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The Jerusalem Post has an article today, regarding Tuesday's launch of jerusalem.com. A new website that, in the words of co-founder and CEO Michael Weiss will "...create a bridge between a physical location, Jerusalem, and people on the other side of the planet."
The site itself is a commercial venue, divided into various hubs for things like tourism, religion, prayer, real estate and city culture. It's a solid attempt to bring the vibrant and diverse personality of today's Jerusalem to the rest of the world. And they paid $750,000 for the domain name.
From personal experience I can tell you that any domain name with the word "Black" in it has already been scooped up by some enterprising company or individual, hoping to turn it around and make big bucks on the resale. And from time to time we hear about big money being spent to secure a particular domain, so my curiosity was picqued and I did a bit of searching to see just how lucrative a business it actually is.
So with no further ado, here's a list of the top prices paid for domain names (keeping in mind that often, the amount of cash that actually changes hands is different, when other benefits to the seller, like advertising deals, etc. are factored in.)
10. vodka.com
$3 million
9. wine.com
$3.3 million
8. korea.com
$5 million
7. asSeenonTV.com
$5 million
6. casino.com
$5.5 million
5. business.com
$7.5 million
4. diamond.com
$7.5 million
3. porn.com
$9.5 million
2. fund.com
$10 million
1. sex.com
$12 million
The protests in Iran are a testing ground for the overall effectiveness of social media.
The Iranian government has banned foreign journalists from reporting on "unauthorized" demonstrations in the wake of recent elections, but that hasn't stemmed the flow of news from the protest zones, thanks to Twitter. Non Iranian twitterers have even gone so far as to set up proxy sites to host Iranians who've been shut down (oh yes, the Iranian govt is trawling Facebook and Twitter, hunting down dissidents).
The Daily Dish blog author Andrew Sullivan started a 'green 4 Iran' hue-volution, when he changed his blog colors to green, in solidarity with Iranian protestors. The word got out, and now millions on Facebook and Twitter have tinted their avatars nuke green, in response.
In the short term, news is getting out for now, and that's a good thing. Long term? Just a reminder that this is a region where dissidents are either jailed or killed to prevent us from hearing their voices.
I love graphic design that predates the camera. Makes the simple poster feel like "Art". Here's a great example from Color + Design blog, a series of circus ads/posters.
Stumbled onto this on Chris's blog dedicated to apostrophe abuse. The note takes it right over the top, into 'classic' territory.