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

Morning Folks!!

Afternoon Folks,

Another day and another seed germinates.

'The startup also has acquired the domain name Punchbowl.com
(it previously used MyPunchbowl.com). The company bought it from Rick
Schwartz, the domain name pioneer who previously sold such venerable
assets as Candy.com and Men.com for millions. Douglas wouldn’t say how
much he paid, but said it was between one dollar and $5 million. There
is strategic value, he says, in having a two-syllable brand named after
an object—see Kayak.com or Facebook.com (which used to be
TheFacebook.com back in 2004).'

Here is the rest of the story....

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Sometimes a very simple sentence or thought can avoid and relieve much frustration. Last week I heard a really good one that unfortunately I wish I had learned many years ago. You have the benefit of reading it now and I hope you are not on the receiving end of it.

'Poor planning on your part does not make for an emergency on my part.'

I will be using that line for the rest of my life. Probably daily. But what a great way to repel bullshit so it does not land on you.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

In every Sport stats are kept and are made public for annual
and career earnings. You see it at
the box office every weekend. They keep track and the $$$ brings in more $$$
and interest. That is the reason they do it to begin with. They do it in Real
Estate to both create competition and interest among other things.

I believe domainers should begin to do this. It is not
enough to have a list of folks that made a million or more. Even restaurants
and car dealers keep score by dollar volume.

So I will take the lead. Not because I want to. Not to brag
either. But it is interesting. It is something that should be known. It is a
number I actually know. I did a Quicken Report. Voila!

Let me state that I am WAY down on the list of earners in
the domain business. I can name DOZENS that have earned more. Much more. They
have each earned hundreds of millions and or have assets equal to that and
more. So I am just doing this to start the conversation.

This does not include future payments. Ok, maybe I should not reveal. But it even surprised me.

So my question is why is everything so
secretive in domaining when we see just the opposite everywhere else? Are we stunting our own growth?

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

When it rains, it pours. One of my all time favorite domains is VirtualTours.com. I have waited a long time for things to progress and still not the vision I see. My true vision is to be able to go “Virtually” to any and every corner of the world while in the comfort of your home. Or maybe a Deep Freezer if you want a virtual tour of the North Pole just for effect. With Google Street View etc we are well on the way. But not quite there. 20 year plan would put this into business in 2017. How much is a virtual tour of any place worth?

About 10 days ago I started receiving very serious inquiries about this domain. Until now, it had always been a popular tire kicker in my lot of domains. Now, there was something different. A product attached. But the value of my domain is in direct proportion to the idea and the market. So if this is a company with a $1 Million plan it would have no value to me. How much can my domain be worth if his top floor goes only to $1 Million? On the other hand, a larger vision will be a larger return and a much higher floor. Pigeons and Eagles some might say.

I am in no rush to sell. I would rather technology catch up with the domain to bring my idea to life. Plus as a real estate play with Property.com, Properties.com, ModelHomes.com, RealEstateforsale.com and a host of others, VirtualTours.com is too important a piece of that puzzle to break up.

This is just a real time example of 10 negotiations in progress with one domain name and new interest daily. Just one kernel of popcorn that could pop. And if not, I will just stick to my original game plan and let technology catch up with my idea.

And for future inquiries, I need no more than a link right here and we will all save a lot of time and energy. Thank you sincerely for your interest in VirtualTours.com. Those are my initial parameters. It there is a fit, lmk. If not good luck on finding one that is.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Do you know how to read between the lines?? The single most important post in the domain industry in a very long time was posted last night. It is much more than a post. This is something you need to read several times and study.

This is the type historical parallel that should give everyone reading this the fuel to persevere and keep moving forward. This is OUR story. This is OUR future. This is OUR present. This is Franky's GIFT to all domainers.

This was not a blog post that was easy to write. I would think many days of thought went into this. Maybe weeks. Maybe been thinking of it for years and just did not know how to put it into words.

After you do that, you need to insert and also change some names. Let me interpret Mr. Getty's Blog post. Oh, my mistake, I meant Franky as he talked about Shell Oil. Or was it Google?

Either way, I interpret the words to have the most impact with PPC companies whose fate was laid out rather well.

I don't mince words. pay attention to this post more than any you have ever read. PERIOD!

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

We had a record amount of nominations this year cast by the domain industry for the 7th Annual T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Awards. Congratulations to all distinguished nominees!!

2010 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. NOMINATIONS

Ballots will be sent out later this month.
Do NOT Vote today!!

