The other llll.com countdown

[seven]

You don't have to be a scientition to know what's about to happen. Look at the cycle we have recently seen:

1. all llll.coms sell out
2. llll.com prices soar
3. most llll.nets are snapped up
4. premium llll.nets rise
5. llll.com prices drop
6. llll.net prices drop

What will happen:

7. premium llll.nets will go unrenewed and become available (if this hasn't happened already)
8. llll.coms will go unrenewed and become available

Your average ugly llll.com is going for about $9-$11 right now. Even that price can't maintain. There are simply too many of them with no practical use or no end users seeking them.

Through no fault of its own, domaining is about to incur a rough and cold blizzard. Domains you wouldn't think would drop will drop and following, the fat off your portfolios will be gone.

If you can afford to hold the fort down and buy great domains on falling prices, then you'll be at a tremendous advantage. What even the downturn of the economy can't stop is the conversion to online sales and online marketing by mainstream brick and mortars as well as individuals. These types will be forced into more efficient operations and find what we already know: the Internet is awesome and it cuts business overhead.

Hold on to the quality generics and practical domains. Premium llll.coms will always have relevance and the .nets will too one day, but that day is not today. Forget about the qzvu.com's if they don't have a specific use.

It's not that many domains aren't good, but there will be less cash to go around.

Anyways - my prediction llll.coms will be available within 6-8 months. I'm sure some of you have already said as much.

 

[C-B]

You are absolutely right! Usability is that about what all domainers forget, being guided only by employment of a certain mask.

 

[vlad74]

Usability is important, I fully agree. However, "premium" letters are premium in english language. Do not forget about german language (w, z, v, u are premium), spanish language, russian language (i.e. k is premium), chineese language (z,q etc premium) (furthermore, chineese economy will be soon the nr.1 in the world, creating more demand for such domains).

As for llll.com to be available in 6-8 months, it means they need to be droppep in 3-5 months, i.e. May-July. At that time there were no buy outs going, better domains were regged at that time, thus it is less probable that the names 1. will be dropped 2. will not be bought out. If the LLLL.com were to become available, they had to be available in January 2009 (October - November 2007 bouyout+ca. 3 months), but they did not, although we saw the record lows on the stock exchanges exactly in September - November 2008.

by the way, there is an interesting resource from one of the NPers: www.llly.net. I think it will be interesting for everyone to check very detailed statistics on registration and drops of LLLL (.com as well as .net) on per month basis http://llly.net/Pages/Statistics.aspx

 

[cache]

how did you come out the "within 6-8 months"?

 

[seven]

how did you come out the "within 6-8 months"?

My perceived current drop rates combined with what is next for the world economy.

 

[Marketing.Magnet]

I was just reading the indepth analysis so I thought I'd leav Seven a note about what I just saw at Ebay:
I'm not selling them but I just saw 3 llll.com's for sale on ebay -
I'm not in the market but Just though I'd pass it along since one actually looked pretty cool

RMOZ.com DMOZ typo
YQDQ.com
HZFE.com
EZ7s.com (kinda neat)
I found a few good ones when other people posted them on here so I'm going to return the favor.
Thanks

 

[snoop]

I think personally the chance of the buyout failing is low, maybe 30%. I think it would take time (maybe a year) and a serious worsening of the US economy to happen. Logically it probably should not have held so far, but it is probably wrong to assume domainers will always act in a logical manner, the people with low end names are selling for reg fee and people are adding to losses by renewing these names ("reg fee erosion").

However I think there is still enough speculative momentum for people to keep renewing and/or registering names that drop straight away, even though at the end of the day it is probably just going to add to losses. I think that is due to two factors,

-Many still hope for a rebound which keeps speculation going. That is an idea that people can hold onto for years as people look at old prices and think that the current market is “cheap”.

- I tend to think owners of higher value LLLL.com’s will "prop up" the low end because of the effect the failing of the buyout would have on sentiment and thus prices of the higher quality names.

If the buyout did fail my gut feeling would be that the upper end might drop by a further 50%-75% in value.

 

[ecalc]

... I'm not selling them but I just saw 3 llll.com's for sale on ebay -
I'm not in the market but Just though I'd pass it along since one actually looked pretty cool

RMOZ.com DMOZ typo
YQDQ.com
HZFE.com
EZ7s.com (kinda neat)
I found a few good ones when other people posted them on here so I'm going to return the favor.
Thanks

The whois contact email for rmoz, yqdq & hzfe contains the prefix [marketing.magnet], same as the NP username of the person "not selling." The odds are staggering.

