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

Morning Folks!!

After selling Candy.com just 18 months ago for $3 Million and other considerations, I got my first Royalty Check a few weeks ago. As Jackie Gleason used to say…..”How Sweet it is!”

But that is not the story today. Today I am just making sure that I am first to post the headline about the sale of Candy.com that will eventually happen and it will be for hundreds of millions of dollars. I believe $300 Million will be the eventual sales price as Candy.com has been transformed from a parked page to a world class business doing millions of dollars in online transactions and poised to do tens of millions and beyond as they continue to do a great job of marketing and growing their company in a 21^st century way using 20^th century basics. The only question I see is WHEN will it cross the $300 Million threshold?

Before you think my price is out of line, let me take a moment to say that by all standard accounting numbers, the value has already gone from $3M to in excess of $50M in the first 18 months. When you factor in growth over the next decade, Candy.com will be $500 Million and more. That is why I believe that it will sell for $300M and it may be sooner than even I think. 2011? Doubtful. 2012? It will be at the 9 figure mark. 2013? They'll be taking a good sniff. 2014? BINGO!! The only snag in that is in 2014 when it will be mathematically be worth $300 million, they would be crazy to sell it at that point because the trajectory would be much greater than anything one can even fathom right now.

Now I am not without motive. If and when Candy.com sells again, I get a “Kings Ransom”. So why not try and get the ball rolling? If asked I would tell Greg and Joe that $300 Million would be the price to take if you were going to sell today. But sales are a moving target. Every day of growth by Candy.com, every day of dominance, every day of getting new customers, is a day that the value and importance just increases. They also become harder and harder to compete with. But sshhhhhh…..don’t tell their competition that they are about to eat their lunch. Let’s just keep it between us girls. The accountants will tell them soon enough.

Why? Because it is Candy.com, the domain, is only a little of the story. When I look back at the deal we made, I saw the perfect image of what I was looking for all these years. Knowledge, passion, smarts, energy. All that back up by a company in business for many decades. And it is exactly that when MATCHED with a great domain name that truly makes the difference. It has to be next to perfect. Al things aligned for it to work. This one in in align and it is just so much fun to watch and be part of.

Candy.com with a Thanksgiving Day Float? Candy.com with new divisions? Candy.com with retail outlets? Passion does BIG things.

So if the domain sells in 2014 for example, $300 Million would be the number. As time goes on that price will approach $500 Million. Growth, dominance and a category leader domain before you even peel back the business plan. Candy.com will show the world what is possible selling PENNY candies and doing it worldwide and in bulk. Wholesale, retail, gifting, this will do nothing but expand and when it does it will demonstrate the true power of a domain name when married to a great business run by energetic and determined individuals. Nothing will be able to illustrate nor magnify what I have been saying all these years better than following this sale. To me the ONLY variable is WHEN it happens. Generally it happens when you become a thorn in the side of a giant or you see a company in an allied field that would like to expand and want to do it before it becomes out of reach. Out of reach varies with different people. That's why sales like this will happen sooner rather than later.

Now I have not run this by the guys at Candy.com and I hope they don’t fall off their seat when they read this, but fellas, $300 million should at least get you to the table.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

The Cabana Party Will Start on Friday October 14^th

It will continue ALL –DAY Saturday October 15^th and on until 6PM Sunday the 16^th when TRAFFIC 2011 holds it’s legendary opening night party.

We have been hard at work since October. We have negotiated contracts for 2011, 2012 and 2013 and are excited about what is in store for you.

What I can announce today is that the 2011 show will NOT be at the Loew’s. We have upgraded! Reserved the entire hotel including all cabanas and will be releasing the details on New Year’s Eve!!

Sponsor Kits will be available next Monday January 3rd. Registration will be opening in mid-late January with our Early Bird Discounts.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I am seeing something historic starting to develop. The day after Christmas is a mammoth of a retail day. But it was a Sunday and may not have been like normal. Then factor in the biggest blizzard to hit the Northeast since the Internet has really become what it is. A snowstorm that has parlayed the south all the way to Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. Europe still getting back to normal. Freezing temperatures reaching deep into Florida making the millions here for the beaches go do something else. Schools throughout the world closed for the holidays and many BILLIONS just taking the week off.

I am looking at the early numbers today and I am starting to see something HISTORIC developing. I may be wrong. But I am on the hunt and if it happens I may be the first to see it. The first to report on it and you folks the first to understand it. How incredible it would be to have it happen on this special anniversary for me.

Stay tuned and let us know what YOUR numbers look like today.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!

