SEO Improvement

The TLD names should not have any effect on search engines for ranking; as far as you follow their SEO guidelines for promoting these. But this may have a little different (may be negative) impact on the visitors (due to hyphens etc.) as they might think of these kind of domains as cheap or not so trustworthy.

Some friends of mine said me that that article is rubbish now coz it's written some days before the last panda update.. the penguin version if i don't wrong..

The domain is just one factor influencing SEO. A webmaster should spend a few minutes now and then to add content to a site even if they don't intend to launch and market it right away.

Domain name plays a role in SEO but it is not enough to place you at top of search engines if your website is not considered relevant. Still the most important factor for search engine like Google is quality content and relevancy.

Well, I have seen many such websites as you said at the top of SERP but here I want to share my view points as to why such domains seems to be ruling top position of Google SERP. Basically I have come across with the webmaster who aimed to promote their product and having enough marketing budget always prefer .com domains as with an intention to target world level market further domains other than .com seems to be preferred by those who in case don't want to go for world market or want to target local market. So basically all those .com domains holder has enough budget to market their product and this may be the major cause for their position in SERP. Yes, if you visit any country specific search engines you definitely will see some of local domains at top of SERP.

Premium domains will make it through any update since they don't rely on the SERPs, but otherwise most parked domains do not rank post panda.

in my point of view, TLD matters But if the Link structure and profile constitutes more spammy sites The advantages of TLD may fall in vein!