Mel Hopkins

@Troy all looks good again! I signed in with my phone and now commenting with ease. Thank You!

Perfect! At least you can sit back and watch if Ethos Capital keeps its word. I agree - no for-profit organization should be able to hold an extension hostage that supposed to be available to the public. And ICANN held a public comment period and most of the people requested to keep the price cap.

I just checked my dot-org sites and my renewal fee is $20.99 ... before ICANN lifted the price cap - it was supposed to be $9.99 ...smh

As of December 4, 2019, safari browser (iPhone) isn't displaying aalbc.com properly through mobile display. The most prominent display problems occur when you click on the forum topic and it triggers distorted images, advertisements covering content, and no comment box.

Exactly! I hope the Genius lawyers bring that up at trial. I google lyrics to click on the genius site out of spite lol Thank you! I didn't realize google also ranks registration length too. I register every year to get the marketing tax write off - the value of it as an asset isn't enough to stretch out over time. But I'll consider registering multiple years now.

@Wendy Jones me too! I'm so proud of us and @Troy for this "writer's write to be read and profit too" movement!!! :D

News roundup for bloggers - Genius Media Group, Inc, the company behind the annotated lyrics website, is suing Google and Lyric Find for $50 million. The complaint mentions copying lyrics from the site and using it on the results page. Here's a link to the Brooklyn based media company's complaint filed December 03, 2019, in Brooklyn Supreme Court of New York State County of Kings https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=3E0o8kQz4X3cWcbbid67wQ== Several news sites report Internet Society (ISOC)'s Public Interest Registry, a nonprofit, sold the top-level domain dot-org registry. The winning bidder is a private equity firm Ethos Capital. Allegedly, the dot-org registry is Ethos Capital only asset, but their website ethoscapital.com indicates otherwise. In July this year, ICANN, the nonprofit responsible keeping all things equal and equitable in the domain registrar world, also voted to lift the cap on registration fees. According to news reports, there will be no registration fee hikes. Still, your dot-org registration fees could go up and become cost-prohibitive. Sadly, nonprofits mostly use the dot org extension for their organizations' websites. And other online nonprofit news media websites containing a treasure trove of information also use the dot-org extension. Should those websites not be able to pay the domain registration fee - that information might disappear. If you're a dot org registrant, you might want to secure registration for the ten years to keep your domain name. At least it will buy you some time while these things shake out.

@Troy You're welcome! I have a google alert set for aalbc -

Serving Writers and Readers: African-American Literary Organizations by Diane Patrick Features our own @Troy and AALBC.Com leading the pack of several organizations that help books by and for African Americans thrive. The Publisher Weekly's article lists African American Literary and Culture Society, Cave Canem, The Center for Black Literature, Harlem Writers Guild, and Hurston Wright Foundation. For more of what each organizations offers writers and readers visit Publisher's Weekly November 22, 2019

Universal Music Enterprise (UMe) is a brand of the global music conglomerate Universal Music.

@TroyI was checking out some SEO words I wanted to include in this content I'm writing. So, I put in my search engine Black Books Direct ...to see what would come up AND guest what was number 1 on my google results page? Yep - it landed me right here. Google giveth and taketh lol

The best!

@Maurice UMe is releasing a lot of its catalog in vinyl ... I won't say I'll never buy vinyl again - but they are sure making it hard to ignore.

Yes, that was it @richardmurray ! I mistakenly identified audio with musical but this is what I was referring to when I mentioned you had extensive experience with Kobo. Thank You for the update!