The Rick Schwartz Domain and Traffic Blog RicksBlog.com...Home of the "Domain King"

We are all self appointed

This post meanders all over the place so indulge me.

I got on the web and the first day back in 1995 I learned I was a "Webmaster." WOW! Now what the hell was a webmaster? Damn, not in the dictionary. It sounded important. Sounded very authoritative. Like the captain of a ship but much more important. So golly gee, first day and there is so much opportunity on the net that I am like an "Admiral" since day one. Whoo Hoo!! Who knew?

 

Now I could write and go down two very different paths right now. I can continue on this trend and that would bring you to "Webmastering.com" that I wrote in 1999 and still stands undisturbed or I can continue on with the title of this piece about us all being self appointed.

 

Ok, we all became self appointed. I became the self appointed "Domain King". Ron Jackson became the self appointed "Historian." Monte Cahn became the self appointed "Web radio host" of Domain Masters. The list goes on and on and on. Point is, we saw a void and need and just filled it. We defined the job, defined the agenda, defined the reason to do it and defined the goal. We came at different points in time and just did whatever. I decided my duties were to spread the word of the power and profitability of domain names and why they would become so valuable and so important to the future of commerce and personal relationships even tho it would hurt my own efforts in buying domains in the future. I decided that raising awareness and values was a more important job. I went to early business forums and shared my vision on domain names. I approached the real estate industry first. Within a relatively short time they would throw my ass out the door, delete my posts and banish me from ever coming back. They even kicked my friend Serge out and deleted his posts. He challenged their minds and they were not up to the challenge.

 

But eventually one group stopped laughing long enough to listen. And when I bought Porno.com for $42k (Something unheard of then) they actually stopped and listened. Mainly they listened because they thought I had lost my mind. The BRUTAL TRUTH was that I PROVED to this elite group of early pioneers that MY TRAFFIC coming from MY DOMAINS via type in traffic was outperforming their traffic by over 100X. You heard me right. Matter of fact, early in the game I actually thought my calculator was broken. While others were earning 1/10 of one penny per visitor, I was earning over 10 cents per click per visitor and more. More than 100x the norm. It was easily verified thru independent sponsors who saw what I saw and could no longer just ignore this startling difference. Something Main Street and Corporate America has yet to figure out and we are over a decade into this grand experiment. A decade later and MOST folks have yet to learn what the adult industry learned in 1997. I can only shake my head when I think about the BILLIONS in business these folks pissed away by not learning the difference between targeted traffic and crappy worthless traffic. Not knowing the difference between a website that could close a sale and one that could not. They pay the same for traffic and development and don't even know the difference!!! Keep putting water in your gas tanks and paying for it and expect your business to take off. LAUGHABLE!!

 

I love economic slowdowns. I love recessions. This event FORCES people to actually work for a living. Look for new answers to old problems. Look for new ways. ASK QUESTIONS! Stop and listen to the answer. They experiment. They work like their jobs are at stake because they are. As domainers with targeted traffic we are right on their path once they figure out where their path is. So pull up a comfortable chair and enjoy the wait. They are on their way.

 

Smart business increases their ad budgets during tough times to keep their numbers as close to level as possible. Dumb businesses pull back and that is the kiss of death. I can prove it. Let's look at Audi. They came out with some super sports car last year and advertised the hell out of it. I saw it in every magazine and every ad they ran. Ok cool. So I call the dealer. I could feel the salesman's chest boast out even on the phone as he told me there is a 3 year wait to get one. He thought he was so cool. Little did he know what a moron he was. He was so happy that he could not make a sale even tho he had a live one on the line. So Audi set him up to look foolish and I took the opportunity to laugh at him for sounding so proud about not having what I wanted to buy and therefore made no money and thus wasted everybody's time. Why advertise when you can't deliver or are at 100% capacity? It's the wrong time. You advertise NOW when things are tough so you can stay afloat. btw, the funny part of the story was a few weeks later they called me back and told me they could get me one. By that time I had bought 2 other cars and my appetite for the Audi was gone. Great job Audi! Almost as good as another time when I asked a salesman there what 0-60 was and was told  "Nobody really cares about 0-60 anymore." I laughed in his face, told him his cars must be slow not to answer that after he knew every other stat and spec and walked out.

