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This is the best news I have heard since Black Friday. To me it means that if and when regulation finally happens in the US, Party will be a lock to be allowed to re-enter the market.

From Forbes:

“The intention of the joint venture is to take the PartyPoker brand and the World Poker Tour brand and our operating expertise and combine that with the regulatory expertise of MGM and Boyd,” Ryan said in an interview. “Effectively you will have four brands in the U.S. and all four brands will be acquiring players and putting them in one hub, one poker network.”

So their plan is basically to have skins again. MGM will have a skin, Boyd will have a skin, WPT will have a skin and then there will be the main PartyPoker.com site, all playing on the same network with the same tables etc.

Thats fantastic. It will obviously be exponentially better if they are allowed a worldwide player pool and I imagine they’ll be pushing for that, but that ultimately will be up to the lawmakers and regulators.

I would imagine BPTY will get a large pop today when the markets open in London. If not, this is the time to buy buy buy buy until the market figures out what this means.

They have partnered with the absolute best possible company – better than even Caesars and WSOP imo since they already chose a vastly inferior partner in 888 and Caesars is only successful in poker because they have the WSOP brand. They treat the players like shit, everybody hates them and they will ultimately get crushed by this behemoth partnership.

Here are a few of the casinos that they partnered with: Full lists here: MGM Boyd

-Bellagio
-Aria
-Mirage
-Mandalay Bay
-MGM Grand
-Borgata

Three of the best places to play live poker in the world on that list. Outside of the WSOP Caesars has nothing even close (who wants to play poker at the Flamingo and Bally’s? Ya, not me…).

As I read another gaming executive say elsewhere, this will be a marathon, not a sprint. We likely wont see any hands actually being dealt for awhile. I would guess 6-12 months absolute minimum – but the writing is on the wall. Internet poker is coming to the US, and when it does, PartyPoker just made a bold move to reclaim their place as the dominant market leader.

Update:

On a day when stocks worldwide are getting hammered because of MF Global and Euro debt crisis BPTY is up over 10%.

I’m researching business opportunities in China and when I found out TechCrunch Disrupt was going on in Beijing I decided to watch the live stream for literally 10 hours today.

I learned a ton, there were some great speakers. Kai-Fu Lee and Pony Ma were my favorites.

Highlights (I don’t remember which speaker said what):

-A big reason US companies are struggling to compete in China is that they are not used to moving as quickly as Chinese companies, who copy new products and services in hours and start competing with each other, ‘in the time it takes the American companies to have the first meeting’

-Android is huge in China but nobody is making any money on it. Not the handset makers, not Google, not the app developers, nobody. Google does not have an Android app store in China and instead there are 60+ competing independent app stores.

-I thought Gulu was the best startup to present. They are essentially a FourSquare competitor. What I like most is them not seeking to create a walled garden and being open to integration with all of the other social networks, broadcasting status updates etc. And a really cool feature that allows your friends to use the site if you invite them without having to create an account, they just click a link and can use the site like anybody else.

-Most of the other presentations were either boring ideas, bad ideas, yet another Android app or all of the above.

-Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka is awesome. Highlight of his chat was his good natured attitude about the massive pirating of everything Angry Birds in China (by his estimate 90% of the copies of Angry Birds are not licensed). He views it as them spreading the brand. He found some pirated Angry Birds balloons he loved and brought them on stage, saying he was going to take them back home and have his people copy them and start selling them. I laughed hard.

-Reporter Sarah Lacy is really proud of her boobs.

-Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom would really like to touch them. Every time he responded to her he made these really profound subconscious hand gestures indicating he would love to play with some boobies. It is possible he always does that but I couldn’t stop laughing while I was watching.

-TechCrunch’s headline that Kai-Fu Lee said China is not ready for the next Mark Zuckerberg is not accurate and really poor reporting. All he said was that his company does not fund people without experience because they don’t have to because China is huge and there are plenty of experienced people to choose from who are less of a risk. That doesn’t mean if a talented 20-year old dropped out of college with a great idea he could not be the next (Baidu Founder) Robin Li, it just means that he’d have to prove himself before Kai-Fu would invest in his company. If you are such a brilliant 20-year old email me, I’d consider it

-The government is the 12-ton elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. Vague references to ‘policies’ was the most I heard all day and those just in passing.

-Valuations are high and cost of doing business is low. Kai-Fu Lee said this about the advantages of doing business in China.

