Techrigy is a social media search and discovery company. Our SM2 service allows brand marketers and PR pros to track conversations and sentiment across blogs, wikis, online video, microblogs like Twitter and other social media in real time. As a domain owner, entering this vast universe of user-generated content (UGC), brings up something very interesting. This social media eco-system has millions of participants, members and users and very little of it rests on unique domains. In fact it is an entirely different iteration of the web. Nothing is static, communities form and dissolve constantly, opinions and ideas spread way too fast for conventional search to index and track, and these trends and memes can make or break a candidate, a product or a reputation overnight.

Unlike sites on domains, social media resides in a sphere of reputation that is fickle at best. Concepts like the social graph which (as I interpret it) attempt to map where you and your ideas reside in a three axis grid, are not fixed- they change as relationships change. Other concepts like semantic search attempt to understand the context of a query so they can improve the relevancy of results, the never-ending Holy Grail of search.

As you might understand the challenge of marketing this new universe of ideas is both irresistible and daunting. It took me months to be able to write the sentences above and feel that they made sense to me. Now I have to explain them to others and help them see why they should care about what people are doing and saying in that universe. Pretty cool or should I say Dyson?

One of the big trends in search is the use of actual humans to parse results for accuracy, a la Mahalo. The problem is that this cannot scale  the level required for a universal search engine like the Goog. There are simply not enough people to do it and it’s not fast enough. However there is a way to do human-monitored search and I think Google knows what it is.

First I’m going to back up a bit. There is a Captcha system out there that takes advantage of all these humans typing in text they see as an image that goes beyond a security measure. As they type they are verifying words that have been captured by scanning systems used to scan books. This serves as a human editing system for an automated process. Quite clever really, as it does not require paid employees nor does it add to anyone’s workload- they’re going to type these words anyway.

Fast forward to the social network concept. LinkedIn was built by people entering their own information and updating it, making connections with people they know, forming groups, etc. It has a Q&A function where users can ask questions and get answers from other users who are, ostensibly, experts. It also has a job posting system tied in with a recommendation system. All of these elements together add up to a database of detailed information on people created and maintained by people (millions of people) who are unpaid. They’ve created a human-powered search engine that can and does scale. FaceBook, MySpace, Orkut, Hi5- they are all search engines with the dataset kept up by users.

With Google getting into this space more universally (they were already there with Orkut, which they acquired a few years ago, but is principally popular in South America) they are adding a human screening capability to their data on humans. With iGoogle they have my daily habits at their fingertips. Adding in a social network or two means they’ll also have that data in a social context- who I’m connected to and how. With a few more acquisitions like Tripit, which helps users track their travel itineraries (very cool, BTW), they could also track where I’m traveling, etc., etc.

I suspect there will be businesses that specialize in configuring Google assets to create specialized datastreams and searches. I’d thought of doing one that simply configured Google’s Apps for business use, something like the way RedHat works with Linux- Find out what the business needs, configure browser and application preferences, logins, etc., and distribute those preferences to employees with set-up instructions. I’m not doing it but it will happen.

Google is staying on strategy: to organize the world’s information. Instead of bemoaning their ubiquity, try looking for opportunities in their eco-system. They’re all over the place.

Gawker Media, the big blog network, announced that it was selling off a few assets including Wonkette, a very popular inside Washington political blog that had over 5 million pageviews last month. With that kind of traffic you’d think they’d be crazy to dump an otherwise successful site. My guess is, that with a downturn  economy, a site like Wonkette which never had a strong advertising model- readers go there for opinions and gossip, not shopping, was probably seeing a big drop in ad revenues. I’m guessing their CPMs were in the toilet despite the high traffic.

To make money with a site you have to choose your subject matter carefully. Is the information you’re providing something people seek during a buying process? Are the types of purchases associated with the site Internet e-commerce friendly? Things like books, jewelry, gadgets, courses and other high value, easily shipped, high margin products work best. Things that are heavy, cheap and have low margins like pet supplies, large appliances and groceries don’t cut it.

Is the subject matter information-intensive? If the buying decision is easy you can’t add enough value via a web site or blog. Look at the ads on general news, opinion and lifestyle blogs/sites- they are often big brand ads for cars, insurance and other generic subjects that are neutral in relevance to the content. These kinds of ads generate almost nothing in CPMs (measured in cents per thousand impressions) and contribute to banner blindness.

Getting a formula that delivers higher revenues requires something a lot of Internet media entrepreneurs don’t want to do: hard work. I’m in the process of inserting relevant affiliate text links into the hundreds of articles on one of our kitchen design sites. We have display affiliate ads but they draw very poorly. The text links are carefully chosen for very high relevance but it’s a lot of work:

• Determine what the reader of the article is most likely to be interested in at that moment. I have an article that recommends getting material samples when planning a new kitchen. The reader wants to know where they can get these.
• I go through the various affiliate programs and find a vendor that not only offers samples but pays out for sample requests, in this case $15 for a sample order (because they know that if you have a flooring sample you like you’re likely to order that specific flooring- resulting in a big sale). This takes a lot of time to research.
• I build a text link with the affiliate code that includes the appropriate anchor text. Free Flooring Samples from XYZ, for example
• I choose the appropriate place the article and insert the link text inline with the content. I don’t hide that it is a link (different color) nor do I hide the brand because I want it clear to the search police that I’m offering legitimate relevant content even if it is commercial. And I want the reader to know that I considered their interest, time and needs when selecting this revenue model.

This is a lot of picky busy work but when I’m done I’ll have an information site that is optimized for revenue-generation in a way that the consumer appreciates. And it is sustainable because once the work is done the site is self-sufficient. On to the next one…

Increasingly as I’ve been participating in the domain blogosphere I end up asking myself these questions. Unlike many domainers we came into this as hard core Internet marketers and site developers (one partner) and content developers (me). I have to admit that it seems stupid to me to buy very marginal domains, park them and then flip them as opposed to development. Yet I have to admit that what got me into this originally a few years ago was selling a domain I’d registered a month earlier for $3000, a 3000% gain. That’s not bad except…that domain, developed as envisioned, would be worth a lot more than that now.

So I think we’re coming full circle and viewing ourselves as an online media network rather than as domain investors. We’ve bought domains based on this model and bought domains just because they would get type-in traffic. In doing an analysis of our portfolios, the obvious priority, given our strengths is to develop the strong domains, those with an obvious long term value as media properties, and sit on the rest. Maybe we’ll hold a garage sale: Anyone interested in GetLaidEveryNight.com? We bought it but it doesn’t interest us much at this point.

We’ve been developing a site at KitchenDesignInsights.com. It’s not a type-in domain but it is a brandable site and the revenue and traffic potential is off the charts. As a domain this might be worth 4-low 5 figures. As a fully functioning media property a year from now with good traffic and sponsors, affiliates, etc., how much will it be worth? Suppose it were throwing off $10k/month, maybe with a major appliance site sponsor like SubZero or GE?