policies or rules in order to keep a good productivity level.

Similar to how other domaining blogs have weekly comics, I’ve decided to publish a different lesson or tip every Monday, throughout the Undercover Boss season. I think this show can teach domainers and business owners a lot about how to run a business well. Even for domainers like myself who don’t own a big company with a bunch of employees, lessons and tips like these can be helpful in a modified way. I hope you enjoyed this week’s tip. Stay tuned for more articles this week as well as the next week’s Back to Work lesson. I’d also love to hear what you think about this week’s lesson, and how you enjoyed the show if you got the chance to watch it.

On a side note, congratulations to all Saints fans.

You probably don’t recognize the device on the left. It’s a mobile, touchscreen device that Fujitsu came out with in 2002. What’s special about this device? It’s called the iPad. For those of you not keeping up with recent news, Apple recently announced their new portable  “smart screen”. Clearly due to a lack of thorough research on Apple’s part, they named this new device the iPad.

Fujitsu has only stated that they’re discussing further actions at this time. In my opinion, if the people in charge of making a decision watch the news and are aware of what happened in 2007 between Cisco and Apple, than they will absolutely choose to pursue Apple on a trademark infringement claim. When Cisco sued Apple in 2007 over trademark infringement for Apple’s iPhone, Apple made a large settlement agreement with Cisco.

At this point, it’d be very unrealistic, inefficient and costly for Apple to start from rename its product and market it all over again. Sometimes, you just need to take the bullet. And that’s what Apple will unfortunately have to do in this case. This does however go to show the importance of doing your research before creating or naming a website, product or service.

I’m under the assumption that Apple didn’t do the necessary research when it came to naming their product. As an investor and big fan of Apple, it’s disappointing to see the company that I thought had it all figured out, fail to do proper research. I will say this however. Apple could have very well intionally named their product the iPad with their reason being that all of the brandable names for their product were taken. It’s almost a lose-win situation no matter what they did, so they figure they’ll be able to settle a trademark and have a good name for their product.

I’d like to hear your theories. How could a company as big as apple commit trademark infringement as they clearly have? Make sure to submit your comments below.