I would say you have ben very right to buy domains which you like, since obviously you have not developed a large portfolio, so it is probably not too taxing on your budget. I own myself only a few hundreds domains, but some I bought only because I knew I would enjoy having them (e.g. my family name in .gs and .tc, although I had it already in .info - or a few other domains which I bought just because I liked them, although I was not sure I could have any use for them). Since you are interested in those fields your domains are related to, there are also other people interested in them, and there might be ways to develop something.
Looking at your names, I think the best idea - if you can find some time - is to have a cheap hosting somewhere (for instance, ThePrimeHost.com is quite reliable and honest, has been in business for years, and offers an attractive multidomain hosting for a reasonable price), and to build a few minisites, as Netmeg rightly advised you. If the minisites contain useful information, even if not a lot of information, they may attract some decent traffic over time.
Another idea: if there is not a good directory of links in one of the fields you cover, why not to launch one? There are very good link directory tools on sale these days, some of them even with good support, such as the Link Directory sold by
www.comdevweb.com (a firm in Malaysia, I was pleasantly surprised by excellent support received repeatedly for free for a piece of fostware costing only $75 - single license).
Of course, while you do not need to be a techie for doing that, some work for learning the basics of HTML, etc., would be required. But there are also tools these days allowing you to produce websites with very limited technical knowledge. If you are on Mac, as everybody should (well... I was still working with PC just 4 years ago, so I share here the zeal and fervour of the newly-converted), I would recommend RapidWeaver (not DreamWeaver, excellent, but much more complex). I assume there are such tools, with premade templates, etc., on PC as well.
I understand very much your questions, since I have only very recently started to attempt to monetize domains I have owned for years, most of them unusued. WhyPark is certainly one of the most attractive options for you, provided you manage to build traffic to the domains. But I feel there might be other solutions too, I am developing some ideas of my own right now and will try to test them over the next few months (if I find time to do - it can easily become time-consuming!), since I tend to think there is always a lot of space for creativity in such rapidly evolving fields!
Good luck - and if you develop at least a few minisites, I hope that you will list a few of them and that we can then visit them.
TechZone said:
I am guessing that I have been going about this very wrong. I have been acquiring domains that I like and that I have a keen interest in. I was hoping to monetize these as best as I could. It sounds like I should have actually been acquiring names that the general "Joe/Jane" public is interested in and their high CTR corresponding keywords. Am I offbase here?
I don't know PhP or any other web design languages. Is this absolutely necessary to really build a great parking site other than parking them at, like say DomainSponsor, where I currently have some parked, with little success?
