Is your audience dumber than a pile of bricks? Google’s new reading level results give publishers and online advertisers a glimpse in to whether readers struggled through 4th grade English class or polished off textbooks for dinner in college.

I ran a few popular news websites through Google and came up with some interesting data points. Perhaps the secret to Gawker’s successful blogging empire is that their audience isn’t even as sophisticated as Sarah Palin? After all, FoxNews.com has even more intermediate and advanced text content than NPR.

Future ideas for Google’s rating tools: estimating individual users’ IQ based on public social network profile content, gmail reading level, and demographics.

I through in a science site as a baseline to “higher end” content:

Intentional focus, exceptional management, and robust balance can go a long way to keeping you in business. Often what appears to be a dead end is simply a navigable roadblock.

Curiously since entering the industry full time around 6 years ago I’ve seen a lot of different people share in the same small pool of mistakes. Most of these mistakes are the result of a complete lack of focus, exceptional mis-management, and a total personal life imbalance.

Cynicism aside, the industry is only getting more interesting, not less. I thoroughly enjoy the dynamic of a rapidly evolving environment that makes the “veterans” heads spin. These mean more opportunities not less. When markets have big shakeups it becomes evident who are the innovative thinkers, and who just got lucky and followed somebody elses’ instructions. If you don’t find innovation fascinating, your in the wrong industry.

Here is a way to practice innovative thinking over the holidays: take the Groupon challenge and think about how you could re-invent your business model so it could reach a $1 billion valuation in the next 16 months. And for 2011, don’t forget what I wrote in this post.

What is Yahoo anyways? Apparently little more than a content farm spewing out cheap low quality articles for display advertising revenue. That is pretty sad for a company that was once the most serious competitor to Google, one of the most valuable companies in the world.

I think you could earn an MBA’s worth of knowledge just studying the management, operational, and financial differences between Yahoo and Google. The saddest part of this whole story is just how many opportunities Yahoo threw away. Yahoo has well earned the name as the place start ups go to die.

Even grimmer news came for Yahoo this week with Facebook’s announcement of their new messaging platform, as Yahoo Mail is responsible for a huge chunk of Yahoo’s user base.

Yahoo as a search engine company: dead. Yahoo as a pay per click company: dead. Yahoo as a webmail platform: at risk. Yahoo as a content farm: alive and well.

News to content farms and investors thinking of putting their money in content farms that do not return a profit immediately: Google is addicting you to their traffic. Then they are going to pull it, and then you are going to pay for it. And if it really is a good business model it won’t be long before Google brings it in house (take a look at how many media farms are in the top 100 US websites list — thats a Google business model.)

From the reflections of Randy Farmer in his blog post I linked to above: “..When those personalities leave, their projects immediately get transferred to Bangalore for end-of-life support” The future of Yahoo: a content farm run on life support.

Today Google closed up 11.19%. Three days ago Chris over at WebsitePublisher.net reported making a record breaking amount of money off of Adsense this past September and had this to say:

What I’m curious about is if others have noticed significant revenue increases thanks to Google’s 728×90 redesign, and if so, I wonder if it is enough to move Google’s quarterly results. They report this week, it could be a good time to buy Google stock. I know in the past, being someone who pays attention to these things, when Adsense has done well for me Google has always reported a blowout quarter, so maybe my sample size is enough to show overall trends. I don’t know, but things are definitely looking up.

This is a very good indicator of the health of this industry.

The domain name business is very different today than it was in the 90s, 2000, or even 2005. It is very possible that a shift in value away from domain names is underway (but there is still incredible value to be found by people who understand traffic value and excel at marketing.)

Why is a domain name worth anything? Because a domain name, specifically from a recognizable extension, is an internet address — a destination — that consumers understand. I know that I can type in whatever I am looking for .com and find it. Unfortunately for domainers the tide has begun to shift, both as major traffic players begin to wage a war on direct navigation and as major brands shift to alternative internet communication streams (how many of Zynga’s 200 million+ active users do you think have actually visited zynga.com?)

One thing the top domain name investors got right was understanding that this business is about traffic. Quality, targeted, internet traffic delivers many billions of dollars in value every single year. Capturing even a small portion of that flow easily results in a multimillion dollar cash flow. It would seem that a mere 5 years ago the majority of internet entrepreneurs had substantial difficulty understanding this.