 

[notlikeyou]

The whois contact email for rmoz, yqdq & hzfe contains the prefix [marketing.magnet], same as the NP username of the person "not selling." The odds are staggering.

The same message posted on other forums as well, verbatim.

 

[thunderforce]

another to drop

I won XFJE.com here for $2, but didn't remember that it was expiring so soon (1 or 2 days after auction ended :o ) Although there was plenty of grace time to renew the domain, I'm deciding to let it drop and save the $ for something else.

 

[TordB.com]

Is it really going to happen?..

 

[bmugford]

No. The odds of the LLLL.com buyout not holding are minimal.

Brad

Is it really going to happen?..

 

[-REECE-]

I feel pretty strong about the LLLL.com market and don't believe we'll see the buyout fail. That said, saying the buyout can't fail would be incorrect.

Probabilistically speaking, there's a chance that anything possible could happen. You could fall out of bed and die (and many people do each year) but most of us aren't scared of going to sleep or getting out of bed :]

Is it really going to happen?..

 

[Domainace]

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life. Too often predictions that fail are forgotten, while those that come true are always dug up by the person who posted them. This brings some balance back.

Probabilistically speaking (my new word of the day - thanks, Reece!), anything can happen. Toys.com might be worthless this time next year, and Bill Gates might be broke.

But probabilistic is not the same as probably. Considering the collapse of the world economic order and the pending nationalization of the US banking and car industries, I'd say LLLL.com are humming along quite nicely!

 

[snoop]

Personally I still think the buyout will hold, but I think the chance of it failing has incresed since Feb with prices going lower, we are now seeing sales in the $1-$2 range, and lots of sales around $3-$4. The thing that concerns me most is that prices have continued to decline over a period when financial market have improved.

 

[seven]

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life. Too often predictions that fail are forgotten, while those that come true are always dug up by the person who posted them. This brings some balance back.

Probabilistically speaking (my new word of the day - thanks, Reece!), anything can happen. Toys.com might be worthless this time next year, and Bill Gates might be broke.

But probabilistic is not the same as probably. Considering the collapse of the world economic order and the pending nationalization of the US banking and car industries, I'd say LLLL.com are humming along quite nicely!

I'm still here and the I'll stand by the prediction. I might fail in the sense of when exactly the lllls will start falling, but I'll go ahead and stay with it.

The Toys.com and Bill Gates toss-ins are out of place in this conversation. I didn't make a far fetched prediction, in fact judging by recent $2 sales, my assessment is pretty close and are indicative my forecast has a very good chance at becoming reality.

My post is not meant to be a discredit to llll.coms, but the market is currently oversaturated with sellers and little demand. This will be exacerbated by the economy. I believe we are on a razor thin bubble at the moment.

 

[mjbenterprises]

I can't imagine that the buyout won't hold for a long, long time...

The pricing structure of LLLL.coms(the low end will always be in the realm of most domainers budgets) , along with the amount avail, which will always be the same # at only 456,976, makes the buyout not holding seem almost impossible in my opinion...

 

[-REECE-]

I'm not at liberty to discuss this further at this time, but let's just say we will most likely have a very good idea of where the low end market is at within the next couple weeks

 

[Nem0]

we are now seeing sales in the $1-$2 range, and lots of sales around $3-$4.

Yeah and yet again you can only pick on the lowest sales from 'ol eBay there. During a month that has been absolutely flooded with LLLL.com by a handful of ignorant sellers.

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------

I'm not at liberty to discuss this further at this time, but let's just say we will most likely have a very good idea of where the low end market is at within the next couple weeks

Sure hope it's not based solely on these eBay sales lately.

There were about 600-700 LLLL.com sales at eBay in the month of April '09 compared to 199 LLLL.com sales at eBay in October '08. Unstable variables like this have to be taken into consideration (at least by those blessed with rationality)

 

[-REECE-]

Yeah and yet again you can only pick on the lowest sales from 'ol eBay there. During a month that has been absolutely flooded with LLLL.com by a handful of ignorant sellers.

---------- Post added at 07:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 PM ----------


Sure hope it's not based solely on these eBay sales lately.

There were about 600-700 LLLL.com sales at eBay in the month of April '09 compared to 199 LLLL.com sales at eBay in October '08. Unstable variables like this have to be taken into consideration (at least by those blessed with rationality)

Heh, I just wrote a 3000 word rant on my blog about the LLLL.com buyout and the question of it holding :lol:

If all works out, I should have about 2500 non-eBay LLLL.com sales by the end of this month to add to that list, so it'll hopefully balance it out.