-Everybody seems to have or need a clear way to make money as a pre-requisite to even doing business in the first place. I don’t like this strategy, Facebook and Twitter would probably not even exist today had the founders and their investors had this approach. It could be a big part of the reason why all Chinese companies do is copy others instead of innovating. It is hard to innovate on the web if your only goal is to make money.

I’ll be watching again all day tomorrow and will do another post. I wish I had known sooner so I could have gone to Beijing. I’m sure this is one helluva place to network…

A bunch of FTP employees were just ‘made redundant’ and are popping up on 2+2 sharing gossip. The post below was deleted after less than two hours because the OP regretted making it. In the thread he was vetted by NoahSD from Subject: Poker, the NVG mod, as being legit and the information being accurate.

Noah said in the thread:

I didn’t want the project coyote thing coming out because, when I was researching that story, a large number of the employees that I talked to quite literally begged me not to publish it because 1) it was/is being used as a big selling point to potential investors and 2) sharing it with FTP’s competitors while FTP is down might lower FTP’s value.

Here is the full text of his post with a screenshot below:

Subject: pocket kings redundancy topic #3

so i lost my job from ftp poker this week like others

id like to say that anger for all your funds is understandable, i hope it all works out for you players and money is returned but its sad to say i dont think it will happen

i can answer any questions you have that i have the ability to answer and others i cant simply because i would not know the answers

i see some questions from the other guys threads and i can answer them

ftpdoug is still there, he is poker room manager and very nice guy.

ftpdave is different person from ftpsean his name was ryan and he depart pocket kings after black friday

gil coronado is probably number 2 guy in whole company this doesnt seem to be wide accepted, this is something that you players should know as he is chief financial and is largely responsible for this situation

deirdrie o shaughnessy has not been really there for a long time shes been off work with baby but she did lots of hard work for lots of departments and was one of the big bosses but a good woman who i dont think knew just how badly coronada and bitar ****ed up

caroline lynch is a snake who hides behnd fancy words and her friends if she doesnt like you then you not going to get anywhere in this company not nice person

phil gordon and andy bloch have much bigger say than people think, gordon especially frantically tried to fix this together with ivey but others upstairs were not so willing

project coyote was a secret project worked on by full tilt where there was agreement with facebook also based in dublin where there would be a full tilt game on facebook like zynga so that the players would connect to the back of full tilt play money games and make the network really big with hope of having msot players online in whole industry at any time then they woiuld try convert to real money players this was really exciting project and could have fixed the shortfall of funds if it didnt get so many bugs and was delayed so much. would have been very massive even industry changing

trust me when i say key people have are gone and most by there own choices only some from redundant, full tilt is dead crucial people they need to operate the site are no longer there even if this licenses and funds were here tomorrow, the people to make the site work are not there the ones who are still there will be leaving as soon as they get new job. everyone is looking for new job and a few really big people are going to stars and paddy power in the next few weeks

its really sad to say but full tilt is gone and your best thing to do is start lawsuits going after individuals like ray bitar and gil coronada who are currently spending all ur money on lobster and prostitutes

Pretty sure I’m done using PayPal for anything having to do with websites or domaining.

Vivek Peswani (peswani.v@gmail.com globalvb1@gmail.com) scammed me for a freaking measly $50.

He emailed me out of the blue asking if I needed mini-sites developed, I said sure why not and we negotiated a price for a couple of quick sites, with the promise of more if he did a good job.

I sent him $50 via PayPal as partial payment and he went so far as to follow up with me eight times on his progress, to finally stop responding altogether.

I filed a claim with PayPal and they have just rejected my claim because it is ‘virtual goods’. This is the second time those cock suckers have done this to me. Last time for over $500 for a group of stolen domains I “bought”.

I think I’m done using PayPal for these types of purchases. Pretty sad that Mr. Peswani needs $50 that bad – and even sadder that PayPal rolls out the red carpet for scammers like him. Quoted directly from their decision:

“We have not taken any action against the seller”

Happy scamming PayPal and Vivek.

I’ve never read this stated anywhere but it’s pretty amazing how nearly everybody involved in OJ’s defense is either dead, in prison or had something seriously fucked happen to their life…

-OJ, in prison obv
-Johnnie Cochran, dead
-F. Lee Bailey, disbarred and was imprisoned
-Robert Shapiro, son died of drug overdose
-Robert Kardashian, dead

The only ones unscathed are three guys who seem to have gone to great lengths to buy back their soul.

