Bad name today, gem tomorrow?

[carjamlangley]

The more people that get online, the bigger the demand for all sorts of different niches. As an example, lets say 5 years ago there were just 10 people online that were really into garden gnomes and now there are 10,000 garden gnome lovers.

So, follow my logic here, 5 years ago gardengnome.com was considered a bad domain name but today (let's just say) it is considered pretty decent. Here is my question: how will gardengnome.com be considered in another 5 years?

My guess is that the strangeniche.com names will get more valuable because more and more strangeniche.com people will get online. What do you think?

 

[VURG]

I'm guessing that there are better words that go with the word niche.

e.g. specialniche.com is available

I think that you would find special is a better descriptive word than strange. The difference between two descriptive words used could be the difference between $XXXX and $XX. I'm guessing that there is a good chance that there is a better word than special. A lot of care needs to be taken in determining which words are best descriptive words when registering domains.

 

[accent]

The question is the limits of growth. I expect that most of the people in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and soforth that are going to get online are online now. The stragglers will come in slowly from here on, as the price of a PC goes to $50 and lower, use will increase as more become familar with the web and more services are offered online, and older folks die off, replaced with teens - all of whom, essentially, are online. So in the large income countries, PC use will not be growing as fast - there is room to grow, but not as much.

Lower income countries will have great numbers of new users, but there are income and governmental barriers to business there, and less use of English (except India/Pakistan), so not a lot of market for domain names.

The Mobile web is a different story. It is just getting rolling, but beyond location specific services (taxi, pizza) it is very unclear how it will shape out. It is a very different media than a PC. To use your example, it is very uncertain if and how Gnome collectors will want to use the mobile web for their hobby - perhaps a gnome price guide to consult while at yard sales???

 

[HeavyDora]

I'm guessing that there are better words that go with the word niche.

e.g. specialniche.com is available

I think that you would find special is a better descriptive word than strange. The difference between two descriptive words used could be the difference between $XXXX and $XX. I'm guessing that there is a good chance that there is a better word than special. A lot of care needs to be taken in determining which words are best descriptive words when registering domains.

I think you missed the boat on this one a bit. I don't think the OP meant the ACTUAL name strangeniche.com but rather strange names in general that will become more in demand. I got a laugh though.

 

[carjamlangley]

The question is the limits of growth. I expect that most of the people in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and soforth that are going to get online are online now. The stragglers will come in slowly from here on, as the price of a PC goes to $50 and lower, use will increase as more become familar with the web and more services are offered online, and older folks die off, replaced with teens - all of whom, essentially, are online. So in the large income countries, PC use will not be growing as fast - there is room to grow, but not as much.

Thank you for such a thoughtful answer. I'd be very curious to hear what others think about this as well.

There is one more factor we should keep in mind, I think. The English language does not grow at the same rate as the population grows. In five, ten, twenty years we will have a huge English speaking population all using the same language that we are using today and yet there are still plenty of three word .com domains out there if you are willing to accept three word phrases that don't get a massive amount of searches. It seems to me that as the population grows, these phrases will become valuable.

With that in mind, I've been looking for .com names that may not be very desirable today but might be in the future. Basically just nichey generic names that are undesirable because they are too nichey right now. I think someday there will be enough searches on these nichey niches to justify a nichey niche domain (crazy sentence).

Thanks for your thoughts, though, I've learned a lot. I'd love to see more opinions.

 

[scandiman]

If you can accurately guess consumer interest 5-10 years in the future you will be a very rich domainer.

I like the logic (predict the future, get rich), it's the execution that is next to impossible with high percentage of success, especially when you are just on the sidelines and not actively developing the strange niche demand.

Garden gnomes didn't just happen. It was a prolonged effort by many manufacturers and retailers to adapt their products to please a bunch of people that felt their landscape would benefit from this silly addition. If you are involved in that food chain then you can gauge what happens, but on the sidelines you will probably be late to the party.

Until this strange niche takes off you are sitting on a worthless domain. I have no idea but maybe ten years from now, clutch plate wall clocks will be all the rage. I won't be betting 10 years of reg fees on it though.

 

[VURG]

I think you missed the boat on this one a bit. I don't think the OP meant the ACTUAL name strangeniche.com but rather strange names in general that will become more in demand. I got a laugh though.

Maybe,

Personally, if I was talking about "strange niche" .com names, I wouldn't talk about strangeniche.com.

My guess is that the strangeniche.com names will get more valuable because more and more strangeniche.com people will get online. What do you think?

My point I was trying to make was that some names will take off a lot better than others and a lot of care needs to be taken to pick the better words. I hope that I didn't confuse you to much by emphasising on the strangeniche.com domain.

So, follow my logic here, 5 years ago gardengnome.com was considered a bad domain name but today (let's just say) it is considered pretty decent. Here is my question: how will gardengnome.com be considered in another 5 years?

At the current rate, it looks like domain investing is growing at a faster rate than 15% per year (faster than the average business) and more and more the decent names are ending up in the hands of long term investors (people who won't sell for <$5000) and endusers. This depletes the supply of domains on the reseller market and the competition for decent names in the reseller market pushes up the reseller value of the names. Decent names like gardengnome.com have great potential and are a lot safer 5 year investments than unregistered names.

 

[geek]

More garden gnome lovers doesn't mean the price of the domain will increase.

 

[Phronesis]

It's impossible to know what an end-user will want to buy. The way I look at it is you can do one of 2 things.

1) have a domain portfolio of names generally considered to be "valuable" (ie, they can sell quickly at anytime for a premium price.). Acquiring these domains will be more expensive than reg fee typically so you'll have a smaller portfolio, but you'll be confident of it's value, esp if the names generate traffic/revenue sufficient to cover their renewal fees.

2) have a domain portfolio with many, many lower quality, hand-regged names you hold in the hopes that one day, they will become valuable and the right end-user will come along. These names are generally illiquid, even in a reseller market and will cost you hundreds or thousands in renewal fees every year.

I like model 1 better.