Power to the People!

[Ronald Regging]

Sedo, Afternic and other after-market services are making a killing off of us every year. In reality, we are paying them loads of money to provide a service, that collectively, we could have for free. There is really no added value to our listings, aside from the traffic that Sedo gets through marketing and the traffic that filters there through parking. Which, to say the least, is a great value...

But what if we could do the same thing for free? This means no sales commissions, greater parking rates, not having to deal with poor customer service and most of all, a sense of community ownership that this industry desperately needs.

We see open-source projects related to every industry and type of software, except for domaining. We have terrific free programs that fellow domainers have provided, but we don't seem to have any large-scale collaborative effort projects at all.

So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my concept of Domain 2.0

We would create a domain portfolio script that would be super easy to use (as easy as adding domains on Sedo) and allow for full visual customization. Each participating member would install this script on one of their domains and list their domains for sale. But unlike current scripts of this nature, the domains listed on your portfolio site would be pulled from a master database of all domains offered by participating members. So instead of having a single portfolio site where your domains are listed, essentially you now have hundreds or thousands of portfolio sites that are all sharing the same domains, with direct contact links to the individual owners.

Basically, it would be a decentralized version of an after-market, that would increase exposure and cost next to nothing. Throw in a front-page Featured rotation rate based on the amount of traffic a specific partner is bringing to the network, and suddenly you have a nice motivator for people to advertise and promote their individual portfolio sites to the outside world.

Parking would allow for a plethora of templates and customization, with a direct link back to that domain on the owner's portfolio site. Parking payouts would be high, because the organizing group (ideally, non-profit) would only need to take enough of a cut to cover operating costs for hosting and bandwidth.

Now lets ask the question that needs to be asked. If something like this existed and was successfully adopted, could companies like Sedo and Afternic compete?

I'd appreciate some feedback or further ideas

 

[Daniel]

Loving this idea, sounds like a "Share the love". - Have you thought about asking SecondVersion if he could add a mod to his current portfolio project to incorporate this? His current one is very good.

Dan.

 

[AussieDomainer]

Sounds great in theory but I wonder how it would go in practice. You are battling against a couple of giants and many have come and gone before trying to get a share. However I do like the difference in that it would be based on the member's domains rather than a central site. Could however be difficult convincing members with quality domains to point it to the community sales page instead of directly pointing it to their own portfolio or page.

Will be interesting to hear some other's feedback and I'd definitely get involved if something was to go ahead. I haven't been impressed with Sedo or Afternic to be honest and all my sales have come through my own hard work. I have a lot of my domains pointed to a "for sale" type page and can see the benefit in a professionally designed/managed community type program to manage this.

I look forward to seeing where this goes

 

[Ronald Regging]

Sounds great in theory but I wonder how it would go in practice. You are battling against a couple of giants and many have come and gone before trying to get a share. However I do like the difference in that it would be based on the member's domains rather than a central site. Could however be difficult convincing members with quality domains to point it to the community sales page instead of directly pointing it to their own portfolio or page.

Well, members wouldn't be required to direct their domains to a community sales page. They would have 3 options. 1. Park elsewhere 2. Use a For Sale page. 3. Participate in the network parking. Options 2 and 3 would provide a direct link back to the domain listing on their own portfolio.

However, its sort of irrelevant, because every portfolio site would use the same master list of domains and each individual domain would have a direct contact link to the owner. So really, the only benefit you get from a parking link directly to your portfolio would be the traffic to the network, which would benefit you with rotation rates.
But essentially, members could choose not to participate in parking.

I haven't exactly mapped this all out feature for feature. Just covering the basic concepts. I'm glad you like the idea though.

 

[-NC-]

feedback / ideas as requested:

1.
There definitely appears to be room to undercut the major marketplaces, it's already happening e.g. freenameexchange.com
I expect the major hurdle is making it "the" place to buy/sell i.e. marketing.

2.
Obviously a major obstacle is the amount of time developers could give

3.
I expect there would be more operating costs than just hosting / bandwidth. If it was successful, surely there would have to be some kind of moderation / management? ( of an amount that it would require full time job(s)? )

4.
Not sure if I have understood your post correctly, would each portfolio site show only the individual portfolio owners domains ( with a master site showing every domain), or would every members portfolio be available on every portfolio site?

5.
Would parking be best left for a phase 2 roll out because of the complexities involved? (e.g. fraud detection), or is it an integral part of gaining sales?
Would a partnership with one of the parking services created by other NP'ers be better than re-inventing the wheel?

6. "as easy as adding domains on sedo"
Maybe I'm a lazy dunce but I think Sedo's interface is pants.
My dream: an import script compatible with all major registrar's export formats.

Reading over my post, I think it comes across as more cynical than I intended. The idea is certainly crying out to be made into reality, (when was the last time you saw a thread titled "Sedo is great" or "Afternic are the best"). The question is: can the masses be moved to action? A driving force is required.

 

[Krossat]

sounds like a great idea. the only problem i see is how will all of this be co-ordinated. for a project like this there wud need to be a dedicated set of prorammers, planners and probably investors. The initial questions wud be:

1. Who will own and co-ordinate
2. who is going to program
3. who will invest financially
4. what features other than simple displays of portfolio wud be put in on the script and website templates?
5. wud u start off with online sales / purchase of reseller domains in the beginning, or wud this feature be available later?
6. what are the +'ves for sellers?
7. who is going to categorize (which wud be a manual process and a definite necessity to make the site useful for prospective buyers)

Although there are thse things to be worked out, this idea definitely has meat in it and is financially viable as well.

 

[James]

It sounds like a great idea and would kill all the others, Its about time we had something decent and not ripping us off.

I hope someone gets this made and it gets off the ground it'd be great.

 

[PowerUp]

feedback / ideas as requested:

1.
There definitely appears to be room to undercut the major marketplaces, it's already happening e.g. freenameexchange.com
I expect the major hurdle is making it "the" place to buy/sell i.e. marketing.

Have some of the members buy and sell each others premium domains. Then these sales in hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions will be reported in domain journals, domain bloggers. Heck it could even make the news. And where are all these sales taking place? Example.com =)