Our 2nd Super Bowl Ad Rejected by CBS - See it here! Why it was rejected. 5 times the channels on your TV! The switch to digital - it's sooner than you think!

I flew to Washington D.C. late Monday evening to meet Tuesday with newly-appointed assistant Secretary of Commerce John Kneur who is also the Director of The National Telecommunications Administration ("NTIA"). The NTIA is the branch of the U.S. Government that oversees ICANN. And since ICANN is primarily responsible for the domain name system, when the possibility presented itself for me to meet with Assistant Secretary Kneuer, I jumped at the opportunity.

I am concerned about control of the Internet.
The purpose was to meet Secretary Kneuer and to discuss face-to-face his general plans for ICANN and the Internet. Since there has been quite a lot of talk and fear about the governance of the Internet moving to the United Nations, I was quite interested to talk to Secretary Kneuer.

Secretary Kneur firmly supports ICANN.
I am happy to report that Secretary Kneur firmly supports ICANN and is committed to private sector management of the Internet. He confirmed that the NTIA will firmly support the complete transition of ICANN from DOC control to private sector control, a move that the International Community has been supporting for quite some time. He, like me and most other people I know, does not wish to see control over the Internet fall into the hands of the U.N. or the ITU. But, we were both happy to hear the ITU announce a few days ago that they have no intention of taking on the Internet as one more issue on their already full plate. So, I was seriously encouraged by that news.

How to multiply the channels you get on your TV by five.
The NTIA is also responsible for implementing the conversion of our television broadcasting from its current analog signal to digital signals by early 2009. Secretary Kneur and the NTIA staff have worked out a detailed plan to smooth the conversion. Since I've got a lot to cover in this article, I won't get into too many details. But if you have an analog set you should be real interested in converting to a digital signal. Eventually, this means you'll have access to five times the number of channels you do now, and will be able to get them without switching to the pay-for-TV systems like DirecTV. The NTIA has a Web site that explains everything you need to know about the conversion and also a special voucher program that might help you with the switch. The great thing about this conversion is consumers will get way more than just multi-channel television viewing. It will give you access to a whole world of other features. You owe it to yourself to check it out. The NTIA site is located at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/.

The NTIA seems to be in good hands.
I came away from my meeting with Secretary Kneur impressed. He definitely had a firm handle on everything we discussed and I liked the directions he's taken and plans on taking. While waiting for the time to arrive for my meeting with Secretary Kneur, I took the time to visit a couple of friends.

Go Daddy's work for Missing and Exploited Children.
First it was off to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). GoDaddy.com is the world's leading registrar by far -- we have about 18 million domains under management, our closest competitor has less than half that number -- and we have a history of working closely with the NCMEC. We collaborate with them in shutting down Web sites that contain child pornography, and also help in any way we can when to comes to providing information to help locate missing children and also in taking predators off the street and putting them away. Everything you need to know about the Center and the critical services it provides can be found on their website at www.missingkids.com.

Lunch with Wayne LaPierre.
Next it was off to meet a new friend of mine, Wayne LaPierre, the Chief Executive Officer of the NRA. Regardless of your stand on firearms, the NRA is an Association you have to be impressed with. They make no bones about being proud of our country and their keen interest in keeping America great. Personally, I find that completely refreshing. The first thing Wayne did was to tell me about the NRA's new revamped NRA NEWs mult-media website. I've since visited www.nranews.com and like the look, feel and wealth of information provided by the site. NRA enthusiasts will certainly want to check it out.

GoDaddy.com doesn't outsource a single job.
Wayne liked the fact that GoDaddy.com is first and foremost an American company. With one minor exception, GoDaddy develops all of the technology it provides its customers right here in America by Americans. We don't out-source a single job overseas, and all of our over one thousand customer service representatives are located right here in the USA - all in Arizona, in fact.

A strong ally in the battle for the Internet.
During lunch, Wayne and I discussed the possibility and negative consequences of the Internet coming under U.N. control. Like me, Wayne knows it would be a big mistake for the USA to lose control of the Internet. He promised to do what he and the NRA could to see that doesn't happen. Given everything he and the NRA have accomplished, I know when the NRA speaks, it pays to listen.

It felt great to count an organization like the NRA among our friends in the battle over the Internet as it evolves. Quite frankly, we can use all the help we can get.

It's time to make our second rejected commercial available.
Last week I told you that I might make the second commercial we filmed for the Super Bowl available on this blog. Since then I've been contacted over every medium I can think of. In every case the request was the same: "Bob, please make the rejected commercial available." Since I've always been a believer in giving the people what they want, I've decided to go ahead and make it available.

I think the commercial should have been approved.
Personally, anyone I showed the rejected commercial to, thought it was absolutely hilarious. Myself, I think it's a hoot. A few Super Bowl's ago -- in fact the one CBS televised that included commercials containing a crotch-biting dog, another with a flatulent horse and yet another with a flirtatious chimpanzee -- this commercial definitely would have been approved. Trouble is, that same Super Bowl featured the MTV-produced Janet Jackson fiasco during its half-time show. And it's a weird twist of fate that CBS, who brought us all of that, is now nit-picking every little thing we send them. Ah, if only for the good ole days.

Please tell me what you think.
After you take a look at the rejected commercial, please do me a favor. Post your impressions of it on this blog. Tell me if you think it should have been rejected by CBS.

How to see the rejected commercial.
You can download and share the rejected commercial by visiting our special Road To The Big Game Web page that details the events, trials and tribulations Go Daddy is experiencing in order to get our Ad to appear during the Big Game.

Great news for our third commercial.
We just heard back from CBS concerning our third Super Bowl commercial. I'm pleased to report that after making a few changes it will be approved. Those changes in my opinion do not detract from the effectiveness of the commercial, so we plan to make the requested adjustments and resubmit the new work back to CBS for final approval. Looks like we're going to advertising on Super Bowl Sunday!

A word about Shine Advertising.
Monday, The Shine Advertising Co. sent a news release to the media to the effect that they dropped the Go Daddy account as a result of "irreconcilable creative differences." Reading this gave me a chuckle. The fact is Shine was hired by Go Daddy only to do the creative concepts for some of the ads we produce.

Our ads - all of them - are produced always by our own production company - Go Daddy Productions. We never use and never intended to use any advertising firm to produce our ads.

We signed a termination agreement with Shine on December 22nd. So our relationship with Shine has been over for quite some time. The relationship didn't end yesterday, or the day before like Shine's press release might lead one to believe.

I understand Shine's desire to spin the end of our deal sharply in their favor. At the end of the day however, only one fact matters: Our business relationship is over.

In the for what it's worth department.
I predict it will be New England and Chicago in the Super Bowl. New England will win -- again.

Recent television coverage and appearances.
Candice and I on Hannity & Colmes. Please click here.
Candice and I on Extra!. Please click here.
Yours truly on CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch." Please click here.

Until then.