Domainsherpa Discussion: $1.2b Payday; .registryreserved; Bitcoins.com...

[Cyger]

This is the show where we discuss domain name industry news with a panel of veterans and thought leaders.

In this DomainSherpa Discussion:
* Castello Brothers looking for a $1.2B payday: Who isn't. Are they crazy or are we ignorant?
* What new gTLDs did the Sherpas buy in the last week: .co.com, .gop, .blackfriday, .christmas, .services, .pub
* .Co.com entered GA with "single digit thousands" of registrations. What do the Sherpas think about the long-term success of the registry as a business?
* Bitcoins.com is selling in the upcoming HA.com auction. What do the Sherpas think it will sell for? Is the plural awkward?
* Question from audience: Was Satoshi.com a good buy for $75k on Sedo or is it a long-shot?
* Question from audience: is building sites on new TLDs risky?
* And much more!

We're joined by Adam Dicker, Michael Berkens, Page Howe and Rick Schwartz.

http://www.domainsherpa.com/discussion-20140710/

 

[Gerry]

Great, great show today. This has become my go to Easy Listening channel for the week.

I want to put a number on Bitcoins dot com at 2.5-3.5mil. Forget that it is plural because most people outside of the founders, the miners, etc know it and will refer to it as the plural. When you are talking potential market, you have to include this on a global scale since it has global reach. If people are deemed wrong for using the plural, then so be it. Usage is key. And until this term is taught in elementary school as, We don't say Sheeps. We say Sheep. the general public will get it wrong and they will never know...nor will they care.

 

[Cyger]

Great, great show today. This has become my go to Easy Listening channel for the week.

I want to put a number on Bitcoins dot com at 2.5-3.5mil. Forget that it is plural because most people outside of the founders, the miners, etc know it and will refer to it as the plural. When you are talking potential market, you have to include this on a global scale since it has global reach. If people are deemed wrong for using the plural, then so be it. Usage is key. And until this term is taught in elementary school as, We don't say Sheeps. We say Sheep. the general public will get it wrong and they will never know...nor will they care.

Thanks, Gerry.

Your expecting closing price has been recorded.

I think the singular+plural issue is important as it may mean the difference between someone remembering your domain name and someone visiting a confusingly similar website, such as bitcoin.com.

In terms of vernacular, here is some data I collected last night:
1. Google Trends is a good tool for looking at popular phrases in online published news stories: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin, bitcoins You can see that both are used, but the singular dominates.
2. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner (which looks at user searches per month using their search engine), the singular is an order of magnitude larger in search queries per month: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3986495/bitcoin-bitcoins.png

 

[Helmuts]

another great exchange of opinions

thank you guys for sharing your knowledge, experience and reasoning.. because of you I am finally having a conversation potential buyer for a £5k domain of mine.

... the beauty of the show is that you all are so different (from the viewpoint of a psychology textbook) - so we can enjoy the full spectrum of opinions

@Michael - could I suggest you to add a sticky post on your frontpage how and when can we view the Live show? thank you ... and please, do finally optimise your youtube channel .. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has discovered you guys at YT (it is still my favourite place to watch your shows) .. and your itunes podcast (while driving or walking) is the 2rd favourite option, and that leaves the website in the 3rd place - a place where to watch your videos that haven't been yet uploaded on YT (like today).

Greetings from the UK where the prices of awesome .co.uk and .uk domains are still unreasonably low,
Helmuts

 

[Gerry]

Alas, the driving factor is one is available for sale...the other is not.

Interesting to note that the peak of activity was December, 2013, presently in a declining state. 74K monthly search volume is nothing to dismiss. With publicity and promoting of this auction, I do believe outside forces (non-domainers) will be a factor in this auction. A article published yesterday regarding Silk Road keeps bitcoin(s) in the news...people may not understand it but they have heard of it. From a standpoint of mining, those that can afford all the scripts and software can certainly afford a few mil for the name. I also look at the new millionaires and billionaires who are in the tech industry to have an interest since bitcoin is so intertwined with the tech sector.

All that aside, a great way to spend an hour sipping coffee, checking emails, listening and occasionally peeking in on who is speaking. DomainSherpa is new and refreshing and informative.

 

[Cyger]

@Michael - could I suggest you to add a sticky post on your frontpage how and when can we view the Live show? thank you ... and please, do finally optimise your youtube channel .. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has discovered you guys at YT (it is still my favourite place to watch your shows) .. and your itunes podcast (while driving or walking) is the 2rd favourite option, and that leaves the website in the 3rd place - a place where to watch your videos that haven't been yet uploaded on YT (like today).

@helmuc: Of course you can suggest it. I love suggestions, so please keep them coming.

With regards to watching the show live, we don't allow that at this time. I've thought about it many times, as it would be great to have a live audience feeding in questions to the Sherpas. But as sophisticated as technology is today, we *still* have technical issues every once in a while associated with bandwidth, resolution, etc. with interviewees and panelists, so adding an extra layer of audience participation would be beyond what I can handle. Sorry. We'll keep looking for a good way to do this that still meets our editorial requirements.

I purposely auto-post to YouTube a day after a show goes live on DomainSherpa.com. I do this for two reasons:
1) I want search engines to understand that the original video is posted on DomainSherpa.com first, and that YouTube is a secondary source. This is primarily for SEO and authority reasons, and like anything we can debate the merits and benefits of doing so.
2) I want to encourage those interested in watching the show to come to DomainSherpa.com to do so. I use Wistia for displaying videos, and it provides me a much more granular view on the content, who's watching it and what is important to those people. For instance, I can look at a heat map and determine what parts of the discussion were listened to multiple times (i.e. which topics were so important people wanted to listen to twice or three times). That can lead me, as a publisher, to find more interviewees on those topics.

Having said all that, I want to serve the content in the manner most comfortable to our audience. If that means you want a YouTube channel, you got it. Podcast only for the interviews or only for the Reviews, you got it (http://www.domainsherpa.com/how-to-follow-domainsherpa-on-social-networks-email-rss/). Social media, check.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

 

[Helmuts]

@DomainSherpa it makes sense.. can't say that I agree, but your victories speak for yourself. great job!!

have a great evening,
Helmuts