It took them 24 hours to send me the invoice for the very first domain I registered. Actually the ISP registered. It was nearly 6 months later before I actually registered my own domain directly via Network Solutions. Who would have known that one little decision like that would be so life changing? You never know in what form the next great success looks like until you look back. When you do look back, it teaches you that when you look into the future, the small things are really the big things.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Record created on 12-27-1995

Registrant:
New Century Investments
C/O Cozier and Associates
Primrose Building Ramsbury Rd
Charlestown, BWI ---
KN
561-206-2201
Fax:561-910-0018
Domain Name: LIPSERVICE.COM
Administrative Contact:
Schwartz, Rick domainking@gmail.com
C/O Cozier and Associates
Primrose Building Ramsbury Rd
Charlestown, BWI ---
KN
561-206-2201
Fax:561-910-0018
Technical Contact:
Schwartz, Rick domainking@gmail.com
C/O Cozier and Associates
Primrose Building Ramsbury Rd
Charlestown, BWI ---
KN
561-206-2201
Fax:561-910-0018
Record last updated 10-13-2010 02:49:54 PM
Record expires on 11-30-2020
Record created on 12-27-1995

Morning Folks!!

My friend has been watching the following video over and over and keeps laughing so hard he can't stop. The commercial was banned for good reason. But it is still funny even if not politically correct.

Enjoy!

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Good Morning Folks!

In 1996, which was my first online Christmas, traffic from a normal day was down 90%. In 1997 it was down 85%. But a sizeable increase. Eventually it got to where Christmas Day and Christmas Eve would combine to average about 50% off. So you would basically lose one full day of traffic.

Last year was much better. Traffic last Christmas was down somewhere in the 15%-20% range. Here we are in 2010 and while the numbers may be a little soft, they are hardly noticeable. Which sets up the future where Christmas Day could actually be a new positive. This year Christmas Eve was just off 5%. The lowest margin ever off normal traffic. At one time travel meant you could not be online. Today, travel may mean just the opposite.

Christmas day itself was off about 8% from normal. Quite a difference over the years and we may be just 1or 2 years away from actually seeing an increase in traffic on Christmas.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

What really amazes me.........

When I look back at those 15 years I think the one that really impresses me the most is that I saw something before there was something.

There were no Domain Forums. Matter of fact, there were very few forums. Nothing like the forums of today.

There was no Google.

There was no PPC

There were no ebooks

There were no blogs

There were no Domain Trade Shows

There were no domainers

There was nobody else to talk with or compare notes.

There were no commercials

There were barely any websites of importance at all.

It was a desert!

It was barren

It was lonely

Less than 10% of businesses had an Internet connection

Less than 5% of homes had an Internet connection

It was a huge risk on something that was new, had little traction and basically went to a bunch of dead ends.

The domains were $100 each and there was but one registrar who was completely incompetent.

Network Solutions was probably the worst run company any human being had ever seen. I can’t tell you how many different domains I had to register 3x to actually get the domain. The 9 month lag in sending the invoice to get paid was my “seed money” to get into business. So while this was the worst run company I have ever seen, it also took them 9 MONTHS to send out the invoices to actually get paid. That financed my entire endeavor.

I never saw a company FORGET to put in a cash register for the product they were selling. Network Solutions was the first in History I think. I believe.

Now I don’t want to turn this into a “Knock Network Solutions Post” because they have improved so much over the years. But try to get your head around the following example.

NSI had a monopoly on every domain registration. They had 100% market share. Very few companies ever had such a deal like they did. 100% of the marketplace and selling a product for $100 with no real cost basis other than the service aspect. From there they got their lunch eaten over the next 10 years. Godaddy comes to town with a funny name and then knocks NSI off the throne before NSI could throw a single punch back.

So who is responsible for this calamity? I don’t care either way, but what a stunning story.

Whoever is reading this all I can say is that even if this is your first day in the world of domains, there has never been a better opportunity that was available to more people than this. Never in the history of mankind. 99% may choose not to believe that. That is unfortunate for them. And while I would have expected that 15 years ago and got more laughs than you folks will ever know, today we have 15 years of history and sales and accomplishments. Facts speak louder than every post all of us have ever made and I have waited 15 years to say that. The real game starts NOW. So nobody is too late. Take what you know and recalibrate.

The first thing to do when you recalibrate is to stop what you are doing, see where you are, List what you have accomplished, List your disappointments, consider the different directions and then modify whatever it is you are doing just enough to have a big impact.

Have a GREAT Day!
A Merry Christmas.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

How is your Bitch today? We’re going to talk about Ass, Whores and Sluts as well.

See, I never made the rules not did I make the regulations. But these are all adult terms that you will hear nearly every night and now day of the week on broadcast TV and led by NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox and approved by the FCC who sets the guide lines to begin with. (Or lack of a guide line depending on your view)

Now this is nothing new. They blew down the standards before I ever registered one of the dot com versions of each of those words. But you could not always say these terms on TV. Once you could, it gave me a license to own and promote those domain names. Look at the company I am in!! So if these words offend you, don't blame me. I did not set the standard. I just followed the guidelines set by the government. Either way, they are just words.

