discuss Happy New Years - What is your 2020 Forecast?

[Rob Monster]

This is post # 3,000 at NamePros. So I thought to make it a meaty one.

First of all, I extend a warm Happy New Year blessing to all. May your domaining efforts be fruitful, and may your use of sale proceeds be wisely aligned to the things you feel called to do in 2020!

In the meantime, some folks have asked me for my 2020 predictions. Well, I am no prophet, but I will share some scenarios that I think would be not unreasonable to see unfold:

• Namepros' Alexa rank clears 10,000: After a steep incline in 2019, the NP growth engine keeps humming and clears Alexa rank of 10,000 like a hot knife through butter.

• Emerging markets set the outbound pace: The industry onboards 100,000 new domain investors in 2020 alone. Many find their way to NamePros and learn how to outbound from industry pros.

• PIR acquisition: Despite flag-waving by industry pundits, the deal goes through. The price increase does not happen as the dust settles. After all, the .ORG deal was not about price anyway.

• Godaddy restructuring: During Q1 2020, Godaddy announces housecleaning -- takes out $2 billion of intangible trash. Stock gets rocked. Private equity players directed by Fadi Chehade are in the mix

• Industry consolidation: Look for DAN, Efty, Escrow.com and Uniregistry all to be acquired in 2020. Godaddy will be a buyer of innovation as they throw in the towel on building great tech internally.

• Hidden hands exposed: Thanks to high impact forensic work by a network of truthseekers in the domain community, the hidden hands behind Cloudflare and LetsEncrypt begin to come to light.

• WHOIS makes a comeback: After 18 months of emasculation, WHOIS makes a triumphant return with the launch of GDPR-compliant WHOIS.

• Cloud hosting goes mainstream: An explosion of cPanel sites will move into the cloud thanks to technologies which will bring cloud migration tools for non-technical people.

• 3N.com domain market moonshots: 3N.com domains clear 7 figures as the industry consolidates into very strong hands.

• Digital brands not domains: I believe during 2020, we'll see a big pivot from selling naked domains to selling integrated brands. Squadhelp and Flippa were only the appetizer there.

• WIPO UDRP thuggery thwarted: After a year of boundary testing by WIPO, the industry calls bullshit on the overreach and fights back. Sunlight proves to be a potent detergent in 2020.

• Super-broker Andrew Rosener sells Clear.com for mind blowing $10 million: Sure, it sounds like a crazy moonshot, but Andrew does crazy deals like few others!

So, that's it for my 2020 predictions. Let's see what happens.

In the meantime, curious to hear what folks think will happen in the next 12 months that impacts our industry and community.

 

[eternaldomains]

I feel EPIK's current payout is "adequate and fast"...

It's definitely fast, it's just that there are many who rely on Payoneer

 

[tonyk2000]

Rob, thank you for such a great analysis

A few comments and extra predictions:

PIR acquisition

... IMO, may or may not happen, 50%-50%. Likely depends on the lobbying $$$ spent. All public comments and petitions to stop it are, unfortunately, irrelevant (would not change anything).

Industry consolidation

Escrow.com to be acquired? Too late. Uniregistry? It would not be cheap, so it is unlikely. Not in 2020 at least... Another change of staff @ Uni is possible though. Moreover, Uni depends on escrow.com and seriously. With Uni aftermarket prices and specific Cayman location, U.S.-based intermediary such as escrow.com is a must thing for them to normally process all incoming $USD. New ownership of Uni may greatly affect escrow.com, and vice versa. So, status quo is likely - no changes @ uni, no changes @ escrow.com...

Hidden hands exposed: Thanks to high impact forensic work by a network of truthseekers in the domain community, the hidden hands behind Cloudflare and LetsEncrypt begin to come to light.

Even with more details about what cloudflare and letsencrypt really are, nothing will be really changed. The public will forget the news in ~2 weeks.

Cloud hosting goes mainstream: An explosion of cPanel sites will move into the cloud thanks to technologies like CloudChase which will bring cloud migration tools for non-technical people

Cpanel will likely change hands once again. After their recent games with pricing, many loyal clients leaved them. So the PE firm who owns it now will try to sell it...

