Morning Folks!!
The Domain Industry is at a pivotal moment. I want my thoughts ON RECORD and CLEAR as this is the single biggest moment EVER in what we all do. I don't want to have to defend what I see. Take it or leave it. I just am doing this for ME to be on RECORD just like I have been on record since 1995. My name, my words, my thoughts, my vision. I see FIRST what others see much later or not at all.
There is a volcano of change coming and some don't like it. Many 'Domainers' are going to be washed away. Some companies are going to have to reinvent themselves or may not survive. The new tide is going to devour some. Like the tsunami in Japan, what is happening now is going to re-draw the map in what we do and the way we do it. It's sometimes not visible to the naked or untrained eye.
I have long said it would take 20 years for domains to become an 'Overnight success'. We are coming to that point right now. The tree has grown up and it is about to bear fruit.
There are less than 500 true domainers in the sense that we are talking about. That number will only grow 1 at a time in an industry that will attract many from every walk of life. Some will hit big, most won't.
There are more folks working at just 1 company 6x over than all the domain investors out there. There is a stadium full of folks that have things for the 500 domainers that invest for a living and the millions that have just 1 website. That is ok. But please recognize how the landscape has changed. How we are a small minority in a big stakes money game where BILLIONS are at stake.
You need MONEY to play the new game that is coming. Deep pockets. Or you need to find an untapped path or you can use what is tried and true by putting one foot in front of the other. Without CASH, there are few shortcuts.
I posted this weekend and defined traffic sources that are worthless but are disguised as type ins. Mixed together. Shit and gold. The problem is domainers have been overwhelmed by allied companies with motives and they could care less about traffic quality or the end user or domainers.
The biggest group next to the employees of all these companies seems to be the 'Chatter Class' as I call them. They have few accomplishments if any under their belts but are blathering experts on domains and traffic and everything else. They seldom put their name on their words and when they do, sometimes it proves my point. They think I am wrong regardless of the RECORD and I think they are clueless because of the RECORD.
So it has been refreshing to keep my thoughts on track. To be able to post without worrying about the blowback from blowhards. But that does not mean I don't want to hear your comments. Your responsible comments. Your constructive comments. Your intelligent comments. So I am thinking of doing something a bit different. I will open comments but may only choose a few from time to time to post that I feel ADD to the conversation and it will be done at my sole digression. More like 'Letters to the Editor' in which just a snapshot of comments are chosen to share. My train, my locomotive, my thoughts, my destination.
Dozens or more of you are blathering idiot wannabes and you crowd out the real folks with something to share. Them days are over.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
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Michael Hallisey
I want to agree with you from a couple post back about how your not going to sell anymore of your domain names, it may be hard to get into a new business just because you own the domain but the day you figure it out its going to be a complete gold mine. Plus its more fun to tell people you have it then you use to have it!
David Carter
The landscape is changing and has changed. For example 10 years ago, nobody would consider developing a domain. 10 years on, everyone talks about it, but very few understand what”development” means.
It doesn’t mean publishing a Wrordpress site, adding some Adsense ads or banners and sitting back.
It means investment. Serious five or six figure investment and total dedication.
The same is true of building a worthwhile portfolio. Filling it with newly-regged and”brandables” is not really the way forward.
The changing landscape has already changed how I do things – to the point where I can’t really call myself a domainer or a developer any longer.
I’m an end-user with a few great names that suit my chosen niche.
The rest is all noise and distraction – but of course we all do things differently :)
Danny Welsh
Well said, Rick. I think that in the information economy the new currency of the realm is the attention we pay to things and those we choose to ignore can be for a myriad of reasons. But it IS a choice that we can ignore any given stimuli on almost every instance.
It’s disconcerting for your long time readers I’m sure to see that so many pay you attention only to disagree or try to tear you down. There’s a mute button, an off button, an opt-out option, and a block/remove choice for almost every stimuli out there. Don’t like the negativity of television news? Turn the TV off. Better yet, resolve not to watch that trash. Even better may be to chuck the television in the dumpster (but I digress).In the same way, these folks commenting on Rick’s blog as a forum to attack, pitch their own businesses indiscriminately and without adding value to the community, or position themselves somehow as an expert above Rick S should get off their fake-expert horse and walk back to broke-town and quit bothering one of the people who’s earned the right to be paid attention to– not by talk but by doing.
Danny Welsh
Angus Doyle
Domainers created an industry that never existed before. Those who spurned us including the registrars, the corporate investors and the legal profession.
Today a new world order of domaining exists where the registrars, the corporate investors and the legals are playing the game and have deeper pockets.
I would like to say they are doing a better job, but they are clearly not.
Due to the cloud of shame that hangs above the domainer community, one that is at times deserved, but only for the minority, we have landed in a sea of anti-competitiveness and a blatant conflict of interests and there is little we can do about it.
The domain Registrars are taking liberties with the drop catching industry preventing a fair opportunity for all to compete on even ground. They are also screwing the un-educated who are loosing 10s of thousands of domains daily due to ignorance of this new system of expiry and redemption that clearly does not exist.
ICANN needs dissolved and a new educated body needs to be born out of the ashes.
Will .com remain King? most likely (for now)
The domain community should learn to pull together and challenge what needs to be challenged, instead of individually throwing stones at a castle.
A Universal Body of Domain Industry Professionals needs to happen, and a Code Of Conduct. Annual Fees and Industry Memberships to ensure legal protection and challenge for domain professionals.
Without Unification the Domain Industry Will Fade and ALL will lose.
Bruce Tedeschi
I agree with your points. The pure domain industry is not enough anymore… It takes a marketing plan, a justification plan, and helping a buyer see the vision to sell just a domain name. Most domainers want to flip and be done with it. IMO it takes picking you best 30 names, develop theme, create traffic and make your content worthwhile. Websites with a great name and traffic add value. So many time though, domainers don’t have the skills to flow this process out and to their detriment, they don’task for help.
Always flow with the changes based on data… I am liquidating a lot of my domains to fund seniorcitizens.org purely because it hold#1 PR and it helps people and has a market between 45 and infinity.
Lastly, don’t waste valuable hours trying to sell junk domains. Junk domains were available when you regged them because they are junk. Eat the $9 or sell it for $9. Rather then spend $10000 on 1000 junk names, buy one name at $10,000k that can become twenty with some work.
Hope my 2-cents adds to this post…
jayjay
I’ve noticed the paradigm shift you speak of, be it the coming trend in creative domain names start-ups create and the taming of the web by SE’s like google. We seem to be at a point where ‘speculation’ investment has come to a close and concrete investment is now the new in.
A couple good examples would be the cloud or 3d niche. Concrete investments would be names like cloudserver dot com or icloudserver dot com, 3d dot com, 3dtvs dot com – speculation, any name that ‘drifts’ from these name sequences.
The domainers that are going to be washed away as you speak of are the one’s who still register or purchase on aftermarkets names that ‘drift’ from any descent core niche.
One deep pocket investment in a core niche domain will return a greater dividend than the thousands of names registered in obscured niche terms.
cloudsperm dot com anybody??? :)(http://www.dnforum.com/f5/cloudsperm-com-thread-457856.html)
lol..pigeons are having a ‘kact attack there”