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

Afternoon Folks!!

Rockies.com sold for $1.2 Million this week. Nets.com is up for grabs at $5 Million and pokes fun at the NY Nets. Cowboys.com now has a value somewhere in between. Except for one teeny weeny problem. Cowboys.com is now making money! We now have this dating site and it's making money!! Who knew this was such a big niche in th heartland?

So now it is not about a domain, it is about a business. A business not a domain and that changes everything IF we wanted to change anything at all. Now I am writing this as an individual, not as a member of the group that bought it. So I am only a minority stake holder in all this and don't speak for anyone but myself.

It's no secret we are getting quite a stream of traffic. Most of which is type ins and Alexa can't measure type ins. I'll get back to you with how many stadiums worth we get. But it's impressive.

Who knew there were so many gay cowboys? It would lead one to believe that if you were to go a certain stadium in Texas, you might want to be just a wee bit cautious. There have been rumors swirling around there for years as I recall.

Not that cowboys.com have anything whatsoever to do with that football team with a very close name that their attorney/rep thought they were buying for $275 instead of $275,000. They actually won the bidding at a LIVE major industry auction, but when it was all said and done they backed out of the deal and our little group ended up with it after that HUGE FUMBLE at a cost of $370,000.

A fumble that has been written about and laughed about for years. Come on?

Anyways, no point here. Just some random thoughts over 5 years later. Shows human nature and how tough folks make it. In football you can recover a fumble. Here too. But then again I am sure noting has one to do with the other etc. etc. etc.

I guess that would establish the value of Cowboys.com domain only being worth somewhere between $1.2MM on the very low end and $5MM today. And just like salaries, who knows what the value will be in another 1, 2, 3 or 5 years as we move into this new orbit. Different markets command different values. The more comparisons, the more you can demonstrate value. The more our business makes, the harder it is to herd cats and have agreement between all owners to do something different.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Never confuse the customer. That's just one of the takeaways from the O.co disaster. Sure, you can put lipstick on this pig but 5 months after they announce they are going to become O.com, the change goes down in flames.

There are many losers in this. Some are short term losers and then there are long term losers. As for winners, there is only one winner. Dotcom!

Now this does not mean you can't make money with different extensions. You can. Including .co. It does mean you are crazy to try and build a business on any extension other than dotcom UNLESS you own the dotcom. They will ALWAYS have a gaping hole in their advertising and marketing strategy/budget and that is a costly mistake if they don't have the .com counterpart.

What happened with this news is akin to a $25 million domain sale. It's a marker in the sand. Marking a significant day with new FACTS.

This is what I would call a 'Paul Revere Moment' because the following line is going to be repeated and repeated and repeated for YEARS to come. Had O.co just decided to make a change would be one thing, but when they said THIS, the WORLD changed:

'Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, 'a good portion' of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co.'

You can't put this back in the box. You can't unring this bell. This is not a low level employee, this is the President of the company. It is out there and I and others will hang our hat on it for years to come. Whether it be .co, .net, or HUNDREDS and soon to be THOUSANDS of other extensions.

'Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, 'a good portion' of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co.'

Do not forget that line. THAT is what this is all about. 'It's the traffic, stupid!'

But there is also some clarity for the first time. Plus the conversation now turns to traffic. They are finally talking about traffic. When they start targeting that traffic we will all know we have arrived.

Itr has always been about the traffic but now they are reacting to it and understanding it.

When Overstock first announced they would be O.com I thought it was a stupid idea. Not because of the .co. That was not the first thing that popped in my mind. The first thing that popped in my mind was that the Overstock Brand itself was weak at best. Overstock is certainly not on the lips of most people and when I asked folks, most never heard of them. So their move was a branding mistake and premature.

It was stupid. I said so then and I did not mince words but I also was patient enough to wait for a REAL result. So the birdie in the mine was born.

Until NOW most folks did not know or maybe even did not believe that there is traffic leakage from ANY extension to the .com. That was inside baseball. We knew, few others did. Now the world knows. That's a good thing.

