The Technologies That Shaped 2008
I’m sticking with the theme of Top 10 lists. Today I want to show you a great list from Popular Mechanics: The 6 technologies that shaped 2008. You’ve read a couple of them here on TrendDomaining.com. I fully expect all six of these technologies to continue on well into 2009 and beyond. Don’t be surprised if you see one or two of these on next years list as well.
- Netflix rocks internet movie streaming
- Pocket gadgets on the cheap
- Mobile applications
- 3D cinema
- Location-based services
- Microblogging
Good job to Netflix on not sitting on their old, yet still superior relative to the market, mail platform. Back in July I stated that companies like Netflix, Blockbuster and Redbox need to begin making changes in how they get their product into our homes. Blockbuster needs a miracle to survive. Redbox is doing well with their kiosks, but as far as I know they have no plans on changing that. Netflix, on the other hand, gets it.
Netflix not only came out with the Roku, a box that streams movies from Netflix to your TV, they also teamed up with Microsoft to add this feature to the XBox 360, as well as the TiVo HD DVR. Genius! They found a way to get their product into 21 million+ households that already have a player. Bravo, Netflix.
When they say pocket gadgets, they were referring to netbooks and camcorders. Though pocket camcorders had a good breakthrough this past year, I don’t see them getting nearly as big as netbooks.
Mobile applications was an inevitable technology given the iPhone and its copycats.
3D cinema. Aha! another trend you read here on TrendDomaining.com. It cites the “success” of Journey to the Center of the Earth. By success, they don’t mean the fact that it was a box office flop. They mean that most of its revenue came from 3D theaters, proving people want 3D even if it sucks!
The GPS stuff started getting big when you didn’t have to fork out $400+ for a GPS unit, and could get the same function on your iPhone and its clones.
Microblogging got big, of course, with the huge popularity of Twitter (By the way, add me!). Popular Mechanics, along with many other sites, feel that Twitter will eventually fade due to a lack of an actual business model. I’ve been reading many opinions that feel that Facebook is the future of microblogging.
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Stem Cell Breakthroughs Found In Top Medical Stories Of 2008
With 2008 coming to a close, people are publishing oodles of “Best of” and “Top 10″ lists. Back in May on the third post I ever made on this blog, I talked about Top 10 lists and why domainers should read them, even if they are a bit lame or biased. This still holds true today. These lists, no matter how flawed, provide you with trends and the pulse of consumers, technology or whatever.
I ran across an interesting one the other day on ABC News. The article is the top 10 medical stories of 2008, spread across four pages of course. And they are:
- The JUPITER trial. A cholesterol pill that some think may be too good to be true.
- Birth from a whole ovary transplant. On Dec. 10th a girl was born using the first ever ovary transplant.
- The ENHANCE trial. More cholesterol drugs. This showed that Vytorin may not be as good as originally thought.
- Malaria vaccine. On Dec. 8th, the testing of a new vaccine showed that it was 50% successful among infants and toddlers in preventing malaria.
- Continuous glucose monitoring. In September, a 24/7 blood sugar monitoring device was unveiled.
- Stem cell genes and Alzheimers. In January, scientists discovered Lhx2, a critical gene in cortical development. And it’s probable that it can be treated with stem cells. Um… Lhx2.com is available…
- Progress on parasites. The Guinea worm has been defeated. It’s rare for diseases to be completely eradicated.
- Early blood test for Down syndrome. The test can show signs of Down syndrome 12 to 13 weeks into the first trimester.
- Stem cell trachea transplant. A 30 year old woman in Spain was the first to receive a full trachea transplant grown from her own stem cells.
- Face transplant breakthroughs. This made some big headlines in the past few weeks.
Remember, Obama is a strong supporter of stem cell research, some of which I have previously written about.
Using lists like this, you can better inform yourself when buying domains or building new sites.
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Looking To Buy Some Real Estate Domains? Avoid These Cities
According to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, California is in for a rocky 2009. Overall, the 2008 Q3 report shows a 16.6% drop in the index, continuing the trend of it falling every quarter since 2006 Q2.
As for their forecasts for 2009, 8 of the 10 cities with the worst forecasts are in California. The top slot goes to Los Angeles, with the median home price projected to drop 24.9%. Here are the remaining 91 cities and their projected drops:
- Los Angeles, CA -24.9%
- Stockton, CA -14.7%
- Riverside, CA -23.3%
- Miami, FL -22.8%
- Sacramento, CA -22.2%
- Santa Ana-Anaheim, CA -22.0%
- Fresno, CA -21.6%
- San Diego, CA -21.1%
- Bakersfield, CA -20.9%
- Washington, DC -19.9%
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Freshdrop Gems 2
To continue my new series on how I find quality domain names using Freshdrop.net, I bring you 12 great names and 14 holiday gems.
These were all found on the TDNAM Exp Names list on Freshdrop.net.
TechieStore.com
$10 no bids
Ends on 1.3.09 ~11:25am CST
6 years old, nice short name for a tech ecommerce site
FogMachines.com
$1005 with 36 bids
Ends 12.29.08 ~1:20pm CST
10 years old, nice category killer
DivorceBook.com
$10 with one bid
Ends on 1.3.09 ~12:40pm CST
7 years old
HottestStocks.com
$95 with 9 bids
Ends on 1.3.09 ~1:00pm CST
7 years old
RomanticHearts.com
$10 no bids
Ends on 1.4.09 ~10:20am CST
6 years old, great for dating or poetry site
DebtNegotiators.com
$10 with one bid
Ends on 1.5.09 ~1:25am CST
HuntersDen.com
$10 no bids
Ends on 1.2.09 ~1:00pm CST
7 years old, nice short name for a hunting social site
PictureManager.com
$15 with two bids
Ends on 1.5.09 ~2:10pm CST
10 years old, 76 uniques a month
TechnologyNewsDaily.com
$43 with 8 bids
Ends on 1.6.9 ~2:00pm CST
4 years old, almost 3000 uniques a month!
And a few good geodomains:
UtahFamilies.com
$10 no bids
Ends on 1.3.09 ~10:15am CST
7 years old
JobsMontana.com
$1004 with 24 bids
Ends TODAY ~2:30pm CST
193 uniques/month, 11 years old
LeaseOrlando.com
$10 no bids
Ends on 1.4.09 ~2:30pm CST
9 years old, a decent sized city
Recently I wrote an article on why Halloween domains shouldn’t be thrown into the junk bin for being seasonal. Such is the same for Christmas domains. Well, over the next week we will see an excellent selection of geo+christmas.com’s on TDNAM.
RhodeIslandChristmas.com
MissouriChristmas.com
IdahoChristmas.com
WyomingChristmas.com
MassachusettsChristmas.com
DelawareChristmas.com
KansasChristmas.com
UtahChristmas.com
SouthCarolinaChristmas.com
SouthDakotaChristmas.com
OklahomaChristmas.com
NorthDakotaChristmas.com
ArkansasChristmas.com
AlabamaChristmas.com
All at $10 with no bids.
All end New Years Day between 1:45pm and 3:35pm CST
Again, these were all found on Freshdrop.net. There are plenty more there that I haven’t listed. Check them out.
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New Addition To The Site
Recently I sat and pondered whether I should update my Wordpress version to the new 2.7. I was sitting at 2.5.2 (I think) and never had the balls to update it. I’ve done some small tweaks here and there and was sure that updating would either delete them or completely mess up the site.
So I decided to buck up and do the update. Luckily my wonderful webhost, Lunarpages, has Fantastico in their CPanel (of which I used to originally install this site). I disabled all of my plugins and updated it with a single click (after testing it on a couple other meaningless sites I have). It worked! I reactivated my plugins and updated them as well. And like that, it was done.
To think I was fretting all this time. The tweaks ended up being in the template code, which was untouched by the updates.
I wasn’t sure about the admin area of the new Wordpress, but it has already grown on me. I like it.
On to the update.
You may have noticed the new link in the primary navigation bar at the top, called Trend Feeds.
I have put together a great set of RSS feeds that I personally use to watch trends and set them up in a nice little aggregator to make for a one-stop page for watching trends.
As of now, I am showing:
Trendhunter
MSN
Reddit
Google
Digg
Newsvine
Yahoo
Twitturly
Small Business Trends
AOL Hot Searches
Trendbird
Trendwatching
Buzzfeed
TechMeme
PSFK
Springwise
Trend Central
Mashable
BoingBoing
EcoGeek
More will be coming soon.
If you can spare a moment, I would appreciate your thoughts on a couple things. Is it too bulky or slow? Is it too long to navigate?
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