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

Morning Folks!!

Talk about a SCATHING article about the new gTLD's. this baby is a blockbuster!!! How many of these "Weddings" are going to end up in death as they die on the vine? Or, maybe open up shop and be served with 100 or 1000 different lawsuits claiming this or that and as a corporation you are compelled to answer each and every one of them? How do you spell "Can of worms"? Well here is a batch jumping out of a can just as we are getting to the altar.

Mike Berkens uncovered a WHALE of a story by the NY Times yesterday and I am compelled to post about it here as well. It is stunning. It is a rebuke of what is to come. The Clusterf*ck as I have been describing it since day one. But Clusterf*ck sounds mild when Ester Dyson says it is "contributing nothing" and others use the keyword CONFUSION! Gee where have I heard that word before. Confusion. Let me think. Maybe 100 posts of mine!

"The proliferation of these suffixes seems fraught for both consumers and companies. It has the potential to confuse online searchers: .car or .cars? baby.toys or toys.baby? It could also prompt companies, at great expense, to register bunches of new brand sites defensively as a way to pre-empt cybersquatters, spoofers and fraudsters."

Some technology veterans and trademark experts view the domain expansion as largely unnecessary.

“You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,” says Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of Icann. “You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity.”

She went on to say,  “You are creating a business, like derivatives on Wall Street, that has no value,”.

THESE ARE VERY STRONG WORDS COMING OUT. Taking a stand like this in public is not an easy thing to do. She is courageous for saying them and it would be even more courageous to heed them.

And perhaps the biggest warning comes from  professor, Jacqueline Lipton, from University of Houston Law Center.

“The Internet address oversight body may not have considered deeply enough the larger linguistic and societal ramifications of setting off a land grab for new virtual real estate like .love or .home “It’s a private body, that is dabbling in this very delicate balance of commerce and expression online that is fraught with pitfalls.”

The entire article is here

Morning Folks!

The title says it all and it is all so simple. Prefixes and suffixes GUARANTEE there is an endless supply of .coms. Put "The" in front of anything. Put "USA" at the end of anything. Or "global" or a "Location based" prefix or suffix. Add a dash. There are more .coms available than have been resgistered by a factor of 1000.

All I can do from here is add to my argument. But what for? The example speaks for itself and THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of prefixes and suffixes are out there to use. com in short supply? NONSENSE!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

EXACTLY 500 YEARS ago in 1513 Ponce de Leon found the fountain of youth in Saint Augustine, Florida. 500 YEARS ago this year.

What does that have to do with domains, domaining and domainers? Well I got an issue of Homes and Land and there it was. "Build your Dream House"

"Oceanfront lot with expansive Ocean and Intracoastal views located on the white sandy pristine Crescent Beach." $750,000

ok, so this oceanfront lot has been sitting there for 500 YEARS and still nobody has developed it. Nobody has built on it. But somebody has owned it. Many sombodies probably. It sold many times over the years and nobody built a thing and now it has a price of $750,000. And they call US squatters instead of homesteaders??

500 YEARS! How much was the first sale worth? The second sale? the third?

I DEMAND the owner do something with it! He is not using it. Somebody could put it to better use.

Pathetic argument huh? But these same TERMITES out there use that argument against bona-fide domain investors like you and me that foresaw what others did for HUNDREDS of years and THEY did not see it. Now they are angry and they are cheap and some are thugs and some have even been labeled as THIEVES by the governing body as they have been found GUILTY of REVERSE DOMAIN NAME HIJACKING!!

If we did it their way, then each of us could challenge this oceanfront land with a WIPO or NAF suit and claim some BOGUS rights and walk away with this Oceanfront lot with expansive Ocean and Intracoastal views located on the white sandy pristine Crescent Beach.

Simple!

So now those that don't even understand about investing in domain names know what a scum bucket thief looks like!  And when they demand to know what you are going to do with your investment, you are not compelled to answer and in FACT it is none of their business. They can make an offer, they can suggest a joint venture, they can do lots of constructive things. But just like the landowner that would tell the guy passing by to go to hell if  he was called a landsquatter, the domainer should be no different.

But an even bigger lesson!!

What is your life expectancy?

Consider that when you are buying KEYWORD .whatever's.

See you in the next life!