Read my posts for the last 15 years. I have stated over and over and over again that .NET is an'Orphan' extension. The weakest one because of the leakage to the .com. So this is nothing new. What is new is a mainstream company articulating that for the world to see. That is HUGE! That will have huge ramifications.

'Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, 'a good portion' of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co.'

That is the key sentence to focus on. Nothing else in the release matters. But there is still a variable there. How MUCH leakage was there? We can guess at this. But let's look at the FACT that 5 months after they went to O.co they change course. 5 MONTHS!!! How much money did they spend in that re-branding effort? New commercials, new ads, new this and new that.

They did it 1 week before Thanksgiving. That is more evidence on how much leakage. Would you have liked to be a fly on the wall during those board meetings?

My estimate is as follows. 25% would be the very least leakage. But i think it is more. 50% would probably be getting close. My guess is they brought in a focus group, ran the commercial and then asked folks to simply go to their website.

So if that focus group had let's say had anywhere between 25% and 75% of folks going to O.com, then you can see why they would do something so drastic they know would be very embarrassing. The exact number we can speculate on. Just look how many times we have messed it up on blog posts or comments. CONFUSION!

But the FACT is it was so much leakage that they were forced to make this move after a huge investment.

Re-branding was a huge mistake when the original brand was not fully branded. But that is just a debating point. What can't be debated is the FACT of the traffic leakage. It's always about the traffic.

There is no excuse or justification. There are now facts. Facts to look at and plug in. But when we agree that this 'Experiment' is a big deal, we can't go back and say it doesn't mean much when it fails. And this was much more than a failure.

The single biggest loser, let me see, there are a few of them. But the biggest loser is down the road. I will have to re-read my August post on .Whatever and see if I need to change any of my thinking.

The gTLD's MOMENTUM is the the single biggest loser. How many companies will rethink their plans? How many will see this as the deciding factor? None of us know but I will guarantee you the answer is greater than 'None.' It may even rise to 'Many.'

Next up is .XXX. They have a different vision. Together we will see how that birdie does. I don't know, you don't know, but the birdie will know. The birdies cousin did not do well and this could be the next fatality. But sex sells and so I would say .XXX is the last best chance. A failure there is a nail in the coffin of .whatever as far as domain investment goes imho. We can count the carcases and come to a conclusion at that point. But I will still wait for the results and as always, time will tell.

I will also see what happens with the .XXX lawsuit. Mike Berkens wrote a piece yesterday and gives some good reasons why companies should get their .whatever. We will see if they take his advice. One thing is for sure, understanding of domain names and traffic on the Internet are still in the elementary stages. Folks that at this point should be fluent in domain names can hardly speak the language.

Those that don't understand how meaningful that one statement Mr. Johnson made is just missing the entire picture and wishing won't make your assets worth more. Taking in new information and adjusting is key. This was HUGE information. Nothing we did not know, but now confimed in a very public way.

I will be using that quote for YEARS to come. Forget the .co, (allthough the confusion factor here is off the chart) put in any extension. If you are going to mass market, you MUST own the dotcom version. SIMPLE. One sentence says it all! Thank you Mr. Johnson. You are my hero!

'Mr. Johnson said customers responded well to the O.co advertising, but after watching the spots, 'a good portion' of those who sought out the website went to O.com, instead of O.co.'

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I would not like to be Rob Hall today. This was going to be a comment over at TheDomains.com but decided it was worthy of a stand alone post.

After reading the comments, Why is everyone so positive on something (either way) that there is no way to know how it will unfold?

“So why wouldn’t you sell your generic .com’s and use the money to fund new gTLD’s”

Let me remind Rob Hall that 'dotcom' is the single most used word in the world today. Unless somebody develops something new and better and more useful, that will likely not change in most of our lifetimes. And where did he make the leap that you would have to SELL your dotcoms to fund a new gTLD?? What the hell does one have to do with the other? His logic is flawed in this respect. However he does make a good point as he asks Mike about Stuff.com but agan LOGIC is missing as I will explain.

