Thank You! Now my Strategy to END Reverse Domain Name Hijacking in ONE Year!

Morning Folks!!

There are MILLIONS, no scratch that TENS of MILLIONS. No scratch that. HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of people worldwide that own a domain name. That's a lot of people sharing something in common. I believe that Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is a newsworthy item that has yet to really make big news. My goal with HallofShame.com is to take a common and universal mainstream saying that cuts thru all business and industry and sport and everything else is the perfect intersection to put out a "Distress Sign".

To change how things are first you need awareness. That happens by circulating what it is you want people to be aware of. How you circulate is key. Grassroots is the least expensive way to get something noticed at first. Like minded people who want a similar outcome band together and do what they can. Yesterday you did that when I posted this plea. Nearly 100 f you "Tweeted" and 25 of you "Liked" the site as I write this. That is a HUGE step in circulating our story and maybe theirs as well.

HallofShame.com is at an International Intersection. It just has to be noticed by one news outlet, reporter or VICTIM and this will go into the second stage orbit. I love taking an embryo like this to market and have it shake some bushes and rattle some cages. They can try to blame me but they better look to those internal folks that made the stupid decision of allowing me to do what I do best. BRAND! These companies are BRANDED! My job, our job is to circulate and move the needle.

So thank you for helping me to do something proactive and begin the process of planting seeds each and every day until one day there is a tree and another and another and another. If you get a cease and desist or you get served with a WIPO or NAF suit and you KNOW you are not infringing on any trademarks, just point them to HallofShame.com and let them think about what they are doing. Let them think long and hard. Let them reconsider.

Lastly, the subject of fines. I am NOT in favor of a mere fine! What is $100k penalty when you are trying to steal a million dollar domain? Come on! I am fighting for a CRIMINAL penalty. That's what you do with thieves whether successful at stealing or not. A fine won't stop this, SHAME or imprisonment will. So NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in a fine. NONE! Fine and imprisonment? Ok, I am on board with that. But until then, we will SHAME these folks and let it be a warning to others that WE as an industry OWN THEIR REPUTATIONS.

My goal, let these companies get interviewed by media and ask them why they did this and if they would like to join me in discouraging this type behavior in the future. Maybe share the lessons they have learned as a warning to others. Maybe even reimburse the domain owner for their legal expenses.

Bottom line, I will PROVE that SHAME trumps dollars. I will prove that my way of ending Reverse Domain Name Hijacking will be MOST effective and IMMEDIATE. I think especially attorneys need to be aware that they are aiding and abetting thieves and NOW they are doing it KNOWINGLY. There is no longer an excuse.

And as I said, everyone with even 1 domain name, especially one domain name, can sympathize with our position. They can put themselves in our shoes and get just as angry. And when they do get angry, they will take their anger out on those they do business with that were engaged in this disgusting act of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking!

My mission will be COMPLETE by this time next year or sooner. But even if it takes years, I will be right here! So you can help or not, but don't you DARE sit on the sidelines and criticize this effort unless YOU are willing to do something bigger, better, and do it right now! Naysayers are people who bring NOTHING to the table and have no place in my orbit and should have no place in yours either. We have a MISSION to accomplish and we WILL.

Rick Schwartz

Update: Live Auction Submissions

Evening Folks!!

I am finished with the selection of domains for the live auction. Many great domains submitted and even tho I may have not selected your domain does not mean it was not a good domain. My selection was based on what was on the market right now. And I think you will like what you see.

Howard will be sending out the contracts next week. Please return them promptly. We can't start publishing and promoting until we get the signed contracts back. With that in mind we would like to publish the initial list no later than Monday the 16th. We may publish a little teaser list before then. So if you want your domains to be out there, help us with the process.

Thanks and I think the bidding will be quite intense!

Rick Schwartz

A LIVE Lesson in Picking a Domain Name.

Afternoon Folks!!

Ocean, River, Lake, Pond, Puddle. Pick which one you want to aim for.

Hint: There is Pigeon Shit in the puddle. So pay attention if you want to avoid. One extra word can be the difference between a 6 figure domain and a worthless domain. I see it all day long.

