Morning Folks!!
I really feel bad for those struggling in life. Terrible in fact. That is why I spend so much time and energy trying to show folks what I see and how I see it and how I can work at my leisure and accomplish more in 1 day then some folks can in a year or more because they are 'Decision-ally Paralyzed'. Unable to make a decision. Unable to accept defeat which means they are unable to accept a win.
It pains me to see so many questioning their domains and business investment model because they hear the loud chatter out there telling them black is white. That the gtld with 61% leakage is somehow superior to your easy to spell one or two word .com domain names that are used universally.
Come on. But I keep my mind open and I am capable of being swayed, but I am not capable of losing faith in my .coms. One has nothing to do with the other. Same as Moon to Mars. They are both in space but one does not have much to do with the other. I have more faith in my domains than my dollars by a wide margin. I sleep well knowing I own the domains I do. I don't sleep as well knowing that my buying power for my dollar is likely to take a major hit next year and every day until then. The domain name will become my single greatest hedge in the future against inflation.
ALL and ANY .whatever will LEAK to the .com counterpart. PERIOD! Every single one of them. The ONLY thing that will vary is the size of that hole. So far the evidence of the only true test, shows a 61% leakage. That is more than a leak. That is more than a gusher. That is a failure beyond anything anyone expected including myself. I was in the 25%-35% camp until Mr. Johnson and the folks at Overstock.com spent millions and millions and millions to find out that they lost an amazing and astounding 61% of all their traffic.
Advertising is about targeting simple things to simple people. Techies trying to duplicate the hoola hoop have SEVERE head winds and don't understand human behavior.
Sorry, I went a bit off on a tangent. But it needed to be said as I see what I see.
Just look at Cowboys.com. We as a group of quality folks could not make a decision. 5 YEARS went by and finally a decision was basically forced. SUCCESS!! I like .TV and I like .ME. Do you really think the same scenario for those extensions (cowboy.me or cowboys.tv) would have been like it was and the publicity it got for the .com?? It would have been .meaningless. No story at all. That's a key!
But as I stated privately, it took 5 YEARS for a decision that should have been made in 5 MINUTES. Paralysis in the flesh. Change that ONE THING and you have the power to change the world. Fear is what prevents success. 10 type 'A' personalities does not have the power of two like minded people. THAT is the lesson I learned from the Cowboys.com deal. No regrets. I would do it again. I am glad I am a stockholder in such a great domain name. We are only up to chapter 2 of this story. Much more to cum. :-)
There is one thing Howard and I can claim that no other show can. We are 100% paid attendance. Everyone pays. Our rates are published and there are no 'Comps'. PERIOD! No other show can claim this as far as I know. Is there a difference? You bet there is and I am going to prove it right here right now!
Now doing this over the years and actually enforcing it has not been easy. Has made me no friends. But when my best buddy pays and the top domainers pay, then everyone should pay and be equal. And so they do and it hasn't been easy for all these years. But we have a formula that works and continues to work. When folks have 'SKIN' in the game they are more likely to do deals so they can see a concrete result for their efforts. If it did not work, folks would not come from half a world away where they easily have to add thousands in expenses just to get here let alone 20 hours on a plane or more.
Simply put...T.R.A.F.F.I.C. works because T.R.A.F.F.I.C. really does mean B.U.S.I.N.E.S.S. We never have 'Extras from Central Casting' just to fill seats or have more noise.
Do you really want to deal with the guys you see out there with bad judgement like my new friend Roger this week? How many folks like that do you want to waste your time with? We don't exclude them, but the bar is set high for a reason. They must at least be 'Financially qualified'. The only way you do that is doing what we do. And when we start prices at $995 like we will do for all the shows, the bar is set reasonably enough for anyone with true passion and desire to make the leap and attend. GREAT things happen when you actually put yourself out there.
Next week we expect some 300 domain investors to drop in and take their destiny in their own hands. They don't WAIT for things to happen, they MAKE things happen. I learned about making things happen back in the mid 1980's and early 1990's. The difference in sitting on the sidelines and being passive or jumping in and being aggressive. Passive did not get you where you are today. DID IT??
