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

Morning Folks!!

We all use Google. We use their tools and we use their technology. But people live on Facebook and live on Twitter.  And they can  make a living on both. And of course not all social sharing is alike. The way I would describe a company like Facebook is a baby in diapers that is 9ft tall and weighs 450LBS and the world knows has the capability to do things and set records that nobody has set before.

On the other hand Twitter seems like a company all grown up but with many more questions and a direction more in doubt.

Personally, I think both are becoming more important than Google.

Let me talk about "Organic Search". Geez!!! People say "Google" as if it were the answer for everything. Like aspirin. "Organic" is another word for "Free". Stop trying to get free traffic from Google and pay for real traffic, targeted enough to sell a real product or service and when you make that work, buy more and more and more. It's nice to get a bonus from Google. And that is just what it is, a bonus. Be relevant, be topical, be what folks are looking for and they will find you. They will find you if you laid the ground work for them to find you. Spamming search engines won't do that and eventually you will pay the price. Don't damage your domain trying to fake out search engines.

So it is a lot of fun to watch all this evolve. Change. And at the same time see how hard it is to move the needle. How easy it is to find success when focused on the right things. This is the greatest medium ever invented. More business done on this "Super Highway" than all other business added together. If not a fact now, will be soon.

The 20 year mark is the start, not the end. We are now on "Final Approach". You can see the lights. I am sure most are not as excited as I am.  But I have a reason to be excited. As big and important as I anticipated the net would be in 1995 is not nearly as big as it already is. The thought of what this youngster called the Internet can be in the next few years is just about the sweetest thought I can have.

We know there is need, want and desire when it comes to the Internet and the things it can provide. There is a universal need. Simple. That need does not come all at once. It evolves. But the need is there the moment it is understood. The want at that time becomes obvious because that is the fuel for the need. Both equal desire. Now the "Desire" part is the single biggest variable in this equation. Need and want can easily hit 100%. But desire is much different. It is based on energy, and level of commitment and other emotions that will range from near zero to nearly breaking the needle and everything in between. Desire has to be ramped up and motivated by need and want.

Now folks can laugh or ignore or dismiss this silly thing I keep bringing up. But to me it is the foundation and the test of any item, thought, product or service. Can need and want be created? Yes. Sure it can. Want and Desire as well. And there is a path to get there. A path so many seem blind to. It's about identifying a void not manufacturing a void.

We all have the need and the want to make money because without it we can't feed or clothe ourselves. But the desire is the thing that determines what level we get to. No desire, then you become a couch potato. Lots of desire, then you become an over achiever. So that illustrates the variable of desire.

Does desire come without need and want? Do you buy things you don't need and want? I mean these are to me the simple building blocks of basic math that equals basic sales. And what happens to that need, want and desire when the outcome is not as expected? You think that goes up or goes down?

When I looked forward in 1995 there was an obvious need for every business to have a website. Once their competitor had one they too would want one. The true question would become how much time, money and energy would they invest? That was the level of desire. And as you have seen the desire part has gone up. The need and want go up as well, but they get there first and likely at 100% while desire will always lag behind. Desire is the true variable in this and so many other things in life.

And even after you get past need, want and desire, you still have to deal with the single biggest elephant in the room. That elephant is called "Circumstance". Another variable. Except this variable is private, It is usually hidden and held close to the vest. Or it is plainly exposed. But circumstance is the bus that encloses and trips all the others. Some have to change their circumstance just to get in the position to deal with need, want and desire.

And for those that are sick of hearing this and dismiss it, you will pay the price of ignorance. You have ignored the holy grail of marketing and sales. Not because I read it somewhere, but because that is my personal recipe. Decades in the making and not even talked about until I did it right here on my blog a few years ago.

When I look at a new product or service I look at it through that filter, that lens, that strainer, and then the only other variable is identifying the size and buying power of that very targeted audience. That gives me an answer and then I do one more thing. I test it out in the field and make COLD CALLS to see and gauge reaction. Before I present it and after I present it. I will do that 10 times and from there I know what I need to know. That is my test. It is designed to eliminate dead-ends before wasting time, money and energy going down that dead-end. My test is a dead-end test. All I am out to determine is one of two things. Nothing more, nothing less.

Viable or not viable and assigning a percentage based on the research I have personally done. Designed simply to identify and navigate around each and every pitfall. Just like a hiker may make preparations before a long and difficult hike, their success or failure comes more down to preparation than any other single factor. If the prep was 100%, the outcome has a much stronger chance of success than those that did not take it as seriously.

I talk about opportunity a lot because that is what this is all about. What I see in 2014 is the first time in many years that dollars are flying. Lots of huge acquisitions going on. Investment. Building is starting and real estate is rising faster than I can write this. All this and the new sensors that are coming to market that will change about everything we do, see or touch. The inventions that were coming are staggering. Life changing.  The next 20 years will be more about how we live with the things we already own and being able to program anything from anywhere. The control coming to your wrist, the palm of your hand and your face are going to change virtually everything in life.

I have a car that parks itself and now even drives itself. It knows when to speed up and when to brake. It gives you an alert if somebody is in your blind spot and beeps if you try to change lanes. I am scared I will just fall asleep!

You will talk to your refrigerator, your stove, your washing machine. And the minute these items come to market there will be an instant need, want and desire. INSTANT!!

The iPhone and iPad were easy ones to identify even for the novice. You know why? They were lined up around the block in cities all over the world. That my friends is what Need, Want and Desire really look like. It all gets tamped down from there.

What is your need, want and desire today? The #1 answer is usually money. We need money. We all need money. It's pretty universal. Then the next question is how? Then you still have to determine value and that is something done not just by you. Others decide value. The market decides and the market is not kind and gives nobody a pass.

Here is mine for today.

You may or may not have noticed the new "Social Sharing Tower on the right of the screen on the home page. The plugins that I had been using kinda crashed and burned. So Danny Pryor helped me to fix this problem over the weekend and if you like what you read here, share. If you don't like what you read here, share. :-) Help me catch up!!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

The chart below was written about by DomainIncite. These are for September registrations of current gTLD's. So let's compare. But just at first glance .com at 475,000 had 3x as many registrations as all the 17 others combined. Damn numbers!

