Afernoon Folks!!
I accidentally stumbled on my ORIGINAL eRealestate.com site. This is circa January 1998 thru April 2000 and has not been updated in over a decade. This was my running collection of thoughts from that point in time adding as needed. It was originally my DomainSeller.com circa 1996-1998.
So for those that need a place to start or need a tune up or need some perspective and history or need some motivation or whatever, see it thru my eyes back then. No Google. No PPC. No domain tools of any sort whatsoever. The Internet was the enemy of Main Street and the Media. They never missed a moment to remind us how risky online purchases were. NSI was all we had and that was pitiful. The majority was just getting their first email address but only about 20%-25% until that point.
So I left a bread trail of words and thoughts and ideas from day one for anyone that cared to see what I saw and go where I was heading. Or not. I never put a gun to anyone's head. To this day the trail only has a few hundred on it. But when you realize that almost everything in the future starts with a domain name, that is a far cry from a decade ago. That was insanity. Life is good when you are crazy. The trail will turn into a street and then a highway as more and more see the future.
Here is the key comment among a lot of jewels:
'But just like a 5 year old child......you can't blame them for not being 20! You must be patient as the child or in this case until the net matures.'
This is the transition site as Domainseller morphs into eRealEstate.com
My BEST, most important papragragh I EVER posted on the Internet came from this page. Circa 1996:
Why is this medium becoming so powerful?
'One reason may be that in cyberspace nobody knows if you are black or if you are white, if you are rich or poor, tall or short, fat or skinny, clean or dirty, handicapped, healthy, Christian or Jew etc., ....They know only two things....the content of what you have to say and a way to communicate effectively to people from all walks of life and from around the globe. Plus the value you put on your own character. Consisting of your credibility, your honesty, your integrity, and your devotion to do things the right way without taking advantage of others. This will be either your greatest asset or a liability that will inevitably be your downfall. You don't judge a book by its cover, In cyberspace you are judged by your content.'
Had I not looked at the Internet in a way that showed the mountain it really was, the EPIC marathon to come, I would have been off the path from the get go. Though I sprinted on a daily basis I knew then that it would be a long hard slog composed of countless sprints. My job was the same as the gold miner EXACTLY 100 years before. Mine as much gold as fast as possible and don't worry about anything until you lay your stakes and get back to town. The next post talks about the Gold Rush and the parallels with domaining.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz.
steve cheatham
That brings back a lot of memories. Thanks Rick.
David
The old erealestate.com site always inspired me with its content which so accurately predicted the future of domains and typein traffic. Thanks Rick for that legendary and pioneering website.
Anthony
You truly are the pioneer in this industry Rick. Thanks for all your great words of wisdom!
Ken
Wow, I read this from top to bottom and what an interesting look back into a crystal ball. Thanks
Chadi
Hi Rick,
Domaining is similar to a statue yet still in the molding, molded by a flicker of an image and a sharp ruthless tool comprised of a series of lifeless electronic actions that carve into our hopes and pockets, at times threatening to break our souls.
What is unique about people like you is that you’ve breathed warmth into this statue…
You helped mold its face and grant it human expressions, in the same way as would the sun do to a passing cloud.
You know… When I type-search an accidentally misspelled domain, or intentionally type in an awkward meaningless word like cdchhjdcdhc.com and find out hundreds of results popping up before my eyes and the great yes sign or green light (depending on which registrar), including the .com of available, I get this insecure feeling… Like fear of the possibilities of language, its origins, and the infinity or Abyss of the womb that gave birth to it.
I see the pure mechanical side of this business – money being converged or translated into a combination of letters… It makes me at dis-ease for a second.
However, then I ask myself a question:
“Which is better: to think of infinite numbers that I own in an electronic account in the bank or to think of meaningful words I own in a very similar way inside a meaningful world in which they fit more interactively and synergetically inside a matrix of meaning…”
Then I start getting those visions of a future world, where money has no longer a place, some economic shift in paradigm that will make the neutrality or lifelessness that money numerically represents senseless or useless inside the matrix of meaning…” I then realize the importance of that intuition you are famous for, that foresight…
An image of EPIK suddenly pops into mind… They and what they stand for, and the philosophy they represent, and the game is no longer about domaining the business, but rather domaining the mirror or the window to a new era.
This doesn’t stop me however from wondering about the Greed of registrars, and why don’t they protect us from misspellings…
Why don’t they warn us that the word we’re typing is misspelled or senseless…
I realize then how easy it is to feel trapped inside a maze of endless combinations of letters and numbers, correcting bad choices at times with worse ones.
It’s a behavior so telling of how we are in life, so alarming to the risk factor we are taking – How insecure we could be if we stop and think for a second of what we are doing.
Yet, it is also a reminder of how the internet is really providing us a unique chance to overcome those insecurities by granting us a job that saves us the hassle and embarrassment of dealing with humans and seeing their behavioral unconscious reactions every time we fail or prevail.
just some thoughts….
Danny Pryor
You know, looking back at the late 1990’s and first couple years of the 2000’s, I feel ridiculously nostalgic. Thanks for that … ;-)
baby meerkat
i remember finding your site in 2001 Rick, wished i listened to everything you said. took quite a bit on board, but back then domainers were even more solitary. i wasnt interested in forums, found dnf the next year
anyway, forums are dead now, waste of time
its all about development and amassing the best domains. and surviving
glad you’re back posting a lot. keep it up