Why the Forbes.com Article is PHONY and is FALSE!

Morning Folks!!

I am going to take a moment to completely show that the Forbes.com article was FALSE! Not only is it false as I started to write about here, unless it is corrected, we know they could care less about FACTS! And today we have facts. I think Berkens may have covered it here on his take about this misleading and FALSE article when he took the author to the woodshed.

So, the FACT of the matter is the article revolves around this table below to show how domain values are going down. Well this table is FALSE! It is a lie. It is not factual. Let's start with the #1 VacationRentals.com for $35 Million. They bought a BUSINESS for $35 million. They did not buy a DOMAIN for $35 Million. Now it would be good for us if in fact it was a $35 million domain sale. But it was not. It is FALSE. I have PROOF. So I EXPECT Forbes.com and Ms. Jacobs to set the reord straight. Unless PROPAGANDA is their new way of reporting.

10-domain-names-table-300x285

Here is the QUOTE from the seller of the BUSINESS:

Hi Rick,

What's interesting to me is Jeff and I owned vacationrentals.com and we did sell it But, it was not just a domain name but a full on business earning revenue daily.

We built the business and ran it for 4-5 years with our partners from media insights until we sold it to Home Away.

The article makes it sound like vacationrentals.com was just a domain name. They forgot to mention we built it up and worked very hard for years on it and it was making around 3 million before we sold it.  Amazing how they can write an article without the knowledge needed to write it.

Don Orr

iventure

So the entire premise of her "Article" is built on a false foundation.  It's a FAKE!!!

Lazy? Agenda driven? Short of time? I don't know and I DON'T CARE!

What I do know is if she does not CHOOSE to set the record straight and write an article that is based on FACT, then Forbes.com has been marginalized. It show Forbes.com does not care about SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT! It spreads false information to fit an agenda. That is called "propaganda". Not very cool for a Capitalistic publication.

I believe if Steve Forbes saw this he would be SHOCKED!

Now, let's go to Insure.com.

NO! Let's not.

Let Ms. Jacobs do the research she should have done FIRST and then take another stab at getting it right. I am not paid for this, she is.

I have invited her to be at TRAFFIC as my guest. I have invited her to set the record straight and take responsibility for the sloppy and FALSE article based on anything other than FACT! Sorry, but she has done a great disservice to Forbes and the way to fix that is to fix it.

We really appreciate her looking at our industry, but please, me asking a Senior Editor for Forbes.com to set the record straight is not too much to ask. Like I said, we had a cordial conversation, but she got her facts wrong.

Now I don't have as much ink as Forbes.com, but I can certainly use the ink I have to circulate the FACTS and call out somebody that should know to do a better job. And I have. And I will continue until I see FACTS!

Ms. Jacobs, I can give you Mr. Orr's email addy and you can check yourself. Do FACTS matter with Forbes is the only question? You have a duty to set the record straight on behalf of the company that pays you or "Phony" is the keyword.

To quote Mr. Orr, "Amazing how they can write an article without the knowledge needed to write it."

and btw, had Forbes spent a few minutes digging they would have discovered that more 7 figure domain name sales have been done in the second half of 2013 than any other 6 month period in history. Matter of FACT, more than some previous years in total and combined. And those are just the KNOWN sales. Maybe call Escrow.com and ask them about the unreported ones.

You don't have to write what I want or even agree, but if you want to restore your credibility as a journalist and not harm the company you are a Senior Editor for, then you must at least stand back and ask if you have been objective given all your misinformation in the story that many have taken you to task over.

I am passing along this blog post to the actual editor of Forbes as well. The editor is also responsible for those under him/her to hold their ther editors to a higher standard than this! I expect more from Forbes and so should they!

Rick Schwartz


My Job is to Pick the Winners. First, Second, Third. Do the Others Really Matter? Really??

Morning Folks!!

With hundreds of new extensions coming out the noise will be very loud. Too loud for me to even respond as we soon will be overwhelmed with hype, ads, press releases and a host of things that will make your head spin. Some will be very good and creative, many will be pretty lame as evidenced HERE!

And this is the stuff I am talking about as one gTLD stumble can hurt more than just that particular extension. This video is so lame it has the POWER to hurt more than just them. The message I got, if you want to be a faker or a wannabee then .CEO will make you a make-believe big shot. Sorry, that hurt the extension. It marginalized the seriousness and effectiveness. It was a disaster. But I am sure they are all high-fiving each other over there while the rest of us shake our heads.

