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

Morning Folks!!

Last week I posted a question about my 10-year-old picture (Oh the pain) and you folks (especially the ladies of domaining Donna, Anita and Naomi) were good enough to respond.

So as a result, voila, the best they could do with what I am working with.

The new improved 6.0 Domain King. Imperfectly aged to perfection.

But I also took a walk on the "Dark side" for the Battles to come!

I  want to thank Michael Lloyd of LloydsStudio.com who will be blogging about our meeting soon.

Thanks for your help all!

Rick Schwartz

Evening folks!!

If I told you that we had record voting today it would be an understatement. There have already been more votes cast today than the 2 previous RECORD years combined and maybe all the other years added together. Our 10th annual awards are a great success because they are YOUR CHOICES. There are THOUSANDS of votes to count. It has been quite overwhelming. Congrats to all. WELL DONE!!!!

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

Spammers Make $200 MILLION a year on Facebook!  That is VERY big news. That is something folks can get their heads around and that is just one little turbine of Facebook. This is the tip of an iceberg of the riches that Facebook has locked up in it  and right now leaking. That $200 Million number is from a Forbes.com article here. So it is not something I am making up and it is probably on the low side.

As you may know I am not a big Facebook fan. Never have been. But I have invested in the stock because I am watching the behavior of many folks. Females are HOOKED!! I see proof of this all day long and a growing percent of men along with them. HOOKED!

Now at first blush you may think this is a negative article. And it is. But not for many f us. It is educating people on traffic. The more they know about traffic is the more targeted they will try to get and ALL paths lead to the Domain Industry. That's a good thing. PURE traffic. Unfiltered. Not spammed. PURE as the driven snow. That has GREAT VALUE!

"That traffic can then be monetised. To a page showing Adsense for example, or to a YouTube video that is carrying ads. Or more often to a page selling some tchotchke and given enough traffic being sent there will be some sales meaning some profit. Once those pages are set up, once they’ve got say 30,000 likes, then they are likely to turn up in timelines and that’s the point at which the spammers can start selling those links:"

“The spam posters get paid an average of $13 per post, for pages that have around 30,000 fans, up to an average of $58 to post on pages with more than 100,000 fans,” De Micheli told the Guardian. “If we consider these two as extremes, the pages we analysed generate a revenue of 18,000 posts per day, times the revenue per post – ranging from $13 to $58 – 365 days a year.”

"That gives a range for the spammers’ earnings of between $87m and $390m – but when they took into account the number of fans of the pages, the weighted average was just over $200m annually."

Forbes.com article here

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

in June I discussed my fastest growing domain name right here. At that time it had hit 10,000 daily uniques. When I checked today and over the past 30 days, the traffic is now averaging 14,000 a day and earnings are of course increasing as well. It's a noticeable change and in a very short amount of time. The trend seems to be accelerating. Just a very pleasant surprise in an era where pleasant surprises are not exactly common. It's not my #2 $$$ earner....yet, but it is my #2 in terms of daily traffic and the earnings are still substantial.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

You can see this coming a year away and you best be prepared for what is coming.

With close to 1000 new gTLD's to be sold and marketed they are all going to have to man their ships and that means collectively hiring THOUSANDS of people. Going to be very interesting how this all plays out . But make no mistake about it, within a year we are going to see a massive change in our small community. For starters, it is no longer going to be small. And it will be VERY different.

Some of you reading this will end up working for some of these companies. But please take a moment to imagine  what this will all look like and how that will change the industry we are in.Much will be good and much will not. You will have a full-time job just sorting out all that is coming.

Whether  you believe the gTLD's are going to fly or not there is going to be HUGE opportunity. It may or may not come in the way of investing in domains. The opportunities may look different. I invite ever new extension owner to come here and tell us what they see. What their vision is and why. I am more likely to buy into an extension that is well thought out and supported than one that is not. Just sayin'.

A crowded field is coming and some folks will be desperate. The delays are VERY costly. Each day that passes costs money. Weeks that pass cost more. But now we are talking months and I would not be surprised if it turned into a year or more or something very unexpected happens that plunges this entire thing into turmoil. Like a complete Clusterf*ck. Even Clusterf*cks can make you money or present great opportunity.

Rick Schwartz