Newscaster, Social Media Innovator Rick Sanchez To Keynote Traffic

"The reason I say this is there are so many facets of a domain name. It has the face value. It has the value with the mineral rights in the form of traffic. It is a collectible like stamps, coins, art baseball cards. They are real estate on a scale never known before. They are power in a way that has yet to be fully exploited. They are TV stations. They are magazines. They are soap boxes. They are an advantage on many fronts. They are a permanent direct mail piece. They are almost anything you want them to be and so much more. You are an instant broadcaster able to compete with the likes of NBC, ABC, BBC, and all the rest. Your domain can create a situation to capture more eyeballs than all the TV stations put together." ~~ Rick Schwartz 1999

When Rick Schwartz visioned the Internet, he envisioned a new media that would give every citizen a voice; a "soap box" as he called it. His first sites, simple chatboards that allowed customers a way to give feedback to brands and ceos, led to registering the name iReport.com with a vision towards the citizen journalism movement that is now sweeping the nation.

Rick wrote on his first site: "The internet is the most powerful communication tool ever invented by man. At this site, possibly millions of past passengers can share their experiences directly with each other and for the first time have the power to eliminate ALL outside forces. The day of feeling powerless is over. This site is a meeting place for customers to share their experiences with Carnival on this past week cruise or that of any cruise in the past. Carnival management is welcome to post here and respond as they see appropriate. We encourage their participation. If this site is used right it can be a lot more powerful than traditional methods.

He sold iReport to CNN, but it also took an innovative champion on their side to see the possibilities. So armed with iReport, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, Rick Sanchez hit the airwaves and made waves. First he was the brunt of other newscasters jokes. Now just about every newscaster is plugged into social media, but few ALSO have the brand recognition of a GREAT domain, iReport, to fundementally redfine the model for broadcast news.

Watch below as Rick Sanchez is interviewed on Reliable Sources and you'll see what we are in store for. Plan for an informative discussion from someone who truly gets it and is fighting for us from the inside out.

As user-generated content is one sue way to develop a domain fast and get traffic, I am looking forward to hearing Rick talk all about it.