So I guess I just inadvertently reviewed .CEO. Won't make friends there. But I am never going to sellout what I believe from what folks want to hear. They all get to prove me wrong. That is what selling is about. 100 people come into a room and think just like me. THEIR JOB IS To PERSUADE! The problem is many will get angry instead of using the art of persuasion and they automatically LOSE!

The 100 are not their enemy. They need to be convinced. But you must convince with FACT. The minute you use BULLSHIT or make things up to convince, game over. Better load another 100 in the room and try again because that room has been tainted. So if you do the same thing, you get the same result. Do you think that makes it harder or easier for the next guy? Want to be the last guy to pitch the audience? They may have your head on a stake by then.

This illustrates how each new extension OWNS the bullshit and the lies of the others gtld folks. Sorry, may not be fair, but it is what it is. If you have not factored that into your equation. OH WELL!!

700-1000 extensions each must sell. But it is not our job to buy what each sells. Even if they are our friends. This is not Girl Scout Cookie buying. This is deciding where to put our investment dollars to be safe and to grow. My job is to focus on the winners. But even winners are runner-ups. Not to .com but to a category called "Other". They will ALL reside in "Other" and will share it with HUNDREDS of "Others" for what could be decades before the FIRST one breaks out other than .web which will probably be the FIRST to break out and our job s to pick winners.

I don't have any .web interest. I have no reservations on .web domains. I have never spoken to anyone at .web. I have no plans to register any .web domains. I am simply handicapping the race. And if folks get pissed at my handicapping, so be it. I only want to focus on the winners. The top 3. The top 10. The top DOG!

Of course I could become a 6 or 7 figure whore for one of them. lol. But at least I would come here and say so. I would not hide it.

My job/your job as an investor is to figure out the 1, 2 or 3 that MIGHT break through and break out of "Other".

It IS about picking the winners. The THREE extensions out of 1000 that will lead the pack. Why would anyone GAMBLE with the other 997? The return keeps getting exponentially SMALLER, not larger. The top 3 might already be gambles. Why would anyone want to make the odds of success smaller and smaller and smaller? Value is proportionate to size of audience among several other factors. No audience, no value, no nothing.

I look at the price disparity between a .com domain and .whatever domain as it is today and with the exact same keyword. It's a 100-1 ratio in case after case. Same work. Sometimes the same level of investment when you learn to focus on FIRST.

Sometimes I really don't think folks understand numbers because they have to lie about them so often. They have to inflate them to have credibility. Make them up as they go along. That's blowing smoke up people's ass. Everyone reading this should get their bullshit meter inspected before the noise makes it impossible to calibrate.

So hundreds hawking these extensions will be of no interest. They can hawk. Some will buy. All will learn.

I ONLY want to focus on the top 3. Then we can debate if they will ever be meaningful. But the 997 that don't finish, first, second or third, may or may not have registry level success and that does not translate to investor success. Far from it.

It translates into great risk. Who wants to buy my .xxx today at 50% of what I paid? I already dropped most of them. Each year I have more information and I drop more. That is on EVERY extension.

So, clearly as a domain handicapper at this point .web has the best chance to win the race. There is not even a close second. I see this as the ONLY viable extension that MAY breakout of "Other".

There may be room for a .club in the eco-system. But that may not qualify it for investment level. So .club may enjoy a "Registry success" but that does not automatically translate to an investor success. There will be some. But limited. VERY limited.

.App has a place and since .App is commercial and social I see that as possibly a better investment than .web. But it is still early in the race. And the chance of it getting out of "other" is remote.

.Blog again may have a place in the eco-system. Investment wise, not as good as .App the way I see the world. But of wider interest than .app.

If I see another extension come out of the gates I will come and state it. But as they are each announced, I don't have the time to focus on anything else other than perhaps the top 3 or the top 10. So far, I am just at 3.

First they all need to catch up to .mobi.

Second, I think they have some obstacles in the form of .Me, .Co, .TV, .Info and even .US because each will get a second look. I see these competing for those top 10 slots besides the other top 7 new gTLD's.

Rick Schwartz