So verbs and adjectives LIMIT your audience but at the same time TARGETS your audience. Target too much, you have a puddle or maybe just a dried up hole. Here is the recipe for the happy medium.

So here is a real world example of targeting and limiting.

HallofShame.com is universal.

It may not be the ocean of Shame.com for example, but it is a universal domain that is targeted and you know you are going to see some bad behavior when you get there. And in time can become subdomains to include different subjects, industries and companies etc.

What I did not do is use DomainHallofShame.com which would have been much more targeted, but much more limited when we are trying to hit a wider audience. Plus, I already have that ability. Add one more word and you are at worthess.

In each case you must decide who you are aiming for. In this case I am trying to vault over the walls of a POND that would be DomainHallofShame.com. What I am trying to do is jump into the RIVER because the River goes places. It has greater circulation than a pond. It travels. Sometimes you only want to be in that pond. And that is fine. KNOW THE DIFFERENCE! Many do not.

In my case the River may be better than the ocean. That is what targeting is about but you must have a target audience and they don't go to puddles and dried up holes. I could have also had DomainNameHallofShame.com or Domainnameshallofshame.com. Each one gets increasingly further away, harder to remember, less traffic and so on. On the other hand owning those combos can't hurt if you have a business. But that is the extent of it and the value is severely limited.

This is a 3 word domain that just happens to work because it means something. It is a known phrase. It has already been advertised and sold to the public before I ever entered the picture. Something most domains and most new gTLD's won't have the luxury of.

Now I have a running start and all I have to do is BRAND. Yes Brand. Not selling. I have nothing to sell. I have something to brand. Something the startup guys need to learn the difference about. If THEY are busy branding they are busy going out of business because they CAN'T sell. If they COULD sell, they would be busy selling because that way they make money and grow. Branding means you got  a bag of shit and the only way you can make it is trying to be cool. Good luck with that.

Point is, if you approach it from left field you may end up in left field. These are the basic building blocks I and most other successful domainers use and you can reject at your own peril. Most do. I can only put it out there.

AdjectiveKEYWORD.com

VerbKEYWORD.com

NounKEYWORD.com

DescribeKEYWORD.com

LetterKeyword.com (i or e)

NameKeyword.com

LocationKeyword.com

That is the foundation I use.

Rick Schwartz

 

I Seldom Ask for Favors, But I need a Favor Today!

Morning Folks!!

I have often talked about harnessing the power we as domain investors have. Another inadequate result for me. You too. Harnessing our power to try to do just one big thing. It's what my 18 wheeler story is based on. So let's try an experiment. It costs nothing and I can envision a big dividend. It's an insurance policy and today and together I can give us all free insurance policy against current and future Reverse Domain Name Hijackers.

Now some of you are already moaning and I have not even asked the favor that is in YOUR best interest. It's a simple one. Go to HallofShame.com and Tweet the website. Like it. Circulate it. If you want to make a difference. If you want some insurance. If you want to HELP ME do something proactive to help YOU, then simply do me that small favor. Please.

I never talk about the cost to defend a domain name from a predator. It's part of the cost of doing business. I have been fighting since 1999. BIG companies. Campbell's, Lilly Industries and even bigger. In the 1990's I had so many cease and desist letters that I registered ceaseanddesist.com. I still have the letters. I met this guy named Howard Neu. I liked him right away. Instead of scaring me with this and that, he told me to toss them in the garbage and let him know if I ever heard from them again. 99% never. The 1%, we fought, mostly won and have taken the battle to even the biggest like P&G and now Jaguar/Landrover.

Folks always ask what they can do to help. Well today you really can help. Just help me get to 100 tweets on HallofShame.com, 50 folks can certainly like it, etc. That's it. That's all I ask to show what we can do when we actually harness the power we have. If you don't care, why would anyone else? Laws don't get passed by the tooth fairy. It happens with simple grassroot efforts like this. Ya never know who might ally with us.

Michael Cyger asked me on his show this week why not just point to RDNH.com. I said it is a great resource but it is a little too inside for me with initials where HallofShame.com is very mainstream and I am hoping will catch the eye of whoever in the future and then you will understand why I need your help. I am hoping that the passion I have comes thru and shines a bright light on this practice. So help me do this. Please.

While Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is a scourge that must and will end, I still relish each win. It tastes good! It feels good! It shows that no company is beyond being labeled for LIFE a Reverse Domain Name Hijacker. It helps to show others see our point of being abused and it validates what we do. The risk we take. The INVESTORS we are and the game of Capitalism we play and play well. No GIANT is too big to go down against the smallest of us.

So I ask you to help me move this one 18 wheeler over the crest of the hill and you can make a difference. Besides. It's in your self-interest. And you will see what SEO is all about because I will do nothing proactive search wise and because of RELEVANCE HallofShame.com will be on the first page in the weeks ahead. PURE SEO. Matched content not designed to fool but designed to be what it is. RELEVANT.

Why do this? AWARENESS is the result of circulation and that is the road to protecting all of us. Grab a shovel or hit the road! YOU can make a difference.

HallofShame.com

 

A World of False Information and Flawed Assumptions Equals BAD DECISIONS!

Morning Folks!!

Do you make decisions based on false information?

See, false information most likely will lead you to a false assumption. So getting the info right is critical to making a good decision. But since folks are sometimes lazy, we believe the first thing we read and that sets in like concrete. Then FACTS are ignored because the concrete in the mind has hardened. Loosen up!

This is just another point or flaw of Human Nature. Our job is to fight human nature every step of the way because more often than not Human Nature is the trap door of life that screws everything else up. Reserve judgement until the facts are in and when new facts are presented, don't remain ignorant. Factor in the new info and see if the outcome changes things. If you don't do that.......how eactly can you make a good decision? You can't.

Now if there are no facts yet you base things more and more on assumptions. But each tidbit of info has to be factual for you to arrive at your intended destination even in an assumption. Your job is to check things off as they materialize and be nimble enough to change if the factual info points the wrong way. The more factual based info you have at hand the stronger your course is and the better chance you will get where you actually desire to go.

Look, since we can't live longer , we can certainly fight against wasting time. We can be our own efficiency expert.

Maybe making money in life has less to do with making money and more to do with setting it up efficiently and figuring a way to self sustain itself.  Maybe that's why many of us ended up in domaining to begin with.

Rick Schwartz

T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Auction is going to SIZZLE! GREAT Names! Sizzling Reserves!

Afternoon Folks!!

It has just been 24 hours since I opened up submissions to the TRAFFIC Auction and the list we are putting together is sizzling! I think you will see a big difference as quality is way up.

Great domains at great prices and I think once published is the best list we have had in years. I have already selected 50 of the 75 for the live auction and a number for the silent as well. Some of those domains are very nice. It has been a pleasure looking thru some really nice portfolios as opposed to other years where my eyes were bleeding at this point.

So great job guys. Nice domains, attractive domainer prices and that will produce multiple bidders and that is what an auction is all about.

I expect to close submissions tonight or early tomorrow. So consider this the LAST CALL!

Rick Schwartz

 

DomainSherpa5 Coming to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and other Tidbits

Morning Folks!!

After the great reception we had at last weeks inaugural show (which of course we did not know at the time) I asked Michael Cyger if he would like to do the show LIVE at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.? He immediately agreed. It was a no brainer and it was inspired by Joao that made the following comment.

"For people that still think Traffic is expensive, this is just a sample (and i really mean SAMPLE) of what happens at Traffic. It was the best thing i have ever done in my entire domaining life and believe me, for a portuguese guy it is not cheap at all to go there, but it is also priceless…so GO!"

And of course that is just one dimension of what we do at TRAFFIC. The formula is not based around the seminars even tho they are priceless and have the top domainers in the world on stage similar to what you saw on the show. We mix it up with different folks and different subjects and get a lot of points of view. QUALIFIED points of view. But just as important if not more is that the shows are based on breaking bread together and having One on One time as well as many different Group Times. We wrap that up with receptions, parties and Networking events and package it in a Ritz-Carlton smack dab on the Atlantic. But breaking bread together in different type settings is the glue that makes TRAFFIC the show it is.

