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

Morning Folks!!

The value of a domain is in direct proportion to the idea and business behind it. Very simple. One guy wants to have a business with a total annual sales of $50,000 and one guy wants to run an empire worth $500 Million. Do you really believe the domain has the same value?? Get off of it.

I have long been on record saying that the valuations out there are all a farse. Period. They are simply a great business model for the owner and for people who don't know any better. Nothing wrong with that, but it has no value. See how I make friends. I say something factual or state my strong opinion and of course it offends everyone in that business and half of those that actually paid for one of those worthless appraisals that can be waived in the face of other folks that know even less.

But what is my choice? Insult you and blow smoke up your ass?? My soul is not for sale.

You have a unique asset. Somebody else wants that unique asset. Your JOB is to extract as much value as possible and do it not by looking at yesterday and last year but looking forward 10 years. If th buyer does not like that....move on!

One guy spends $1000 a year on advertising and another spends $1000 a SECOND on advertising. You don't think information like this is valuable? You don't think this has a direct value on your asset? If you are afraid to ask questions, you are afraid to make the big money. Folks that want YOUR asset MUST overpay by definition. You don't have to agree. But you will leave a lot of money on the table.

So answering an email without an offer and looking for a 'Deal' or a 'Reasonable' price on your domain is just going to be a waste of your time. Eventually you will figure it out, but you will waste YEARS of your life in the process and you will handicap your business and growth. There is no LAW saying you MUST answer every email. It is not rude because you are not obligated to waste your time or even answer.

In FACT, I answered only 8 of those inquiries last month. Why? I READ their words and their words usually tip off who is who. Look for the keywords. Anyone with an appraisal whether buying or selling is automatically eliminated. The chances of extracting his head from his ass at that point is a near physical impossibility.

There are emails that casually are interested in your domain. There are emails from other domainers. There are emails from end users. There are emails from brokers. There are emails from lawyers. There are emails from representatives. There are emails from jerk-offs. There are emails from folks with an agenda. There are emails that set a trap. Do you know the difference between these types of emails and more?

That is just the first layer. Then there are a host of other CLUES that tell you who you might be dealing with. Value is based on their idea and your circumstance. If there is no circumstance the value is going up because you have no motivation to sell. Put Proctor and Gamble as the owner of my domains and see the difference in response. Price. Interest.

If you are young and in good health, time is an ally in this business. The game has changed. The model has changed. but these changes are predictable as things evolve. Domains are the center of Internet evolution. When a company has a great success on the Internet they have demonstrated that they would like better more high profile domain names in a lot of cases.

Nothing remains the same as it was yesterday. But as long as you deal with meaningful quality domains you will be safe.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Franky gets 3x as many inquiries in a day than I get in a month and then some. But I love the idea he had to list domains that folks are interested in. So I did something I never did. I went through my emails of the last 30 days and here are the domains that have been inquired about. Many are ones that I get offers on nearly every week.

I am not sure what if any value this will have but if nothing else, it is just something I can refer to from time to time. Now I can't list all of them because some are in active negotiations and others should remain private until some time passes. The domains with asterisks are domains with multiple inquiries.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

ebid.com**
ebud.com
kissass.com
dirtypictures.com
gpf.com
FamousNames.com
SexualDesire.com
handicapper.com
Tryouts.com
TopSecret.com**
Delivers.com**
399.com**
PartyVille.com
1012.com
1620.com
StarvingArtists.com
Property.com**
iWantSex.com
eTrip.com
Tradeshows.com**
GoBabyGo.com
SecretUnderground.com
VirtualTours.com**
SayWhen.com
StartLiving.com
eGold.com**
Private-Property.com
GoFishing.com
ACRepair.com**
UnEmployed.com
SexGod.com
989.com
750.com
2995.com
TeamBets.com
Properties.com**
CamJam.com
BestIdea.com
VideoDates.com
Sexo.com
8181.com
efu.com
Properties.com
wxy.com
cheapest.com**
Prop.com
Cutie.com
CheapDate.com
Mens.com
JackpotBingo.com**
eBet.com**
800club.com
11311.com

Morning Folks!!