Interesting that Proctor and Gamble or any other company would have no problem advertising during the shows that routinely use these terms at any and every opportunity they get but does not carry over to the Internet. Double standard?

You could easily argue that the TV shows using those terms introduce it to youth faster than I could ever do that. They reach tens of millions every day of the week. Chances are many learned those terms from TV for the first time. So for that, I am very thankful to NBC, ABC, CBS. And FOX. If there is any shame in all this they would have to take the lions share.

Maybe media will get past it and actually take advantage of that audience. My audience, their audience, an audience that is growing up. Just at another venue they hang at. Are they sure passing judgment on the very folks they taught this stuff to is a good thing?

Today I did something I never did before. I used these words in a headline for 'Shock Value'. The same reason I believe media uses it. Hits a nerve.

They, along with the rest of the entertainment industry created this new “Gangsta” generation of Bitches, Sluts and Whores and worse…..the question is are they and their advertisers going to now abandon them in their adult life and online as they grow up or adjust to them and break down the barriers?

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I know it is not in vogue to talk about hand registrations as I know all the domains of value were scooped up years ago according to many. But while so many shun hand registrations, I managed to register 2840 so far in 2010. As I say many times, I register domains by hand nearly every day of my life. 2010 was the most ever.

Sure it is a different game than 1996. I can buy 8.5 domains now for the cost of just one domain back then. That would have been 334 domains back then. Even at $25 a pop for a .co is still only 25% of what it used to be.

So what is the difference? Well when I buy a domain it goes into storage first. I don’t go and try to sell domains I bought today. They have to be “processed”. Then studied. Then they have to be monitored. They have to ripen. They won’t have much value in 2010. But come back in 10 years.

You have to assume that every domain I ever hand registered had ZERO value or it would have already been scooped up at time of registration. Including the domains I registered today.

The only difference in the equation is patience and understanding how long it takes for something to manifest itself and evolve to a different state of being.

So I keep playing the “Domain Lottery” whether it is popular or not. I play it because it works for me. In these 2840 domains I only have to sell one to pay for all. One to pay for all for many years. In the meantime I BUY TIME. Time for the universe to evolve. Evolve in the direction of the domains I invested in.

2800 of those babies may expire or have no value because it was time related or become Pigeon Shit. But the 40 others, I expect they will rake in some $4 Million over the next decade and provide a nice return. I know many of you don’t like or agree with this approach. Ok. But it is tried and true and it works for me because I have patience and look at things with an eye that combines the evolution of business with the evolution of consumers and then factor in plain old evolution. Success breeds more successes and more folks looking for success.

I have just been betting that success in the future starts with a domain name. Been betting that way since December 26, 1995 and everything I see leads me to believe that it is now happening in a way that I once envisioned. An overnight success 15-20 years in the making. The scene in 'The Social Network' cemented that vision and memorialized it for the world to see.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I wrote this last week and posted it to my blog earlier this morning before the Time Person of the Year announcement. Normally I would not have made it public until next week when I hit my 15 year milestone doing this. But I think it needs to get posted now with the news so that it makes even more sense than it would have.

When I look back at 2010 I will look at it as the first year that the Internet started to really be defined. Not only defined, embraced. Not only embraced, but as predicted for years, the “Savior of Sales”.

2010 was the first year of the Internet because it was the first year that attitudes changed universally. ALL eyes are on the Internet. The future of all business pinned to the Internet. Everyone now online. Everyone. And not only online, but Facebook has put them in the game and right in the middle of the action.

2010 the year of Facebook. We saw it coming but who would have thunk?. But it truly manifested itself this year. Everyone is in or getting in or will soon be in. Things evolved this year more than any other in recent memory.

Have we witnessed another Hula Hoop moment? I think history will tell yea or nay. I vote yea. I also thank the economy for forcing things to break wide open. You have witnessed a truly epic year. 2010 sets up the next decade. Things are just beginning to rev up. This was the year that we left the starting line.

2010 was a tough year. But 2010 was a key year and I am here to tell you this is the turning point and the mile posts I have most looked forward to for all these years. It took these guys 16 years or more to get it right. They blew zillions of dollars! But now, they are in the game. On the trail. In the hunt.

Hallelujah that long lonely trail is about to get more crowded than anything you can imagine. The greatest ego stroke anyone will have in the next decade is a hughly recognizable domain name.

Facebook has ignited the masses in how they spend their time. Between 20 years and a decade ago the average person spent ZERO minutes online everyday. ZERO. Then reved it up to one a month. They weekly. Then daily.