“So would you rather own Stuff.com or .Stuff for $185K?

“If you owned the TLD don’t you think you could sell 10,000 registrations a year at $10 or make $100K a year.”

Maybe you would sell 50,000 registrations a year and now make $500,000 a year and that would be an annuity in perpetuity.

“So why wouldn’t you sell your generic .com’s and use the money to fund new gTLD’s”

This is a different mindset because it is not as a 'Domain Investment' it is as a business venture. But he fails to ask the next LOGICAL question. Would .stuff want stuff.com? And the answer is you bet your sweet ass they want and NEED the domain. But it does not matter if Mike sells Stuff.com and you can ask the folks at Anything.com who has XXX.com. Worth less???? Are you in your right mind? Worth less???

That said it does not mean there won't be 'Opportunity'. But don't confuse opportunist with opportunity. There may be plenty of both. So while I don't agree with Rob Hall on domainers selling their dotcoms, there are other things he says that may have some validity. So let's pick it apart a bit without the knee jerk and emotional reaction. Maybe a few FACTS.
Opportunity comes in many forms and lots of people make millions on failures.
Relying on the domain investor community to buy into 1000 different extensions is not going to happen. However it will draw those that missed the last domain rush into wasting most of their money on something that won't be a success for 20 years if ever. Most will fail out of the gate on their own weight and lack of knowledge.

It's all about the advertising and who does that advertising. CNN branded 'Dotcom'. As I can remember, they were the first. All day, All night, when it meant nothing to 99% of folks. So without that type of distribution, it is going to be a very uphill battle for 99% of all new extensions.

Wishful thinking won't work on either side. Hard facts and how it unfolds will.
Humans are very adaptable when they see a direct benefit to themselves. So never say never. But also realize how long it takes to change a foundation. You have to eat TODAY. Some of these new 'Roads' may not be traveled in our lifetime. They are building interstates but if they go nowhere and lead to nothing it won't matter.

The bottom line is it always comes down to the idea. We will never run out of domains, but we sometimes run out of ideas that just don't copy what already is.
The internet is like LIFE and will and has become destination based.

As a consumer I could care less about the extension. I just want what I need and want. Problem is when the average person tells others, the confusion with dotcom is HUGE!

For example. There is a big thing going on about being 'Topless' for women. So they have a site at 'GoTopless.ORG. Would you like to know how much traffic the .ORG is LEAKING?? Right now to the tune of 2000 visitors a DAY as I own GoTopless.COM.
Now I like .org. I believe it is the #2 extension and have stated that for about a decade now. BUT, folks MUST deal with this issue or they are FOOLS. Period. How do you ignore that??
Now if you ran a business and you lost 2000 customers a day having something other than .COM maybe an intelligent businessman would figure out it is costing them a lot of lost business. And if I were their competitor, I would be eating their lunch and owning THEIR customers. That leak can sink a ship. A person could make a living off a 'Leak'. Can make a FORTUNE off a LEAK.
So get .whatever and the dotcom version goes up 10 fold or 100 fold by ACCIDENT! I just proved it. The dot com owner is YOUR MASTER! Want to be freed of your MASTER?? That takes $$$$$$ to buy the dot com.

ANYONE that thinks a company can get a .whatever and not have the dot com and not lose is just closing their eyes to PROOF! If a guy on Madison Ave gets a .whatever for his client without the .com, he screwed over his client BIG TIME! PERIOD!

But with all that said, there will be BILLIONS of dollars thrown at .whatever and that alone is something that should give everyone reading this a little pause. Not just a knee jerk reaction. Just remember those BILLIONS will ALL need the dotcom counerpart.

I am THRILLED that most in mainstream will disagree with me. Most are looking for the second coming and 1 or 2 out of 1000 just might happen. THEIR success is OUR success. Not the other way around.

Be Loyal to what you believe and what matters. This will bring a tear or more to your eyes and make you pause for just a moment. Nothing to do with domains, everything to do with life.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz