- Joined
- Mar 10, 2006
- Messages
- 862
- Reaction score
- 3
As a domainer, it's a lonely existence. You live in your very-restricted space, doing your thing, the best way you know how. You can tell people what you do, but you don't really expect them to totally grasp the concept. And you know, almost every time, the first thing they'll say, is something like, "I bet you wish you could get cocacola.com or microsoft.com."
You've got to explain that trademarks are a no-no, and there are other ways to catch fish. Also, when you tell someone, for the first time, about domaining, you've got to explain that every single dictionary word is gone, unless it's obscure, antiquated, hard-to-pronounce, hard-to-spell, excessively-long, and you don't know what the F it means.
The fact is, you can't teach someone, new to this, to be nearly as good as you. You've spent years at this and you know the ropes. You know about Overture, ccTLDs, relevance in Google, and so on. You know that hyphens are the dash-of-death, and that nothing is as good as a dot-com. Not now, not ever.
Truth is, it's a tough business. It takes endless hours, and you can only do a fraction of what you'd like to do, therefore, you never can stop, no matter how many hours you work it, from the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed. And then, it's not over. You'll be watching TV at 2 in then morning and a new word or phrase is mentioned on a TV show or commercial, and you know there's a good chance that it's available as a dot-com, and if you don't pop up, right away, out of bed, and go immediately to the computer, you'll risk losing the domain to someone else in North Carolina or Texas, who has the same idea as you.
In fact, watching TV and listening to the radio is a competition between many domainers. Your ears are always in tune with something new that will become a new buzz word or phrase. Live events (like the Superbowl) and live news is always a good potential source for a new domain. Will you be the one who grabs the next "wardrobemalfunction.com." I wonder, where the F was I when that phrase first was uttered in public. That one should have been mine, dammit! But I am determined to catch the next big one!
While you are in tune with radio or TV, you go about your domaining. You download the drop lists, run your scripts and filtering programs. You watch the online auctions, make anonymous offers via Afternic, read the technology trend websites - anything to clue you in on the next hot names that aren't yet registered, and you engage any other secret methods you've got up your sleeve.
After years of 15-to-18 hour days, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, frying your brain in front of the computer and eventually establishing a nice collection of names, you keep getting hounded by $200 offers for your domains that aren't "really being used," as they are only "parked" or "redirected." It's like they think you magically got great domains,
with little effort, for the basic registration fee. It's like you never paid $500, or $1,000, or more, for a single domain.
It's really bizarre. Domainers are in business, not necessarily to build a business on the Internet - but to own names that are valuable access points for, potentially, anyone who wishes to establish a business on the Internet. (Of course, PPC is a valid business, too!)
Strange how someone, who wants to build a worldwide business on the Internet, doesn't understand the current and future value of owning a premium dot-com, and how such a domain will provide their customers with instant credibility, and how, often, that name attracts "automatic" type-in customers, which is worth a small fortune, over time. So, let them get dippy-domain.net and advertise it in the Yellow Pages for $5K per month to get the same results.
Just hang on to that domain and collect the PPC revenue you've worked so hard to get. You only need to sell it, if the right buyer comes along - one who knows how valuable the name is, and is willing to pay a "fair" market price. For goodness sake, it's good to see sales reported in dnjournal.com, knowing that there is still hope for humanity, and that some people do actually get it.
Don't you just love those inquiries that ask you if you are "willing to release the domain." Or, "willing to sell for a reasonable price." Or, even "donate the name for a good use." And then there are the ones who want the domain for "a non-profit organization." So, go for the dot-org! That's what .org is for! Dot-com is for commerce and commercial use, thus the .com extension. And if it's for commerce, that means it's for money... so show me the money!
If you've got good names, you don't need to sell them. PPC is a good thing. God bless Google and Yahoo! Hopefully things will continue, PPC revenue will increase, and premium domains will continue to become more valuable.
What does the future hold? Will dot-coms still be around in 20 years? 30 years? Beyond that? If the answer is yes, imagine the value in 2020 or 2030. A $5,000 domain today could be worth $500,000 later.
If you quit acquiring domains, what else would you do? What else could you do? Certainly nothing with the potential of domains and the Internet. Nothing close, unless you've got some great insider stock information. Remember, this is a once-in-a-forever opportunity.
You're at the beginning of the Information age. For God's sake, the earth has been here for millions of years, and it's only been relatively recently that humans have been able to fly and communicate wirelessly.
So what is your goal? 1,000 domains? 5,000 domains? Or is there no limit? Or is your goal a profit-per-day goal... $100 per day, $500, $10,000? The more domains you have, the less impact each domain adds, assuming similar-quality names. And the competition is increasing, as are the prices, to compete for good names.
