While we are spending years figuring out how to create the perfect generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch and guidebook, the Internet is moving along at an extraordinary pace without any care about ICANN policy-making. The fact of the matter is ICANN is a ghost to the ordinary person or Internet company. You can not imagine how many times I had to explain what ICANN is, what ICANN does and why ICANN is important.

While the Internet is moving along with exciting innovations and new platforms of communication, ICANN is still working at dinosaur pace, still playing catch up and still not aligning the realities of the Internet to policy-making. Interest groups, corporate monopolies, politics and conflicts of interest still rule supreme.

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wire Magazine, in a recent front-page Wired article called "The Web is Dead" proclaims that the world wide web is dead and we are experiencing the beginning of the next generation of the Internet. Anderson explains:

"Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services—think apps—are less about the searching and more about the getting. You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad—that's one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times—three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix's streaming service. You've spent the day on the Internet—but not on the Web. And you are not alone."

The reality of the matter is that the web is not quite dead yet. It is evolving. Devices are becoming more and more important than ever before. Mobile devices have paved way for the app revolution. These apps do not reside on the web but on the Internet for the purpose of creating a better user experience for the consumer as well as creating "closed" and "controlled" economies bound by distribution gatekeepers. This might be the beginning of the death of the "open" web as we see it. The move away from Flash programming in mobile devices in favor of non-web-based applications illustrates the gradual move away from a web-centric Internet, but the reality of the matter is that the Web will continue to exist given the human need for open-access to information and connecting with like-minded communities or social networks.

One point is certain. ICANN is wasting precious time trying to create a perfect solution in regards to new gTLDs. Can ICANN predict the future? No-one thinks so, but ICANN's propensity to solve any possible problem that might arise is clouding the process itself. ICANN is well-equipped and capable of dealing with any secluded abuse that might arise and react to any potential future issue. ICANN is losing its prime focus and is distancing itself from real task at hand which is no other than to introduce innovation and competition in the domain space and expand the Web.

The odds against new entrants are high. However, ICANN still insists on archaic concepts such as not allowing new registries to engage in free-trade, be able to sell direct as well as be flexible to introduce their own innovations. The self-proclaimed ICANN Business Constituency that should be all about free-trade claims that free trade is a terrible idea for new registry entrants and keeping the monopolistic, restrictive and anti-business regime at bay with the status quo is the best option for businesses. The ICANN Business Constituency that alleges to represent small-business interest and open, free markets is what your typical economist will call an oxymoron that is inconsistent with the modern economic framework of business practices. Does it have credibility? None whatsoever. I can only imagine what happens behind closed doors for a Business Constituency to oppose free trade for new entrants.

While the Internet moves towards a new direction, ICANN stands and ponders on issues that delay innovation, competition and the expansion of the Web. Big brand holders are still complaining about implementing more trademark mechanisms or further improving the existing ones that were created to please them. Why is ICANN wasting more time with that? Is there a method to retrieve your trademarked domain if someone else is abusing it? Yes. ICANN has gone beyond what is necessary. Will new gTLDs introduce more harm or benefits to the Internet society? If ICANN is all about open-access, free trade, competition, fairness and represent the Internet community, it has to align itself with what is happening in the Internet space today and not be stuck in the '90s.

The Web is not perfect. The big brands and corporations that ICANN seeks to protect who are delaying everything are not perfect. For example, the Web has been used by companies such as Google and Internet Service Providers to piggyback on intellectual property issues. What ICANN is dealing with in regards to implementing additional trademark mechanisms is tiny in regards to the harm that has been inflicted by many corporations that are regarded as the "backbone" of the Web. Google and major ISPs have been piggypacking intellectual property owners for their own profit and not much has been done about it. Both Google and the ISPs have been profiting from the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted works. Google makes money and generates traffic so they do not care about intellectual property. The ISPs get paid higher fees from consumers wanting higher bandwidth to download illegally at faster rates. Rampant piracy translates to billions of dollars of profits. 95% of music on iPods is illegal. Apple knows that but their marketing is clear: fit tens of thousands of songs on your iPod (irrespective if its illegally downloaded or not).

The Internet is dominated by many corporations who really have no respect for intellectual capital. If ICANN wants to make a difference that matters in Intellectual Property, then perhaps they need to be involved with other more significant issues that affect the Internet. If they are responsible for implementing trademark mechanisms for TLDs, then why not actually make a difference where it counts and where copyright holders are suffering from piracy, which has cost many their jobs? The trademark issues that will arise from new TLDs are insignificant if compared with the harm inflicted by piracy to copyright holders. My point is that ICANN has done enough to appease the trademark community. They are offered the trademark mechanisms to solve cybersquatting, even though the potential harms are expected to be tiny in comparison (if any). Copyright holders do not enjoy such benefit because of the very nature of the Web and its chaotic openness. I thought Rod Beckstrom understood this concept. I did after-all I read his book. Action is needed now, not just mere words.

