The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Morning Folks!!

I posted this over atTheDomainsand decided I need to post it here and perhaps expand on it a bit. I will get some folks upset. Not my intention. Just my absolute view of things. You are free to disagree. Most do. Nothing new or unexpected. So I can tell you what you want to hear or I can tell it the way I see it. Those that know me also know I have little choice other than to tell it the way I see it as opposed to blowing smoke up your ass. One has value and one does not.

Since 2007 I have bought only a handful of domains. Good ones were hard to find and overpriced considering the sales were to other domainers and not to end users. Some don't get the difference and the prices for the audience were just not in line with reality. But now times have changed. There is a bumper crop of really good domains at prices that are much lower than the previous period. Now don't get confused between overpriced domains and a falling market. The market is not falling, just realistic prices are in play and those prices continue to rise. A great domain will be a great domain and will outlive everyone reading this today. Crap will be crap forever and that is what motivates me to write. Lots of new blood off on the wrong track. The truth produces anger. I just believe everyone involved in domaining should make big money because it is laying there to be made. It saddens me when I hear folks are in trouble and they can't make ends meet. It is never too late to start over. It is never to late to get it right. Next time never happens so may as well do it today and make it this time. Forget about what you thought you knew yesterday. Per chance, you may have been wrong. Especially if you are not earning at least 6 figures from the jump in domaining. Don't blow your opportunity for another day. This really is your last best chance. Weakness and circumstance make great assets surface.

There are a lot of assets to invest in. Never has there been an asset priced so low that went up so fast and maintained that value. This opportunity in domains was open to every living and breathing person on earth and 99.9% missed it.

I have asked one question now for a decade. Can anyone name me an investment that was available to all and went up faster than domain names in value other than a lottery ticket??

Gold?? Took thousands of years to get to $1000 an ounce. Diamonds? Real Estate?

Like anything else, domains are a market. Markets go up and markets go down. But the foundation for premium dotcom domain names is more solid than any other single investment on planet earth.

I always qualify what I say with “Premium” and “dotcom”. I do admit that there is a significant amount of the industry that is tulip based. Means domains with no value are trading at prices that don’t justify it. But that happens in every sector. The domain industry is still very young and not yet matured. That takes time to fix. Only time can fix that. And it will.

But I go around all day looking where I can put cash to work. 1% or 2% at the bank ain’t gonna cut it. Real Estate is wonderful but it comes with taxes and maintenance. Not very portable. Gold? Very heavy. Hard to secure. Difficult to travel with. Stocks? I have made a small fortune in the stock market. But it is no longer for the long term. It’s a day casino at best. You can make lots of $$$. No question. But again, what do you do with those $$$ once you accumulate them? My answer for the last 15 years has been to buy great domain names and that seems to be more solid than anything I have ever been involved with. Just don’t buy garbage. I see investment quality domains laying around for $500, $1000, $2000 and I see domains with little or no value fetch much more. That’s what makes the world go round and the way I see it, domains and domaining have never been hotter. More shows, more auctions, more large companies getting larger. A guy could come into domaining today with a few thousand bucks and within a couple years time could be worth millions. Unfortunately for so many of the newer folks coming into the industry, they buy before they learn. Before they understand. Not knowing that the first domains you buy are THE most important domains. That sets your course and that is where most mistakes occur. A place where folks can't afford to make that mistake. That and not being patient. Not understanding that sometimes doing nothing will make you more money than doing something and screwing it up because of the need you feel and can't control. There are great values out there. There is a tremendous amount of shit out there. The prices are similar. Pigeons eat shit, eagles methodically swoop over their prey. Both are birds. Are all folks that call themselves 'Domainers' actually 'Domainers'? See, this is where I get in trouble. Because I can't help but to mention it in an effort for many to realize that it is the same effort, the same dollars, the same time to find great domains as opposed to crap. It's worth taking the time to learn. Learn the rules that worked 10 years ago still work today because those rules worked 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago and they will work in 100 years from now.

In most business you buy something for $10 and sell it for $20, $30, maybe $50 or $100. Things have shelf lives and your job is to move it fast. Great domains are like fine wines, the longer you hold them, the better they get. It is an appreciating asset when you buy right and buy the right domain. An appreciating asset that can be expanded on, built on, developed. And done on your own time table at the right time as things unfold in reality and not calendar based. There are two types of domainers. Ones that hold assets and ones that hold liabilities. The asset class has only grown marginally in the past few years. However the liability class is growing faster and much more furiously.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
PS: Here is yourstarting point of your new life. It's a compass. Don't ask how, it is all spelled out. Both of these posts should be linked everywhere. I leave this for last because MOST will never read this far. They are too busy rushing off to another failure.

Plus, here is a post from a DECADE ago.This post was dug up by Owen and posted today. 5/4/2010. It was originally posted by me in 1998.

Morning Folks!!

We throw around numbers all the time and folks still don’t
understand the magnitude and what a number means. I heard another way to look
at big numbers to quantify them and have them more understandable.

Million, Billion, Trillion, we use these numbers like sugar
packets at McDonalds. But have you ever stopped to really understand what they
mean and what they represent?

