Morning Folks!!
It was January 1998. Las Vegas. That’s the time my world changed. 2 years of preaching and posting about domains and meeting with the normal naysaying just hit a new reality. To make a long story short, the deal I made with Dean Shannon was big news in the adult world. It really was not until the trip home on the plane when it really hit what I had done. Lee Noga kicks the back of my seat and says “Congrats Mr. Millionaire”. I had not realized it until that moment. It was just a $30,000/week deal to me.
The day before I had made a deal for all the traffic from Porno.com. A deal that would last for 5 years. The deal, $30,000 a week. More than $1.5 million a year for ONE domain name. It was eventually increased as you will read below.
So I was already in the process of selling my real world business because even tho I was making $350k and more a year, it was a distraction. It was taking too much time even tho I did not spend that much time on it, it still interrupted me and my quest for domains.
By March I finally had the deal done and I was out. After a number of months relaxing and vacationing and working and really not that much to do I decided to just repeat what I had done the first time. So I started taking the Porno.com money and I started buying even better domain names. I did that for about another 18 months. I stopped when I had built ANOTHER $1.5 million income stream.
At that point I worked but I also was retired and was taking life easy. Which brings me to the point of this post. There have been several epic events on my journey. These were a couple of them.
But I have a couple more.
In September 2000 I went to New York City. Years before I had predicted that one day we would walk through Times Square and every billboard would be a dotcom advertisement. Of course I was laughed at.
On that September Night just 12 months before 9/11 we walked the square. Billboard after billboard was filled with dotcom ads. EVERY ONE! Ask Serge. Tears started to roll down my cheeks. It was uncontrollable. To get something this big right was huge! Then months later the bust happened. Luckily I was never near the collapse and it barely affected me.
The next years I just coasted along. Men.com deal. Buying Candy.com and Property.com and many more along the way.
That brings me to this Fall. Another Times Square moment happened. A bigger moment. A more ripe moment. I can’t wait to get the DVD so I can play it over and over and over again and really understand it even more than I do. I only saw it once. It was brief. It made tears come to my eyes. It won’t be anything for most. But for me, THIS was the breakthrough event I have been waiting for.
So simple. So subtle. But it comes down to one scene in “The Social Network” where it shows them searching for the domain name. BRILLIANT!! Ground Breaking! The masses just got a handbook and a roadmap to the domain world and it was all by accident. Unintended. But the result does not care about that stuff. The result is the single biggest moment in the evolution of domain names and their rightful role and place.
The masses all saw the same thing at the same time and it is a game changer. THIS is the “Spark” that changes everything. Bigger than the biggest domain sale. This my friends is like a pistol marking the beginning of a race. The great race. The greatest race.
Minimize if you like. I have been around long enough to know a sign like this. This movie besides that scene plants a seed in EVERY person watching it. Not just a small seed. But a burning desire. That is the takeaway. It may start with Facebook. But it does not end there. Facebook is the vehicle that gets everyone online longer and longer as the days pass. The longer folks are online, the better we all do.
This is truly the beginning of a 5 year period that will change the game in the most incredible and significant ways. The eve of the last quarter of the single greatest opportunity in history. I waited 15 years for that one monent. Had no idea in what form it would manifest itself. But it all came down to one scene from one movie. It may mean nothing to you, it means everything to me. And in the coming years you will look back and may see what I see. Either way, I just want to be on record.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
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