With the Internet moving away from the Web, the repercussions to the domain industry will be felt. Domain name parking will become obsolete and the astronomical prices that premium, one-word .COM domains sell for will fall significantly and industry will experience less million-dollar domain name sales. There is no better time to sell your domain portfolio than right now unless you are developing it or unless you believe that apps and mobile devices with proprietary, closed ecosystems is not a reality.

ICANN needs to finally get the new TLD program launched without any further delays. The delays are unwarranted given the very few issues that are left such as Vertical Integration, pricing on bulk same-translated strings and establishing a better and fairer point system for community applicants that will also prevent abuse.

Unless ICANN shares Chris Anderson's viewpoint that the Web is dead, ICANN has to finally acknowledge the financial harm and opportunity costs that all the delays have inflicted to all applicants that have been clinging to ICANN timing promises to launch their respective TLD. The Web depends on it since it is shrinking. Time to join forces with the new Internet economy and space. It is time to expand the Web and introduce new complementors to the Internet: new TLDs.

Written by Constantine Roussos, CEO & Founder of .Music & Music.us

www.circleid.com | 8/24/10 10:48 PM

This is a live blog post by guest blogger, Imelda Khoo. Imelda is the E-Marketing Manager at Tektronix, responsible for global SEO, PPC and social media. Imelda blogs at SEM Booty and is also on Twitter @imeldak

Hi, everyone. My name is Imelda and over the next few days, I'm going to be live blogging from SES San Francisco for my friends here at Search Engine Watch. If you see a short, young(ish), Asian-looking chick, that speaks with a British accent, scoping out power outlets and typing away furiously -- that's me. Come say hi.

It's going to be an action-packed first day here at SES, with a bunch of suped-up sessions going on.

This first session is moderated by Covario's Arnel Leyna, with Jeff MacGurn, also from Covario, and Doug Loots representing "Large Advertisers", Wells Fargo. They're going to look at whether big brands worry about SEO and Social Media (of course they do!).

I'm a big Covario fan - these guys are super smart, so this should be good.

Let's get started.

Arnel explains that SEO and social media are the new "earned media". Earned media is most effective at the top of the funnel (for awareness, opinion and consideration), which supports and drives PPC media further down the funnel.

Differences in media:

Owned media: Where the advertiser owns it (EG: your website, Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts). Benefits: brand controlled, cost effective, longevity

Paid media: Where the advertiser pays a third party to use the channel (EG: PPC, display). Benefits: Immediacy, scale, controlled

Earned media: (EG: SEO, Twitter, Facebook). Benefit: Most credible, but least controllable

How does social impact SEO?

Doug: Search engines now allow searchers to filter by recency. So advertisers must constantly reinvent their content. Especially since content that's been out there for three or four years really is considered dated now.

Jeff: Search and social do have an impact on each other. More social results are finding their way into the engines, and into the algorithm. There is a correlation between the two.

What are the algorithms looking for?

Jeff: Mentions in social media platforms is a good indicator.

Doug: A good (or even negative) social media campaign can also drive query volume towards your page.

Is social media a new thing?

Doug: Social is about two different things: the social aspect and the technology that drives it. The social part has been around for years (EG: you can use the Better Business Bureau to provide feedback for vendors), but now the technology allows messages to spread much more quickly.

Jeff: People giving their opinion isn't anything new.

Every day users don't really use filters. So why should we invest in social and SEO?

Jeff: Social bookmarking is an indicator of popular online content. It's not just about time stamps, but also relevancy. Jeff sees a lot of correlation between the two. An example was a rank 1 showing for "Apple's Death Grip" page just after all the bad stuff kicked off. There is definitely a correlation, so there must be some social aspects that have an impact on rankings.

How do you know it wasn't someone at Google who forced it to the top?

Jeff: Can't say that there isn't someone at Google who does that. But most rankings are algorithmic as opposed to someone statically ranking pages. The algorithm can train itself to understand and sophisticated enough to understand those things [I'm thinking iRobot, right now]

Doug: Can't believe that anyone would be sitting at Google HQ ranking things manually. It's not very scalable.

How do you determine your budget for social media vs. SEO?

