My biggest mistake EVER! I underestimated the potential and the requirements.

[TheBaldOne]

A few months ago I acquired on the aftermarket the domain name 'Go.LA', a fantastic purchase with outright potential, but as it turns out just too much potential. I now am sitting on a domain name that following months of research is proving just too big of a project for me to handle.

I guess it was stupid of me to treat such a potentially huge 'geo domain' as just some normal geo domain. Almost immediately upon starting the research to build the site the size of the project expanded daily as new spheres of development would hurl themselves forward. Of course initially I was thinking along the lines of Tourism, Real Estate, Social site, market place, news site, sports site, an 'Olympics' site for 2028, road traffic site, and the list just expanded more and more.

In the end I had to admit that not knowing LA made any planned development by me impossible, anything I attempted to do would always be sub-prime at best. Obviously I will not let the domain drop but I will now just hold it until someone in the years ahead comes along who can do the domain justice - something I obviously cannot do.

Having a domain with literally huge potential can be a real headache.

(And before anyone asks although my investment was not an insubstantial amount, at least it was not a six figure sum. Thankfully! LOL)

 

[Lega.cy]

About a month ago I saw a project that focused on "City news by the people" approach - I'll try to find it again and DM you.

I agree with what's been said above: start small.
but I'm not sure I agree that you have to be local to be able to deliver value.

Search on Twitter and see where / what are people sharing, search on Instagram to see where and what are people doing in LA. See what gets the most buzz/engagement

Millions of people will know the area better than one person ever could - Crowdsource your ideation process - let people will give you ideas, build on them, curate.

Start with 1 post per day - thing/place/event/area -> find the photos, find what other people are saying, do a bit of research yourself to write a few paragraphs and share. (make it visual one pager)

"The best place you could visit right now in LA" and change it every day
-> after a week you have 7 - offer a newsletter "Last week in LA" where you link all 7
-> after a month you have 30... (see where I'm going with this?)

I'm probably over simplifying, but just my 2cents

Good luck, Bill

Al

 

[effervescence]

DM for website development. Thanks.

 

[tupungato]

Disagree - very good time to build out a travel/Geo site, get regular content on it, build a social media following, build a mail list, a target audience as well as improving your rankings on Google......this all takes time and when the restrictions start to ease what are people going to want to do? Travel will be right up there....

Just a question of budget, patience and strategy.......

I want to believe you. Yes, it is a question of budget, patience and strategy. But everything about the pandemic tends to be underestimated. When will restrictions start to ease? A year? Three years? Ten years? What about third wave, fourth wave of epidemic? Fifth wave?

What about all airline bankruptcies, unemployed people?

I think building stuff for uncertain future is a roulette. Travel industry is a swamp right now.

 

[NickB]

I want to believe you. Yes, it is a question of budget, patience and strategy. But everything about the pandemic tends to be underestimated. When will restrictions start to ease? A year? Three years? Ten years? What about third wave, fourth wave of epidemic? Fifth wave?

What about all airline bankruptcies, unemployed people?

I think building stuff for uncertain future is a roulette. Travel industry is a swamp right now.

With the vaccine situation looking promising....the start of next summer through to the beginning of 2022 things should start to get back on track

Edit:

A Geo site can make money through Directory listings before the travel industry picks up, also local travel does not rely on the airlines.....depends on what you you want to do...

 

[tupungato]

The vaccine looks somewhat promising. Although 90% protection it provides isn't perfect. And Pfizer's production capabilities aren't perfect as well (1.3 bn doses by 2022).

Nobody has any idea about whether the vaccine offers lasting protection. Or whether lasting protection from this virus is possible at all.

If you ask me, I wouldn't tie myself to any tourism/travel related project right now. There are so many booming industries where the pandemic's influence is not crucial. Solar power, online groceries, kitchen appliance reviews, gaming, streaming...

But back to main topic: I really like go.la

 

[NickB]

The vaccine looks somewhat promising. Although 90% protection it provides isn't perfect. And Pfizer's production capabilities aren't perfect as well (1.3 bn doses by 2022).

Nobody has any idea about whether the vaccine offers lasting protection. Or whether lasting protection from this virus is possible at all.