.Com 475,000 for September were more than the combined TOTAL registrations for  .Post, .Museum, .coop, .aero, .travel, .jobs, .cat, .xxx, .Pro,  and about 20% of .Tel. When we only had 18 horses in the race.

Now as far as just registrations and numbers and no noise.  .Biz is emerging as the alternative. They were second only to .com. No wonder you hear so much trash talk about .biz lately. Another THREAT to gTLD rollouts. A bigger threat than .com to THEM.

.mobi beat out .org for the number four slot. With .Mobile coming out, could give new life to .mobi. But still not anywhere for a domain investor to piss away their dollars on. Why bet on a losing horse?? And it seems I can list a lot of losers. A lot of losers that are better than what is coming.

Numbers don't have emotions. They contain facts and they contain secrets. visible secrets for anyone with the courage and guts to look.

.Museum, .Tel, .asia, and .info actually lost registrations. But the tidbit here is those discounting .info should not. with over 6 million active registrations, they are number 4. And if you care to drill down just a bit further, they are the only gTLD that came after the .com, .net and .org that has respectable numbers other than .biz.

So even if we get to the point that they sit in boardrooms to decide their "Domain Strategy" (must be a recurring wet dream of mine) they all still have to consider the more established ones FIRST. And then they will start the meeting with .com and they will end their meeting with .com.

What they decide to do inside those .com boundaries are likely to only support their .com efforts. One way or the other that is the END game for each one. If I want to impress you with a list of current companies that own .mobi you could give a rats ass. It's meaningless to you and me. It has no meaning to them either. But they have it. So is there a commercial value? Well if there is one for RickSchwartz.mobi, it is probably pretty low. Type in most BRAND.mobi and most are owned and inactive or point back to the .com.

And of course just because I don't talk about much country codes does not mean I don't understand or respect their place.  It is not my focus but surely that is much less risky than what is coming. Surely folks can see that. Given a casino, I would be much more interested in that table. Those are also based on numbers and the variables are population and buying power. So not all are the same and as you have seen, certain country codes are quite valuable.

I am a fool for the numbers. I read them like a detective reads a murder mystery. I read things into them. I drill down on them. I NEVER fear the answer. "Numbers don't lie. People do." I have that thought written on my personal checks. "Trust Numbers Not People". That is the way for me.

The numbers tell a story. They guide you in different directions. They assist you in every single thing there is in the universe. Most people are scared to death of the numbers.  I have seen it throughout my life with endeavor after endeavor always different people but always allergic to numbers. When they count cost they count at the lowest variable. When I count, I will add 20% because that is closer to reality and then there are no surprises.

So none of us own the numbers but each of us gets to interpret the numbers. I have many different ways to interpret numbers because I can look at the same set of numbers from all sides. Even change one variable to see what could or would happen.

So what do you think happens when you add 900 to the list above? Some will say that it splits it all up 900 different and equal slices. In their DREAMS! That of course is an impossibility. Some extensions will be more equal than other extensions.

Please don't just look at the chart. Study it! Ask yourself how long have they been around? How much competition did they have? Why are they not growing? Why are some shrinking? How important are they to you? To anyone? Some are, some are not, some you just .laugh.

This is not a roadmap? A peek inside? You can do it by quarter or by year. And see the difference between a Registry success and a domain investor success. If you are coming at all this from an emotional position, at least put on your math cap and come at it from a number standpoint. A risk vs reward standpoint.

I think the two extensions we will see up here are .web and perhaps .shop. Out of 900. Most will never get past .aero  at 8868 and we all know how meaningful that extension is to your flipping and investment careers. .Mobi at over 1 million. Is that one important to ya?

I am just searching for answers like you and I am sharing exactly how I come to the conclusions I do. Right or wrong. It isn't like I put a finger in the wind. Spent a year looking at this from every side imaginable. But numbers never lie as long as the numbers are true and factual. The way I look at it, I would rather save up for the winner than tie my dollars up. I have learned that when I buy the best, I am rewarded. I would rather overpay for quality than get a bargain on anything else. Not everyone thinks that way. In fact, most don't.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Morning Folks!!

Alta Vista was the 2000lb Gorilla in the room. Compaq and Dell were leading the way along with CNN. And this vast new medium was being touted as the future. New ventures like eBay and Amazon sprung up. A few very primitive sites were being launched. Including one I started as I had a 3rd party register my first name LipService.com. A perfect name to house my 800 Toll Free Chatlines. But most places you would go to were dead ends and abandoned sites even back then.

So that remained my ONLY domain name until May of the following year when my brother bought me the 2 names for my 2 companies as a birthday present.  So it was not after that until I would bother my brother every few days to register me this or that. Until he gave me the link to this company called Network Solutions and told me to do it myself. Cool!!!!

So it is spring and summer 1996 when I finally start understanding the internet, the power it had to revolutionize the world and be especially important to 3rd world countries as a way to lift them and join the rest of civilization. I was inspired by folks like Scott Day who was a watermelon farmer in the middle of nowhere and he was now able to compete with the guy named Ari Goldberger, a real Philadelphia lawyer who appeared to be out of Manhattan. I saw an equal playing field emerging like never before. One with no boundaries and one where only the individual decided their futures.

So what to do??

Well when I was born there was no free land. There was hardly any cheap land. And there was no land I could afford. That was true when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, when I was 30 and when I bought that first domain name. But all of a sudden I was a land owner in this new medium. Could history be repeating itself? But where is the oceanfront land here? Where were the skyscrapers to be built? What was to be prime? There were no books on it. There were no bloggers to go and read. There was no nothing but a simple parallel. So me and that parallel went to work. We started looking for other parallels. And there were many. They were vivid as well because they were still untouched. Un-mined. Virgin.

I had limited funds. Each domain was $100. So I bought 18 domains. By the time January 1997 rolled around I had about 100 and carried my list in my back pocket at all times. They were earning enough money to pay for them and slowly buy more. But there was one major league problem. I had virtually no tech skills. None. I was in the ocean and not a clue how to swim or sail or float. Well I was floating, but I did not really know why quite yet.

It wasn't for another year or so before I even learned how to ftp. There were few companies out there and they were all behind and buried in work. Others were fakers and completely incompetent as hosts would have servers go down for days at a time and not really care until I had to SCREAM!! I was losing $$$ and they could care less. Well, they were going to care because that was their job. They had a 24x7 business and these goof-offs would only show up and have bankers hours. 10-4. M-F.

