Hello everyone - this is ANY-Web

[ANY-Web]

I was both flattered and shocked to come to this forum and see that there were 3 pages posted about my company, ANY-Web Ltd.

Most of the information posted is correct, although there were some wild assumptions and statements.

Let me introduce myself:
My name is Angie Barrow. I set up ANY-Web Ltd. (then Webhound Ltd.)
in 1999 and am famous/infamous for having registered the .CO.UK
domain names of 15,000 villages across the UK.
At the time it caused quite a bit of a stir (interviews on BBC, ITV
and Sky) and there were some unflattering things being said.
My favourite to this day is being called "Cyber-Laird" (the Scots
did not like our registration of HampdenPark.co.uk and
Bannockburn.co.uk - being Swiss I had no idea what was so
special about these places).

All these domain names are needed for our community website project
ANY-Village.co.uk and our email service ANY-Mail.co.uk, which uses
the 15,000 village domain names for memorable email addresses.
We have over 4000 users dating from the time when this service
was free. After repeated abuse by spammers we decided to charge
for email addresses in the future.
The ANY-Village.co.uk websites are currently being given a much-
needed facelift and will be properly launched in February.
Watch this space!

Someone mentioned that it looked as though the project had been
abandoned a while ago. This is correct.
In 2001 our younger son (now 7) was diagnosed as having autism.
It completely stopped me in my tracks, and I have spent the ensuing
years trying to get James better. All I did was renew the names
and do basic programming on the websites.
In April this year I separated from my husband and had to decide
whether to abandon ANY-Web or whole-heartedly pursue it.
It is only now that I can totally focus on my project again that
I have rediscovered the fire and passion for community websites
that made me commit to my village domain names in the first place.
As my business partner put it so aptly:
"It used to be a hobby. It is now a business."

Yes, the names are being renewed. Most of them
(If anybody is interested in a bundle of 1000 hyphenated, long,
unpronounceable Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish geographical
domain names please contact me ...)

My worst domains? So many!
How about "llanarmondyffrynceiriog.co.uk" or "Llanfairynghornwy.co.uk"?

My best domains? Must be "ChristmasDecorations.co.uk" or "Bikinis.co.uk"
Oh, and I hope that one day "CasinoGames.co.uk" will be worth a bob
or two...
Do have a look at our domain name portfolio at www.ANY-Domains.com

Sorry about this long post. I NEVER post on forums.
But I thought it was best to clear up the speculation on this particular
forum, as I like the posts and intend to take part in it.

Best wishes
Angie

 

[bb99]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for setting the record straight

 

[SF]

Welcome Angie

 

[Admin]

Thanks Angie, your post is most welcomed.

Please post more if our members can help you with your domain sales or website ideas and promotion.

Admin

 

[Paullas]

hi and thank you for joining us...

Lets hope your stay can be a good one....

 

[retired_member27]

Welcome Angie,

Nice to hear that you are still around and not given up on the domain game, although you've probably made a few resellers here shed a tear or two for re-regging all your suspended domains. However, I have noticed that you've put a lot of your village domains up for sale on Sedo, surely you still need these for your project!

Your community website project is a good idea but it always lacked local user input and content, does your company do the local content itself or is it done by the villages themselves?

Just an observation of your any-village webpage for any particular village is that the first thing that strikes me is the million and one links to other webpages that you've got, and all the sponsered ads that don't relate to that village, to the average user this makes the webpage look very confused and busy.

As a potential user, what I think would be better is the following:

(1) The village homepage should be simple and look as clean as possible with the obvious links (maps, places of interest, events, newsletter, history, village crime, etc), either as a menu bar at the top or clickable images. I would have at least on the homepage a random village picture, todays weather (this can be a rss feed), todays events, and possible a live webcam (I live in Australia but whenever I get homesick, I check out my village's webcam, which shows the village green, and I always feel OK again).
(2) All advertising should be for local shops or services. I don't want to be presented with an advert for a Dell computer or eBay.
(3) All the millions of links for the Any-Web services should be under the one link, ie "Any-Web Links", which then would take you to the Any-Web homepage which would hold all your links on the one page.
(4) Ideally, I would like to see the webpage under the "www.myvillage.co.uk" domain rather than "http://www.any-village.co.uk/village.asp?SiteID=AVUK&DN=MYVILLAGE.CO.UK", although this is very difficult for 15,000 domains.

I hope that helps. Best of luck for the future.

 

[ANY-Web]

ANY-Village.co.uk

Dear apd

I am aware that this is a domain name forum and did not want to talk too much about our plans for the www.ANY-Village.co.uk project, around which all our 15,000 domain name registrations are based.

I was overwhelmed by your in-depth analysis of ANY-Village as it currently stands. You certainly know how to go for the jugular!
No one is more keenly aware and embarrassed by the current weaknesses of our websites than I am. I could add to your long list.

