Facebook’s Domain Clamp Down

Today’s guest post is by Daniel Offer, partner in the Facebook Chat Client, Chit Chat for Facebook and he guest writes for Quick Online Tips.

According to reports received by the team at the Facebook IM, Chit Chat for Facebook, Facebook is clamping down on webmasters using the brand “Facebook” within their domain names.

Webmasters that own a domain name(s) with “Facebook” in their domain name are being asked to transfer their domain over to Facebook.

“Facebook contacted me requesting the transfer my domain to them and to use an alternative domain.” One source stated.

Whilst requesting – and if necessary, enforcing domains containing trademarks to be transferred over to the trademark owner is nothing new, this is the first reported incident of Facebook has sought after “tier two” domains – whereby the brand Facebook is used with another keyword.

Facebook has in the past targeted “tier one” domains – indeed, back in July 2009 Facebook was granted the domain Facebook.ir by the UN authorities whom deemed that the previous owner registered the domain in “bad faith.”

More recently, in February, many Facebook users were confused when ReadWriteWeb wrote an article about AOL Messenger’s partnership with Facebook allowing users to login to Facebook with AOL Messenger. This article appeared above Facebook for the keyword “Facebook Login” on Google searches resulting in many users being confused even though the ReadWriteWeb website looks nothing like Facebook.

Many Facebook related tools, tips, and login websites, however, use a design very similar to Facebook itself whilst promoting third party applications and news. This may be one motivation for the recent clamp down; however, more likely Facebook is seeking to protect its brand value.

Back in 2003, when the “MSN”  Messenger community was at its peak, Microsoft made similar domains on website owners with the brand “MSN” within their domain.

Microsoft received much negative publicity due to its legal heavy handedness in dealing with one Canadian high school student named MikeRowe whose domain MikeRoweSoft caught Microsoft’s attention. A search on Facebook for people named “Ace  Book” yields many results – let’s hope Facebook has learnt from Microsoft’s mistakes and treads carefully!

Webmasters are advised to avoid domain names that contain trademarks.

Daniel Offer, partner in the Facebook Chat Client, Chit Chat for Facebook, guest writes for Quick Online Tips.

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One of the greatest additions to our browsers over the years has been the inclusion of tabbed browsing. Firefox introduced Tabbed browsing and now all the other browsers are following suit. One thing Firefox provides that most don’t is added functionality and enhancements via add-ons. Tabs provide quick ways to organize our browsing experience. Noone does tabs like Firefox and the tab-based Firefox Add-ons are simply amazing!

You can utilize these Add-ons to enhance the design and functionality of your tabs and browsing experience. Below are the 5 best Firefox Add-ons to further enhance the appearance and functionality of your Firefox Tabs.

ColorfulTabs (Firefox: 3.0b2 – 3.6) – 4 Stars, 535 reviews, 11 million downloads

This Firefox Add-on is a simple add-on that utilizes colors for every tab to distinguish and add a little flare to your browser interface.

colorfultabs 5 Firefox Add ons to Supercharge Your Tabbed Browsing

Tab Mix Plus (Firefox: 3.0 – 3.7a1pre) 5 Stars, 1294 reviews, 12 million downloads

This Firefox Add-on enhances your browsing by giving your more tab options to duplicate tabs, control the tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows and more.

tabmixplus 1 5 Firefox Add ons to Supercharge Your Tabbed Browsing

FoxTab (Firefox: 3.0 – 3.6.*) 5 Stars, 888 reviews, 7 million downloads

FoxTab lets you access all your bookmarks from the FoxTab interface. It is a 3D tab management extension, that features top sites (Speed Dial), a tab flipper to flip between opened tabs with mouse or keyboard gestures and recently closed tabs functions. You can choose between 6 different 3D Themes.

foxtabs 5 Firefox Add ons to Supercharge Your Tabbed Browsing

Super Tab Mode (Firefox: 3.5 – 3.7a1pre) 5 Stars, 47 reviews, 22k downloads

This Firefox Add-on helps you improve upon the Firefox tab browsing capabilities. It includes functions such as double click close tab, open bookmarks & history, search in new tab, remove right or left tabs, choose where to open new tab, auto lock a tab page, block page content and much more.

supertabmode 5 Firefox Add ons to Supercharge Your Tabbed Browsing

New Tab King (Firefox: 3.0 – 3.6.*) 5 Stars, 99 reviews, 268k downloads

New Tab King replaces the blank new tab with sites you use the most, closed tabs, suggested sites, etc.

newtabking 5 Firefox Add ons to Supercharge Your Tabbed Browsing

Of the Firefox Add-ons above, I’m a huge fan of ColorfulTabs, Tab Mix Plus and New Tab King. Do you use any of the tab add-ons above? Which is your favorite?

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Today is a very happy day! My favorite MMA and UFC news and rumor site, MMAJunkie, just reported that DirecTV has signed a deal with the Versus Channel. What this means for mixed martial arts fans who have DirecTV is the free UFC and WEC events back on the tube. It’s been far too long since Versus dropped off the DirecTV lineup, but the deal comes at a GREAT time! UFC on Versus 1: Vera vs. Jones airs this Saturday night!

“We’re excited that we were able to come to a fair agreement that puts Versus back in millions of homes with DirecTV in time for our busy spring programming schedule,” Versus president Jamie Davis stated. “We look forward to super-serving these fans with NHL regular-season and playoff coverage, our first live UFC event and much more.”

The statement above was published on MMAJunkie. Thanks to the deal, the need to find free sites to stream live sporting events will be greatly minimized. It’s going to be a busy and awesome MMA season starting this weekend. Be sure to tune in.

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