Build a site? How? Where? With whom? 6 figures for a site that I absolutely KNEW would be obsolete the moment it was finished. So what to do??

Well, let me start by buying time and raw land. When the net develops, it will be easier and cheaper and better. What's the rush? I have a lifetime to build this empire. Let me see how the first 20 years shakes out and then I can make my move. So of course everyone 18 years ago laughed at me. Waved me off.  Did not take me seriously. I was just a guy with more money than brains. Especially the guy at 192.66.111.3. I think. How do you argue with a tech schmuck that can't see that can not be used commercially to advertise with on radio or TV etc? So after a while you stop arguing and continue to DO! You learn to ignore the antics and the noise and focus. You realize if they have to use energy to ridicule you, they can't be working for themselves and that makes them not too bright.

So I decided the path was do more of what I know, buy time, look at what this medium would look like in 20 years and how the entire world would depend on it like they depend on electric. Maybe even more so! Try to learn what I could and wait for the $750,000 website tab to be a $75 template. Of course now we are at FREE so we have well passed that milemarker.

And that is what each reality is, a milemarker. And they just happen to match my parallels perfectly. Sorry, that is not being a visionary. That is simply following the line that parallel produces. Nothing more, nothing less. So those that want to copy my path need to understand how my path has come to be. It was no crystal ball. No great anything. Just SIMPLY following the signs that were and are CLEARLY there. That is why my opinions are so stong. I shut out the noise so I can see and find the parallel. Once that happens the answer reveals itself and it is on to the next thing. No antics can derail me from the parallel I see.

So eventually when I bought Porno.com I thought maybe one of my dreams would be realized early. I approached folks and asked if they wanted to be 50/50 partners in Porno.com. They never even asked me a single question. They all just laughed in my face. I just shook my head in amazement. Here was a domain that was making me over $500k/year at that time and it was more than those that I approached were making. But that was a lucky break for me!

That vision still lives. I bring to the table the land with an important location and they bring their talents. Now as we know in the candy.com and property.com deals I did not get 50%. But different situations need different formulas and equations. Cash lowers the percent I must have.

So the point of all this? Well the folks that whine today about cybersquatters or whatever it is, simply failed back then and have yet to get over it.  They missed the single biggest opportunity in their careers! So instead of explaining how they missed it, they do what they do. You and I NEVER have to apologize for seeing something this big and risking what we did. NEVER! We did what we were taught to do in a capitalistic society. They will always have to explain why they did not see it and the only way they can do that is attack and try and make it like we did something wrong. Well if you don't make a living off of Trademarks of other parties, then you did nothing wrong.  Nothing to apologize for. You have done well for you and your family and shoud be proud.

Think of it like this. Imagine you are a financial advisor today. And some readers just might be. Imagine you are in 2013 and the market goes up. Many stocks double and triple in value. And you sit there as a financial advisor touting your 7% return?? Really?? Sorry pal, you failed! You don't thump your chest on 7% when you should be giving multiples of that in a year like this.

How many SEO spam do you get in your email every day? Wonder why? Because those that have to do that SUCK at what they do! They define themselves as incompetent the minute they send out that first email blast. DUH! And they can't see it, can't acknowledge it and can't stop it.

That brings me up to "Search". Sorry, search is a fools game on  many levels. Parked pages ranked in search is just silly. Have said so for many years. Let's define search as PAID and FREE. Most folks talk about FREE search and guess what? That has little value. It's a bonus when you get it. You don't build on FREE. Just be relevant. You will naturally work your way up.

So now let's talk  about PAID search. That's a much more intelligent discussion. That's something you can measure. That is something you can define. That is something you can contract or expand. That is something that is built around a numerical equation that should end up with that nasty word, PROFIT.

That of course leads me to Start-ups of which I wrote an entire blog post about recently. Start-up is lip service for "I have no way of making money but I still need to eat. Feed me." Why? "Because I am a startup and I am going to get free traffic from Google to build my empire."

Start this! It's a start down for you and a start-up for him!

And of course we are watching hundreds of startups right in front of us. They need your money to survive. The public is not going to support their efforts in a way that can sustain them. Only domainers can do that. The gTLD parallels I see don't lead to where these folks believe they do. Some do, Don't get me wrong, but most don't and the question and the parallel to understand is if 80%, 90% or more go south and there is unintended fallout and consequences, will it hurt those few that remain?

Now I know nobody wants to talk about type ins. But type ins funded many of the gtld's that are coming. Dot com type ins. Natural type ins. Not from search. Real, no-nonsense, consumer oriented and generated type ins. So of course this subject is off-limits because it does not help their position. No parallel.  I chased the behavior of the consumer and adapted. They want the consumer to follow them and for the consumer to adapt. The same?? Are you kidding?? Are you serious? Are you not paying attention?? GEEEZ!

The mousetrap works because they learned the behavior of the MOUSE! Not the other way around. How simple is that one?

See I have the same names in .com and .net, and .xxx and .mobi and .org and .TV. Want to discuss type ins???? The type ins they keep saying have no merit, no value, no this no that while the type ins pay for much of everything that is happening. That is not to be confused with value of a domain based on type ins. Two separate things. Domains don't have to have type ins to have value. The mainstream domains had no type ins when I bought them. But the ones I bought and got right, do have type ins now. Want to discuss the ratio value from .com to .anything else? What 's the difference? Somewhere between 20-1 and 100-1. Same effort, greater risk, lower reward. And I have to convince smart people of this equation? Really??? Empirical evidence. Not theory.

Ok, back to the story........

So today Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, Instagram, you can name 100 companies right here and right now. Then 1000 behind them. And 100,000 behind them. Many with ideas. Some are good ideas. Some are ideas you can build on. Some are platforms you can build on. The landscape is filling in very quickly now. And it is not about developing any longer. It is now about opening businesses with a profit center. There is enough out there to do that with now. It could not be done before.

So as I saw this mammoth of a beast. The likes of which mankind had never seen before, I knew that snowball was big and would take DECADES to start to roll. 2 decades. I stated in January that for the first time we were in the gravitational pull of what I saw all those years ago. It was not just words. It was parallels.