If you ask me, I wouldn't tie myself to any tourism/travel related project right now. There are so many booming industries where the pandemic's influence is not crucial. Solar power, online groceries, kitchen appliance reviews, gaming, streaming...

But back to main topic: I really like go.la

We can agree to disagree and yes go.la is a very nice domain

 

[Carolina.SC]

As the registrant of the exact-match .com's for the capital cities of Tanzania and Honduras, I'm always interested in a discussion about geographic domain names.

John Colascione has written a lot about this... it's almost impossible to produce a profitable and well-developed geographic site without living in the location.

In terms of the comment above, "choose a niche like a waterfall," I would say you are half-correct. You do need a niche, but the location itself doesn't have to be something minor like a waterfall.

I would suggest that for a city site, your starting niche could be an online magazine regarding one specific domain of city life, such as local parks and nature, crime, culture, or cuisine. Choose one and get strong in that area... then branch out later.

I'm shocked that so many people have six-figure geo domain names and are doing nothing or nearly nothing with them. Even if you're not making any money off it yet, at least develop something for appearances' sake and for the sake of future negotiations. Most top-tier geo domain names are either parked pages, or use 2003-style web design.

"Go LA" is not a bad address, but if you really paid five figures, your overpaid. I've sold top-tier, exact-match .com country names for low five figures. I'd personally rather have "NewOrleans LA" or "Shreveport LA".

Also... remember .LA actually designates LAOS! An unstable communist dictatorship. In five years a new regime could completely change all the registry rules. I love ccTLDs, but I would not sink very much into a dictatorship-linked ccTLD.

 

[TheBaldOne]

Hi Everyone,

Again thank you all for your input, but seriously I know my limitations, and besides there are other projects I have neglected over the past few months that by realising those limitations I can take back up.

Today has been a bit of a weird day, I have received several enquiries from domainers about Go.LA from members, a couple of which are promising, though I still feel that just waiting for an end user is the best bet for me to pursue in this instance as I doubt domainers are willing to even approach half way the asking price I am listing Go.LA for. As it is time is absolutely on my side - 2028 comes ever nearer.

Thanks again.

 

[Super-Annuation]

I faced the same thought process with Wales (org) had/have big dreams for it......

65.000 words of content written, the site is still under development, though will be be done completed shortly - lost track of the hours spent reading up on SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Travel affiliate income, Business directory listing plans, advertising income etc etc etc etc.....

Now it is a case of getting the site live, indexed and monitoring the traffic with regular weekly articles going onto the site, daily social media posts and then from month 2 or 3 doing outbound to companies to list on the site - from next summer onwards will start to focus on travel affiliate income streams....

Lessons learnt for the next one.....

Don't get bogged down on the small details and the grandiose visons of what could be......

Get a block of generic, original content done, get the site developed and then fix the problems that arise - don't look for problems that don't exist yet

Nothing is to big, it is just a case of breaking it down into small manageable chunks and not getting distracted by the vision and the small details - which I was doing and seems that you are/where

Start small, keep working at it and dream big........lessons learnt

I read a great way to start a site like this is to bring in the micro businesses. So say reaching out to street photographers who don't have a website, community radio presenters, people who sell at local markets and would benefit from being online. You could pick up 100 market stalls in any given day, with their own unique services, and have 100 people providing you with their cellphone etc.

If you had every market stall online, it would be a great way to drive your proposition value (I think this is unique) and eventually the SME will follow if you can get the traffic and make it a enjoyable, unique platform.

 

[TheBaldOne]

Just a quick update.

I have been speaking to a chap I know over the past couple of days and he came up with an idea, we have looked at it and having tried to pull the idea apart I have decided to go with it. So I will invest $1,000 or so and a couple of days of my time and run with it. Let's see what the 'Big Boys' in LA business think. Hell, I doubt most of them even realise that this site exists let alone what domains are there in the market - so I will have to introduce them to my little nugget.

Now I have to go and write some copy for the pitch.

(Oh, and I have increased the listing price of 'Go.LA' on Dan.com - just to cover my extra costs and work involved of course. )

 

[ksusha64]

Good luck with it! Good name!

 

[Super-Annuation]

God Speed