NameLiquidate.com shocks expiry stream economy: The new upstart site becomes the #1 place for liquidating expiring domains, sending shockwaves through the expiry economy.

As an answer to NameLiquidate.com , more registrars will offer revshare (from expired sales) to previous domain owners. But, NameLiquidate is... simply better. So it will still affect registrars who are now selling expired domains (pre-release), and seriously.

 

[oldtimer]

Bob (a well-aged person with under-aged domains in general)

We should have an Oldtimers club here at NamePros

On the subject of Forecast or Predictions perhaps everyone should clearly indicate at the beginning of their post whether they are making a Forecast or a Prediction.

Predictions are mostly from gut feelings about how things might turn out in the future, but Forecast is more business oriented and should be backed up with some reasoning and data.

Kind of like when making weather or financial Forecasts where there is a little more expectation of them being real than if they were just Predictions.

IMO

 

[mAd MaX]

Thanks...congratulations... happy new year 2020 to you and everyone.

2020 will break Voice.com record!

 

[Rob Monster]

Just 1 hopeful prediction for 2020...

Epik strikes a deal with Payoneer and enabled many users another way to get their massive payouts

I find them very hard to work with these days. If someone knows a senior rep at Payoneer, please send them my way and perhaps we can cut through the nonsense. I do know for our Israeli clients, for example, this would be helpful. For Pakistan we have a solution but Payoneer is also useful there.

 

[Rob Monster]

Rob, thank you for such a great analysis

A few comments and extra predictions:



... IMO, may or may not happen, 50%-50%. Likely depends on the lobbying $$$ spent. All public comments and petitions to stop it are, unfortunately, irrelevant (would not change anything).



Escrow.com to be acquired? Too late. Uniregistry? It would not be cheap, so it is unlikely. Not in 2020 at least... Another change of staff @ Uni is possible though. Moreover, Uni depends on escrow.com and seriously. With Uni aftermarket prices and specific Cayman location, U.S.-based intermediary such as escrow.com is a must thing for them to normally process all incoming $USD. New ownership of Uni may greatly affect escrow.com, and vice versa. So, status quo is likely - no changes @ uni, no changes @ escrow.com...



Even with more details about what cloudflare and letsencrypt really are, nothing will be really changed. The public will forget the news in ~2 weeks.



Cpanel will likely change hands once again. After their recent games with pricing, many loyal clients leaved them. So the PE firm who owns it now will try to sell it...



As an answer to NameLiquidate.com , more registrars will offer revshare (from expired sales) to previous domain owners. But, NameLiquidate is... simply better. So it will still affect registrars who are now selling expired domains (pre-release), and seriously.

Good points there -- you are a thinker.

As China starts clearing escrow transactions elsewhere, as they are doing to an accelerating degree, there is going to be a large cash gap to close.

Watch the Escrow.com balance sheet and share trading volume:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/fln.ax

At the current average trading volume, there is about $50K in daily trading volume on the stock. That is pretty close to a stock trading by appointment, and indeed one where most of the equity is closely held.

As for Uniregistry, I think their registry strings will do better in the hands of Donuts who I am pretty sure will be eager to wrap up that conversation when Frank decides he is ready.

As for the Uni registrar, they built some good tech and showed some exciting promise but appear to have lost the plot and likely finding the money way easier processing inbound sale inquiries.

As for cPanel, who owns it does not matter as much as the notion that highly fragmented cPanel customers need a clear path to the cloud. The opportunity there is very obvious.

 

[Rob Monster]

Congratulations on your 3000 NamePros post!

And Rob, all of your posts have more meat than a chain of steakhouses!

Your interesting forecasts for 2020 are intriguing although a few are far more advanced than my domain brain can process and, that is what I admire and appreciate about all of your posts.

Reading your posts elevates my knowledge of the realm of domains as you obviously are involved with domains at the highest level and can dispense knowledge to the masses in an understandable and logical flow.

Just an opinion of course, I believe 2020 will be a pretty good year for the industry although not necessarily a breakout year.

Then again, how does one define or quantify what a " breakout " year is?

And best wishes to all for a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Again, Congrats on the 3000 post!

Thanks for that.