I know I am limited in my education. But I know a few things well. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and what place they go in and what makes them powerful or not when used together. And I knew the difference between a parallel and an intersection. You can benefit from each, but one can kill you. The other can't. And I knew how to use equations to my benefit to fill in answers not yet known. So this visionary is not one at all. I am just a master of these elements and then I am able to marry them to a timeline.  I am able to come to a conclusion quickly and I start at the end and work myself back to the start.

So folks laughed at me back then and they laugh at me today. But those that laugh the most continue to get things wrong while I keep getting them right. I write about how things unfold LONG before they unfold. Most chase events after the fact. What I see is clear to me. It might not be to others. So I have tried to share it over the years. If nothing else, to be on record for myself and so I can see which things I got right and which things I got wrong. Then I make adjustments to things and then get it right while many just continue on the path and ignore those points of correction.

The dawn of my 19th year is much different. We all know this is just a platform and we are destined to do bigger and greater things. Each day gets just a little easier. Just a little closer. Just a little better.

2013 was a bumpy year. But bumpy means you are progressing and that is a great improvement from being stuck in a crippled economy for the last few years. And as I have been writing about, 2014 is going to be a monster year for business in general.

I can report that the Real Estate in South Florida is now at 2007 levels once again. Pre Crash levels. Now not for all property. Decent and prime property are now exceeding 2007 levels. On the other hand, homes further out of the metro area are still taking a hit. It may still be a few years because the better located homes will sell first. This excludes South Beach that never even saw much of a crash. High end stuff just kept going up. $1200/ft before crash, now as much as $1500 and $2000ft. Go up the road a little north and you can still get for $300ft.

So not only do we head into 2014 and year 19, but we go into this next 2 years with a head of steam that will carry us right thru to the finish line. December 26, 2015. In a few days, I get to say "Next Year!" and that 20 years will be worth the wait.

It was understandable for the masses not to understand this medium fully for 20 years. But I must say, I am so disappointed in the average so-called "Businessman". He is still BEHIND the consumer curve. The consumer is more Internet savvy than they are. What is the excuse for that? I can only tell them that time is running out for them to get their acts together. That's not lip service, that is straight out fact. The proof will be all the mergers you will see in the next 24 months on every level imaginable.

The money is finally coming off the sidelines. I can speak to that myself. I have some fairly decent money being earmarked for new investment. Some for a safe and growth investment and a chunk for riskier investments. My choices include .com domain names (Sorry, I have zip marked for gTD's) but mostly investments outside of domains as I continue to diversify and more into web-based businesses. To me, the more financial buckets you have, the better. But deep buckets, not shallow ones.  The stock market is the single best casino in the world and that won't change in 2014. I have a habit of plunging. This year I was plunging on Facebook. Probably ride that horse for a while. Made some on Twitter but want to get out before the "Correction" which could be very soon.

It blows me away from that December 26th in 1995 when I was investing my first $100. I never dreamed I would talk about investing a million here, a million there and $500k there.  But when you just take it slow, put one foot in front of another, don't get sidetracked or detoured, learn from history by learning history itself, it is just amazing the ground you can cover and the progress you can make. Everything else is just Lip Service.

All I can do is share my story. Share my viewpoint. Substantiate the best I can how I come to that viewpoint and then believe enough in myself to follow thru. Predictions based on parallels and mile markers. As each comes to pass the original foundation and premise only gets stronger and bigger and bolder. So we can now look back and take a string and tie it around each marker and then use the first point and the last point to find the next point. The next point in all of this is not based on emotion. It is based on science and math that has little variables and a consumer base that has a huge variable. Whenever somebody speaks for the consumer, watch out. In my world, the consumer leads, I follow and then I jack rabbit over them and get to their next destination slightly before they do and the bi-product of that is opportunity. But they led the way, not me. I simply followed their lead, their direction and their needs, wants and desires that led me to their stopping points and eventual destination. The one that will only get clearer every passing day from now until landfall.

Land Ho!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!

It's simple, I look to the customer for all my answers.  The consumer is driving this train and the consumer decides when to stop. He decides to pull the wallet out or not. You can give the consumer snow skis for free but if he does not ski and does not want them and has no room for them, you won't be able to give it to him for free.

So I don't have all the answers, the consumer and the future does. The audience does. In this case you are both. And you are readers of RicksBlog.com and many of you are attendees at TRAFFIC and we are all domain investors for the most part. The answers come in one puzzle piece at a time.

So my questions are geared to answer the question at hand and in some cases answer a second question without ever asking it as the entire result draws an interesting picture for me in my mind. I'll do my best to share how I interpret the numbers. The numbers that count and are meaningful. Together we have come a very long way in filling in that puzzle and the answers below may give you a couple more that helps fill in the gaps.

Before we get to the main questions I asked some questions that could have gone either way and I am proud that you feel the way you do. Thank you.

Rick's Posts about gTLD's have been Fair and has brought up good points or Unfair and has brought up invalid points

I have worked hard to look at this from all angles. I know the noise will become overwhelming. I feel really good that after much invested time in this you see how objective I have tried to be and at the same time not allowing the obvious bullshit stand and go unanswered.

So 94% of you get it and understand my motives. Thank you!! 8 of you or 6% don't. So this is where i get to start filling in the gaps from some of the questions you will see below and it explains who might have a vested interest. That 6% or 8 people will be a variable you can use in some of the questions below.

You can start with this one:

Has Ricksblog.com been Beneficial to you?

There are my 8 friends again. But 95% of you say yes and anytime you run 95%, you are running good.

Just keep those 8 in mind as you read the results and perhaps revise with that in mind.

So the first question was very general and we had the most response. More than 300 of you chimed in.

How many gTLD's will you Buy Into?

From the actual voting I can draw two conclusions. First 71% said "None". It ran 77% all day. But the numbers changed a bit at night and I have an assumption on that. I think of full-time domainers that 77% number represent this group. However as it got later and later and later, the .whatevers gained ground. My assumption is that those with jobs and or are not yet full-time domainers, weekend warriors, are more apt to go toward the lure of the past trying to duplicate it. Again, that is my assumption. It does not mean I am right, it means I will use that basis for drawing certain conclusions until further info comes in that either proves or disproves it.

What would you give as an overall rating of the new gTLD extensions

So nobody, not one, thinks they are excellent. Well not until Sunday. It took 4 days to find one person to say yes.

Very few thought they were better than expected. Matter of fact it ran at  ZERO for the entire first day of this poll.