Everything we do and discover already happened in another medium and your job is to find that parallel and connect the dots by finding the corresponding components. That's how you get ahead of the crowd.

I will tell you what I see because it is bigger than the first 20 years put together. The difference between the pay Babe Ruth got and what 'A-Rod' gets.

Except I see the years condensed. Per the chart below, it took 50 years from Babe Ruth Until Catfish Hunter making 10x more. Compare that to a domain name that may have only taken 5 years for it to go up 10x in value. Maybe even 100x in value. Maybe much more. So in this medium things are accelerated and always has been. But the start is slow. It always is. The bigger, the slower. But now we are past slow. We are rolling. Rolling along. Rolling along and gaining momentum.

With top baseball salaries It took only 20 years for the next growth of 10x. 1975 to 1995. So I have always used THIS model below melted in with the history and growth of TV, the survival of Radio and the phenomenon of the Hula Hoop along with all the advertising dollars spent and how long it takes the masses to adjust to something new and big. Then ending up with a sale somewhere because nothing happens until a sale is made. In other words, study the past to see the future. It all happened before. Just with another medium or with a different vehicle.

The 1994 NBC clip that has been going around TV and the Internet this past week is a PERFECT example of how FAST we are moving to change the world like that in less than 20 years. It accelerates from here in an exponential way. Facebook is the beginning not the end. An exit for your domain an on ramp to your domain a window into your domain. All roads still lead to the domain regardless of the stops along the way.

And while $70,000 was a lot of money in 1927, it did not have the buying power that $33 Million has today. Where are we today in reference to that graph and the ultimate value of domain names? I would say somewhere between 1972 and 1975. The upside is something incredible.

YEAR SALARY/YR PLAYER TEAM/ORGANIZATION

1927 $70,000 Babe Ruth New York Yankees

1930 $80,000 Babe Ruth New York Yankees

1949 $100,000 Ted Williams Boston Red Sox

1966 $130,000 Willie Mays San Francisco Giants

1972 $200,000 Hank Aaron Atlanta Braves

1975 $740,000 Catfish Hunter New York Yankees

Major League Baseball's reserve clause was struck down in 1976, beginning an era of free agency and thus market-value player contracts

1979 $1,000,000 Nolan Ryan Houston Astros

1981 $2,000,000 Dave Winfield New York Yankees

1985 $2,130,300 Mike Schmidt Philadelphia Phillies

1986 $2,800,000 George Foster New York Mets

1990 $3,000,000 Rickey Henderson Oakland Athletics

1991 $4,700,000 José Canseco Oakland Athletics

1992 $5,800,000 Bobby Bonilla New York Mets

1993 $5,975,000* Ryne Sandberg Chicago Cubs

1995 $9,237,500 Cecil Fielder Detroit Tigers

1997 $10,000,000 Albert Belle Chicago White Sox

1998 $14,936,667 Gary Sheffield Florida Marlins

2000 $15,714,286 Kevin Brown Los Angeles Dodgers

2001 $22,000,000 Alex Rodriguez Texas Rangers

2005 $26,000,000 Alex Rodriguez New York Yankees

2009 $33,000,000 Alex Rodriguez New York Yankees

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_baseball_players

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

You know I am an iPad fan, but today should be a small illustration of what is to come. 'The Daily' App will be available at noon Eastern time TODAY at the App store.

360 degree Photos. Video, Print and interactive. I am watching the news conference. This is an amazing new development and another stake in the heart of traditional media. They have also made it profitable. To buy what you see. Sport. This is a wow! This is another HUGE moneymaker.

I have not seen it yet, but I believe this is a BIG deal and another game changer in a series of game changers we will be seeing from here on out. It reminds me of the day USA Today came out. They all said it would fail. But I liked the format. It was easy to read. It was colorful in a sea of black and white. I became a fan.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Update: Now that I have downloaded it and used it a bit I would say It will have to have some real identity and some compelling and unique content to be as big as I thought. I could see it could be good locally and depends how it evolves. But I have to agree with what has been posted so far. Yawn. But that does not mean I will dismiss it quite yet.