Today, the average person spends hour after hour online. Multiply those minutes. WOW! Many are just starting to navigate their way around. It’s a new world and it started now. 2010.

It takes tough times to make good times. It forces folks to reach deep. What folks learn is when they reach deep, they will find a great success. And sometimes make fools of themselves as all the viral videos prove. This will be the year I remember everyone acting like a clown to bring attention to them and get into the game.

I have been doing these posts for a very long time. Since 1996 I have posted annually about what we accomplished and what was still left. The 'still left' column won by landslides and the 'accomplished side' was barely in the game. Like a see-saw. All weighted to what was still left to do and accomplished still sitting on the ground.

Let me be 1000% clear. 2010 was THE breakthrough year. This was the year that the momentum has finally shifted online in the way it was meant to do. The world is engaged and finally in the game. Those that are not, will be very soon consumed as well. A tidal wave of progress.

The shift has happened. 15 years ago today I registered that first domain. (Actually, my ISP registered it) That was me sticking my toe in the water to see what was going on. By that time 12 months later, I was all hyped up about something nobody around me knew nothing of. I was on a new planet and there was nobody. Barrne and deserted. Was this really the future?

I could see the evolution but would anyone else?? How many could I afford to get at $100 each? What would I do with them? How would I afford to keep these for years while others saw what I saw? All questions. No answers. Nobody to even ask. All that was there were techies and they did not speak the language of business. I could not look at it thru techie eyes. I look at it through the eyes of people. Consumers. Mom and pops and business folks. They saw code. They were geniuses and I was just a guy that stuck out because I was so clueless. We talked different languages and I got banned from the few places I found to try and discuss domains or the future of the Internet. Pretty damn lonely. My only link to any real life was when I looked up a domain name and the same guy or company would own it. Or Proctor and Gamble would own it or somebody that was a hell of a lot smarter than me. So there must be something.

So from that day to this day……I don’t even know how to put it into words. It is almost miraculous to watch something you think will happen actually happen and have it happen in a historical magnitude like this.

Facebook is the “Training Wheels” of the Internet. Facebook to the masses is like the Ynot board was to me and the adult biz in 1996 and 1997 and 1998. Transformitive by taking communications to another level. To take our productiveness to another level. Unemployment is high right now, but only because the transformation has yet to happen. It is in progress. Jobs in 2010 and 2020 won’t look like the jobs of 1910 and 1920. We won’t be going to a “Job” to put a screw in a hole and pass it down the assembly line to be productive. We will be collaborating with our minds not our hands.

So welcome to the most exciting 5 years of your lifetime. The last 5 years of a 20 year plan. The Home Stretch. My mile markers are all lined up for history to see. I knew they would look for that oceanfront land. My #1 job,get to the ocean, set up camp, an umbrella, be as comfortable as possible in the process and pull out 20 years of patience.

Mark it on your calendars. 2010 was the year that changed the game in a significant way. The $$$ are now earmarked toward the Internet. Their time is now earmarked for the Internet. Their energy is now earmarked for the Internet. This is the beginning. 15 years on the on-ramp. But we are now on the superhighway. Getting up to speed and ENJOY the next 5 years.

Take a deep breath. The game starts again now. No matter where you get on board, there are fortunes to be made online. NOW! The guy that gets online today, will do just fine it he has any plan at all and the discipline and patience to carry that plan out.

Congratulations for being part of the single biggest opportunity ever available to the common man in the history of mankind. That is not an exaggeration. That is a fact and you need to stop and get your heads around that one if you want to be one step ahead and not one step behind. The beauty of the Internet, is that even if you fall behind, you can still leap ahead.

So as I start my 16^th year the passion only grows. My single best advice. Go see “The Social Network” Watch it twice. Then re-access and recalibrate everything you thought you knew and apply it to where we are at and where things are going. Don’t look at it thru your eyes, think what the others in the audience are thinking. You can FEEL the energy.

We are witnessing the greatest shift in advertising dollars and investment in the history of the universe. The money is flying towards the Internet. The thing they tried to kill a decade ago is the only thing that can save them today and in the future. Media is tripping over themselves trying to make things go viral. Be relevant. Be social. Talk to their viewers on their level. Some are good at it, some look like fools. Most do. Desperate sometimes. Most times. It looks forced, it feels forced. But from this race the real one finally emerges. Right on schedule!!! That is the mind blower. As much as I have done everything in my power to accelerate things, the 20 year plan will still take 20 years. Except for one minor difference. I believed it would just be starting in 20 years. I did not think we would peak in 20 years. We are 5 years ahead and it took hundreds of companies and thousands of domain owners to get there. Going from the outer limits to the focal point of the new economy.

And around the turn they come…….The finish line now in sight.

Have a GREAT Day!
Have a FANTASTIC New Year’s
Have a Healthy and Happy Future