However a 2/3 majority of 66% thought they were worse than expected or pure pigeon shit. Now when you add the 13.5% for "I don't know" (it was 27% for I don't know so I split the vote for 13.5% for each side) the 66% goes to 79.5%.

These numbers have been very consistent throughout. 75% - 85% of domainers see little value and little reason to invest in or believe that values will go up.  At least 15%-25% that do. Of those the largest group of gTLD optimists seems to be those that came later into the business and those of course with a vested interest. If you were to exclude those with a "Vested interest" then I think you would see the numbers on each question would move another few points in favor of those that are more skeptical or give them no mind at all.

gTLD's are off to a good start, a bad start, I don't care

85% believe they are off to a bad start or don't even care. So who are the 15% that think they are off to a good start?And how many have a vested interest? It's not 0%. So that has to be factored in on all results.

Do you think gTLD's will Increase demand and value for dot-com or Lower demand and value for dot-com?

Now what is interesting here is we have that same 15% here. That greater that 0% is likely something to keep watching.

The next question is pure dollars and Cents.

If you are Planning to Invest in gTLD's, How much Money will be earmarked?

66% (113 of ya) said not a dime. Only 19 people, representing 11% of respondents were over $5000. And my friends of "8" could be the over $100k crowd?

The next question had the least responses.

If you are buying gTLD's I am buying to: Flip Immediately, Hold for 1 year and see what happens, Hold for 2 years and see what happens, Hold for 5 years and see what happens, Hold for 10 years and see what happens. Now let me finally give a tip of the hat for the "8".  Hold on for 10 years. That is probably the right approach.  Or flip immediately.

So let's see what happened so we can see what happens. I have 6 or 7 years into .mobi. Nothing happening there. Even tho they had the stage all to themselves and a great blue sky story to go with it. But that is what you do when you have extra funds. You invest. I mean gamble. I mean invest. Confused? So is the poll and everyone else. But oh save the day, in 3 years it will be CRYSTAL CLEAR.

I bought into .co, but as an investment, not my best pick. I bought into .xxx. I think we are at the 3 year test there. Let's see what's happening? I would gladly sell all my .xxx for 50% off. 75 off? They are prime. 1 word. Any takers?? I can use the tax loss before the 31st which will be my only tangible financial gain. I continue to dabble in several others. Can't say I have ever received an offer. Not even on my keyword.nets. So I would say the vast majority of those 70% in the middle, ME INCLUDED, will lose nearly 100% of their investments less the tax deduction.

How much of the TRAFFIC Agenda Should be Devoted to gTLD's? 

This is where I really use the data to determine the proper balance for what I personally do. So here is what I can extrapolate from the data above.  Here is how I would homogenize this info. Would I spend an entire day of TRAFFIC in gTLD's? No. Is one session enough? No. But I think about 85% would support 2 at this point in time and depending on the conditions in May, maybe 3 or 1.  And as you will see by the next result, focusing on gTLD's is tricky.

The more time TRAFFIC Devotes to gTLD's the more or less likely I will come to T.R.A.F.F.I.C.

Again, there is a clear majority. But the minority is significant and there is a happy balance. So to get to 90%, I think 2-3 is the sweet spot.

But this next question gave more input and may be a bit surprising for some. I think the numbers speak for themselves at 91%.

Will the main reason you will attend a trade show in 2014 be to meet the gTLD Registries?

So who are the 9? The "8" plus 1?

How many gTLD's will be successful?

You can see domain investors are open-minded. 75% believe they will enjoy some degree of success. The only mixed signal is 75% are also consistently skeptical. But also 8 of the 14 that are more than 50 or 100 likely have a vested interest. Just my assumption. But I look at the numbers with that factored in and not. But it certainly has significant impact on the outcome.

Are Bloggers views slanted because of gTLD advertisers?

This was the hardest question I asked. Was not sure I would even use it. Did not want to have my fellow bloggers mad at me. On the other hand I wanted to show and warn my fellow bloggers that they risk their own credibility if they are perceived as carrying the water for these folks. I even wrote an entire blog post about it but have chosen not to publish it. But as you will see below, I may be on to something. 95% see my point. 5% don't. Where are my other 2 friends? So this is nearly unanimous feeling out there. I don't think it can be ignored. I am not pointing the finger at anyone. However, I do suggest you ask your own readers. It may be the most important thing you do for your blog. Maybe not. But I do see something some should be concerned about.

Our job is to remain as objective as possible but let no propaganda serve as fact. North still has to be north and should not be bent to suit. Facts are a stubborn thing so the next poll makes me personally feel good and vindicated in what I have been doing. Trying to be as logical as I can which lead me to ask the question about how many would be successful. Pretty wide agreement there. Most are gonna be flops or at least meaningless in the eco system. 90% believe it will be from 0-50 successes. That interprets to some 900 failures. So the way my primitive mind works, the first thing you do is eliminate the 900 that are going nowhere so you might be able to focus on the 50 that some deem as having a potential. Now when you have 50 on the table it is much less confusing. Just remember that 900 little Titanics won't be helping the 50 that might still be floating. There will have to have been some damage done in the process. Some drag.

From the 50 you might want to put that in a few buckets and segregate them further by size and strength and brandability and all the rest. So eventually your bucket should have 0-10 extensions worthy of chasing. 90-1 odds. But you will have help. Might be right, might be wrong.

The concensus so far is .web has the most potential. It would be hard to put another .whatever in front. Anyone?? Let's figure out the 10 right here. There is so much room, that it hardly gives your secret plans away. Will any .whatever beat .web and who is #2?

Why .Web?

3 letters. 3 letters that mean and spell something. Seems like a perfect fit for those looking for a true alternative. But if you pick the biggest winner out of the 900, do you really have to go further or will you be consumed right here? How many of my readers have unlimited funds? I know I don't. If it is clear to me that .web is going to be the best of the worst, and I wanted to get into it, why would I choose another extension?

But maybe .shop, .blog, .App will become niches of some value. Maybe not great value. Some value. I have not studied the list at all. Just quickly browsed with few popping out at all.

I got a bit off track but the entire purpose of this is to figure it out and I am trying to do my process transparently so you understand how my insanity works. :-)

Which leads me to the path to follow or not:

In 2014 Rick Should: Continue to write about gTLD's, Stop writing about gTLD's, or Keep holding their feet to the fire?