-Alan Dershowitz, has since focused almost completely on civil liberties law and his duties at Harvard

-Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld, founded the Innocence Project and have worked tirelessly to free wrongly convicted prisoners.

That carnage is staggering considering we are just 15 years on since the verdict.

Since I first moved to Thailand in 2005, there have been constant government problems. Each time it has been mostly for show, at least so far as my daily life was concerned. I have never been scared to be in Thailand and my life has never been effected in any way by the internal struggles of the Thai government.

That all changed this week. Bangkok is dangerous, and it is only going to get worse. The two sides have their heels dug in and are both prepared to die for their cause. A Civil War is imminent, there is no way around it. Even if the Prime Minister were to step down, or worse, the Powers That Be would see to it that his replacement shared the same political ideology. Meanwhile there is a billionaire ‘terrorist’ hiding out all over the globe who will stop at nothing, spare no lives, to get his life back.

I’m not Thai. I never will be. No matter how much I wish I were. Unlike many of the foreign media covering this event, I’m willing to recognize the fact that even though I’ve been here for 5+ years and watched and lived this situation, I don’t know near enough to say which side is right or wrong. I am also keenly aware of the fact that it is not my place to have an opinion. I’m just happy for the Privilege of making Thailand my home.

That said, stay away! If you are in Thailand now, get out! If you are planning to come, don’t! This is not going to end anytime soon and it is going to get worse. Much, much worse. I won’t say how or why I know that – I’ll just say that I’d bet my life on it.

Feel free to repost all or part of this post or these photos anywhere, I would appreciate attribution, but it is not required. You can direct any questions to williamdean.franceschine [at] sasin.edu

Sorry for the formatting, I can’t be bothered:

My epic jaunt around the globe which began in 2005 has come to a close, at least for awhile. While I’ve spent more time in Thailand over the last 5 years than I have spent anywhere else, I haven’t spent more than a few months in any one place for that entire time. Pretty incredible thinking about it.

Now I have been accepted to a very prestigious MBA program and bought a condo, both in Thailand – and I’m quite enjoying spending much less money than i do living out of hotels, I’m enjoying getting more work done, I’m enjoying sleeping in the same bed every night – I guess I’m just sick of traveling so much. I’m home.

My MBA program starts next Monday and will probably occupy most of my time for the next two years – outside of breaks. Other than the keeping a regular schedule part, I am really looking forward to it. It should be fantastic networking and a great education. As for what I’ll do with the degree, at most I will teach at the University level. Professionally it is hard to imagine myself working for somebody else.

In purchasing my condo I’ve erected a safety net for myself that I am very proud of. It’s not a mortgage as most people have when they claim to “own” their own home – I own it. Outright. Forever. So no matter what happens I will always have a home. My passive income from dividends, interest and long-term predictable AdSense websites is enough to support me if everything else falls apart – so for the first time I truly feel like I’ve made it. I could retire right now if I wanted to. That’s an excellent feeling.

So time to change gears, I’m going to slow the focus on amassing wealth and work on myself as a person. I think the MBA will be a good start.

Thanks for reading. If you haven’t already, add me on Facebook – I update my status there much more frequently.

I’d probably pay for a premium Facebook account if I got some additional features and didn’t have to see ad’s – but not sure if this Facebook Gold thing that just surfaced is a scam or legit. Facebook has made no announcement on it but lots of users appear to be using it, or at least promoting it. One person said it was invite only, if so, somebody please ship me an invite – William Franceschine on Facebook.

Any news on this put it in the comments section and I’ll update this post, this is all I got right now.

I haven’t blogged much on it but over the last two years I have been investing in domains pretty regularly. Up until now basically every domain I have ever registered myself has been worthless unless I turned it into a website. I have had a lot of success buying domains in the aftermarket and have even re-sold a couple of names for a tidy profit – though I’m more of a buy-and-hold investor, with everything really. I like to sit on investments that generate revenue. I don’t really have much need for more cash – but I love me some passive income. So I focus primarily on domains that get traffic and revenue (through domain parking) or on domains that contain keywords that lots of people search for – so I can develop them (at some point) and have them rank highly in search engines for those keywords.