 

Told you I would meander on this post. Ok back to the subject.

 

On the other hand, let's stay on this. The question is whether Main Street and Corporate America will pull back on their advertising or are they bold enough to increase it? Stay tuned because you will see before your very eyes which folks GET IT and which folks don't. Their online sales are all increasing. Their brick and mortar sales are flat lining and will soon be in decline. The expenses of running B&M business is going to be devastating. Cost online is much lower with worldwide penetration. When will they finally shift the BULK of their resources online? If not now, it will never be as you will watch some big boys just topple over.

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz.

It's the "C" not the "I"

Morning folks!!

Since I sold ireport.com to CNN I hear this chatter about "I" domains. The "I" part of the equation in the domain name is a very small part of the equation. The power the "I" had in this particular domain is extremely powerful. But as the title suggests, it is not about the "I" domain. It is about the "C" in "Circumstance." Circumstance is what drove this deal and drives almost all deals.

Now let me peal this back a bit. CNN got the deal of the century. $750k was a bargain. The value was close to $7.5M and I am going to explain why I plan to get $7.5M as a result of this deal. First of all this may become the highest profile domain to be sold and used in a very long time. CNN may advertise ireport.com hundreds of times a day throughout the world. And each time any of us hear that, it will remind the industry and then eventually the world about this deal. The BARGAIN this deal will become in the eyes of the market. That alone will raise values across the board as folks begin to realize what power a domain, a great domain, can have to set you apart from the competition.

The race is on. Will Fox News fight back and get uReport.com? The one thing that is a SURE BET, is WHEN that domain eventually sells to Fox, and it WILL sell to them at some point, it will sell at a rate much higher than $750k. That deal will likely never be known when it does happen, but there is no question that the table is set for a multimillion dollar sale. Do you hear that Seattle? Bases are loaded. So that is really the next piece of the puzzle to follow. This has the power to blow the lid off the domain industry. Two titans at WAR and it is their domain names that will be their leading Generals. For the love of  Pete, they pay $750k for a picture of Britney's panties! This domain may actually define both networks for the next generation. Comparable? You decide. This may illustrate to the markets and business world that a domain name value is a drop in the bucket when compared to other income producing assets. The very future of ALL business is wrapped up in their domain names. It has been that way for a dozen years and it will be a recession or a crash in 2008 that forces all business to re-evaluate how they do business and why I would make such statements. How many other industries and titans will fight similar battles? The value of this sale will be pointed to as another mile marker not only in the domain industry but in business because of what is still yet to unfold. The best is yet to come.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz

iReport.com and Domain Valuations

Good Morning Folks!!

I would love to give the details of the sale but by contract I am not allowed. However if you read my past posts, the secrets of how I approach this are all there. NOW maybe the industry will REJECT the "X" factor. This was CRAP introduced by the VC guys that has NOTHING TO DO WITH DOMAINS!!!!

If domainers want to be FOOLS and keep selling for "X", I will keep saying that domainers are leaving a FORTUNE on the table and don’t understand the anatomy of a great domain name. Maybe this will blow the lid off all the appraisals services. They are ALL WORTHLESS. Absolutely worthless. Not a single one has a clue. Not a one and SCAM is usually the first thing that comes to mind when I read a worthless appraisal that somebody actually paid for.

The ireport.com sale shows that conventional valuations are fundamentally flawed as they do not take into account the biggest part of what makes a domain name valuable. When I say something like this, appraisers tilt their head like the RCA dog. They react like I am talking a different language. So this is why I give no credence to ANY domain appraisal service. They are ALL worthless and many are slanted depending on their circumstance while others are pure rubbish. If someone waives an appraisal in my face they get a laugh right back in their face. It is like wearing a billboard that says, “I am a clueless rookie.”