Ya know what troubles me the most? Domainers questioning the future of their holdings. If they are solid domains, the future is bright and there is absolutely nothing to worry about. If you have portfolios of .nets and .whatevers, you better have prime one worders or something naturally meaningful. Get rid of the crap. Replace with quality and you will be on track again. Been repeating that for many years now.
When you see the future like I see the future, you would never second guess yourself again. You all listen to too much noise. Much of that noise with an agenda. Until you can see and understand the difference, you will be lost in space with no compass. That makes me terribly sad. Like fish swallowing the bait. Bad ending and it doesn't have to be that way. You just need to identify it before the fact!
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Rick Schwartz
This is a comment on a comment on a comment I made on thedomains.com and it should be said here as well because it frames it perfectly:
todd wrote:
“Big money dot coms are going to lose a lot of value so if you have them you better start selling them.”
—————
Grim Wrote:
And with that, the panic selling begins…. perfect for savvy buyers looking at the long-term, who realize that all industries go through high and low periods, but not so good for sellers who will undoubtedly buy into the scare tactics.
—————
I wrote:
Grim, you nailed it. Spot on. Could not put it any better.
Anyone not seeing that…..I just feel sorry for.
The guys wet behind the ears are freaking out for no reason at all.
I can only PRAY there is a .Candy
.Property has already been applied for.
I ONLY see good things. Ask Larry how his xxx.com is doing after .xxx launched.
Ask Overstock how O.co is doing. And if there was an o.com, that guy would be laughing all the way to the bank.
That’s the proven reality. We don’t have to guess. We don’t even have to debate it.
The debate was over when Mr. Johnson said they lost 61% of all their customers to confusion.
So let them repeat failure 2000 more times looking for the one that could even be in the shadow of a .com
Let me repost your answer to Todd’s comments because this is what is going on here and it is CRYSTAL CLEAR and brings it all down to this:
todd
Reposted from The Domains
Rick wrote
“That’s the proven reality. We don’t have to guess. We don’t even have to debate it.
The debate was over when Mr. Johnson said they lost 61% of all their customers to confusion.”
Of course this will happen in the beginning of all the extensions but I can promise you over time people will “get It” and understand what they are looking for. Mr. Johnson lost 61% of his traffic to the dot COM version because his is dot CO but that will not happen with the new gtld’s because they are not similar looking or similar sounding as COM and CO. Dot Coms are worth what they are right now because Google makes them worth what they are right now. As soon as thousands upon thousands upon thousands of gtld’s hit the market who knows how Google is going to rank them. You and I and all involved would be fools not to see what is happening. You (Rick) are supposed to be a so called predictor of the future so why don’t you see this? Frank Schilling, Berkens, etc……are all on board with gtld’s and slowly but slowly everyone else is getting on the train.
Your buddy Frank Schilling said this
“Frank recently said he can image a world of 400,000 new gTLD’s and obviously he is making a move into the right of the dot space.”
Wow, did I read that correctly, 400,000 gtld’s. SELL SELL SELL your names will be worthless or close to it. This WILL be the second dot com bubble.
TM
.COM is also Google’s- the Big G- best friend. I laugh when I see Matt Cutts make announcements that people construe as lowering the power of .COM in search. Why? .COM is the easiest/ most powerful signal of all the hundreds of algo signals the search engine can have. It’s Google’s Free lunch. The domain market- the one you and others created and built for 20 years- is a FREE signal. It keeps out spammers, scammers, and bullshit. How many scammers and frauds are paying $X,XXX, XX,XXX, or XXX,XXX for a .COM domain name ? Not many. End users and major companies have been buying them and building them out for years all around the world. So either Matt Cutts and crew just tell the SEO’s/public things to throw them off and keep them guessing, or the Google team is made up of fools.
The private .COM domain market that has been built over the past decades cannot be replicated. Even with highly-vetted gTLD’s that have thorough application processes … it’s not the same as a NATURAL PRIVATE market commanding premium prices, with one extension being the only game in town. It won’t be natural because you can’t replicate the unknown of the 90’s and early 2000’s where domains were relatively unknown. It’s 2012 and the”domain name” cat is out of the bag; there will not be a natural private market- now it’s speculators, corporations, and domainers in right off the bat.
I agree with you 100% and it’s so obvious to those who look.
