Congratulations to my friends at The UPS Store at 230 S. Clark Street in Chicago’s Loop on their first anniversary of business today. Where many may think a first anniversary for a business isn’t something to celebrate, I believe every year of a business should be recognized.

The UPS Store franchises provide many services, namely mailbox and shipping services, as well as printing and copying. I started working with them in the fall of last year shortly after they opened, after my frustrations with the lack of service from the US Postal Service, including blatant damage to my mail – I guess “do not bend or fold” doesn’t mean what it used to, but I digress.

Shortly afterwards I moved the mailing address of Dunkirk Systems to The UPS Store where it is today. The staff has gone out of their way to help me, from calling me when certain mail and packages arrive to advice on shipping to actual shipping services. I feel they are looking out for my best interest, and there’s nothing more an entrepreneur can ask for!

If you are in downtown Chicago today, stop by to wish them well and tell them I sent you.

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To visit the Web sites of the 4 major sports teams in Boston, one would enter the following into their browser’s address bar – redsox.com, patriots.com, celtics.com and bruins.com. If you click on those links, you will see that 3 of them will get you to where you want to go, and one goes to a domain name parking page.

Boston’s hockey team is not the only one that doesn’t own the basic name of their team. This story details the domain names teams in the 4 major sports leagues – baseball, football, hockey and basketball and who owns what. The Bruins are in good company with the other teams in the NHL in not owning the team name.

When you look at the name of teams, it is not surprising that someone else owns such generic terms as lions, rams, penguins and blues. Granted many of these pages are domain name parking pages with ads. And providing they are not attempting to violate the trademark of a sports team, why should their current owners not own them?

A recent case highlighted this with regards to the ownership of angels.com, held by someone in South Korea. I had reported on it previously but it is worth mentioning again here, and you can read the full text of the case here. Even though the owner offered to sell the domain name to MLB and the Los Angeles Angels for US$300,000.00, the case came down to the fact that the owner was not squatting on the name, leveraging the brand of the baseball team. If you look at the site at angels.com, it is a mere postcard with text in Korean (if anyone out there reads Korean, please let me know what it says).

Those teams that do not own just the name as their domain name own names with the city/state and the team name. If someone else bought chicagobears.com, the Monsters of the Midway certainly would have a claim to it. The Bears and the other teams have a recognizable domain name that will lead someone to their Web site from the address bar entry of the team name, and most certainly from a Web search. And not owning bears.com was not the reason they did not win the Super Bowl.

As a Boston sports fan, it is not surprising that the Bruins don’t own bruins.com, an online reflection of their performance over the last quarter century, but I digress.

Domain Names • (0) Comments • Permalink

I got tagged by David Dalka on a topic that has been going around the blog world – to post 8 random things about myself. So here goes:

1. I used to collect business cards. I passed along most of them to other collectors, but I still have cards from Bill Gates and Steve Case.

2. I was once in the studio watching a live broadcast of NFL Sunday Countdown at the ESPN Studios in Bristol, CT.

3. I was the general manager of my college radio station, WNEK-FM, which is why I still have records.

4. I used to own a Penny-Farthing bicycle – I won it in a raffle. As I could never ride the thing, I sold it to a bike shop that had the old-style English cycle as its logo.

5. I am 100% Italian-American.

6. I have been a New England Patriots season ticket holder since 1993.

7. I still own the TRS-80 Model 4 computer I owned in high school.

8. I have been to 12 countries.

Now to return the favor, I am tagging the following 8 people:

Mark Ashley
Mike Carruth
Justin Chen
Jason Jacobsohn
Clay Parker Jones
Matt Maldre
Drew Myler
Wendy Piersall

Of course there is no obligation to post, but it's more for fun and to share a little about ourselves. And so it continues.

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Wouldn’t it be nice to find out what people are saying about you right now? Or your business or competitors? Using Serph along with other services like Google Alerts can help you keep track of who is saying what and where.

I was recently clued into Serph by Justin at Menuism. You can create a free account to manage your searches, or simply enter a search query and see what is being mentioned about that search phrase on blogs and social bookmark sites. You can also get an RSS feed of that search phrase, and Serph will deliver any new entries to your feed reader as they are found.

Like any of these services, they won’t find everything about every phrase. If you are a new business or new to publishing online, you may not get results right away. As I have been publishing The Hot Iron and promoting Dunkirk Systems for a while, I get frequent hits of their mentions in blogs and on other Web sites.

This post alone should send me alerts, as well as to Justin.

Business • Technology • (1) Comments • Permalink

With the day-to-day grind of life and business, it’s good to take a break, even if for just a few hours. Sometimes it’s reading a book in my secret location or a walk along Lake Michigan. Every couple of weeks though, it is to relax and get cleaned up in the process, and for that I take a stroll over to The 316 Club.

The 316 Club, located next to the Board of Trade Building in Chicago, is a men’s spa, “designed to provide an oasis with premium grooming services.” You can get haircut – or in my case a head shave – face shave, face, hand or foot treatment – even waxing. The environment is done well with dark wood and stone, a lounge with a fireplace, pool table and a full bar. They have WiFi, but the last thing I want to do is bring my notebook and do work there!

If you do get a shave, it is a real straight-razor shave by Carmelo, a second-generation Italian-American barber. This is the extreme opposite of using a Bic disposable razor with Barbasol shaving cream! He uses The Art of Shaving products, which I personally have used for several years, which gives me the best shave I have ever had. If you have never had a straight-razor shave, I highly recommend you try it.

As it is called The 316 “Club,” it is a membership club. They offer 2 types of memberships both including unlimited use of one of their package of services – all including a shoe shine – and discounts on other services or products. They also host events throughout the year especially for members.

You don’t have to join to visit the Club, but after a couple of visits you probably will. Do the math for what you are paying now and it will make sense... add in the extras of the experience and it will more than pay for itself. Needless to say I am a member!

Diversions • (3) Comments • Permalink