I think you have set the stand for likes-to-posts ratio here. So regardless of whatever your claimed gaps are, you are loved here. I follow your posts.

As for what constitutes a breakout year, my thesis is that we will see an explosion of speculative demand as inventory -- notably .com -- lands in very strong hands: end-users and cash-rich owners.

The new gTLD and ccTLD experiments continue but even the Chinese are racing to .COM as being the perceived high ground in terms of policy overreach by registry operators.

For the winner-take-all technocrats, no strategy is complete without .COM. However, I believe the path of least resistance is going to be Godaddy, not Verisign.

 

[oldtimer]

• Digital brands not domains: I believe during 2020, we'll see a big pivot from selling naked domains to selling integrated brands. Squadhelp and Flippa were only the appetizer there.

Based on Rob's expert analysis and forecast my newly hand registered domain DigitalBrandHub.com should become the place to go for everything related to digital brands.

IMO

 

[cipcip]

No forecast, just happy New year, live long and f*** domaining, enjoy your real life, because nothing lasts forever and you will lose precious monents

 

[JB Lions]

Already a prediction thread, you could have just added there - https://www.namepros.com/threads/2020-predictions-for-the-domain-industry.1169599/

So this is yet another promotional thread.

Namepros' Alexa rank clears 10,000: - Alexa rank may get better (just adding toolbars), but actual traffic/participation could decrease.

• Emerging markets set the outbound pace: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• PIR acquisition: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• Godaddy restructuring: going at a competitor

• Industry consolidation: going at a competitor "throw in the towel on building great tech internally." White labelling or not finishing projects all the way thru does not equal building great tech internally

• Hidden hands exposed: going at a competitor

• WHOIS makes a comeback: self promotion - WHOQ.com.

• Cloud hosting goes mainstream: self promotion - CloudChase

• Digital brands not domains: self promotion for project you're working on

• NameLiquidate.com shocks expiry stream economy: self promotion

• Super-broker Andrew Rosener sells Clear.com for mind blowing $10 million: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

------------------
Already existing, promotion free Prediction/Forecast thread:

2020 Predictions for the Domain Industry
https://www.namepros.com/threads/2020-predictions-for-the-domain-industry.1169599/

 

[Samer]

Already a prediction thread, you could have just added there - https://www.namepros.com/threads/2020-predictions-for-the-domain-industry.1169599/

So this is yet another promotional thread.

Namepros' Alexa rank clears 10,000: - saying it's because of him

• Emerging markets set the outbound pace: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• PIR acquisition: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• Godaddy restructuring: going at a competitor

• Industry consolidation: going at a competitor "throw in the towel on building great tech internally." White labelling or not finishing projects all the way thru does not equal building great tech internally

• Hidden hands exposed: going at a competitor

• WHOIS makes a comeback: self promotion - WHOQ.com.

• Cloud hosting goes mainstream: self promotion - CloudChase

• Digital brands not domains: self promotion for project you're working on

• NameLiquidate.com shocks expiry stream economy: self promotion

• Super-broker Andrew Rosener sells Clear.com for mind blowing $10 million: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

What is "promotion", Rob talking?

Samer

 

[JB Lions]

• What is "promotion", Rob talking?

Samer

You have like the longest running job interview. You just quoted all the promotion. I didn't even touch the other posts where he goes at Escrow, Cpanel, Uniregistry etc. I just see promotion or going at competitors.

Namepros should get more mods that care.

 

[Rob Monster]

You have like the longest running job interview. You just quoted all the promotion. I didn't even touch the other posts where he goes at Escrow, Cpanel, Uniregistry etc. I just see promotion or going at competitors.

Namepros should get more mods that care.

To be fair, Samer is genuinely enthused, and has not once asked me for a job. He is one of our more ardent fans, I will grant you that. I also think that as a 26 year old single guy he spends a tremendous amount of time connecting industry dots like few others. I appreciate Samer's vigilance but have yet to compensate him in any way for his enthusiasm beyond just sincere appreciation.

The rest of the observations about industry patterns are just perspective as an industry observer. I don't view certain companies begin acquired as being in any way derogatory. After all, in order to be acquired there has to be some compelling strategic value. Ultimately many roads lead back to Godaddy. Lately they are not nearly as civil as they used to be. Something changed there in 2019. I see a re-org coming.

 

[Rob Monster]

Already a prediction thread, you could have just added there - https://www.namepros.com/threads/2020-predictions-for-the-domain-industry.1169599/

So this is yet another promotional thread.

Namepros' Alexa rank clears 10,000: - Alexa rank may get better (just adding toolbars), but actual traffic/participation could decrease.

• Emerging markets set the outbound pace: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• PIR acquisition: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

• Godaddy restructuring: going at a competitor

• Industry consolidation: going at a competitor "throw in the towel on building great tech internally." White labelling or not finishing projects all the way thru does not equal building great tech internally

• Hidden hands exposed: going at a competitor

• WHOIS makes a comeback: self promotion - WHOQ.com.

• Cloud hosting goes mainstream: self promotion - CloudChase

• Digital brands not domains: self promotion for project you're working on

• NameLiquidate.com shocks expiry stream economy: self promotion

• Super-broker Andrew Rosener sells Clear.com for mind blowing $10 million: linking to another one of your threads, full of promotion

------------------
Already existing, promotion free Prediction/Forecast thread:

2020 Predictions for the Domain Industry
https://www.namepros.com/threads/2020-predictions-for-the-domain-industry.1169599/

Like it or not, I increase my odds of being right by also facilitating outcomes, both through direct initiatives, but also through suggestion and thought leadership.

The playbook is completely open. Anyone could copy any of it or all of it. I hope to cooperate with anyone who does competently pursue any initiatives that I think are tied to probably outcomes.

Anyway, since you are a clever guy, feel free to share your predictions or to debunk my predictions as to why they won't happen. I am listening as usual.

 

[WatchDogue]

Thanks for that.

I think you have set the stand for likes-to-posts ratio here. So regardless of whatever your claimed gaps are, you are loved here. I follow your posts.

As for what constitutes a breakout year, my thesis is that we will see an explosion of speculative demand as inventory -- notably .com -- lands in very strong hands: end-users and cash-rich owners.

The new gTLD and ccTLD experiments continue but even the Chinese are racing to .COM as being the perceived high ground in terms of policy overreach by registry operators.

For the winner-take-all technocrats, no strategy is complete without .COM. However, I believe the path of least resistance is going to be Godaddy, not Verisign.

Thank you Rob for your most kind words!

I am blushing brighter than the crystal ball that will soon be lowered in New York to celebrate the
New Year!

Appreciate your description of what would constitute a breakout year for the domain name industry and may your thesis be realized in 2020!

I forecast 2020 will be an unprecedented year of success for Epik!

Again, thank you for all of your posts and innumerable contributions to NamePros and the domain industry.

 

[Wali Dahot]

I find them very hard to work with these days. If someone knows a senior rep at Payoneer, please send them my way and perhaps we can cut through the nonsense. I do know for our Israeli clients, for example, this would be helpful. For Pakistan we have a solution but Payoneer is also useful there.

I guess Nissim Alkobi might be helpful in this regard. Here is his linkedin link.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nalkobi

 

[hui2000]

Hi Rob,

Congratulations on your 3000 NamePros post!

I do predict transactions through epik escrow will increase by over 30%.

I do predict Dan.com and epik.com introducing 2FA for each account holder.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

So lots more fun and intrigue.

 

[handpicked]

3kpost is apt and informative with very experienced minds at play.
Thanks-all @NamePros for the great posts, and moments of 2019. Wish this amazing site members, and honorable contributors a very happy, accomplished, and fun filled 2020.

 

[frank-germany]

This is post # 3,000 at NamePros. So I thought to make it a meaty one.
...Well, I am no prophet, but I will share some scenarios that I think would be not unreasonable to see unfold:

• Namepros' Alexa rank clears 10,000: After a steep incline in 2019, the NP growth engine keeps humming and clears Alexa rank of 10,000 like a hot knife through butter.

