There were just a few hundred people in that room who understood why prices on certain names were higher than others; why these names were being bid on at all! How is that going to change in the years ahead as more information comes to more people? How are names going to be more important as the next generation starts building websites and as the curtain gets pulled back to reveal the flimsyness of traditional ways to generate traffic (seo, arbitrage, traffic purchase and assorted bags of smoke).
Tonight I got this note from a friend who works around the industry, (but not directly in it) who also had a "wow moment" recently:
"I hope you don't mind me asking some basic questions for personal reasons, but you [are one of] the most successful individual domainers out there. I've been thinking, especially since the LV Traffic event, that I should start investing in DNs [Domain Names] and build a portfolio. For one thing, it would help me in my work XXXXXXXXXXX, as I would understand XXXXXXXXXXXXXX on a visceral level. But also, I think I'd be foolish to ignore this investment opportunity -- back in the late 1970s an architect friend of mine took me on a tour of the then-seedy South Beach section of Miami when you could pick up real estate there for a paltry sum, and I didn't, and I don't want to make that mistake with virtual real estate.
My thought is to start out with some secondary domain other than .Com, as I don't want to make the investment [in] a decent .Com address until I've come up on the learning curve. I'm thinking from all I've read and heard from guys like you and Ron Jackson that .US has good upside potential, but I'd welcome your thoughts on that and whether you'd suggest a different TLD to start with.
So my questions are:
1)What's the best way to search for available DNs without having someone else grab it for tasting?
2) Who is a reasonably priced but trustworthy registrar?
3)Which parking service does the best job of placing relevant PPC ads and giving a decent revenue split?
4)Is there some other important question I've neglected to ask?"
The individual who wrote that above is probably the last person I ever expected to write those words. Not because I don't think this person is clever or driven (on the contrary this person is both), just because the individual doesn't fit the traditional 'domainer mold'. We are going to see so much more of this in the years ahead. People who don't fit the mold coming in to stake their claim. Different businesses will be born selling domain insurance, providing auction services, management of traffic, development services, legal services, consulting (and this is by no means an exhaustive list).
My first piece of advice would be to rest easy. South Beach didn't transform overnight. The opportunities will roll out very easily and predictably to those who keep a cool head and understand that the maturation of the industry will take time. Be prepared to act and act diligently (not franticly). I have often compared this entire industry to a slow pitch straight down the middle.
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