However, there is a cost to the use of generic domains. In monetary terms with quality generics regularly fetching five and even six figure sums on the reseller market which could otherwise be used to market a domain. In marketing brand retention falls and brand protection becomes difficult, as Hotels.com found when they took their trademark application (warning, pdf link) all the way to the US Court of Appeals and failed.

One company actively using brand domains is Treacle, who have been retailing mobile phone insurance online under the trademark TalkCover, and have recently launched GizCover, a retailer of gadget insurance. I’ll watch their development with interest.

This time however I had to look for another company, i searched around online and found mottestcentres.co.uk, they have a large selection of MOT Test Centres in my local area along with the rest of the country. The site offers a search function that lets you find an MOT Test Centre within a set mileage from your current location.

In the end I found a garage for my MOT, Luckily for me the car went through the MOT without any problems, I’d happily use mottestcentres.co.uk again if my usual garage is fully booked.

Overall I feel it went quite well, The system caught a fair few names however looking at the “bad” month catching I had in September I made more money selling one of the names I caught that I got from the total revenue that the public back order system used. I’ll probably be going back to catching for myself from the 1st November.

Which means I’ve got a near on fully automated public booking system complete with custom coded drop script sitting around doing nothing, everything has a price!

For the same client I’ve also been working on a horoscopes website over at horoscopes.org.uk, It has a fully functional custom back end, which features a content management panel, a horoscope editing panel and a template and settings section giving the user full control over every aspect of the site.

If you need any development work completed then don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact form.

If interested contact: aaron.clifford@domainbeans.co.uk

The core focus has been on Which Bingo, an online bingo affiliate website, which was the first portal to launch in the UK back in 2003. I’ve been working with them to improve the conversion of various pages, as well as playing a role in the improvements to their No Deposit Bingo site.

Which Bingo, the companies primary publication, has seen a number of key improvements in the past couple of weeks. The most obvious change has come in the form of a new design, which saw the layout change significantly and additional conversion points created. The new bingo sites page in particular received some key improvements to usability and added more focus on customer retention.

The directory area of the site has also been dramatically overhauled to make it easier for users to navigate through the 330+ bingo sites which WhichBingo.co.uk features (this, I am informed, is more than any other bingo portal in the UK). The sites with the top offers are now highlighted so that users can see which sites will reward them with the most free bingo money… something which a large proportion of bingo players are searching for when using Which Bingo.

If you have a site of a similar stature that needs working on, drop me an email and we can discuss prices. aaron.clifford@domainbeans.co.uk

Recently Doug has stepped away from the development of these sites but is still heavily involved with anything related to them.

To overcome disagreements between the mother and father some of them will agree on a fair system such as the mum naming the baby if it is a girl and the dad naming the baby if it is a boy. This is an ideal situation that usually does not work in reality. If the baby is a boy and the dad chooses a name that the mum doesn’t like, there is no way that she will stand by and let the child be called that name. The dad would do the same also.

Families can also be quite demanding when it comes to naming children. Whilst consideration should be given to the suggestions of your mum, dad, brother, sister and other relatives you should remember that ultimately the decision is yours. You should never be pressurised in to giving your child a particular name by overbearing family members.

The media can also influence the names that we give to our children. The royals and celebrities are all baby name trendsetters. Whenever a very popular celebrity has a baby there is always much suspense as to what they will call their new born. Once this is known there is usually a boom in the amount of people giving their children the same name as the celebrity has chosen. Make sure that you do not get carried away. Don’t give your child the latest wacky fad name on the spur of the moment and then regret it for the rest of your life. Names can become dated very quickly so you also need to think about how the name may sound in 10 or 20 years tine.

As mentioned previously this is a very important decision and should not be taken lightly. If you want a great selection of names check out baby names for a generator and the origin of every name you can think of!”

I will be posting observations, things I’m trying out and anything related to me or the business here for you to read and leave a comment of suggestion or criticism if you wish. I’ve recently got my nominet membership,tag & DAC and I’ve just signed up for two months trying out a pretty new script so hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll start to catch a few names.

I have been talking about getting into drop catching for a long time now and I’m really excited about the prospect of getting into some decent web development with some good names. Thanks goes to Darren @ Goldfrog Domain Solutions and all the people at Acorn Domains that have helped so far.

Check back regularly for my latest catches, ideas and views on the domain and development world.