Recently, .net hit a major milestone when its zone surpassed 15 million .net domains registered globally, making it one of the most popular domain extensions on the Internet today. Supported by the same infrastructure and expertise that has powered .com for more than 15 years, .net is recognized around the world as an established and credible place to interact online. To mark this momentous occasion, we pulled together 15 facts about .net. How many .net facts do you already know?
Domain name buyers are often among the first to react to huge international news events. We documented this earlier in the year by highlighting a notable surge in domain names related to the announcement of a new Pope.
The news this week about the birth of the new Prince of Cambridge to William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, is no exception. The Domains observed there has been a surge in royal baby related domain name registrations since the birth announcement was made.
The composition of the internet’s population has seen a dramatic shift over the last two decades. In 1996, the majority of end users were based in the U.S.; according to a 2012 Comscore report, the non-English speaking internet population has grown to 87 percent, with more than 40 percent based in the Asia-Pacific region. In order to embrace this population shift, we believe the internet must become multilingual so it can be accessible and relevant to the majority of end users today.
This “second screen” effect is a relatively new phenomenon that has taken off like wildfire among today’s modern consumers who watch their favorite TV shows with smartphones and/or tablets in hand. Chances are, you’ve looked up a URL or tweeted about or searched for something you saw on a show or commercial while you were watching it. If you haven’t, chances are you will.
Imagine building your dream home. Maybe it takes months or even years. There’s a good chance it involved a lot of resources including time and money. All your friends know where you live and where to find you. Things are as peachy as peachy could be.
Chances are you would never, in your right mind, build an actual house on a piece of land you didn’t somehow have control over. What if you were offered that land for free, but with the catch that things could change, and you could be booted off the property without notice? What if it also stipulated the actual landowners could put anything they wanted next to you, even if you didn’t agree with it or it competed directly with your own interests? This is similar to the position you are in when you sign up to post videos on YouTube or almost any other video sharing site.
Many small businesses know the importance of having an online presence, but are not ready to build and support a website for their business. Instead, a trend we have seen growing in the last couple of years is companies redirecting their social media or e-commerce site to a domain name. That way, when they are ready to build a company website, they can easily leverage their existing domain name and all of the marketing assets they have no doubt included it on, like advertisements, business cards, letterhead, t-shirts, etc.
We often hear from companies with cloud applications that ensuring the availability of critical web-based services and applications is a key requirement for enhancing user experience and engagement. After all, customers often leave company websites if they have to wait for them to load, which could result in lost revenue and brand value — all because of something that could be easily avoided.
It is no secret that there is a rush to register relevant domain names after any highly publicized event. We saw it with the Royal Wedding, the death of Whitney Houston and Hurricane Sandy. There are few events so widely publicized as the election of a new Pope, and as expected there was an enormous rush to register domains moments after the names “Jorge Mario Bergoglio” and “Pope Francis I” became known around the world. It has been estimated that well over 600 domains related to the Papacy were registered in the hours following the announcement.
As businesses continue to move critical operations online, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are increasing in frequency, sophistication and range of targets. In a 2011 Verisign study, 63 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one attack that year, while 51 percent reported revenue loss as a result of downtime from the attack. Those numbers are undoubtedly higher today as the size, frequency and complexity of DDoS attacks continue to grow. Mitigation against these types of attacks is challenging and generally requires layered solutions across data centers and the cloud management. The success of these attacks and their ability to damage a company’s infrastructure, revenue and reputation is indicative that many IT managers still haven’t found the right protection formula to proactively mitigate them.
Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, author of the best-selling book Optimize, and Editor of the well-regarded Online Marketing Blog. He shares his many insights on Content Marketing, Social Media PR & SEO across the social web and we wanted to feature all of that experience with Lee’s Watch.tv guest post on “The 3 Reasons Why Video Must be Part of Your Marketing Mix.”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth millions. The ubiquity of internet access and availability of video creation, consumption and sharing applications makes video the “go-to” digital marketing medium for 2013 and beyond.
Companies can demonstrate products, share their expertise, interview satisfied customers and show employee and brand personality all through video that can be consumed on a computer, tablet or mobile device.
Whether you’re a big business or small, B2B or consumer focused, video is a hot online marketing commodity that should not be overlooked.
From content marketing to advertising, investments in video are on the rise. And for good reason: A study by the e-tailing group and Invodo reports that over 50 percent of internet users believed that online product videos helped increase confidence in their purchase.
Companies are sensing those trends in consumer media consumption and adjusting budgets accordingly. According to eMarketer, spending on video for content marketing has risen by 44 percent.
While the evidence is compelling for the growth of video creation and consumption, some companies, especially small businesses, may feel uncertain about where video may fit in their marketing mix. Here are three reasons to do just that.
1. Video is Social
There are hundreds of video applications that make it easy to capture, edit and socially share video. Twitter recently announced its entrée into the short form video creation space with Vine, a smartphone application that enables users to take 6-second, looping videos and share them on social networks. Brands are already experimenting with Vine in creative ways.
Such outlets for creativity are entirely amenable for sharing, enabling small businesses to proactively leverage video to create compelling, creative and socially sharable video content. Don’t believe me? According to a study by the IAB, 90 percent of viewers share mobile video content.
Creating great content using apps and software that are designed to make social sharing easy means it’s easier than ever for small businesses to get into the video marketing game.
2. Video May Be A Mobile Marketer’s Best Friend
It is estimated that the number of U.S. consumers that watch video on mobile devices will rise to 110 million by 2016 – that’s 1 in 3 Americans consuming video content on smartphones and tablets.
Consumers are watching more than short, YouTube form content on mobile and tablet devices. Tablets have become as popular as computers for watching video, ranking second only to televisions. However, rather than compete with TV, mobile content serves as a second or third screen for many consumers.
Companies that get creative around events on TV and cable might consider creating content that consumers will seek out while watching the show. It might be facts and backstory or clever connections between the company’s product and what’s being watched. Small businesses have used such tie-ins with their advertising for years, such as promoting snacks and beer with Super Bowl-themed ads.
Mobile consumption can extend the reach of online video normally consumed through computers as well. Companies just need to make sure their video content is available and optimized on mobile-friendly platforms.
3. People Love Video and So Do Search Engines
YouTube is often cited as the second most popular search engine with over 4 billion hours of video watched every month. While video content isn’t as easy for search engines to understand, the content can be transcribed to text and when combined with the video title, description and tags on a website, the video is easier to find.
When videos are embedded from a hosting service like YouTube or Vimeo onto a web page or blog post, the descriptive text can be optimized for easier discovery on search engines. Video content is more interesting than text and more likely to attract links and social shares. Those links and social signals help search engines rank web pages that contain embedded video more prominently than boring old text content.
Video consumption is a worldwide phenomenon. According to Nielsen, 80 percent of internet respondents in 56 countries reported watching video content at home on a computer. Combined with video consumption on mobile devices, that means video might just be the perfect opportunity for companies that want to excel at attracting and engaging with their customers to increase awareness, interest and sales.
Thanks Lee – terrific post. A lot of great validation for why companies – including small businesses – should be using video as a significant pillar of their 2013 marketing strategy.
To learn more about getting your business started with online video (plus any other tips you might need!), please visit the How To Section on Watch.tv.
What did you learn from Lee’s post? Send us a tweet or comment here or our YouTube channel.