If you were to think of these large numbers as time and in
seconds it will give you a new way to visualize what the hell we are talking about.
There are 86,400 seconds in a 24 hour day. So 1 million seconds would be about
11 days. 1 billion seconds would be about 32 YEARS. 1 trillion seconds would be
32,000 YEARS

31,536,000 seconds per year. 3,105,360,000 in a 100 year
lifetime.

Part 2 coming soon.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Few know that I used to own a pizza place on the boardwalk in Cape Cod back in the early 1980's. We served a lot of pizza. Hundreds a day and more than you could even count on July 4th. We also had the best pizza. But it was the best because of the taste, quality and the GLUE. Some pizza just can't get the sauce and cheese to meld with the dough and so when you pick it up the top separates from the bottom and you have a glob of hot cheese and sauce and then a slab of bough shaped like a slice of pizza. That is where Apple comes in. They have glue! Their items go together. If you get one, you will get all.

For the last couple years I wished there had been a device like the iphone but bigger. I could run my entire business off of such a device. I could almost do it with an iphone, actually I could do it in a pinch, but it would not be that much fun and with that small a device it has limitations.

So the iPad came along and has overcome that problem. I am already an iPad fan after the first week. I got 2 on the first day and now awaiting the 3g version that will quite bluntly change how I live life. Laptop? I can now go away without it. That's a big deal. That's a new way for me to be more productive and free up more time. Many are used to carrying around a small legal pad. That is all the ipad is, a small pad. But inside that small little pad is a giant of a beast. A new king may have been born. It gives mobile computing an entire new definition. Yes, I know there have been 'Tablets' out there for some time....but they have no GLUE!!! And while they attempt to fill in a void, they don't. The iPad does and that is a game changer.

Now if it were just a personal notepad and organize it would just be cool but would not change how I live life. How you live life. But once you start plugging in their apps, this baby takes on a character that nobody will rival for years to come. That plane becomes a rocket and into orbit you go. Thumb you nose at this device and you will be thumbing your nose to what you could have been.

I know many won't agree. It's ok, you don't see what I see. You don't see what this means. So it is just hype and Steve Jobs? I don' think so. Do I really need an iPad? I do, hope most don't. I will have everything at my fingertips while they say, 'I'll get back to you.' I can have my most powerful tool with me at all times and that has great value. I will keep one in my car at all times. I will have one with me. I will have one on my coffee table. I will build them in the walls and make a smart home much smarter.

50 million iPhones sold so far and when Verizon and Sprint get in the game it will swell to over 100 million. 1 billion apps downloaded months ago. The iPad is no iPhone. It is a much more important tool if you can imagine the possibilities. Together the iPhone, the iPad and the MacBook are GLUE that nobody else has or will have. A cash rich company sitting on tens of billions of dollars may be on the way to being a Trillion dollar company. There is not a question in my mind that every year for the foreseeable future they will gain market share over PC and turn into the most powerful company on the planet. Sorry IBM, Sony, HP, your numbers may go up, but your market share is as high as it is going to get. Apple has set themselves up for one of the greatest historical victories in the history of business before they even eye the Google Empire who they are about to go against in an epic battle of cash rich companies. In the 1970's we had 'Gas Wars' and prices plummeted to as low as 22 cents a gallon. This decade will see a war of titans the likes of which will be historical. And Microsoft will do everything to be there as well and that may drag a few others in and we are about to see one Battle Royale. I doubt the landscape in 2020 will look anything like it does in 2010. The next 10 years will provide 100 years of change and progress.

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I am aYogi Berra Fan for my entire life. A baseball legend that became an unwitting spokesmen for sillycommon sense in a twisted Mark Twain type of way. A guy with an 8th grade education that will be immortal for both his historical baseball career and even more so for his conflicting words. I have always been a fan of someone that has
some of the greatest quotes of all time. The most famous of which….'It ain’t
over until it’s over” and “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” is as familiar as any I know. But the one I will be using for this post is “You can
learn a lot by watching” which is also the title of one of his many books.

Let me tell you what I have learned by watching this year.
Watching TV that is. I see TV shows pushing Twitter so they can captivate their
audience. Ever notice that? Ever notice they don’t push them to Facebook? Ever
think of the reason why they do that? I already gave the answer in this paragraph.
They “Captivate” and engage their audience. Facebook is a competitor to what
they do. They can’t “Captivate” on Facebook. They would actually lose their
audience if they were to promote Facebook too much. Let me qualify that......they would lose their audience even faster than they are. Viewership on broadcast TV is down by millions. The bleeding is out of control except for certain sports events and a few hit shows. How is that 10PM time slot working out NBC? Once the most coveted hour in TV is now showing re-runs since Jay went back to 11:30. Bet you really boost those ad rates doing that!

So Twitter has become the preferred social media for TV as they fight for survival and relevance.
Facebook has emerged as an unlikely competitor to television time watched and time
focused. So they are in a catch 22 because they can't ignore Facebook and be relevant. And when folks do watch TV, then there is a commercial, less and less
watch that commercial and more and more may be checking Facebook or their
email. That lack of focus will force all their advertising models to change. Fast Fowarding the DVR and skipping the ads. That forces them to reorganize from top to bottom or they won’t survive. Results count. Less Sales = Less Advertisers = Lower Ad Cost = Losing money = Less Content = Out of business or do something differently. Will we put on the TV one day just to see that NBC has morphed into YouTube?

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz