15 Domain Industry Experts Break Down What Went Wrong in 2008 & Forecast What's Ahead

[Ron Jackson]

DN Journal's annual State of the Industry Cover Story has just been published. After 4 years of robust growth the domain business hit stormy weather in 2008. To make sense of what happened last year and get a forecast on where we are headed in 2009 we called on 15 top industry leaders for their insight. Our panel of experts includes key company founders, CEOs, developers, investors and attorneys. You will find the full story here: http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2009/january.htm

 

[Robbie]

Another Excellent Review Ron!

Thanks for providing us with so much great information.

Repped.

Regards,

Robbie

 

[discovernow]

Ron,

Great cover story and I read it 2x what each speaker had to say.
I agree with about 90% of what was said, and I think Rick hit's it right on.

However, Andrew Miller quoted the following:
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Miller continued..."And, we need to stop diluting the market with TLD's that continue to be money making vehicles for the industry. I ask you all, to spend one week listening to the radio and looking at outdoor advertising while you drive, watching prime time TV, and observing all media over that week timeframe and at the end, add up the percentage of the hundreds of millions of advertising spent that week was .com, and what percent was any other TLD, years into .tv, .biz, .us etc. The results will be telling and likely 98 + percent .com and the rest .org."
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He is right about diluting the market with TLD's but is wrong about 98% .com and the rest .org if you look at the internet worldwide. (Maybe in the United States only) For example, 25%-50% of the tv ads in the UK are .tv names now and growing. My portfolio consist of about 90% .com but I look at the trends worldwide and I am getting a lot of traffic from other tld's, such as Spain.tv, Europe.tv, etc.

I think Divyank Turakhia sums it correctly by the following quote:

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"For long-term investors, I would highly recommend buying generic domains within ccTLDs. Several countries will see significant growth in internet penetration and ecommerce across the next 2-3 yrs. Identify such countries and buy as many generic domains as possible. Holding these domains for 4-6 yrs would likely yield very high returns at a very low risk."
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Thanks, Jim

 

[Mark]

I'm going back to read it all again Ron

Thanks :tu:

 

[HeyNow]

Check This Out ...

This was posted at another forum site. It's okay for me to post it here, 'cause I wrote it:

[I just read that "Cover Story" and saw the same gang of suspects magnanimously conceding that things are down now, but domains remain a viable investment, and, hey, maybe we should stop all the PPC scheming and develop the damn names instead.

Just remember to really listen to what they say, but follow the whois. That will tell you what they are really doing, and where they are hedging their bets (i.e. porn). Now, there's nothing wrong making some extra moolah purveying in porn, a guy's gotta make a buck, ya' know? But I don't think I remember reading in the dnjournal.com "Cover Story" about the porn angle. Heck, it's just an oversight, right?

Oh, and I forgot, here's a good quote from one of "The 15 ...":

"...The point is there is so much room to improve selling on the Internet that it could take many years for retailers and wholesalers to understand the art and science of making a sale on the net."


Duh! For many years retailers and wholesalers couldn't get a decent domain at a reasonable price because domainer monetizers and speculators were hoarding most decent names, including TMs with some "generic" value (winkitty wink, know what I mean?) For many years retailers and wholesalers had to watch intuitive, potentially-usefull names, in the hands of those of the same ilk as "The 15", used for little more than providing abysmal search results while the monitizers and speculators sat on their asses making lots of money off of sucker advertisers paying a few cents to a few bucks for each pipe-dream potential customer.

Contrary to what some of "The 15" may think, the retailers and wholesalers understand the the first rule of the "science of making a sale on the net": GET A GOOD, INTUITIVE DOMAIN! The problem is, groups like "The 15" own or control most of those names.]