From my observations there is no shortage of D list domain names priced in the high five figure and six figure price range. A D list domain name is a domain name in which the end buyer has to add immense value in order to come out ahead. Often an individual marketplace can only support a handful of serious contenders while there may be hundreds or thousands of D list domain names for sale.

D list domain names require an end user to utilize additional ad dollars and know how in order to leverage the value out of the domain name (generally that means spending millions of dollars on advertising over the course of a year or two.)

Unlike the D list, generic domain names produce a value stream on their own. As of today, search engines still disproportionately value generic keyword domain names over many other factors. Not only does this mean free organic search traffic (with a little SEO effort) it also means an edge over competitors in the pay per click marketplace thanks to a higher ad clickthrough rate. The same can not be said of D list domain names.

To me, the domain name marketplace resembles a landscape that was once overflowing with natural resources that has now been ravaged bare. The sharp eye can still find a few remnants of value but the novice is overwhelmed by hucksters marketing worthless rocks as gold. As for the real gems, on occasion they surface, such as at auction (Moniker’s are fairly good.)

So what is your domain worth? If its a single word or phrase found in the dictionary, probably a fair amount. Anything else, and its probably not worth a whole lot on its own.

The business model of the traditional domainer is crumbling. Google and now Microsoft control how much money you make from parked pay per click revenues. Google and Microsoft control how many people get to your domain name through the web browser (and Firefox and Apple and at an increasing rate your telecom provider, more on them at another time.) Google and Microsoft control the marketplace for how you receive traffic through the search engines.

Microsoft’s takeover of Yahoo’s search has an extraordinary implication to domainers. The companies that control the platform visitors use to get to your website now control how much money you make from your parked domain. Don’t want to let these companies monetize your traffic? Then why should they send their valuable visitors to you at all?

By the way, I’m spending more money on domain names than I ever have before. Why? Because I understand how to extract their value. If you don’t, I would suggest learning how. Personally I prefer the environment we have now. The harder things are, the more they change, the better off I am because its that much harder for everyone else. Adaptive learners thrive in this environment because new opportunities appear (and vanish) daily.

Internet Brands, the owner of vBulletin, is being taken private for $640 million.

Besides vBulletin, Internet Brands owns a bunch of message boards and websites across different categories. Back before their 2007 IPO it appears they dealt primarily with vehicle and mortgage verticals. After their IPO they expanded to new categories such as careers and travel, using the IPO money to buy up lots of developed websites and domain names.

The exact benefits or reasons for going private are hard to tell. I would suspect it may have to do with the current availability of cheap credit and the owners/directors not having a very positive outlook on their long term future. On the other hand it eliminates the costs of regulatory compliance being a public company and allows a company to operate without making all their business activities public via SEC filings (its easy to demand more money when you know exactly what your prospective buyer has been paying out to everyone else.)

There are several other companies like Internet Brands that have a strong track record of purchasing the type of websites developed by self employed website publishers. The biggest mistakes I see publishers make are building out sites in the wrong vertical and treating their business activities as a part time hobby.

Even though companies such as Demand Media are heading the other direction and seeking an IPO, both events are good for website publishers because they publicly establish financial valuations that allow more investors to “understand” the business. Publishing content is very much a hot area and you can count on more copycat acquirers to help drive up the valuations of your internet properties. Also don’t be afraid to use your knowledge of how the business works to purchase, or short sell, companies that make money from content publishing (however understanding how to read company financials is just as important.)

My competitor has one product that is not free and can’t be given away for free. This single product is so profitable that my competitor uses it to fund development of a copy of my main revenue driving product (that they give away for free) just to fuck with me.

My first business model is in a lot of danger. I already make some money from my competitor’s main market, but there aren’t a whole lot of my companies resources dedicated to that market and we spend a bunch of money on other random crazy shit.

My competitor is Google and my company is Microsoft (not really, its a story.)

Microsoft’s complete takeover of Yahoo search business is imminent. The organic listings have already transitioned and paid search results will come shortly.

Big problem for Microsoft, its not a seamless transition. Each Yahoo advertiser will need to manually move their campaigns from their Yahoo account in to Microsoft’s Bing Adcenter. Account limitations and set up on Yahoo are very different than Microsoft’s Adcenter. So different that some people are recommend you take your Google Adwords campaigns and migrate them to Bing! Guess what, a lot of advertisers will not be able to fully make the transition. Some will make it, but with a struggle. In the meantime, Microsoft is not going to make as much as they expect to (hopefully Yahoo got a flat rate guarantee.)

