The name of the game is radically changing (excellent read below – promise!) June 28, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Investing, internet, marketing, trends.Tags: domaining, Domains, icann, internet, registration, tld
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The most recent cataclysmic event that shook up the domain industry is too important to go unmentioned in this blog, so here I am, making yet another attempt to write a FINAL post for this blog before I start my new one. ICANN’s decision to allow unlimited number of top level domains (TLD / web address extensions) will have a profound impact on the industry over the coming decades. What surprises me most is that authors and commenters on the top industry blogs seem to be dancing around the most important consequence of this. All I hear is “WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE DOT COM?” when they should already be thinking outside of their DOT COM box. The point is that soon enough, the name of the game will change from DOT COM, to *gasp* HOW DO I OWN AND PROMOTE MY OWN TLD?…especially as far as the biggest players are concerned. The dot com? Well, it will not disappear. Most likely, the “marginal” domains bearing this extension will lose much value as registrants begin opting for other extensions in order to have a more meaningful web address instead of going with this “status quo” TLD as a safe haven. Don’t get me wrong, the dot com will never become a dinosaur, nor will there be an extinction. The top dot coms will probably remain most valuable. There are too many financially powerful entities heavily invested in this one extension to let it fade away – this will not happen, or at least it will not happen fast.
So yes, my own goal over the next couple of years will be to control my own TLD… maybe even two or three. There will probably be a few hundred, maybe a thousand or so possible extensions that would be worth applying for with ICANN. I am still not 100% sure about how the process will work, and probably neither is ICANN at this moment, but visit their website for details and updates. These marketable TLDs will be, of course, short, generic, and highly commercial terms that other people would WANT to register their domains under!!! The two best thing to come out of all of this, I think, are (1) that it will probably make domaining much more popular and accessible, and (2) make the URLs of the future more meaningful, and hence memorable and brandable. Sooner or later, dot com will no longer be the “default” extension that pops into people’s minds when they go online and search for information. People will begin asking… “so what does COM stand for anyway??” My money’s on later though. This is indeed the dawning of a new era… though we might have to wait a while to see its day.
P.S. I can’t wait for Kesmodel to update his book to Domain Game 2.0 with commentary on how the industry will be affected by ICANN’s decision.
I JUST CAN’T STOP WRITING ON THIS BLOG!!! June 23, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, curious finds, internet, trends.Tags: aggregators, copyright, Domains, news
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Man, this sux. Just found a site linking to a whole bunch of my domain-related posts… availabledomains.biz
Looks like a news aggregator where half the screen space is articles re-posted from legitimate blogs such as mine, and the other half is Google ads… Discovering schemes like this one is really de-motivating to people like myself to keep writing and offering original content to the world. I run one blog, where all or almost all of the posts are my own, but this joker aggregates domain news from across the internet, gets huge traffic because of the sheer amount of replicated content, and probably rakes in tons of adsense cash… I swear to god, it looks like there’s not one bit of original content on this entire website… Never once did the owner ask permission to reprint my articles… Where’s the love? Where’s justice???
Well… at least he seems to have a link back to the original sources. What more can you ask? I guess this is a site I’ll just have to write off as “clever web development” in my book, though the webmaster is risking serious legal trouble by reprinting content without permission, if his activities are discovered by someone who cares about this more than I do at this time…
Fuck it. I’m going to bed.
Should the government regulate the internet? (read: How much should the government regulate the internet?) June 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Business, Domains, Fulfillment, Goals, Inspirational, Life, Society, curious finds, internet, self-improvement, technology, trends.Tags: Domains, government, internet, regulation
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Let *THIS* be my last blog post… something to think about.
Lots of people (49%) seem to think that the government has a duty to police the digital universe, according to Rasmussen Reports (a story I “dugg” today)… The article is filled with other insightful statistics about internet usage and regulation. I’ll leave the analysis up to you.
The U.S. government already *IS* regulating the net, to a large extent. Many of you probably remember a situation where a domainer had various domains disabled by order of the government because they were pointing to sites advertising travel to Cuba. The guy wasn’t a U.S. resident, nor was he marketing to U.S. consumers. He did make the mistake of registering his names with U.S.-based registrars though (it was Enom, to my best recollection…), and our relations with Cuba are still “so-so” , to say the least.
More regulation on the way? Perhaps the Snowe Bill push was a prelude to that. Historically, a country has rarely gotten any “freer” after it established a federal government, save for revolutions and other such cataclysmic events. Deregulation rarely follows the establishment of a central government. Is China a potential counterexample to that trend? Time will tell.
What all this means for domainers, who knows anymore… too many moving parts and variables to venture any long-term guesses… as the wise man says, hope for the best, plan for the worst.
ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, ENJOY THE INSPIRATION:
This is a public service announcement. June 22, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Fulfillment, Goals, Inspirational, Life, Passion, Purpose, Society, curious finds, music, popular culture, self-improvement, trends.Tags: experience, failure, success
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Most recent domain name registrations. June 19, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, Investing, curious finds, technology, trends.Tags: domain registration, Domains, dotcom, health care, nanotech
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I keep proving to myself that there are great dot-com domains still waiting to be registered. Today, I scooped up CloseMonitoring.com, which would make a great brand for anything from a surveillance equipment business, to a health care services website. Another domain I picked up this week is Ormosil.com Ormosil is a nanomaterial with several applications in industry. Yet another one-word domain registered by me this week is Repoxygen.com, a type of gene therapy that is currently being tested, with potential to become a cure for anemia. Opportunities in this business are endless, if you only choose to open your eyes, and maybe read a little.
Afternic reveals top 10 domain name categories June 6, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, internet, trends.Tags: afternic, broker, domain, IT, sales
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I am a member of Afternic. Today they sent me an email with a list of most searched categories for domain names in their inventory of over 3 million listings. The are as follows:
1. Fashion & Apparel Specials
2. Real Estate
3. Home Improvement
4. Internet
5. Movies
6. Software
7. Food and Drink
8. Professional Services
9. Music
10. Travel & Tourism
Personally, I probably would not have guessed that Fashion and Apparel would occupy the first position on a most searched for list, seems a little out of place. IT is another outstanding category. Basic living necessities such as food and real estate occupy other leading positions. Entertainment is in high demand as well. This list is important. It should affect your personal domaining strategy, how you position your entire portfolio, as well as individual developments within it.
Great news for us guys. June 1, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Men, Society, trends.Tags: babies, boys, fertility, pregnancy
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Apparently, there are 17 fewer male babies for every 10,000 children born in the U.S.
Some researchers are blaming pollution, others feel it’s a natural population swing. Either way, it makes me feel like my stock is going up 
Original post here: Baby Boys on the Decline…
Emerging domaining niches… June 1, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, science, technology, trends.1 comment so far
For those of us getting into the game late, “predictive” domaining is one of the most attractive avenues for new domain registration and development. Several of my own registrations include domains that deal with PGD technologies, which, in brief, is the science of making babies just like they do in the movie Gattaca, which I hope catches on. I own everything from PGDBabies to PGDParents to PGDBlog.com…
The two most recent names I picked up (today in fact, hence this post), are FloatingNuclearPower.com and FloatingPowerStations.com The following article sparked my interest in this sub-topic of the energy industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station
The most important qualities for being a good predictive domainer are having a range of varied interest, a genuine curiousity for learning, and a good eye for rising trends in society and commerce. The last one, I guess, comes with experience.
Happy domaining…
The problem with “call to action” domains May 27, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, marketing, trends, valuation.Tags: call to action, Domains, meaning, value
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I think call to action names can be great. I’ve acquired quite a number of them for my future development to be honest. However, in my opinion, these names have very minimal intrinsic value, if any, because the same “call to action” can be issued with a potentially unlimited number of word combinations. Also, different people can have different associative concept schemas linked to different “calls to action.” Unless your domain is linked to a content-rich website, that stimulates the associations you do in fact want to evoke, your “call to action” dot com is probably worthless, unless it’s already in common usage (and few of those are left for registration…)
Just a thought.
The vital importance of user-generated content and user-driven development… May 26, 2008
Posted by unemployedalcoholic in Domains, advertising, internet, marketing, seo, trends.Tags: cms, collaboration, community, content, development, drupal, joomla, ning, web
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Perhaps I am a little “late to the party” in this respect. Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but this realization has just struck me now, on this Memorial Day morning with such a vivid clarity like it has never occurred to me before. The time of the “my little corner of the universe” web page has come and gone, perhaps it was never even here to begin with. The whole point of the internet is collaboration, not seclusion. The thing is, unless you own a short, generic, top-of-the line domain (the ones that go for $100k+ nowadays), you will not be reaping substantial profits in the web business without thorough development that attracts, marinates, and retains traffic. I speak of community building of course… It has never been easier to create a community-oriented resource online. There’s Ning, there’s all kinds of PHP CMS utilities (joomla, drupal, nuke, etc.), there’s always forums and chat-rooms you can quickly integrate… if you’re too lazy to do that, start with setting up a survey script with a new question every day, week, or month, depending on what your current traffic stream is and how creative you can be. Even if your website has a ton of really great information, it is not likely to be successful on today’s web without an obvious, attractice, COLLABORATION element that would encourage your audience to stick around and contribute to the growth of this web resource.
Even when some of the most popular virtual destinations for the masses were seemingly one man operations such as Maddox’s and Tucker Max’s dirty humor pages, a collaboratie outlet for their visitors to rant, vent, and argue was ever-present, be it Tucker’s forum or Maddox’s beloved “hate mail” pages…
Ultimately, this should all result in a “stickier” website with a more interested audience, a peer-reviewed informational resource that’s richer in content, and just a more fun web place for visitors to “hang out” at, instead of a one-stop, one-click mile marker for the blazing internet traveler.
That’s all for today… Now let’s party. If you gained any useful insight from this or any of my other posts, please let me know. If it’s complete rubbish, do notify me of that as well. We’re all trying to get better, and we’ve all got to start somewhere… My current craft of choice is writing at this time, and if you’re not a bot, your honest input is much appreciated. Best wishes to all.