So when will you stop? How much success is enough? When will you be happy with what you've got? Do you need to keep rolling, just to keep up with the big boys? Or do you plan to become one of the big boys? The answer is up to you. You've got to decide for yourself. And maybe one day, you'll know what that answer is.
You've got to explain that trademarks are a no-no, and there are other ways to catch fish. Also, when you tell someone, for the first time, about domaining, you've got to explain that every single dictionary word is gone, unless it's obscure, antiquated, hard-to-pronounce, hard-to-spell, excessively-long, and you don't know what the F it means.
The fact is, you can't teach someone, new to this, to be nearly as good as you. You've spent years at this and you know the ropes. You know about Overture, ccTLDs, relevance in Google, and so on. You know that hyphens are the dash-of-death, and that nothing is as good as a dot-com. Not now, not ever.
Truth is, it's a tough business. It takes endless hours, and you can only do a fraction of what you'd like to do, therefore, you never can stop, no matter how many hours you work it, from the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed. And then, it's not over. You'll be watching TV at 2 in then morning and a new word or phrase is mentioned on a TV show or commercial, and you know there's a good chance that it's available as a dot-com, and if you don't pop up, right away, out of bed, and go immediately to the computer, you'll risk losing the domain to someone else in North Carolina or Texas, who has the same idea as you.
In fact, watching TV and listening to the radio is a competition between many domainers. Your ears are always in tune with something new that will become a new buzz word or phrase. Live events (like the Superbowl) and live news is always a good potential source for a new domain. Will you be the one who grabs the next "wardrobemalfunction.com." I wonder, where the F was I when that phrase first was uttered in public. That one should have been mine, dammit! But I am determined to catch the next big one!
While you are in tune with radio or TV, you go about your domaining. You download the drop lists, run your scripts and filtering programs. You watch the online auctions, make anonymous offers via Afternic, read the technology trend websites - anything to clue you in on the next hot names that aren't yet registered, and you engage any other secret methods you've got up your sleeve.
After years of 15-to-18 hour days, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, frying your brain in front of the computer and eventually establishing a nice collection of names, you keep getting hounded by $200 offers for your domains that aren't "really being used," as they are only "parked" or "redirected." It's like they think you magically got great domains,
with little effort, for the basic registration fee. It's like you never paid $500, or $1,000, or more, for a single domain.
It's really bizarre. Domainers are in business, not necessarily to build a business on the Internet - but to own names that are valuable access points for, potentially, anyone who wishes to establish a business on the Internet. (Of course, PPC is a valid business, too!)
Strange how someone, who wants to build a worldwide business on the Internet, doesn't understand the current and future value of owning a premium dot-com, and how such a domain will provide their customers with instant credibility, and how, often, that name attracts "automatic" type-in customers, which is worth a small fortune, over time. So, let them get dippy-domain.net and advertise it in the Yellow Pages for $5K per month to get the same results.
Just hang on to that domain and collect the PPC revenue you've worked so hard to get. You only need to sell it, if the right buyer comes along - one who knows how valuable the name is, and is willing to pay a "fair" market price. For goodness sake, it's good to see sales reported in dnjournal.com, knowing that there is still hope for humanity, and that some people do actually get it.
Don't you just love those inquiries that ask you if you are "willing to release the domain." Or, "willing to sell for a reasonable price." Or, even "donate the name for a good use." And then there are the ones who want the domain for "a non-profit organization." So, go for the dot-org! That's what .org is for! Dot-com is for commerce and commercial use, thus the .com extension. And if it's for commerce, that means it's for money... so show me the money!
If you've got good names, you don't need to sell them. PPC is a good thing. God bless Google and Yahoo! Hopefully things will continue, PPC revenue will increase, and premium domains will continue to become more valuable.
What does the future hold? Will dot-coms still be around in 20 years? 30 years? Beyond that? If the answer is yes, imagine the value in 2020 or 2030. A $5,000 domain today could be worth $500,000 later.
If you quit acquiring domains, what else would you do? What else could you do? Certainly nothing with the potential of domains and the Internet. Nothing close, unless you've got some great insider stock information. Remember, this is a once-in-a-forever opportunity.
You're at the beginning of the Information age. For God's sake, the earth has been here for millions of years, and it's only been relatively recently that humans have been able to fly and communicate wirelessly.
So what is your goal? 1,000 domains? 5,000 domains? Or is there no limit? Or is your goal a profit-per-day goal... $100 per day, $500, $10,000? The more domains you have, the less impact each domain adds, assuming similar-quality names. And the competition is increasing, as are the prices, to compete for good names.
So when will you stop? How much success is enough? When will you be happy with what you've got? Do you need to keep rolling, just to keep up with the big boys? Or do you plan to become one of the big boys? The answer is up to you. You've got to decide for yourself. And maybe one day, you'll know what that answer is.