I feel bad for Microsoft. When big industries change, and they have poor leadership, your good employees go work for your competitors and make them better companies. The people that are left aren’t the visionaries. They may be bright, they may be sharp, but they weren’t sharp enough to see bigger opportunities for themselves, and they certainly won’t be able to take advantage of those opportunities for their employer.

I hope I’m wrong. Google needs strong competitors. It means a better environment for advertisers and stronger payouts for web publishers.

Update 10/30/10: Looks like I was right, to some degree. Yesterday Search Engine Roundtable reports on advertisers seeing a “major” drop in traffic in their Microsoft Adcenter accounts (which is how you buy advertising on Bing.) I can confirm this first hand as its happened to us as well.

What I reported in this post earlier was an early sign, to me, of potential problems. While they finally did come out with an account migration its likely that this transition was not well prepared. That is not a good sign for Yahoo or Microsoft shareholders.

One of the topics I have followed closely since the beginning of Web Publishing blog is for profit copyright enforcement.

Lawyers have been using copyright law enforcement for profit for years whether it was Getty Images which has been going after web site owners for years, or Perfect 10 which purchased licenses from photographers for, in my opinion, the sole purpose of suing Google.

Wired Magazine now reports a company from Nevada, RightHaven, is now going after web publishers for republishing newspaper articles on their sites. Similar to Perfect 10′s approach, RightHaven purchases rights to old newspaper articles from newspapers and then takes matters in to their own hands.

Outside of the business context I think this has a chilling effect as most newspapers alter, move, or remove articles from the web over time. For a small website owner when faced with spending a few thousand dollars to make something go away or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees there is only one easy way out.

How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and $75,000 or more was missing from your business bank account?

“When consumers lose money due to cyber fraud, retail banks are required by law to refund the money — provided the victim doesn’t wait too long in reporting the unauthorized charges. Commercial banks, however, are under no such obligation, although they usually will work with the victim customer to try to reverse as many of the fraudulent transfers as possible.” — Via Krebs On Security.

So, what can you do about it?

#1 Exclusively do your internet banking on a locked down machine, preferably running off of a recent Linux boot disk. Download Ubuntu, burn it to a CD, and boot from that.

#2 Get a Cybersecurity insurance policy.

#3 Stay the fuck away from small community banks. From what I’ve seen the big boys generally have more robust security policies (which still may not help if you or your secretary’s computer is full of trojans.)

I checked out the iPad at the Apple store for 15 minutes and was not impressed. Was it really more than a giant iPhone?

Then my birthday came along and my business partner bought me one. I’ve been using it or a good month now and have found it indispensable. The iPad is a multiple use device that kills a bunch of birds with one stone.

Who cares about a tablet PC when the iPad can control all of your desktops?

Over the past several years I have gone through a handful of mobile computing devices. There was the Fujitsu U810 which looked so unique I had to get one (screen and keyboard too small to use more than 15 minutes.) Later on I got the Macbook Air with an SSD which was thoroughly usable but went in the closet when I downsized from a 15 pound Alienware to a more modest Asus laptop.

What I think most people are missing about the iPad is its ability to remotely connect to just about any internet connected PC or Mac. Leave your laptop or desktop running 24/7 and remote to it in an instant to pull up a file or check something else out.

You can use LogMeIn Ignition ($30 one time app fee) or any of the numerous apps that use your desktop OS’s native remote connection feature. Try iTap RDP remotely connected to a Windows machine running at 1024×768 resolution (the iPad’s native res) and it will look like you have a PC in your hands.

My 3G iPad’s remoting capabilities have boosted my mobility even more than the almost instant-on Macbook Air SSD. Now I really have an always on internet device (other than on flights I never turn it off.)

The iPad’s ebook capabilities seem adequate to me. I’m about 500 pages in to a 1000 page book. Because Amazon has a Kindle app for the iPad I didn’t have to repurchase any books.

My expectation is that by gen 3 the iPad is going to be a must have device. Competition should start to show up from Google Chrome/Android making things real interesting.
Don’t bother waiting for a Windows tablet unless you are waiting to be disappointed.

So is the iPad most than a giant iPhone? Not really. What it does have is a bigger screen that won’t make you go blind. If you don’t have a iPhone or iPod, especially if you’ve never had one, the iPad is a must. Just make sure you can budget a few hundred more $ for the apps in order to fully push its potential.

As for web business owners, never before have you been so close to being able to lay out on a beach and do business (Apple just needs to make a bright sun friendly screen.)