Morning Folks!!

I don't know about you but I am not sure I have seen a single UDRP or WIPO win with a .CO name involved. Each decision I personally have seen has gone against the .CO domain owner. Even with generic names. This could be a problem and a precedent is being set whether we like it or not. It may be hard to defend even a generic .CO as we have seen with the PokerStrategy.co decision.

I have only received 1 C&D on a .CO. But when I think about this I try and see how a jury of my peers would see it. With a dot com most folks on the street think you did nothing wrong when it came to registering a bunch of domain names and doing well. They almost always say, 'Why didn't I think of that?' But I think the reaction would and will be different with any .co that a .com BUSINESS already exists. I think the average Joe would think you are taking advantage. A cybersquatter. And so far that is exactly what we have seen and that gives others a clear path to take your domain away.

If this becomes the common thinking, you may see .co have more challenges than any other domain extension out there. And percentage wise could be a mind blower. Cost of doing business can end up a lot more than $25.

Now I do have 2350 .CO domains. Many are the .co versions of my .com. Many are not. 80 of them are NNN.co. Many are geo type domains followed by a keyword. I focused on sectors in which my .com portfolio was either weak or non existent. I know I mined veins that I realized friends of mine own the .com. I feel a bit guilty. I did not have a lot of geo real estate domains but I am heavily focused on real estate in my .com's. I came to realize that one of those keywords were ones Rob Grant owns the .com version of. I knew when I got Rumcakes.co that Franky has the .com version. I just figured he would rather see my name on it than somebody he does not know. I have no idea how many others fall into this category. But when I got Rumcake.co, somebody else has the .com.

At the same time I do not have the .CO version of my highest profile keyword .COM domains. I hope they are in friendly hands.;-)

So I am very interested in how all this plays out and like I said, I have yet to see a .CO challenge that has failed. Have you? It's hard to defend on one hand but it is the nature of what we do on the other. I am torn sometimes and so I decided to come out and share these thoughts.

What we learn in the next weeks will have a huge implication on all other extensions whether they/we like it or not. It does not matter if you are pro .CO or against .CO, there will be much to learn and watch for and those that don't think so are missing a HUGE opportunity to gather new data, new information and watch human nature. Has nothing to do with .CO has everything to do with reactions and other things that are not even visible yet. The one thing that may be different is that I don't see the trademark conflict as that big a problem on the other extensions.....but who knows. ICANN has one agenda and reality may just throw them and everyone else a curve ball.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Besides basic math, reading and writing, Algebra I would say is the most important and useful subject I ever learned in school. I use it everyday in almost every situation. It's my compass in life. To understand this post, you must read the comments on my last post. This is my dissecting things a little further. First let me be on record saying there are only a handful of 3d domains that will have any value and tens of thousands registered. So that's my take on the 3d fad. Just using that as an example because it works well to illustrate an equation.

Now that folks see a 'STARTING EQUATION' (3dville.com vs3d.co) change the variables to find different results. At the end of the day there are only a FEW variables that you can fill into the .CO side and still make your argument. Then you get to 'Pigeon Shit'. The domains that will never work. Point is, IF you even want a chance of winning, you best START with PRIME. When I see a domain that would have no value with a .com on the end then chances are it is even worse with another extension. Excluding natural combination's. Yes, 3D.TV is a winner. It's natural. It's natural to say and remember. But that equation won't work for everything.
Equations and variables. That's what it is all about. As a captain of a ship, your #1 job is to have as few leaks as possible. If you leak 25% of your efforts to somebody else you make them rich and maybe a competitor. Your advertising costs 25% more for the leak and you grow your own competition. Sorry, that is NEVER a smart equation no matter what business you are in.
As I have said, .co has an opportunity. It won't be up to me. It won't be up to Juan. It won't be up to you. It won't be up to anyone but the consumer. THEY hold the key. THEY will determine it. And if the best opportunity goes down in flames, you will see the other extensions with an even worse fate.

Dot com worked because there was natural type in traffic in great mass and it has trillions of dollars in advertising worldwide behind it. Not even to mention that you hear, see, and read it all day long and we are brainwashed.

