Morning Folks!!
The Big .CON Becomes the Big .Gamble and that brings into play winners and losers. Those that will make .money and those that will lose .money.
To many it is obvious that this is poised to have a lot of losers. But only losers focus strictly on the losers. There WILL be winners. I expect most if not all will be surprised by the headwinds they face and the challenges we as investors and marketers KNOW they will have to deal with.
"This is sht and this is gold. Now you know everything." From the movie "The Jerk" with Steve Martin. That's domaining. Shit and Gold.
The marketplace is going to pick those winners. It won't pick the losers. They will die on the vine all by themselves.
Folks, this is the fun part. It takes 20 years to get to the fun part. History taught me that. Life taught me that. I think the extensions poised to do the best may be the ones around for a while. This breathes new life in .TV, .US, .info, .Org, .Me, and maybe even a .biz.
Funny how I am the out of touch one when it comes to some. But I deal in what is and in facts and many of them are using the unknown and hopes as a way to compete with a market that already EXISTS as opposed to one that MIGHT materialize. Some are always chasing shiny objects like dogs chasing a car. So with 1900 and an unlimited amount of dogs the first question you would ask is which one could really breakaway and be meaningful? None? 1? 10? 100? 1000? Which ones? Any?
There may be some limited gold in each of those. Maybe not. Flipping quick may be the best bet if .mobi, .xxx, .biz, .whatever are any historical examples.
.Travel has been trying to break out for a long time, their window of opportunity is in jeopardy as I see it. They have had a hard time getting this thing going when there was virtually no competition, how does it work now when 1900 others join him?
I have bought into many .whatevers. I have several hundred. But they don't pay the bills. They ARE the bills! But each year I weigh the new information and see how each domain fits into the future. Some I keep investing and some get cut loose. I would have been much better off flipping these domains, but flipping is not my game. Holding long-term is. I think .whatever is a flipping game and those that buy into the hype are your marks. I mean customers.
And with dozens or maybe hundreds of companies flailing to stay alive, there will be employment opportunities the likes of which this industry has never seen before. Lawsuits will be flying for many years to come just as the dust is starting to settle over .com land. A few MAJOR .whatever losses can expose another weakness that .whatever may have to face as folks get "Cute" about picking new names and infringe on others. It's all coming.
The calm before the storm. 1900 barkers barking. Some may know what they are barking about. Most won't. But they will have to spend money marketing or they will not break through all the noise. Like I said, MANY will die on the vine. Some will die because their .crap extension just stinks and has no commercial or social value. Some will die because their marketing sucks. Some will die because they have no marketing plan at all. But most will die because they will be buried before they even start. Smothered to death by the shear size and magnitude of what is coming and the timing that comes with it.
So while I see many failures, I also see so many ways to make money as things unfold. Those with cash will have investment opportunities. Those that have advertising space and visitors will have advertisers. In time those advertisers will be many more than the advertising outlets and things like that drive prices and profits back up.
So while we have been at ebb tide for a very long time, that period is coming to an end and it dovetails perfectly as the economy starts regaining some of its umph. That's why I see things improving and possibly improving dramatically. Quickly. Strongly.
So while FEAR seems to be the driving force in this industry today, I only see opportunity in the unknown of what is to come. It .whatever craps out, .com goes thru the roof. If an extension breaks out, we all get to do what we know all over again. So where exactly is the downside other than confusion? Heads we win, tails we win. And if the coin lands on the side, we win. And if the coin gets lost, we win.
Need, want, desire. Those that keep that in mind are going to have a better time dealing with reality than those that want to ignore it. And you can have all 3 and still have a disaster. Like going on a blind date. The need, want and desire are all there, then the person walks in and need, want, desire headed out the back door.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
kedo
Hi Rick! I enjoyed reading your analysis, however, I want you to know this: the domain name speculation business is almost already at its end anyway. The arrival of new extensions will only accelerate a little bit the death of the domain speculation business. Why? Because, first of all, as you honestly know, there are far more unused premium domain names than business ideas that suits the existing unused premium domain names, that’s because most of businesses done in physical world are already being done in virtual world. It is not for no reason you find it hard to find a buyer for your premium domain names. Give me an example of a business that is being done in physical world and that is not being done on the internet? Please give just one example. These days It will take a sharp brain and a lot of luck to be able to have a successful business online that never existed before, and trying to do that means taking risk, because, just like in physical world, successful business don’t just come out like flowers do in the summer time. In the physical world you need a physical place in which to set up your business. Depending on the kind of the business you want to do, the location of the place would not necessarily determine your success. What I am trying to say is that you will never find a a place for sale for $15.00 or for rent for $16.00 a year in the physical world, no matter where. So you have no choice, you have to spend/risk thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of Dollars to set up a business in physical world. You have no choice but risking this kind of money. But, on the internet people have alternatives. The majority of people trying to set up a business on the internet feel and think that buying a premium domain name for the price they are sold is risking too much money, because setting up a business means taking a risk and why take more risk than it is necessary?. That is why they create their own domain names and register them for $12 to $15 because what matters more is the demand of your business idea/concept, not the domain name. And as a matter of fact, most of online successful business use domain names they registered for a regular price. Facebook, Pinterest, Alexa (he refused to be speculated by the owner of Alex.com) Badoo, Netlog, Linkedin, techcrunch, flippa, godaddy, namecheap (Instead of cheapname(s), Myspace,mplentyoffish and many more. You already know that you are having difficulties selling your premium domain names and you tried to find another way of selling them by creating jointventures.com, but still, nobody is interested in buying or renting those premium domain names. They are many that are unused, and do you think there is no reason whi jointventures is not successful?? come on, you are a smart guy. Don’t use your heart but use your brain.