88% of you think I should continue to post my thoughts on gTLD's. I then factor in that half of the 8 want me to stop. The other half may understand that my focus in this helps them. So that would bring it to just over 90%. And of the remaining, some just don't want me to waste my time and theirs on something they deem irrelevant. So I see that in this as well. But that group also understand more than any other why I have done this. Devoted well over a year on it. Methodically, objectively and sometimes emotionally. But from every angle that I could conceive all in the hunt to find answers unknown.

And what sticks in my mind the most is the few words that Lonnie Borck said that had the most impact in the gTLD debate. "They all have to sell something."  Their job is to convince you to buy into their vision. If you don't they lose. And there is nothing wrong with that.

My job is not to like or dislike the results of any poll question. It's to draw conclusions. Draw direction Understand my audience better. Take a pulse. Not discount any including the 8. Factor it all in and come to conclusions and then match them with reality as it begins to unfold.

One thing I can tell by the voting pattern is that veteran full time domainers are the most skeptical. Those that are not full time or are weekend warriors are the most likely to buy into the new extensions. And even with all the chatter, when it came to asking how much money folks would pull out, make sure to divide by 900.

I am disappointed that so much of the conversation has been hijacked by the outrageous claims some gTLDS are making and ALL gTLD's have to live with. None are playing from a defined sheet of music and the crossfire is likely to be brutal. The intersections deadly. The crashes unavoidable. My job as always is to see things first and see them before they become fact. When you do that your risk goes way down and that is how you turn the corner from a gamble to an investment.

And to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. sponsors and partners that are depending on gTLD's in 2014 and beyond:

My job is to ask the tough questions, state what I see as the real answers and level with my readers and attendees. If that pisses you off to the level of not coming to TRAFFIC, that only hurts your efforts. As I have said, "We have nothing to sell but help facilitate your ability to sell and do business."

But that does not buy or sway my opinions in any way, shape or form. I can't be bought. You can certainly come and argue your merits and show us where I am going wrong. But selling is something you will find out needs to be done in a way that brings in skeptics like me. Ya know why? You can start with the FACT that nearly 100% of the outside the domaining world audience might be somewhat if not fully skeptical. If you can't overcome me, you can't overcome them.

If you are selling something and you run away from those asking the hardest questions, then you ain't selling at all. Your job is to overcome obstacles not run and hide from them. You can laugh at shop owners on Las Olas but that's your customer. Deal with it. Stop laughing at them. You can think the vast majority of domainers are wrong, but you won't sway a single dollar or gain an ounce of credibility with outrageous claims that just might strangle your efforts.

This is like watching a train with 900 cars and no real railways under them. None are connected, but all have a certain degree of association and a mis-step by one or more can derail one or more. I would not throw caution out the window.

On record for the record. In a few years, we can all look back and see. Obviously these results are not scientific but they give an excellent pulse of things. Thanks for being part of it.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

There are a lot of very good blogs out there. But the one that never wastes my time, always has something important to offer, is an education in and of itself is Seth Godin's Blog. He's been around for years and most folks reading this know of his blog. For those that don't, he should be on your reading list.

Seth always gets right to the point and the point is almost always immediately useful. It's PURE GOLD!! And it is EVERY single day!

I wrote a post that I did not post yet. I think the main point of it and life is that if you approach things from the wrong way, the wrong attitude, the wrong side, then your chance of success is very low. Approach with a good attitude and a strong desire and your chance of success is great.

A recent post he made is about trust and word of mouth. Something many need to pay great attention to. He explains each and every point below. All valid. All proven. All inclusive.

"How is it that someone sees your website or your social media presence or your email and decides to interact? The decision to interact happens before someone actually listens to what you have to say. Here’s a way to think about the factors that kick in before the browser even hears what you have to offer them today:"

• Word of mouth


• Direct interaction


• Graphics


• Tone of voice


• Offer


• Size of leap


• Fear


• Social ranking/metric


• Tribal affiliation


• Perception of transparency


• Longevity


• Mass acceptance

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Coming to the right conclusions with less information and doing it early. Isn't that what speculation is about?  Figuring it out early or first? I figured this out in 1996-1997 after starting in 1995 and each day I figure out a little more and I will never apologize for being first on a line. Or first to see something. Or first to take action. Or first to register a domain name. And anyone that would point to that as anything negative could only define themselves, not me.

Like I said, Berkens is my research department because he finds things FIRST. Newspapers are in business to be first. They want to break the story first.

In what I do, I want to find all the pitfalls first. It's the pitfalls that need attention and that is what I focus on. I tune out the blue sky talk totally as that is a trap for the naive. You only see the blue sky if you survive the tornado and storms they swear are not there.

The beginning, the end and the pitfalls along the trail. What else really matters? I don't care about the BS drama and lipstick along the way.

A pitfall can never be ignored. So they have to be addressed. But a pitfall can only be filled with an argument that is sound and holds water.

I have been making posts on ".whatever" for 2.5 years now. Dozens of posts with .whatever in the title and some 90 posts examining it from top to bottom. I thought about it for a long time before I ever wrote a single word and my main job sitting here is thinking and playing out different scenarios looking for answers.  Real answers. Not based on what I want, but based on the reality of what I see and the future as I see it unfolding. On the record for the record before it becomes commonplace.

And when I was doing that on Sunday I found......

Another argument that makes no sense.

On one side I am told by gtld companies that 5-6 billion people are yet to go online. And this huge expansion coming. ok, fine. Let's say I buy into that for the MOMENT since the buying power for about 3 billion of them is zilch. But leave that aside, their argument is for those 6 billion. So I will follow their yellow brick road.

Then a few  minutes later they say how they are going to leave .com as the market share gets all diluted and watered down. How does that make any sense when they just got through telling me about those 6 billion being added?? Which yellow brick road do they want me to walk down. Which one am I to believe? Because these 2 premises collide.  They very simply collide. They can't have it both ways.  So when you stick to the numbers, there is no room for bullshit like this.

I am in sales. These are arguments that don't hold water and they contradict themselves. Am I supposed to swallow this?

The facts of the matter are already there with other parallels for those that choose to look at them and understand them. Folks want to look at Las Vegas and their growth without looking at other places and their growth. But again, there was a REASON to go to Vegas. There was a need, there was a want and there was a desire for gambling and entertainment and hot chicks and booze. They were the only place you could go for legalized gaming in those days.