Doug: Online marketers can easily measure, so allocating dollars should be based upon what returns. Over time, you get more educated on where to place it. SEO and PPC are often the first steps. Social media is still emerging, so you tend to put less in to it.

Jeff: Big brands understand their share of the market, so spend should be increased in line with market share. Start up companies I should start out with what is measurable. Start out on PPC, and then move next to SEO. The better you can measure, the better off you will be in the end. Concentrate your assets in the areas that work.

Arnel: Encourages clients to develop social media assets by taking a small percentage of your budget (maybe leftovers from PPC) and allocate it to social. For example: put it towards developing your blog.

Doug: It doesn't take a lot of money to develop your SEO. It is a hard choice to allocate out, and will depend upon the organization.

Where is the true value in the long run? Is it in organic or is it in paid?

Jeff: Paid is instant gratification and easy to track. SEO can be tracked, though there is a lag. Social media is not just about Tweeting or Facebooking. You need to promote your own content and work hard to drive people there. Once Jeff's clients start executing on social and start tying results to it, they see the cost per acquisition is a lot lower, and then more budget gets assigned. Sometimes you just have to hold your breath a little longer for the results to come.

Doug: People often want instant gratification and will just throw their money at PPC. You are constantly chasing your next click. If you build SEO and social, it will sustain a lot longer. There is more investment up front in time and effort, but it will return a lot more in the long run. That's why it's called earned.

When something goes viral, is it natural or planned?

Jeff: A lot more is planned than we'd think is planned. Think Old Spice [Bites lip... Strike 1]. And these are planned by the agency down to a tee. You can get quite a good idea as to what will be popular and what will work. Prepare for developing interesting content based upon hot topics of the moment (EG: World Cup).

Doug: It is both. It's important for companies to be more natural though, especially when it comes to responding to a viral campaign. Companies need to be listening more and ready to handle a response, especially if it is negative.

How do you optimize the content?

Jeff: A lot of it is about relationship building and getting people to link to the content and get the word out. The way you do it is critical. Infographics tend to be very popular viral content, as opposed to a 30 page document. Top 10 lists are also popular.

Doug: It's about creating content that is valuable to your customer, not to you. Does it help your customer learn something? When you do it that way, the profits will follow.

Jeff: Understand what people are searching for and build the content around the keywords. Similarly, with social, build the content around what interests your customer.

Doug: It's not about shoving the content down your customer's throat(push marketing). It's about providing relevant content to your customer when they need it (pull marketing). For businesses to be successful in social media and search, you need to understand the fundamental difference between push and pull.

[BTW, There are lots of skeptics in this audience about the tenuous link between search and social].

Do you see value in hashtags?

Jeff: Hasn't seen hashtags been that valuable (yet) when it comes to search engine rankings.

How do you integrate multilingual global content in SEO?

Jeff: The sites that are popular in America, are not necessarily popular everywhere. But from a SEO perspective, SEO best practices still apply. It helps to have local resources. There are even differences between what people in England call a toilet [a bog] and a cell phone [a mobile]

[I've got more examples!]

How often should you post on social networks and how do you cut through all the noise?

Jeff: "Please retweet" is the most tweeted phrase on Twitter. It must be effective, but it creates a lot of noise. You don't want to mess with your relationships by spamming people with a lot of stuff that isn't relevant.

Doug: Is your next tweet providing as much value as the previous one? Is your next blog post providing as much value as the previous one? If you can't answer "yes" to that, then maybe you're doing it too much.

Jeff rounds up by picking on the non-believers in the audience.

blog.searchenginewatch.com | 8/17/10 8:00 PM

Appolicious - Reading your favorite magazines, buying gear from labels you trust, chewing gum from brands that have been around since your grandmother first started chewing gum -- these things can all be great fun. But what’s even more thrilling is when you can access your favorite brands, companies, stores and magazines to your handheld device. Below are some hot new iPhone apps from the trademarks we’ve known and loved for a long time. And coincidentally, they all happen to be free, so even better! us.rd.yahoo.com | 8/9/10 9:45 PM

In 2009, companies spent more than $47 billion on custom marketing — from magazines to Web sites — to attract specific audiences.

www.nytimes.com | 8/5/10 5:30 AM

Whether you are a Yurman acolyte who has carried the company's namesake designer pieces from the beginning, or one of the growing number of jewelers who is shying away from big brands, there's no denying that Yurman has left an indelible mark on the industry, as distinctive as the classic cable bracelet that has roped in innumerable fans.

www.topix.net | 8/2/10 10:03 PM