Any new extension or domain will work IF you give them something UNIQUE that they want. So the value for sake of value is a Tulip Festival. Domains traded inside a small community and the greater world could care less. Everyone looking for the second coming of a unique opportunity in time.
We have a rendezvous with destiny and in that rendezvous we will travel away from the dot com home base. But will anyone else? Will they travel or come back to the home base?
Content and a number of huge successes will be the thing that could ignite a new extension. But without that, just go look at a map of all the plants and stars in the galaxy. They are just there. I have never been a content guy, but that is the key to a new extension and it better be superior to anything else.
And if you think I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, you are right! But that is what an equation is. Variables that add weight to one argument or another and not be afriad to change the variables and get a differnt conclusion. But reality trumps all.
At the end of the day, eyeballs are what counts. Advertising is what counts. Word of mouth is what counts. Branding with a PROFIT counts.
We all get to see an experiment. That is what we will witness. A great test. A grand multimillion dollar experiment. That is exciting! And it will play out in front of the world and if the canary lives, the world will know and if the canary dies, the world will know and if nobody cares, then that will be the result.
With each experiment, the equation and the variables change just a tiny bit. Your job is to keep score and don't fool yourself no matter how it turns out.

Tomorrow I will connect this 'Equation' with the 'Marketing Nerve' and you will see how to map an experiment mentally. Map on a grid.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

A fork in the road and a decision to make.

Sometimes a simple question or equation can dig deeper than you might think. But let’s say you decided to build out a 3d two word domain or 3d.co. Which would you stake your $$$ on? Let’s say 3dville.com or 3d.co?

Should be interesting.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

First you got to stop laughing. Second they are already doing that as you will see below. Third, it is still funny.

Sometimes the best way to look forward into the future is to look to the past. Compare something with the past. See if there is a parallel or a conflict. Then do a test.

So did you ever sit and think what our Library would look like if Google was in charge of indexing? That just made me laugh. Out loud. How about you? I would probably get the same 10 books keep popping up all over the place. Therefore, some results would be useless. Most results would be tainted. Most results would be filtered by their definition not mine.

What if there were a new Dewey Decimal System re-invented for the Internet that would eliminate the need for search? A systematic way to look things up that will self index? The way you search would change. The Zuckerberg Social System for example. Don't search for it, I just made it up.

'It’s hard to sustain a company when all of your customers hate you.' That was what many a website owner has told me over the years when it comes to Google and now with more frequency. Just Saturday by my own brother. Friday, a buyer of traffic from New York. The first alternative that comes and they will be gone. Now this is not likely for some time, but don't underestimate just how quickly things are moving. New Gorillas are coming into the room. Big ones. Bigger ones. Will Facebook and Apple hook up? Somebody else come along? Always consider the unexpected. The refined. The new. The better mousetrap.

Just fun questions to ask and speculate on. You make money by seeing something that has yet to happen and then act on it. There are battle lines being drawn everywhere and every sector and at every level. I have always believed that the greatest race in history would be the Internet Race. It really took many years longer than I expected to ramp up. But make no mistake folks, we are ramped up now and everyone is in the game like never before. This is just so damn exciting!

It still has to filter down to Main St. Most store owners are dependent on IT guys to do their marketing and that is like a scuba diver being your sky diving instructor. It rarely works out well. Only problem is the guy on Main Street that built their businesses from scratch have outsourced their futures in a dangerous way. Some will survive. Others won't. The ones that do get it, will thrive. So shakeout is coming to every sector and many of these guys will just hang it up. If you know a retailer, send this to them. They need to read it.They need to take 120 seconds and stop and listen.

So if you want to see the future, just look to the past. The answers are always there. Just in a different form in a different disguise. Figure it out and you make $$$$. I still love that line in The Social Network by Larry Sommers.....'Inventing a job is better than getting a job.' So if you are working for somebody else.....pay attention. You can invent your job and the security that comes with it while still at your regular job. One great idea is as powerful as you make it. Nothing can stop a great idea. Things are changing so rapidly that each WEEK you need to reassess the landscape. Things are at warp speed and there is $$$ in the air. Your job is to construct a net and grab your share!