Now look. You have all types of states and countries doing the gaming and lottery and yes Las Vegas has collapsed right?????? Is that what horse shit I am supposed to swallow guys??

Macau, lotteries, indian casinos, islands, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Cruise Ships. Are you kidding me. HOW did that hurt Las Vegas?? It didn't and it made it even greater than it was. So your argument is not consistent with empirical evidence aka FACTS!

A rising tide lifts all boats. Thinking .com will go down in value or have less traffic is absolutely the nuttiest thing I have EVER heard. It goes against empirical evidence I just pointed to. Give that one up!

Ok?

I make points with evidence. And why would anyone even argue these points? It may work for folks that know nothing about domain names when you are raising funds, but this is nonsense inside the walls of this industry by folks that really should understand this all much better. They are coming to assumptions that are not backed up by examples of history. Like I keep on repeating now. Empirical Evidence. Las Vegas just the latest in a series proving the fallacy of this silly argument.

And we don't have to wait 20 years to see the winner. It will be evident each week on Ron Jackson's report. More Empirical Evidence. Not wishful thinking or a fallacious hypothesis. But past facts. The test holds true over and over and over again.

And just remember, most of the biggest deals are still not disclosed. Escrow.com started about 66% if my memory serves me correctly. And the bigger they are, the less chance they are disclosed. And even in a disclosure can be hidden as far as exact amount paid when you buy a company for their domain name.

Folks are free and welcome to speculate on anything they choose. Some will make money. Most will lose money. But selling on false assumptions and false arguments that are squarely against history is weak and I think does not help the position of those that use it. Hundreds of different sales strategies that are going to cause their own set of collisions.

Some are going to struggle desperately to stay above water.  Some are going to sink right to the very bottom. These are absolute givens. They are facts just awaiting time to confirm them. But in speculation you have to determine those facts BEFORE they are facts. But to do that, you must have the facts to begin with and the history to back it up. So when I am presented a false set of facts, based on false history, on the heels of .Mobi, .biz, .pro, .xxx, well then I have a RIGHT to raise these objections and questions and be on record and so do you.

I don't have to sell a thing, they do. But please raise the level of the conversation to match the reality at hand and the audience you are addressing. I would certainly be much more receptive to that level then some of the nonsense I am hearing. I do not wish for the failure of any extension. Quite the opposite. I root for their success. Their success is not a threat it is fuel. I am stunned that otherwise intelligent folks would see it like the glass is half full. The greatest success would have .com and many other extensions overflowing.

Look at my writings and you will see it is consistent with the rise in popularity of .tv. I think .tv will benefit from this. I don't see a single extension suffering. I see only expansion regardless of population. 7 billion people is not how you measure. You measure by companies and how many each of them will control. Companies at one time had one website. Now they have dozens or hundreds or thousands. THAT is the population I focus on. Those are the folks that can and will expand the most and the quickest. Many of them with decent budgets.

Why would anyone think that selling a win-lose concept comes out as a winning hand?? The world is about win-win. That is the way to get people's attention. Win-win. Show them a way to expand their online presence. Show them only positives. Anything built on negatives or false assumptions or fallacious information will eventually collapse.

And collapsing is different from failing because this is all 99.9% forseeable.

1234567890123 without any .com rings every phone in the world. there are a total of 9,999,999,999,999.

9.9 TRILLION combinations with those 13 digits. Maybe a few less actually. But in theory......

Now last time I looked you can go many times n=more than 13 digits before you add the .com. You can go to 63 I think it is. That pus a hole in their argument before I even start my argument and I can prove my argument with NUMBERS not EMOTION 63 different ways. I can have more combinations with the same 13 digits that ring every phone in the world. All I need to do is substitute one letter for a number. I can use just the letter "A" until with all the variables. Then "B" the "C". Then after I got to z I could start to use 2 letter variables. Then 3. Then all words that use up to 13 letters. Then I have not even mentioned dashes. Nor have I dsaid anything about 14 digit domain.

Smell the BULLSHIT?? There must be a math major here somewhere that can highlight what infinity might look like. I will admit, .com is NOT infinite. Tho for the purposes we use it for, it is. So please don't expect anyone with an ounce of sense to swallow bullshit. I just proved it and I barely scratched the surface. I could sit here every day for the next 20 years and I would not run out if examples when I hear we are running out of .com. Not sure if there is even a name for a number the size of what we are talking about.

Point is this is 100% fallacious. Pure and simple. What happens when I do it on a low-level like this, is the antenna goes up and you look for other fallacious arguments and you start to see a picture being developed. I am truly trying to save these folks from a Kodak moment when they go on the world stage. I think these things are poisoning the waters a bit and it is self-inflicted poison. Needless! They have stronger arguments. I hope!

Success for a gtld does not translate to anything bad for any of us. Between this post and yesterdays post, I just try to have a balanced approach and at the same time not listen to silly stuff and my job is to spotlight silly stuff so we can focus on the real subjects. Which are the extensions themselves, the adaptation by the MASSES, the reasons why without making the weak case that has been made.

.com is a phenomenon. The graph that Verisign released is another example of how hard this is going to be. STUDY that chart!! Look at the SLIVER they are all going to fight over. Wake me up when any of them get out of the "Other" category. Any of them. Registry success has nothing to do with our success.  The one that has the best chance is .web and it is no secret.

And as far as my 20 year plan and those trying to use that to cover them now. This is what I wrote as a comment on TheArtofTheName.com yesterday:

"To be honest. I could not put a 20 year plan together today given the circumstances today. The 20 year plan was for a unique moment in time. With a specific medium. That had specific parallels. And I put a time stamp until we hit critical mass. And it worked!!

I never had one before and I doubt I will ever have one again. People have to eat today with a vision of the future. But in this fast paced medium, 20 years is CRAZY! I focus on now and the 36 months in front of us as a rule and year to year as a basis for progress.

The Internet was a unique circumstance because it was the largest endeavor in the history of the world and I realized that and what the changes would look like in 2013.

But this is worse that Kool-Aid because it is laced with BS and many ignore the basic questions that are asked.

At the end of the day it will be content and consumer acceptance that decides. Not any of us. All we can do is bet on the eventual outcome."

