A poll for LLLL.com Investors

[-REECE-]

Just a small poll to better understand who our LLLL.com investors are. The poll is completely confidential. If successful, additional polls will be made in the future relating topics other than one's age to one's collection of LLLL.coms.

If we can better understand who our fellow LLLL.com investors are, we can better understand what socioeconomic factors are likely to influence their behaviour in this otherwise seemingly chaotic market. These polls will hopefully help everyone draw their own conclusions about when market entry and exit are best for them.

It would have been ideal to have more options, however, granted polls are limited to a maximum of 12 choices, these are the ones I felt were best for this poll. Those with fewer than 50 LLLL.coms are more than welcome to announce such here.

 

[filter]

"Will xqyj.com increase in value? Should I buy it for $10 right now?"

Take it as given that I'm biased, with a vested interest ... But how did I come to acquire this vested interest? Because I wanted to reg a LLLL for my own use back in September. Found DYYO, looked for the best I could find from what was available. Found a bunch that I liked, picked them all up "just in case" ... Found TDNAM, picked up a few $5 + renewal drops ... Found DNF, scored a "fire sale" pickup of 20+ at way below reg fee ... All this when there were still more than 10,000 available for reg-fee, when "the buyout" was a very abstract hypothetical, not a sure thing. I bought them because I liked them.

I'm not a typical consumer, granted. Probably a fairly small demographic, maybe somewhere around 1 out of 10,000 of the general population shares my interests and instincts. But it's a big world ... and it's not getting any smaller. So if I find myself inclined to prefer XVQT.com (one of the last 30 or so regged in the buyout - ergo, the absolute dregs of LLLL) to AUniqueAndMeaningfulButMuchTooLongName.com ... well, sooner or later I think I'll be able to find a loving home for XVQT.com - for $50 easy in a year, for $500 maybe in a decade ... either way, probably well worth $10 + renewal fees until I find that 1/10,000 fellow LLLL afficionado looking for an affordable short name ... Once you get to know an XVQT of your very own, it's as sweet a piece as any Hulu or Lulu at 1000 times the price! :imho:

And granted right now the AUniqueAndMeaningfulButMuchTooLongName.com may seem like a bit of a straw man / false choice - but ... at some point there probably aren't going to be all that many other options. And my (arguably demented) instinct tells me that at least 1 out of 10,000 people out there are going to see something like xqyj.com as the obviously preferable option available at a given price - sufficient for me to turn a decent profit and cheerfully endure the 9,999 Peter J Foti's of the world in the meantime ...

 

[netklick]

I'm still doubtful of the xqyz.com names. These are the names I'm the most wary of. The other, premium ones and semi premium ones will remain regged and appreciate in value, no doubt about that. A majority of the CVCV.coms were regged by 2000. Most of the premium LLLL.coms were also taken more than an year back. If they were regged for so long, I don't see any reason for them being dropped. And I consider it a given that they will rise in value. Simply speaking, shorter names have to increase in value as the internet penetrates further and further into developing nations.


So essentially, its not a question of "Will the LLLL.coms increase in value and are they a good investment option?", but rather, "Will xqyj.com increase in value? Should I buy it for $10 right now?"

Careful what you call as not premium ones. Your example, XQYZ is worth a lot more than what you think it is. Many times what I found with LLLL names is that there are other extensions like .cn or .net or .tk being used by others.

XQYZ.cn is registered and has a website
XQYZ.net is also registered.

Also one other observation that I had about LLLL names is that, they are easy to separate them in LL LL. Hence one end user can definitely make up an acronym that works for them - or serve their purpose.

A short name and a good acronym. If you do a search for the LL on Google, you will find ton of results. Take the latter half and do the same thing. It is almost always possible to make something up that makes sense.

-NK

 

[tristanperry]

I own about 80, and am 17 years old Heh, gotta love ~$600 per year renewal costs

 

[Travis]

15-25 age bracket. Almost 20 years old to be exact.
0-50 LLLL.coms. 20 to be exact.

 

[clowesy]

I own about 80, and am 17 years old Heh, gotta love ~$600 per year renewal costs

17 also with about 350 total... I dont think sbout the renewal fees.

 

[filter]

stats from "early poll results"

with 49 votes so far, ...

summing up the "minimum" of each range (50/100/250/500)

minimum total LLLL held by voters in this poll = 6500

(in reality we can safely add about 3000 to this since Johnnywj and Reece have both voted here and are known to hold 1500+ / 2300+ respectively. If 1john2004 and rickkumar and "mystery collector 3000" have also already voted in this thread then can add another 5500 on top of that ... but never mind all that, let's just look at the nominal breakdown among age groups based on the known minumums ... and refer to the big count poll thread for better "total count" estimates)

So ... based on 6500 minimum count ->

2050 held by 15-25 age bracket (approx 31%)
950 held by 25-30 age bracket (approx 15%)
3500 held by 30+ age bracket (approx 54%)

note 10 year span in the 15-25 bracket
and 5 years in the 25-30 bracket
and theoretically 50+ years possible for the 30+ bracket
so interpret these relative percentages accordingly ... ie, if poll included breakdown for 15-20 and 20-25 then these might both have just 15% each as well ... likewise if the 30+ bracket was split into 30-35 / 35-40 etc ... who knows!

one possibly interesting trend seen so far: no one in the 25-30 range has 'fessed up to owning more than 250 ... while there are 2 in the 15-25 bracket holding 500+ plus another 1 in that bracket holding 250-500 ... What's up with that ? :yell:

 

[dannbkk]

I own less than 50, and I'm 30 yrs. old

Me too, but as about 35 voted in the section for 50+.
Im 30+ too

Me too, I turn 30 in a few months

A Big Hello to all the 30 year Old's!