Anyway, one of the first tips I was ever given in domaining was to look out for emerging technologies, markets or trends and register domains related to them. As 99.9% of the valuable domains are already registered, this is really the only way to spend $8 on a domain and have something worth tens, hundreds or even thousands of times more just a short while later.

I’ve dabbled in this a bit, but not with any success. I remember registering a bunch of domains with FIOS in them after Verizon announced that program. Bust, and probably a trademark infringement anyway. I started registering the domains of people who made final tables at WSOP, WPT or EPT events, in hopes that they’d win and I’d have a valuable domain. Then I learned that doing that is against the law and they could sue me for it. On and on, I have never caught a lucky break with this. Jumped on the bandwagon too late for 3D domains and missed out there etc.

Then today I am reading an article in the New York Times about changes being made to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) by the American Psychiatric Association. Changes to the DSM are rare (every 7-12 years or so) and extremely important in psychiatry. Particularly the part where they invent new disorders and name them. Imagine owning BipolarDisorder.com, AnxietyDisorder.com, EatingDisorder.com etc.

Today I registered the following domains. Now some of them might seem silly, but they are only $8 each. If any one of them turns into the next ADHD it will pay for all of them many, many, many times over. And the lesser disorders I can develop information sites on and rank highly in Google for with AdSense obviously paying very well as the ads will be pharmaceutical. 100 visitors a month to a site like that is worth more than 10,000 visitors a month to a news site, videos site etc.

So here are the domains, I bolded the ones I think are especially awesome. Again, these are all brand new disorders that Psychiatrists will be diagnosing:

PrimaryCentralSleepApnea.com
PrimaryAlveolarHypoventilation.com
RapidEyeMovementBehaviorDisorder.com
DisorderOfArousal.com
CircadiamRhythmSleepDisorder.com
ComplexSomaticSymptomDisorder.com
ParaphilicCoerciveDisorder.com
SexualInterestArousalDisorder.com
GenitoPelvicPainPenetrationdDisorder.com
OlfactoryReferenceSyndrome.com
SkinPickingDisorder.com
SubstanceUseDisorder.com
AlcoholUseDisorder.com
AmphetamineUseDisorder.com
CannabisUseDisorder.com
CocaineUseDisorder.com
HallucinogenUseDisorder.com
InhalantUseDisorder.com
NicotineUseDisorder.com
OpioidUseDisorder.com
PhencyclidineUseDisorder.com
PolySubstanceuseDisorder.com
MajorNeurocognitiveDisorder.org
MinorNeurocognitiveDisorder.org
TemperDysregulationDisorder.com – Temper Dysregulation Disorder was invented to give Psychiatrists an alternative to over-diagnosing kids as bipolar or ADHD, this one may be a household name in a year or two.
TemperDysregulationDisorder.org – I tried to buy the acronym for this from BuyDomains.com – TDD.org – and was quoted $10,088 (!)
TemperDysregulationDisorderWithDysphoria.com
TemperDysregulationDisorderWithDysphoria.org – This is the full name of Temper Dysregulation Disorder, but I just can’t see people constantly saying ‘Temper Dysregulation Disorder with Dysphoria’ – doesn’t roll off the tongue as nice – but just in case, I also got the .com and .org acronyms of that, TDDWD.

Here is the NYT Article if you are interested.

Let me know what you think in the comments section – would also be glad to answer any questions on domaining.

Cheers

The latest major technology site to be the victim of hacking is the leading tech blog TechCrunch.com. Other recent hackings of prominent sites include the Twitter.com homepage and Baidu.com, both being replaced with a message by a group calling itself the ‘Iranian Cyber Army’ claiming responsibility. The Tech Crunch attack appears to be a disgruntled reader.

As of right now, 1:26am EST on January 27th, 2009 – this is what is appearing on the TechCrunch.com homepage:

Link to full-size image

The text at the top reads:

So Arrington, how much did all the media coverage yesterday brought you in trough the welcome.html ad you
forced
people to? What a fucking retarded move was that you twat. You should be thanking me and sucking on my fucking ballsack for not deleting everyone on the box and publishing the mysql, if that’s what you want O.K., I can do that. Also, you fucking
dickwads from sites like Yahoo!, BBC and plenty more, where the FUCK do you see adult content on
http://dupedb.com/
???????? I mean honestly, are you fucktards also in just for the money?!?!?!?!

Then it repeats the exact same thing, then you see the Tech Crunch homepage below. We’ll see how long it stays up, I suspect not long.