You can see the video from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. There is no anger in the argument, there is just a disagreement among friends about where the road goes and I think their compass is not calibrated correctly. :-) The future will sort it out. They took out their wallets and are taking a risk. Bravo! The question is risk based on what? A question we get to ask when it comes to our wallets. Especially since it is hard if not impossible to point out past successes with similar products with less competition.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

So yesterday afternoon my Research Department sent me this graphic below and more. You will notice .tk is the #2 extension. Forgive my ignorance, never heard of it. But that nonsense aside, where is .mobi on the list below? .Biz? .Pro? .travel? .Aero..whatever has a LONG way to go for 700 of them to divide up the tiniest of little slivers. This is not even about domain names. This is about numbers and market share and more numbers and all I can say, is study the chart below and others Verisign has posted on their blog.

Each of the 700 new extensions have to sell you on their vision and then have enough content by end users that is significant enough to warrant mentioning. They can talk about the small guy all they want, but like Lonnie says, they have to sell them on something. Their job now is to sell and show the blue skies on the horizon simply by using their new unproven extension.

Well, take a step into reality and look at what that horizon really looks like. Look at the chart below and look at the SLIVER that says "OTHER TLD's". That is where your losers already reside and they are about to be joined by 700 others. Of which only ONE has a real chance at being meaningful imho. And then we can measure and weigh "Meaningful".

Look, you can fish in an ocean. You can fish in a river. You can fish in a pond. You can fish in a stream. You can fish in a creek. But fishing in puddles is for fools. Again, strictly by the numbers. Strictly as an investment. Strictly by historical facts. Strictly by gut instinct.

I wish them all success. Many are dear and close friends. But for the life of me, I just don't get it and it must be my own shortcomings.

Just yesterday 3 guys I have known for many years came out with the .co.com registry. Huh?? Sorry, I love you guys, but for the life of me, I just don't get it. These guys are all a lot smarter than me. But I just don't get it. I just see more and more confusion and when that happens it is human nature to go back to what it knows and is familiar with. That said I can see just a glimmer of what they may see. A universal country code ending in .com? Instead of co.uk you have co.com? I am not sure. This makes .co confusion seem simple.

So without talking to each registry and trying to see their vision, it is difficult for me to figure out the end game in 5, 10 or 20 years. There are only a handful so far that you look at it and it makes sense and you get. But should I really need to talk to each one? Should it not be evident on the face of things?

So my first question might be when will the first .whatever make the following chart? Study that chart. See how hard or easy it is to have a SHARE of that.

Like Lonnie Borck says, these guys all must sell something to stay in business. Which will explain the flurry of new shows coming to the space. A shrinking space to begin with when we talk about domain investors but one that is exploding when we talk registries and registrars. They each need to sell to survive. They each must convince 3rd parties that theirs is better and the way of the future. Third parties tht have no interest to begin with. Where does that intersect with investing? When? Why is Need, Want and Desire being ignored? The basic building blocks of any good or service.

Over the past months I have articulated as many of the pitfalls as I have time to write about and I could write for another year. This is a TINY industry. The SMALL guy that they always seem to be talking for could give a rats ass and is not in this industry. They are not waking up in the morning looking for a domain name. They have one or don't want one. That is the case in 98% or more. They have one, they don't need another or just don't want one. They use Facebook or eBay or whatever their preferred marketing outlet is. Get over it! That's the reality we are in and what is stunning to me is it applies to the guy in his 60's and in his 20's and 30's.

Ok, so they will focus on startups. Great. Startups using other people's money of which 80% would fail with a .com and now more will fail without it. Again, I focus on numbers and history and human nature. I don't worry if I will offend a friend. This is business and this is our hard-earned money and nobody should do this blindly. They have been trying to reinvent the hula-hoop for 55 years without much success.

We all know what the motivation was for all this. It was not to make a better universe. It was not to make the internet easier to navigate. It was and is a pure hula hoop money play. PERIOD!! A square Hula Hoop full of holes and dead ends that lead to an awful amount of confusion! What is with 2013? Shopped for Medical Insurance Lately?

But the characteristics of the .com are not the same as they are with .whatever. Study the NUMBERS. The numbers. Look below and study them. Then look to history and ask where are all the other great extensions on that list? You can see from that chart below it is nothing more than a sandwich. On one side you have .com. On the other side you have cctld's. Both are key and are important and neither are going away. They co-exist without damaging each other. Now in the middle of that sandwich below is all the other extensions. Six of which are CCtld's as well. Take out the .net and .org that have been around for 20 years.  You will see all the extension now combined don't even equal .info. 700 extensions and 695 of them will be relegated to living and sharing that sliver!

Whether a registry makes his annual nut or goes broke has nothing to do with what we do. Building anything on a foundation of sand and you better have a plan "B" ready to go.

For a clearer graphic: Source: http://blogs.verisigninc.com/blog/entry/verisign_to_issue_new_domain

Morning Folks!

Yep, hide the kids. No asterisk today.  Today I get to ask a real question.

So what does a Clusterfuck Really Look like? Seems clusterfucks are the new normal. Got insurance?

But I'm not going to get political.

So what does a Clusterfuck Really Look like?

"In the event a Fortune 500 company network infrastructure fails to work because of collision, the damages that just one company  could suffer could easily exceed all of ICANN assets."

First of all that might be a breath of fresh air.

But what happens if this untested .whatever results in collisions and crashes?

"Paul Rosenzweig, Esq from the law firm of Chertoff Group & David Fagan, Covington was on hand to tell everyone the consequences and potential liability that ICANN, new gTLD’s registries,  backend providers and even registrars might face if all new gTLD’s are allowed to go to delegation without any attempted mitigation for collisions and collisions actually occur resulting in large corporate networks to go down or existing domains to stop resolving.

To summarize Mr.Rosenzweig comments now that the collision report is out ICANN and everyone else in the food chain of likely defendants are on notice that this issue may cause damage to companies, ICANN cannot sit by without taking some action."

Now I have said Berkens is like having your own research staff.

The motivation came from this post he did yesterday.

So in case you want to know what a clusterfuck looks like, we may still be on the verge of seeing one. Chances are not high, but then again, this is a TEST!! If it goes south, it's a clusterfuck.

And guess what. This may only be one of many possible clustrfucks coming to an Internet near you.

Y2K? Maybe. then again, maybe not.

Rick Schwartz