Oh well. I had decided to follow the NTIA conference, but the Real stream is unwatchable from my office. It's not merely hard to follow....it's impossible to follow. The stream drops every few seconds, often permanently, necessitating a manual reconnect. I know that a stream has many points of failure, but I controlled for my side by asking everyone in the office to shut down their Internet apps except for emergency use. Still unwatchable. So I'm heading over to Dodger Stadium. Can someone archive this?

P.S. If you can't handle basic remote participation, how can you claim any moral authority to oversee the DNS and IP address allocation?

The Real stream is now live...and rebuffering every 15 seconds. Miserable. Let's hope someone archives this so the thousands of us who are trying to watch can do so without interruption. Maybe the Department of Commerce could make it available as a bittorrent.

As I mentioned in a podcast once upon a time, it's been light blogging since February....for the Little League Baseball season. I'm the President -- just call me "Mr. Commissioner" -- of Little League Baseball in Glendale, California, so the last few months have been hectic. The last game of the seaons was last night. Which means all of my excess time and energy are now directed back to blogging.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I have tickets to the Dodgers game at 12:10 pm on Wednesday, July 26th. This means I have a choice to make. Go to the Dodgers game (something I'm passionate about) or watch the NTIA hearing on ICANN (something else I'm passionate about)? Who wins? Stay tuned.

GoDaddy has launched a new "parking"-revenue plan for domain name registrants with modest to small portfolios.

If you're at all interested in serving ICANN in an "official" position, you have two more weeks, until 1 August 2006, to submit your statement of interest to ICANN's Nominating Committee.

Prospectus, issued on July 17, 2006: "This is the initial public offering of The Go Daddy Group, Inc. Class A common stock....."

I get awfully frustrated with ICANN from time to time. At my most exasperated, I even think that government oversight of the DNS and IP address allocation might be preferable to this private-sector led experiment in self-governance called ICANN. Fortunately, we have people like Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to pull me back from the ledge.

Most ICANNers have suspected for years that Free2Innovate's "SForrest" was actually a paid PR blogger retained by Verisign. Kevin Muphy is the first to make this public, with this post on his weblog.

Kevin details how he came to know that blogger-for-hire Bill Hobbs ("I am self-employed and work in media relations and also consult with large corporations on the use of weblogs as public relations tools.") is actually Steve Forrest.  I found out via a different means. If you knock around a little bit in the archives of Free2Innovate, sooner or later you'll hit the home directory and float over to Bill Hobbs' website. The two web sites are controlled by the same person (or at least they were last year when I checked). So call this post a "second source" for Kevin's outing of "sforrest."

The real reason you know that "sforrest" isn't a real person, however, is because he says things that no real person could believe. I'll post more about this during the coming week, as the ICANN blog takes a closer look at the way Verisign's blogger has tried to shape public opinion of his apparent client.

A domain name that I've never used with an e-mail address that I've only published in whois brought this e-mail message today:

July 11, 2006

 

To

Mr. Bret Fausett

------------

Glendale, California

 

Dear Mr. Bret Fausett

 

                                                           

Congratulations on making a brilliant decision to go online with your domain name ---------.com.  I am writing this email specifically to you.

 

 I should share the following important information with you.

 

Broadly speaking, there are two types of websites, 1) Informative website and 2) Marketing Website. Most websites that are designed by people with limited web experience end up being 'informative' by nature, and are generally ineffective in making any positive, financial difference to the owner of the website.  Most template and non custom-designed sites fall into this category. In our professional opinion, an outstanding website is a 'marketing' site, and it works 24 hours/day, and generates notable revenues to the owner of the site.  A good website should deliver the following with very few clicks: a) what the company does, b) the company's strengths c) what differentiates them from their competition, and d) any other powerful, unique features/solutions that they offer.

 

A 'thinking' site is a site that achieves all of the above objectives with 'No' clicks, instead of a few clicks. When we design websites for our customers, we create and dedicate a small portion of the viewing area to continuously do 'marketing' of our customer's products/services, and deliver powerful messages nicely.  This way, the risk of a website viewer not getting our customer's message becomes negligible. Here is an example of a good thinking and marketing site that we did for one of our clients recently:

  http://www.dupreemediationgroup.---/, http://www.lovinlifeparty.---

Quality:  Also, please take a look at our impressive portfolio at http://www.dreamzinc.net/ where you will see a number of examples.

 

 

Send an email to me at tony@dreamzinc.net with your contact information and the best time to call, and I will call you.

 

Mr. Bret Fausett , I thank you very much for taking the time to read this important email. I sincerely appreciate it, and would love to have your association. I sincerely hope that I have not wasted your time.  If you choose to not respond to this email, I will conclude that you are not interested in our services, and I assure you that you will not get another email from me.  In that case, please accept my sincere and profuse apology for taking your time.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you!

 

Yours Truly,

Tony Wilson.

http://www.dreamzinc.net

Email: mailto:tony@dreamzinc.net

 

Essence of compassion: Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong... because sometimes in our lives we will have been all of these.

 

Note: Unless you respond favorably, you will not receive any more emails from us.  Guaranteed. 

Has anyone seen Willie Black lately? I knew he had stepped down from Nominet, but I still never expected to see this.

Kevin Murphy, on his Texturbation weblog, describes the eNom “long-tail” idea as "arguably what would have been conceived if [Sitefinder] and [the Waiting List Service] had ever had unprotected sex in a hotel room in a developing-world country after an ICANN party. The bastard son of Site Finder." I have to admit, the eNom idea confuses the heck out of me. I need someone to talk me through it ....veeerrrry sloooowly.

And Kevin has the scoop on why Google became a domain name registrar.

To honor the life and work of Liz Dengate-Thrush, InternetNZ has established the Liz Dengate Thrush Internet Entrepreneurship Foundation and seeded it with a substantial gift. A form allows online pledges. Peter is one of my oldest friends in the ICANN community, and my thoughts and prayers are with him, his family, and Liz's many friends at InternetNZ.

GNSO Chair Bruce Tonkin, at the GSNO Council Meeting this morning: "I would like to congratulate Rita [Rodin] on her election to the board." Ms. Rodin, elected by the GNSO, fills the vacancy created by the resignation of Michael Palage. Her bio and background information are here.

From OSOpinion.com: "Groups who despise the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have organized an email campaign to let the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) know what they think of its continuing effort to privatize coordination and management of Internet Domain Names and DNS."

From the If-The-Incumbent-Monopolist-Can-Have-It, Why-Can't-We? Department, ICANN reports: "Afilias (.INFO), NeuLevel (.BIZ) and PIR (.ORG) have formally requested that proposed renewal registry agreements be posted for public review and comment." 

From Neustar's Open Letter to the ICANN Community: "NeuLevel has been working with ICANN for more than a year to renegotiate the existing .BIZ agreement. As of late last week, we reached final agreement on all points...."

Excellent stuff! It's on now. I'm capturing the Real stream and will try to distribute the audio as a podcast later today.

Vint Cerf, from the transcript of yesterday's Opening Ceremony:

Keiren McCarthy has a story in The Register, and ICANNWatch has a post too. (Pictured: Paul Twomey, Verisign's Leslie Daigle, and Evil Mastermind of Doom Bert plot out their nefarious plans for the next three years.)