As you put the Alexa Ranking of Namepros
as #1 point of your predictions
means it's the most important point for yourself
( -ask Mr. Freud- )


that tells me you have a huge interest of namepros becoming more important and having more traffic

so why is that?

option 1 ( most obvious ) :
the larger the market for your promotional post the better for the growth of your company

so you just have prooven that you intend to use namepros as your major promotional platform even more intensely

option 2 :
you want to acquire namepros
so you need a great performance
to justify the acquisition



nobody except you and the owers of namepros is interested in namepros having a great Alexa ranking.

that doesn't serve the industry of domainers
it just serves you as the 80% owner of e - pik

to attract more customers for your registar

for your 3000th post
congrats ..
no sorry BS

it just shows your spamming activity
(I have 7400 posts and nobody cares)

 

[.X.]

I am really excited for 2020, I think we see big changes in the internet as a whole, positive changes of course, the internet is just like everything else, it has fallen behind times in most aspects and is now ready to evolve to the next level, this excites me in every aspect of domaining, eCommerce and just visioning what i might see happen with net in 2020.

Growth, Progress and Prosperity are my visions for the domain name industry in 2020

 

[Mister Funsky]

In the meantime, curious to hear what folks think will happen in the next 12 months that impacts our industry and community.

Interesting predictions Rob!

I think investors in Communist China will continue to divest themselves of low quality domains acquired during their buying frenzy of a few years ago. A few savvy investors from India will quietly build portfolios snapping up low priced premium and super premium domains.

BTW: Happy New Year to everyone!!!

 

[Windoms]

Frank Schilling is never selling Uniregistry.
He's too passionate to do that.
He's built a great team of brokers, and they are too busy making sales.

''Looking forward to the smartest people in the room all discovering what Uni can do for "you" ''
- Frank Schilling

Which is why so many great domains land on Uni landers.
Just think and type.
You'll be shocked.

Happy New Year.

 

[Rob Monster]

As you put the Alexa Ranking of Namepros
as #1 point of your predictions
means it's the most important point for yourself
( -ask Mr. Freud- )


that tells me you have a huge interest of namepros becoming more important and having more traffic

so why is that?

option 1 ( most obvious ) :
the larger the market for your promotional post the better for the growth of your company

so you just have prooven that you intend to use namepros as your major promotional platform even more intensely

option 2 :
you want to acquire namepros
so you need a great performance
to justify the acquisition



nobody except you and the owers of namepros is interested in namepros having a great Alexa ranking.

that doesn't serve the industry of domainers
it just serves you as the 80% owner of e - pik

to attract more customers for your registar

for your 3000th post
congrats ..
no sorry BS

it just shows your spamming activity
(I have 7400 posts and nobody cares)

Dear Frank,

First of all, Happy New Year. May it be a great one for you and yours!

As for your hypotheses around my motivation for listing a NamePros prediction first, actually it is obvious it is the one that is most relevant to this community at large. It aligns with my earlier forecast about Alexa rank:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/namepros-alexa-rank-predictions-for-year-end.1152491

As it turns out, I was not bullish enough and only @The Durfer got it right:

As for why I think the community benefits from being larger, it is simply a classic "network effect":

1. I believe in "Wisdom of the crowds" -- the larger the crowd, the greater the pool of wisdom.

2. I believe "One man's trash is another man's treasure" -- more people means more treasure.

During 2019, we began the process of making the pie a lot bigger. I expect we'll see much more pie in 2020.

As for Dr. Freud, he was an occultist, and a secret high level Freemason. He was instrumental in getting more of humanity to think with their dicks, and less with their hearts. I suggest you ignore him.

 

[Rob Monster]

Frank Schilling is never selling Uniregistry.
He's too passionate to do that.
He's built a great team of brokers, and they are too busy making sales.

''Looking forward to the smartest people in the room all discovering what Uni can do for "you" ''
- Frank Schilling

Which is why so many great domains land on Uni landers.
Just think and type.
You'll be shocked.

Happy New Year.

I think the new gTLDs will be sold. Like it or not, from a pure cash perspective, it is a dog business:

https://ntldstats.com/registry/Uniregistry-Corp

If I were Frank, I would dump the registries to Donuts for some cash exit and keep a carve out for 10 years for a bunch of domains.

He gets to have his cake and eat it too.

Donuts / Fadi Chehade / Abry get to control the registries.

I would give better than 50/50 odds of a deal like that happening in 2020.