Observer
Not every businessman is as smart and successful as the founders od Google, Facebook, Tweeter, etc. 99% are not those geniuses. There is no doubt that good domain names will save a lot of time and efforts for the 99% in getting some consumer recognition. If I started a business, I would first try to get a good dot com rather than any of thousands of .whatevers. What on earth wud there be a difference among thousands of whatevers? So, the market structure will be something like dot com versus thousands of .whatevers. People will say. “Give me a dot com, or ANY .whatever.”
kedo
Yes, you are right,people will say “give me a dot com” to Godaddy and for $15. Can I ask you a question? How many online business that came out in the last 2 or 3 years that you know of and that are successful?? People are already realizing that it is not necessary to buy an expensive domain name to start a business, and that is one of the reasons why you premium domain names are not selling like they used to before. They are millions of dot com premium domain names that are not being used.
febocutu
Is there any statical data that proves your opinion; “premium domain names are not selling like they used to before” ?
Rich
Rick thank you for your article.
Let’s take .LA for example
1.It’s limited to a geo area.90% of the gTLDs are limited
2.It’s $40,expensive.
3.Not marketed.
Number 3 it’s the most important.
If people don’t know about it would not sell.
There are a lot of one word generic names that after 3,4 years of registry/extension existence are still available.Why? Because of the 3 things i mention above.
The same thing (in my humble opinion) it’s going to happen to 95% of the new gTLDs.
The only one i see it very clearly that will make it would be .web and even that my friends will need some publicity/marketing.
kedo
Can you tell me the reason why people will start buying .web if there are still plenty of premium dot coms not being used?? Go to Jointventures.com and you will see the type of domains I am talking about. Premium/generic/one word domain names, but nobody need them for that price nor for leasing. There must be a reason why.
DonnyM
Domain name- Fakeblock.com and arrested development
This is a mindless entertainment, but a very funny part about domains names comes up twice. First is them trying to come up with a domain name Season 4 episode 13 about 12 minutes in.
Then you have this interaction
http://www.abine.com/blog/2013/fakeblock/
Quote- Maeby: I think you should consider calling it ‘The’ Fakeblock. It’s cleaner. Like ‘The’ Netflick.
Now the funny part: look who owns this name fakeblock.com
The Power of a .com domain name barley mentioned on TV. Getting tons of traffic.
This is a real site. So the big boys are using .com and will continue to use because everyone knows .com, Imagine them saying go to fake.block LOL
Drupal
@Rick
Dont listen to the turkeys that crawl out from under their rocks periodically.
I agree with youthat only .com will survive and all of the new gtlds will die on the vine with little, if any, sales.
Mark Hershiser
“I have bought into many .whatevers. I have several hundred. But they don’t pay the bills. They ARE the bills!”
An interesting fact amongst so much speculation…
BullS
the dot whatever will never pass the radio test!
Say waaaa again…oh back to dot com
Paul
“the domain name speculation business is almost already at its end anyway.”
That is way too funny. Way off the mark.
UFO
At the end of the day the average person in the average street doesn’t give a rats ass about domains. They ONLY know about domains from the adverts they hear and the newpapers articles etc they read and the sites they visit… which 95%+ are .com/cctld. Anyone that is in the marketing game with half a brain knows that confusing potential customers is a stupid thing to do.
Now, you only need look at how any company that is anything uses .com or in the case of non US nations often their host nation cctld. BUT any host nation company that whats to be global has the .com
Domains are proportional to marketing spend. Any company that spends anything better have their own name.com. If they are appealing to new customers then it may well pay to have a generic .com that they can use for marketing purposes or as a different channel. (Candy.com model)
I do however think that there are a lot of seriously premium .com’s that will never find a home because they don’t have a high probability commercial angle.
Anyway, all decent commercial brandable names with easy recollection and natural type in’s and 5 char or less are worth 100k+ assuming their .com’s. The best of the best will continue to skyrocket in value esp on this next upswing. Average names will just hold their own in that 1-10k range as they appeal to SMEs and sole traders etc.
The Big .CON(fusion) explained: Get inside Rick Schwartz’s brain | SALEDOM.COM sale domains
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