However, your suggestions for improvement are very helpful and constructive. Your idea about featuring village crime is simply brilliant.
It ties in neatly with web cams in villages (and yes, we registered www.web-cams.co.uk for this purpose...). I envisage a photo gallery for clubs and individuals, genealogy information (gravestone inscriptions, census lists per village), events diary, unwanted items for local collection, local maps, weather, etc. etc. etc.
My application developer is dying to get on with the new village layout
(sneak preview at http://www.any-domains.com/village/default.asp?co=Suffolk&vi=ASHBOCKING.CO.UK - no links work, very early days).
We hope to go live in February.

Currently a website with community information looks like this:
www.kettlebaston.co.uk leads to
http://www.any-village.co.uk/main.asp?SiteID=AVUK&SpecID=Kettlebaston
Village text is below the photograph. Click on the picture and you see the photo gallery. There are hundreds of such websites active - my problem was publicity and resources.

Which brings me to the domain names listed for sale at www.sedo.co.uk
We are planning to sell 100 domain names each year to businesses to finance the future domain name renewals.
If we work on a sale price of between £500 and £1000 this should bring in £50K-£100K of revenues to finance the Nominet renewals and the webhosting and programming costs.
10% of any money raised in this way will go to one of our 5 chosen charities (same applies to any revenues arising from ANY-Village).

Naturally I do not know which 100 domain names will sell, which is why they are ALL listed for sale. But there will be an annual cut-off after 100 names have been sold. Over time the prices achieved should increase.

So many ideas. So many problems. So many opportunities.
But reading posts like yours gives me the drive to continue and make it all happen.

Again, apologies to all domainers for this non-domain related post.
But perhaps it gives you all an insight into how passionate people can be about some of the domain names you hold, i.e. VILLLAGE NAMES!!! ...

Best wishes
Angie

 

[ratboy]

Best of luck Angie, I think what you're planning sounds great. I originally started the thread about the suspension of your portfolio because I was quite frankly blown away by your original achievement, glad your continuing. You must have put some serious hourage into registering and researching all those names!

Although I'm gutted as I really wanted to sell my neighbours some email addresses with their town name on. BOO HOO!!

Keep us posted with what your up to.

regards
Johnny

 

[paymatters]

I too have tried to do a national site with my domain www.ukwhatsonguide.co.uk. It's extremely hard to do if you are unable to do it full-time! Maybe take a leaf from friends reunited and go for it! My focus however is purely on getting my domain up the search engines at present and allowing people to enter data for free. The rest will come later. The more things we put on the site, the more likely we are to get found! If you search for 'what's on' on google.co.uk (UK sites only) we are front page!

Loads of people search for car boot sales (i don't get it!) so worth listing these on your site?

 

[domainscot]

HI angie

if your selling your scottish names
e-mail me i was talking to you at the sedo meeting in london

yours

tommy

[email protected]

 

[ANY-Web]

ANY-Village - thanks for the boost

Dear ratboy and allclear

thank you so much for posting your messages above.
They did a lot to boost my confidence.

I did not pursue my www.ANY-Village.co.uk project
fully because I was too busy being married to a local
politician, for whom my project was nothing but a
potential embarrassment.

I was then unexpectedly faced with the decision to
invest the remainder of my money in ANY-Village or
in a good divorce lawyer - and I chose ANY-Village.
It took a lot of courage but I know I have done the
right thing.

Thanks for holding my hand and spurring me on.
I will show you prototypes of the new website when
we are ready (February) and expect all your input to
turn them into great community websites.
(see www.ANY-Domains.com/village for the new layout).
Love the car boot sale tip. Keep them coming.

Again, many thanks and Merry Christmas
Angie

 

[cbjim]

Hi Angie

Nice to meet you at the Sedo thames boat event btw!

Best of luck with your plans, hope they come to fruition

Jim

 

[retired_member16]

Dear ratboy and allclear

thank you so much for posting your messages above.
They did a lot to boost my confidence.

I did not pursue my www.ANY-Village.co.uk project
fully because I was too busy being married to a local
politician, for whom my project was nothing but a
potential embarrassment.

I was then unexpectedly faced with the decision to
invest the remainder of my money in ANY-Village or
in a good divorce lawyer - and I chose ANY-Village.
It took a lot of courage but I know I have done the
right thing.

Thanks for holding my hand and spurring me on.
I will show you prototypes of the new website when
we are ready (February) and expect all your input to
turn them into great community websites.
(see www.ANY-Domains.com/village for the new layout).
Love the car boot sale tip. Keep them coming.

Again, many thanks and Merry Christmas
Angie

Still waiting for your 'new' website - all I see is the crappy old one

 

[uglygit]

Hi Angie,

Welcome to the forums, wow you have quite a few domain names under your belt, these must cost you a fortune.