 

[-REECE-]

Very well said.

I'm also thinking we'll see min wholesale around $30-$50 for 2-4x bad letter LLLL.coms come next summer. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 3x premium + 1x bad letter LLLL.coms hit $70-$80 by then. I mean seriously... Plenty of acronyms can be made with a single Q,X,Y,Z -- although it becomes significantly more difficult with even 2 such letters.

I do agree with you on your stock market hypothesis. At this time, the LLLL.com market is a fragile one, not at all like the LLL.com market.

I also agree that the time to flip is gone. Paying $20 to realize a likely $10-$30 profit next summer is hardly worth the time and effort if done on a small scale.

Yet again I point to that graph at DYYO.com showing a steady decline of ~5000 LLL available every month over nearly two years. A dump of 15,000 bad letter names for $7 next summer would be sopped up quickly due to pent-up demand. The LLLL.com universe is 457,000 names - it is .com and is globally recognised as the shortest names readily available for a reasonable price (think mobile web). I think it will soon be a tiger.

Several factors made me believe that LLLL.coms were greatly under-priced. Now we are in a period where those who are happy to take a quick profit are selling, creating conditions that do not represent the long-term outlook for these domains. The quick sellers will soon have no domains left. The hold-til-I-have-to-renew sellers will, as you say, dump next summer/fall and the expectation of this may hold back prices a bit until they are cleared out. But I would not be surprised (with a steady economy) if bad letter LLLL.coms have a base reseller price of $40 next summer.

The economy is the elephant in the room, however, and a major stock market fall (I do not consider what we have yet seen to be major) could cause massive dumping, delaying the rise of the LLLL.com tiger.

To netklick -- Reese, of course can answer for himself, but I would not be too excited about buying at $20 for a possible $40 (+renewal fee) next summer. A good deal for bulk buyers, perhaps, but small investors can find better deals -either sift for gems in LLLL.com or look elsewhere.

I was somewhat expecting the larger holders to be older than the smaller holders.. If we associate a particular risk with the investment in LLLL.coms and are willing to put a certain percentage of our investments in LLLL.coms accordingly, it would seem rational that older members who've likely been saving for longer would likely own larger stakes in the extension than younger members for whom hundreds of LLLL.coms may be beyond their financial capacity. I did forsee the majority of members owning LLLL.coms as being younger, however. I posted about that earlier, I believe, and now the stats seem to confirm that (almost 2/3 under 30). I would imagine that speculative investments seem more attractive to younger members who perhaps do not have as many financial responsibilities (loans, credit card, mortgage, more credit cards ). Perhaps they appreciate their money more and are less inclined to invest speculatively with it? I'm quite happy with the results so far... Most of our younger domainers seem to have manageable amounts of LLLL.coms and our older domainers -- the ones who can likely afford large stakes, have on average, the most. The fact that, as Sashas said, "These aren't all owned by a bunch of 15 year olds with their dad's credit card," is particularly reassuring. So far, it seems like we have a very diverse mix of investors across several generations investing anything from a few bucks to tens of thousands...

All in all, I like what I see

stats from "early poll results"

with 49 votes so far, ...

summing up the "minimum" of each range (50/100/250/500)

minimum total LLLL held by voters in this poll = 6500

(in reality we can safely add about 3000 to this since Johnnywj and Reece have both voted here and are known to hold 1500+ / 2300+ respectively. If 1john2004 and rickkumar and "mystery collector 3000" have also already voted in this thread then can add another 5500 on top of that ... but never mind all that, let's just look at the nominal breakdown among age groups based on the known minumums ... and refer to the big count poll thread for better "total count" estimates)

So ... based on 6500 minimum count ->

2050 held by 15-25 age bracket (approx 31%)
950 held by 25-30 age bracket (approx 15%)
3500 held by 30+ age bracket (approx 54%)

note 10 year span in the 15-25 bracket
and 5 years in the 25-30 bracket
and theoretically 50+ years possible for the 30+ bracket
so interpret these relative percentages accordingly ... ie, if poll included breakdown for 15-20 and 20-25 then these might both have just 15% each as well ... likewise if the 30+ bracket was split into 30-35 / 35-40 etc ... who knows!

one possibly interesting trend seen so far: no one in the 25-30 range has 'fessed up to owning more than 250 ... while there are 2 in the 15-25 bracket holding 500+ plus another 1 in that bracket holding 250-500 ... What's up with that ? :yell:

 

[italiandragon]

I tried to ask to Ron Jackson to cover the LLLL.com big event (the sell-out) in his DNJournal but he did not reply....probably he did not even read it.

Imagine when the big boys "notice" , they may have not noticed yet busy like they are.

 

[-REECE-]

I tried to ask to Ron Jackson to cover the LLLL.com big event (the sell-out) in his DNJournal but he did not reply....probably he did not even read it.

Imagine when the big boys "notice" , they may have not noticed yet busy like they are.

Well, I'm sure Adam noticed

Alot of those big boys don't seem to stray far from high traffic revenue producing .coms. Imagine how much money one of them could have made if they'd bought out the LLLL.coms 3-4 years ago (when plenty of premiums were around).

Even the pros don't always get everything right (they'll never admit that though, just like your stockbroker who always picks "winners" )...

 

[randomo]

Alot of LLLL.com investors seem to be right around 30 years of age -- the primary reason I made the second age bracket 25-30, rather than being 25-35, encompassing 10 years like the former.

Some of us are waaaaaay over 30!

 

[Sameh]

Voted .. Good idea.