SPONSOR OF
THE YEAR

.CO

DOMAINADVERTISING.COM

NAMEDRIVE

PARKED

SKENZO

DOMAINER
OF THE YEAR

JAN BARTA

MIKE BERKENS

JUAN CALLE

STEVE CHEATHAM

LARRY FISCHER

ROB GRANT

MERLIN KAUFMAN

MORGAN LINTON

MIKE MANN

GREG MCNAIR

JERRY NOLTE

ILZE PLASKACS

ELLIOTT SILVER

DIVYANK TURAKHIA

JOEL WILLIAMS

BEST
OVERALL DOMAIN SOLUTION

ABOVE

DOMAINSPONSOR

EPIK

MONIKER

SEDO

SKENZO

SMARTNAME

BEST NEW MONETIZING SOLUTION

ABOVE

DEVHUB

ELEPHANT TRAFFIC

EPIK

LOCAL.COM

SKENZO

SMARTNAME

WHYPARK

DEVELOPER
OF THE YEAR

FRED MERCALDO

ROB GRANT

KEITH LEVENSON

ROB MONSTER

SHAUN PILFOLD

ELLIOTT SILVER

TIA WOOD

THE 'WE
GET IT' AWARD

BODOG & SLOTS.COM

LEXIS-NEXIS

MIKE MANN

NATIONAL A-1

OVERSTOCK

QUINSTREET

SWIFT RANK

BEST
DOMAIN NEWS BLOG

ANDREW ALLEMAN
(DomainNameWire)

MIKE BERKENS (TheDomains)

DOMAINERMAGAZINE.COM

RON JACKSON (DNJournal)

LARRY FISCHER

MORGAN LINTON

HOWARDNEU.COM (Declined)

RICK SCHWARTZ (Rick's Blog) (Declined)

ELLIOTT SILVER (Elliott's
Blog)

DOMAIN
HALL OF FAME

MONTE CAHN

GARY CHERNOFF

ROB GRANT

JEREMIAH JOHNSTON

AMMAR KUBBA

RICK LATONA

MICHAEL MANN

HOWARD NEU

JERRY NOLTE

MARC OSTROFSKY

ADAM STRONG

DIVYANK TURAKHIA

Morning Folks!!

Investing
in domains has always been equated with investing in real estate, some for
personal use or a parking lot, some for development into businesses or even
shopping centers. The shopping center opening the day the interstate opens may
work better than the shopping center being opened 15 years before the road to
the store is even built or conceived.
But that is exactly what domain investors do up until now because of our forward looking vision and
I am here to tell you the road is about to be open and we are about to be
connected in a most profound way.
Just like the road unlocks the value of the shopping center, the
expanding net and understanding of domains is the road that will unlock the
true value of domain names. Timing is everything. Everything.

Howard
calls and says he has an idea. I say great, what is it? He says how about speed
networking with a twist? Ok and here it is:

What
we will be doing at T.R.A.F.F.I.C, SOUTH BEACH in October is called Speed
Networking with “Hall of Famers”. We will release further details of this
unique event as we get closer to the event, but as we looked over the list of attendees,
we noticed that almost all of the Domain Hall of Fame Members who had
previously been inducted were already registered for the show. They will be asked to participate
in a special Speed Networking session that will allow the newest domain
investor to interact with the oldest. Engage, ask questions and make new
friends and opportunities.

This
gives a chance to mingle, grow and share and learn from the masters, those who
you voted in to the domain Hall of Fame. A chance for new and old and everyone in the middle to mix
and get things off to a running start.

There
is a reason that TRAFFIC South Beach is going to be another landmark event. In the coming weeks I will give everyone reading this an overwhelming amount of
reasons to come to TRAFFIC.
Reasons to leave the comfort of your home to expand your business for
years to come. THAT is what we do at TRAFFIC and nobody reading this can afford
not to be in the right place at the right time. Nobody.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz!

Morning Folks!!
The best part of working in the “Information Age” is that
you can do it anywhere. The worst thing is that since we can do it anywhere, we
choose to just sit for the most part. The result may be a gain in weight. Until the
net, I was thin and could eat all I wanted and not gain weight. A combination
of age and sitting in front of a computer screen changed that over the past years.

With most of my goals, it takes a while for me to get
mentally ready. To set my mind not to get discouraged when the setbacks happen.
That is my mental training before I can even make an attempt. I then visualize
different scenarios. Different ways to look at the same thing. For me, I used
the visualization that for every extra 5LBS of weight I had that I was carrying a laptop
with me 24/7. And just how uncomfortable it would be day after day, year after year. Well, here is
the tally to this point. Below is a list of the items I was carry around with
me in a visual way.

So I told myself if I did not stop overeating, then
eventually it would lead to me not being able to eat what I like the most and worse. So I
knew I had to change how I looked at things and change the food that went into
my mouth.

When it came to food, I could have a buffet breakfast
followed by a $100 lunch followed by a Checkers Burger and Fries on the way to
dinner. That was a normal event.

The point of all this is I was unsuccessful in earlier attempts until I
could think of it in a different way and actually change my habit. No
planned diet. No other intervention.