There are days that I honestly just want to throw in the towel and just say, "The hell with it!"
Barry Deutsch of Alas A Blog [1] did what no business saavy blogpreneur would have done for less than a million dollars : He sold off Amptoons.com [2] to a pornography company that wants to raise the search engine ranking [3] of their sites.
As I wrote in the comments section of I sold Amptoons.com, comments are now open [4], Barry could have chosen to speak to other blogpreneurs in his search for a better educated decision about this deal. Alas, it didn't happen.
Here's some of the problems I see with this deal:
- How much is too much or too little for a domain name? Amptoons is the name of his cartooning brand. Did he have anybody evaluate and estimate the worth of Amptoons in the market? Did he actually have someone assess the actual monetary value of his domain name?
- One of the most serious issues I have with his move is that Barry didn't seem to understand how he could have monetized better his site. If he was eventually selling the site to a link farm, why not just sell a subdomain and still hold ownership of his domain name?
- Wouldn't this deal constitute a self-inflicted tarnishing of his trademark? And if he has to fight for his cartoons' copyright and trademark eventually, wouldn't this deal prove he has no legal grounds to defend it because he was so eager to sell it off in the first place?
My head has been spinning with tons of questions.
Now, to the best part : I have too been approached by pornographers. I have too been asked to sell my domains.
I own now about 500+ domain names; or should I say, culturekitchen Media, ltd owns about 500+ domains. Many of those domains have sex, abortion and choice in their names. At one point I have thought about developing them but, from a feminist business standpoint, I have bought them for one very simple reason: When it comes to the business of the internet, many feminist organizations have proven quite inept. Many, many times I have clicked on a link of a pro-choice sounding domain name to find that the site is owned by rabid pregnacists. Given how little a top level domain name costs (as little as $6), I took it upon myself to fight back the forces of reproductive restrictions evil with their own game.
I personally could sell off quite a few and make more than a couple of thou in the process. But then, I know the best business opportunity will come for me to develop these properties.
Reproductive rights are a business after all.
Let's go back to the pornographers requests : I get several of those a month. I used to get more of them when I bought most of my domains at GoDaddy. I have been moving them to 1and1.com because I have the option of private registration at no extra cost. And that way, I can develop a property quietly and privately.
Why don't I sell out?
Reputation. Being delinked by a few political bloggers is small potatoes. Losing the respect of most of my colleagues in tech, business and the estroblogosphere, that's a whole different story. It's not that I will never develop a blog about sex and pornography. I will. It's just that at the moment, I don't have the resources to develop it in the good feminist business sense I need to put (it) out ... all pun intended.
Which leads me to ask you all: How would you define good feminist business practices?
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