Rick Schwartz
“You (Rick) are supposed to be a so called predictor of the future so why don’t you see this?”
2 reasons, first is I think you are wrong and I don’t predict things that I don’t see. I don’t see this going where most want to go tho they might try. I see derailment, conflict and confusion. I state clearly what”I” see not what YOU want me to see with nothing to back it up.
You give Google way to much weight and credit.
You don’t seem to grasp the fact that every business today bigger than a lemonade stand already has their .com addy or their country code. 75% of those folks will NEVER register another domain name in their lifetimes. Thats’ a huge number and that alone says a lot to me.
A destination is a destination. So it won’t matter what the extension is for destinations. But the default is .com and when you advertise and you understand word of mouth and confusion and mistakes and losing sales and other such things then you look at it differently. When you have a pony in the race you look at it differently. I don’t put down anyone for buying a pony. BUT NOBODY is going to force me to buy that pony until I see that pony has legs. I just don’t see it.
But I even have a panel at TRAFFIC”Do you see what I see?” I want to see it through their eyes. But that does not mean I have to buy it. I have an open mind when EVIDENCE is presented not theory. I take theory with a grain of salt.
I do agree that the confusion with .co and .com caused the high 61%. But my friend, you will still have to deal with my estimate of 25%-35% leakage. It will happen. That aon’t theroy, that is reality and those that say otherwise are just wrong. Just cuz they close their eyes to the leak does not make the leak go away.
When people get confused they default back to what they know. In this case, .com. The gold standard and that gold ain’t turing to tin as some claim.
Secondly the way I see it, I may be dead by the time much of this unfolds if it unfolds. It won’t matter. Folks have to eat today, not 10-20-30 years. down the road. Get behind the IDN guys.
And the simple fact of the matter is .com gets massive type in traffic. Massive. I don’t see that in any other extension. Not massive unless a typo or something.
Berkens and I debate this every day and he thinks it may unfold a certain way but he is savvy enough to know it might not.
Franky is a different story. He has a different circumstance. When you are a big winner in the domain casino you get to parlay some of those earnings and take risk. And that is the thing to do. Bet on the long shot when you are way ahead. That’s speculation. We all know what we know and what we see. But right now, from where I sit, I just see some titans that may want to try and control what they can’t control. That is human nature and human behavior.
As a registry, there may be money to be made. As a domain investor, the best money to be made is owning the .com of a .whatever. THAT is what I tell folks. THAT is where the big money is at for domainers. Those are gushers to be. Why don’t you see that??? That is already proven. It ain’t theory.
So I don’t dance on clouds and the”Second Coming” ain’t”Coming” in my lifetime if ever.
Rick Schwartz
Rich,
My problem with .co is an identity one.
I would NEVER build a business on a .co unless I owned the .com counterpart.
20 years may not cure it. I thought it had a chance. I was wrong.
Human nature proved me wrong not anything else.
The consumer is still in charge and if he rejects whatever it is, then game over.
BullS
Dot Com is king
dot whatever is”BullS”
What don’t you understand!!
Joao
So…one day you may remember this: you want quality traffic? Buy a .com
You want to be a slave? Build”googlelized” sites.
Just…use google, but dont be used by them…
Lda
If ever there was going to be a serious challenge to .COM it was
.BIZ. Why ? .BIZ was the first of the post .com/net/org tlds,and
was introduced with huge fanfare and expectations of it being a
.COM killer, especially in the business field.
It wasn’t, and set the tone for everything Rick has spoken about.
Every tld since has been a re-run of .BIZ, and all in the future
will also follow its underachieving path, wrt .COM.
Those who don’t remember .BIZ’s introduction should REALLY stop
wasting our bandwidth with their uninformed speculative nonsense,
and learn a bit more before rushing to print.
Those of us who lost money chasing the .BIZ illusion have occasionally re-tested the fantasy (ref. .MOBI, – as did Rick),
with the same result.
Nothing has changed, nor will it.
Anunt
No need to compare new gTLDs with dot com.
Dot Com is king.
Franky is a registry owner and investor…he will definately make money.
2 ways to make money…be a premium dot com owner OR become a registry owner of new gTLDs.
You will make nickels and dimes buying and selling new gTLDs domains…so forget this option.