And while doing a Google serach on this subject to make sure I did not look too stupid, Google is of course already trying. Let the best most efficient system win.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning folks!!

Things are moving so fast now it is hard to keep up. Harder to even define. Unintended consequences are on the horizon. Pitfalls and pots of gold.

The key thing to watch in 2011 is how Social Networking manifests itself. I think this is the biggest, most massive and fastest change in human behavior and habits in my lifetime. A new normal is coming but it is still in formation. Battle lines are developing. How much is too much? What expense will it ultimately take? There are many unanswered questions and too early to even think of where it will all sort out. There is good and bad and each are vivid. That is why this will become such an issue.

In a story this weekend one of the headlines was 'Twitter and Facebook don't connect people – they isolate them from reality, say a rising number of academics.' So we are about to see a new social war to breakout. Defend or define, just more money that some can get their hands on.

And did I mention that Social Media may actually backfire on businesses? They best be careful. It can grow their business if used right or destroy it if they make some bad moves. Stay tuned. This is only the first chapter of a story that will take many months or years to play out.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

There’s a problem on the way to the wedding of new extensions and reality of profit making business. Branding costs a lot of money. Branding a new extension is harder than branding your product or company. It is a monumental undertaking.

I purposely did not read Sahar’s blog post on the subject until after I wrote this just to see how we each came at it. He has much more facts supporting his position but we are not so far apart at all.

O.com I mean O.co or Overstock.com has done one thing so far, caused confusion and they are likely pissing away a lot of money by not owning O.com which of course is associated with Oprah not Overstock. And right now neither of them has it. It does not resolve.

My point is this is a test. This is a canary in the mines. I don’t know which way it will go. But I do have a hunch it will be more difficult than they expect with a lot of blow back. So far, the winner on this one is the ad exec putting this grand experiment together. There will be a lot to learn here. Some you may want to copy and some you may want to avoid.

Is confusing your customer a good thing? I guess we will find out. The unknown is how many folks will go to O.com to find nothing and then just say what a bunch of idiots never to return. A real risk.

Now on to the other new extensions. They include .xxx , .me, .food and likely hundreds if not thousands of others. This is going to be fun. New ways to print old money. But knowing what we know now is the best way to exploit all the new extensions be investing in them or in an other capacity?

An extension could easily smother themselves with a wrong move. Could lose time thinking their premiums will go up. Probably won’t happen with .mobi. Timing IS everything.

You can’t play the new phase exactly like the past phase and expect to do well. It requires a fresh set of eyes and a fresh look. Forget what you know. Examine it like you never knew what a domain was. You just know what you know. Would you do it the same? Could you do it the same?

.travel has not exactly done well. Why would folks expect other extensions to do all that much better? Last count there were 28 choices of extensions at Direcnic.com. How many do you think the average guy on the street even knows about?? Hey I don’t have the answer. I just have the questions. .travel made some fatal mistakes early on and never recovered. Other have dome even worse.

.co made all the right moves early on and they have a shot. The best shot. But still nothing more than a canary in the mines. We'll know more in a few weeks after the Superbowl. That will determine many things that will happen this year. This is a grand experiment. We’ll see. I will pay attention to that more than anything else in the first 6 weeks of the year. And it may end up meaningless. Just confusion and if that is the grand plan, bring it on, they will always default to what they know. What is familiar. .Com will still rule except the value will be much more as many learn the lessons the hard way. Some will learn and move on and some will die in their tracks with little fanfare.

Will it cause confusion? It would have to do well to even get to the state of confusion. In my eyes, still a long shot. UDRP cases have not been kind to .co. So any .co that has a successful .com counterpart and you can expect to be challenged on that domain name. And be prepared to lose.

Been there, done that. Got the T-Shirt. Enjoy the parade. Participate in it if you like. There are still fortunes to be made in failure. Just make sure it is the others guys failure and not your own and you will do well. A failure here and you can expect the value of .com to rise once again along with skepticism with any and all other new extensions.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz