I Had a nice marketing strategy meeting with some great folks who own a restaurant.  After much discussion about calls to action, their web site, their marketing  plan, etc., someone mentioned the domain name was up for renewal.  I asked when and they mentioned that it expires this week and had not yet been renewed.  I of course asked why it hadn’t been renewed yet and found out that they don’t actually have true ownership of the domain name.  They had an ex-employee register the domain name and now this gentleman is pretty much out of the whole picture, he ceases to be on the payroll…. If this domain is not renewed by the end of the week, someone can swipe the domain name and hold it hostage AND the web site goes away.

So, the restaurant owner is left with a considerable dilemma.  The domain name expires soon, they have no way of renewing it unless the ex-employee does it out of the kindness of his heart, or the ex-employee cooperates and transfers the domain name back to them.  WAY TOO MANY If’s in this equation.  The domain name is your foundation, it’s your concrete, you need to keep it under YOUR control. Even if you have a web site company register the domain, insist that they create an account for you and name you and your email address administrative contact on the domain name.  Unfortunately, in this case, you always need to be thinking about the worse case scenario.  The domain name should be registered and owned by the business owner.

No matter how long it may take and how much paperwork is involved, secure your domain name NOW with a reputable company such as GoDaddy or NetworkSolutions.com.  Be cautious about third party registrars that work out their garage, this is not the time to be cheap.

Not sure who owns your domain? Pop over to this domain name and look it up.  If your name and email address are not listed, you need to take steps to contact exactly who registered the domain and take ownership. http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp. There are legal actions you can take to regain ownership if traditional methods are not working, but you need to be able to prove that you are the rightful owner of the domain.

Hi, we are aware of an outage with one of our servers and are working as efficiently as possible to isolate and remedy the issue. We will of course keep you in the loop.

Thanks for your understanding and patience.
On Target Web Solutions Hosting Dept.

Saw this article on CNN today about social media and your job: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/08/24/cb.job.social.medial.pitfalls/index.html : Inappropriate self disclosure can cost you your job before you even start it. While I think it’s imperative to be transparent, it is also imperative to exercise caution when you post that tweet about your soon to be boss, or what you and your high school buddy did to that cat last night.

Check out this short clip from my most recent appearance on The Daily Buzz: All about social media.

So, according to my Grandma, I am ‘popular’ on Facebook because I have so many so called friends. It’s true, I do have quite an extensive collection, so when I heard from a high school friend via Facebook chat last week, I wasn’t really all that surprised.  I had not spoken to this girl in about 15 years or so, but thought it was kind of cool that she was reaching out.  We were pretty close friends back in the day, she knew stuff about me that not many others would have known, like my middle name and the name of my high school girlfriend.

Via facebook chat, she says Hi and I reply, how are you?  She says NOT GOOD. Odd, I thought, so I of course probed deeper, what’s happening? She explained to me that she was on vacation with her family in Europe (which I thought was odd) and that she had been mugged and robbed on the way back to her hotel.  I of course asked if I could help in anyway and she tells me she needs money to get back to the USA, about $2500.  Now I knew something was up, this girl was quite proud, she would have never asked me for money, etc. I started to catch on that it wasn’t really her and asked what’s my middle name? The person could not answer and said, come on, why are you asking me these questions…. I replied, because I’m not quite sure it’s you. She said of course it’s me, etc.  I then asked, what was my girl friends name in high school? There was dead silence and then a quick disconnection.  The person had hijacked this girls facebook account and before I could warn her via her facebook wall, the person in control of the account ‘un-friended’ me from her wall so I couldn’t alert her.

Beware of scams like this in Facebook or any other social media venue.  If your account gets compromised, report it quickly so that your good name isn’t being used or tarnished by the good ole’ Nigerians.  Read this article for more social media precautions: http://www.examiner.com/x-13398-Salt-Lake-City-Social-Media-Examiner~y2009m7d29-The-Nigerian-Scams-Have-Hit-Social-Media-Whats-next