the late 50's or early 60's my mother brought home 2 gold fish for showing up during the
grand opening. It's been a long time since that has happened and I am sad to
report I have no gold fish for you today. However I do think I have some gold to
share with you. Gold that will be with you for the rest of your life and gold
that I hope you will share. I don't sell this gold by the ounce. I give it away
by the truck load. We'll just have to agree to meet up on another day for the
fish.
gold." They are entitled to do that. But I will tell you that they were
wrong about yesterday, wrong about today and the evidence shows they
will be wrong about tomorrow as well. My mission is to begin the conversation with those outside the
domain industry as to why domain names are an important part of any marketing
strategy. Perhaps THE single most important part. It is the foundation of what we do. I
will ask folks to leave their prejudices and misconceptions about domain owners
at the door because we have NUMBERS to talk about. Stunning numbers compiled
over more than a decade and while others were swept out of the game during the
collapse, we as domain owners, survived and even thrived. So domain insiders
please stand by. I will need your assistance presenting those numbers. Then we
will compare those numbers against traditional parallels.
starting point. I hope folks that come here for years to come read these initial
posts first as it will help to explain where I am coming from. I hope folks will
point others here that need to quickly get up to speed about what a GREAT domain
name represents. I will try and define what a GREAT domain is and how to spot
them.
over the next few weeks before I attempt to address current conditions and where
I see us all in the next 10 years. This blog is not for everyone. Believe me I will say something that you won't agree with and
is gonna piss you off. So what do you want me to do? Not tell you what I truly
believe? Sugar coat it? BULLSHIT you?
NO WAY! You get it direct and unfiltered
and if it provokes a passionate debate, then the GOAL should be find the best
answer and look at as many possibilities as possible without getting stuck in
the gunk. I believe good people with good hearts will find common ground even when they disagree.
Life is all about making good decisions. Lee Iacocca said something to the effect that if you can gather 75% of
the facts, you are in a position to make a good decision. I have used that as a
rule of thumb for many years. I think EVERYTHING in life is based on EVERY
decision we make. The smallest decision can be the biggest and vice versa.
you can see what I see. Let's be blunt. 6 billion folks on the earth and only a
few hundred really saw this incredible opportunity that is now a worldwide
industry and growing under the radar faster than anyone has any idea
of.
to dream and dare to achieve. So much of all of our successes comes from how
deeply we believe in something. Passion without being obnoxious. All I can do is share
what I see, why I see it and what I saw in the past that has unfolded like a
well thought out portrait and why that is directly realted to the future.
raises some eyebrows. But it was with this 20 year plan in mind that I have
always moved forward. That plan is now more than 50% complete. All I can say is
I underestimated just how big and important the domain channel would become and
how fast that would happen. It's also frustrating as hell that it moves so slow
on a daily basis. My mission has been to accelerate the inevitable because our
time here is short and undefined.
that folks from every corner of industry can come to and grasp and understand and respond
and embrace. I hope folks that need a fast track education on domain names will
be pointed here. It's free for anyone that wants to listen and see what I see.
I
promise to shorten these posts once I create the foundation I think
it will serve us well for years to come. But one last thing. If you look
to your left you will see some of my domain names and websites. I think it will be fun to change
the last domain from time to time. Today's domain is "Widgets.com."
Today it is a parked page. The power of a domain is that tomorrow it can be
anything I want it to be and the flow of fresh new eyeballs that come
there every day will just see something else. There is obvious room for VAST improvement on widgets.com. But that is a domain to be developed on another day. Today's domain is RicksBlog.com and I want to thank you for coming!
Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz
RicksBlog.com Grand Opening!!
Happy Grand opening!
What? No balloons?? Where's the marching band? When the first mall opened near my home in
Some may call my gold "Fools
The first few posts were an attempt to lay a foundation. A
I hope you will allow me to continue to lay this foundation
What I hope to accomplish is let you see what makes me tick so
It's about saying out loud what you dare to believe and dare
I came to the net and domains with a 20 year plan. That always
So I hope you will bear with me as I try and paint a picture
kamal
Rick,
Ha, I like your copyright date on widgets.com (2166). Looks like you have a longer than 20 year plan for that one.
Franky
Nice! I would go so far as to call last weeks posts the footings… your foundation is now. Looks solid. :)
Domainer's Gazette
looking forward to future posts, Rick. Already have you added to my RSS feed.. best of luck.
John Keegan
Great post, welcome to the conversation!
And the irony of the widgets.com site is that none of the PPC links are related to the definition of”widgets” as it’s defined by the blogosphere (essentially they are addons for your blog, and the name of a certain kind of plugin artchitecture for WordPress blogs – see http://www.automattic.com/code/widgets/ ).
So the most popular meanings for the word according to Google, addons for your desktop computer or your blog, are barely represented on your parking page (only at the bottom right is there a”Mac Widgets” link).
Definitely shows we’ve got a long way to go towards more effective monetization of domains!
Welcome and best of luck!
owen frager
The balloons will be delivered tomorrow. If you go out leave a note on the door that says it’s ok to leave them for you. I ordered them from flowers.mobi (really) because balloons.mobi had no page. :(
owen frager
In the same issue that wrote about you that Richard Rosenblatt claimed to be his light bulb moment for domains (business week masters of their domains):
http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/09/magazines/business2/corporate_widgets.biz2/index.htm
owen frager
widgets.com may be the most valuable domain you own. The more I use my blog as a lab to see how the traffic game is being paid, A widget is really an ad; a mechanism for getting premium space on millions of publications and bringing traffic back to you. That’s why Fox owns this:
http://www.springwidgets.com
If doubleclick just commanded 3.5 billion imagine you have the same power as they do with widgets.com
PTRADES
well–seems like good news for the biz…