To come to a true value it would have to be by committee and that committee would have to be made up of successful domainers as well as others. Without discussing all the possible attributes of a domain name it is impossible to come up with a value. Those buying and selling based on "X" are playing somebody else's game. Don't be foolish enough to swallow their silly valuations. I have said this over and over for year after year and maybe since some of these players have disappeared as fast as they appeared, maybe now folks will take notice. Like I said, I have blog posts about it right here for anyone willing to dig!

Now I admit that ireport.com was a perfect storm. All the elements were in place for a pretty big payday. However what the following years will show is this “Perfect storm” will be repeated by me and others many times.

While I can't go into the details of the negotiations, what I can say is it took several months and the main sticking point at contract time was whether this sale would be made public. Something for me that was non-negotiable. I would have walked from the sale if I could not report and publicize it. If DNJournal could not include it in their updates. The deals never reported would make everyone here, think differently about their assets. Still, folks are more focused on traffic and stats and "X" than they are on what makes a domain great and have value and have great value to others before that event even materializes..

$750k is a stepping stone. What it does is take what we do from theory to reality. When we look back at this sale in 10 years, people will say it was cheap and should have been sold for 10x that number. It's a stepping stone because sometime soon it will be unusual for any good domain to sell for under 7 figures. Then 8 figures. We are entering the period of time where we will see some significant domain sales. During this slow down or recession, it will be the DOMAIN INDUSTRY that is the shining light on the hill. A place where great fortunes can and will be made. Times like this fuel emerging growth and we are more than emerging. We are busting out when everyone else is bailing out. We are positioned very well and this rocky financial environment we are in will benefit the domain industry more than any of us could do alone or collectively.

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

 

Domain name revealed

This is a great example of an end user realizing how important having a key generic domain is in future growth and development of a brand. Especially an end user that has been a true pioneer in the space.

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/01-17-08.htm

Good morning from the HIGH SEAS

I am on the 8th day of a 9 day cruise. Most cabins on a ship are about 200sq. ft. The cabin I am in is 5300 sq. ft. Complete with private swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi. The butler brings breakfast at 8:30 and the concierge takes care of all the daily arrangements. This is the 2nd time in the last 12 months I have taken the same cruise and same suite. It just doesn't get much better.

 

I like this lifestyle and I will do what I can do to protect it. Next week or the week after DNJournal will report on a domain sale I inked yesterday. The domain sold for $750,000 to the end user. A domain I registered in 1997. So not a bad return. $70 or $100 turns into $750k. in 10 years. More details to follow. What I can say is this will be a VERY high profile domain and used by a true pioneer of the Internet. Their site up before I even bought my first domain name in 1995.

 

So things are great.....BUT.....

 

There are flaws and abuses on the Internet. In lawmakers zeal to fix things there will be some tiny provision somewhere that will change how you do business. It WILL happen. It's not an "If." Domainers think they are immune to losing everything. All they have to do is put gold in their pocket but don't have resources allocated to protecting and preserving that gold. I see 2008 as the last chance domainers will have a say in their own industry. The under toe that will come this year will remove all cockyness from anyone who reads this.

 

Sure, it's easy to laugh and ignore. It's much harder to educate yourselves about threats on multiple fronts. If domainers are not represented at each of those fronts, they forfeit and whatever the aggressor wants, the aggressor will get.

What is the state of the industry? Read what the prominent folks of the industry have to say. Also you can see my  extended thoughts on the middle and wnd of page3. The VERY LEAST anyone reading this should do is get the ICA newsletter and see the attack we are under. Better yet, join the ICA and protect your assets. Help expose abuses. The latest by netsol. If you don't know what is going on....are you really even in the domain industry?

 

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

As the World Turns....

Morning folks!!

The earth will revolve today but it just may seem a little faster than most days. 2008 is about to start with a BANG. A very BIG bang. What will it all mean? Stay tuned. This is a biggie! We are going to start the year off right.

Rick Schwartz

UPDATE!!!

Moniker and Oversee Join Forces!!

http://www.moniker.com/oversee/index.jsp