Signups are far outpacing last years show and for the first time in YEARS, we expect a full sellout to the point we may have to stop selling tickets a week before the show starts. Our capacity is about 385 and the reason we are moving to a larger venue next year.

Further evidence that things are rebounding. It is a very aggressive atmosphere out there right now and this is a very serious business season. Very serious. Folks like JC Penny are fighting for survival. If they don't turn it around or get acquired, we could see one of the largest store closings in American History at some point.

But I got a bit off course. Today's show was just posted here. Hope you enjoy it. We enjoyed doing it!

Rick Schwartz

Posted on | Comment (1)

All New HallofShame.com Version 2

Morning Folks!!

I stated that the site I had put online for HallofShame.com was ugly but would serve the purpose.

Within a few hours I had several offers to revamp and one guy even sent me a whole new site cuz he needed to "practice".

Nice upgrade!!

http://www.hallofshame.com

Rick Schwartz

Blog Post Duo. Photographer and a Domain King

Evening Folks!!

So as I often do when I meet a business owner, they ask what I do and I say "I making my living on the Internet" and that usually starts things rolling. And that was the case last week when I went in for my new photo as I explained the shot was for my blog to Michael Lloyd. I found out he too had a blog and before the photo shoot even began we had agreed on each making a blog post and linking to each other.

And so it is. You will see he got one thing a little off with owning the .com and the .net but as an end-user and a 5 minute conversation got the gist of it. You must own the .com if you don't want to leak traffic to somebody else. He gets it and many domainers still don't.

His domain is simple. 2 words. .com. No pitfalls. Radio friendly, easy to remember and probably has no need for anything else EVER!

His job is to include it everywhere on everything he does and prints and send and gives and all the rest. Normally I would tell him to get extra domain names for traffic. But photo and wedding domains were some of the first to be used and they are hard to find. But he could get specific and add BocaRaton or Florida or SouthFlorida to a keyword he may be associated with. Of course without even looking it up I am sure BocaRatonWeddings.com is gone.But there could be a variable that can be plugged in and could get lucky or find one parked and make an offer.

As a domainer you may laugh at 1, 2 or 3 visitors a day to a domain. As an end-user, 1, 2, 3 more customers a day can transform a business.

I get off on this because it was not long ago I would walk down the street and not a single business was online or had a website. Today there is not a one without a website. It did not happen overnight but in historical terms it happened faster than anything this big that I can ever remember.

The dark side photo was something I was not sure I was going to do when I walked in. I brought the shirt and glasses for it but I decided I would wait and see how they were on the regular shot. I wasn't even sure it was a good idea. But I decided to tell them what I had in mind and they started getting excited about it and  then their creativity started coming thru and the rest is history.

So Donna, ladies, great idea and I love great ideas and follow thru on them and that is what makes the world go round.

Michael, nice to meet you and I am sure we will see each other again soon! Happy Blogging!

Rick Schwartz

 

 

Attention Spoiled Generation of Whiners….(me included)

Afternoon Folks!!

Or should I say whiney little brats?

So spoiled. So unappreciative of how if could have been had you been around for the real gold rush.

Even tho I would argue there has been more money in our gold rush. No pics, no shovels no mules.

I posted about the gold rush the other day and my experience 100 years later. I hope folks were able to enlarge the blurb that went with the commemorative coin. I enlarged it below so you can read the 82 words, digest and APPRECIATE them! It's really important to understand and put things in context. This is US!

goldrush

We are them in bathrobes and slippers.  Coffee? Danish? Is the A/C too cold? The heat too warm? The shower water not strong enough? The Jacuzzi not big enough?

Take a deep breath. If  you are reading this, then WE have it pretty damn good! So whether you got in domaining in 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006 or even 2013, you have a parallel and this is oh so much easier. Whether you invest or flip or develop, there is gold in them thar hills and it is still virtually untapped. You can come in the business TODAY and make your fortune. You only need to know one thing. What the gold looks like, tastes like, feels like and is and what fools gold looks like, tastes like, feels like and is.

Rick Schwartz