Trends and Illusions for 2008: Predictions

[Spade]

Much has been hyped about many new trends in domain investing. In this thread Im going to explore the trends that I think are real, and the ones that are superficial or illusions. I invite discussion and debate on this topic.

Trends: The Rise of the LLLL.com

The LLLL.com is an interesting monster in itself. Representing hundreds of thousands of domain names. It has become the domainers currency as of late and the truth is that it will continue to gain ground on its older cousin, the LLL.com.

What LLLL.com's are worth investing in? Primarily ones which form an easily pronounceable base or have premium lettering and good patterns. These names are solid for acronyms and new brand names. These type of domain names are easy to recall and quick to type - making branding much eaiser, and requiring less work.

Which LLLL.com's will turn out to be busts? LLLL.com's with random poor lettering. Domains containing x, z, q - ect. These names although should gain some ground - not enough to make the hold worth it. There are substancially better investments then this class of domain.

Illusions: The hot streak of .mobi

Earlier in 2007, Apple released the iPhone. A cell phone with a built in browser that allows for reasonable download speeds, and easy browsing. This phone also has built in wifi to connect anywhere there is a hot spot. Making mobile websites no longer limited to small bits of data.

.mobi came too late. In 2008 expect to see more hot spots, and more cell phones on the market that emulate that browsing technology and wifi connections.

In addition, without solid development and marketing of this extension, consumers will continue to never hear of it. Most of those large domain purchases at Sedo were from domain investors not developers or those "end users".


Trends: More Live Auctions

Expect 2008 to be a great year for new domain companies and new live auctions. More and more domain investors are becoming disenfranchised with their current options and their is room for vast improvement.

Many of the companies who were only doing online auctions in 2007 - will be opening the doors to live auctions in 2008 because there is plenty of room for growth.

Trends: Expect more international investments

As domain investing continues to become more and more acceptable, watch as international groups (outside the US) take advantage of a weak dollar and invest in generic domain names.

The dollar continues to under perform, and its a perfect time for European investors to take advantage and start buying from US portfolio holders. Some excellent value can be purchased at a steep discount.

Illusions: The End of Parking

Domain parking is far from dead. With click fraud running rampant, and advertisers demanding better results - domaining is changing. The current model of advertisers buying visitors will continue through 2008 although expect revenue to decrease.

Domain Parking firms are learning that type in traffic is nice - but so is SE traffic. They will be working hard in 2008 to release better SEO pages and more unique content. Expect imrpoved parking this next year.


Agree? Disagree? Always want to hear your thoughts. Please share your expectations for 2008....

Thanks,
Justin

 

[Coopey]

Excellent post, Justin. And I am inclined to agree with most of your points.

.mobi's future, as you rightly say, hangs in the balance- it all depends on big names developing and advertising. We are starting to see some big .mobi sites appearing, but it's not enough to reach a tipping point.

I too expect LLLL.com to continue to rise, with the better names costing more and more as demand increases and some of them actually find their way to end users. I think this will drag up the price of lower-quality names slightly, although I imagine the majority these lower-quality LLLLs will only ever be the subject intra-domainer trading

Additional predictions from me:
-The continuing (although slow) rise of .tv, despite Demand Media's best attempts not to promote at all. With and more and more development of .tv names, they're likely to gain more recognition, more traffic and more value.

-The buyout of all LLL.in names thus helping LLL.in become next year's over-hyped 'fad' (although as with LLLL, I've made sure I've got one super-premium and a handful of average ones, just in case)

 

[Alex]

Very well compiled Spade. Rep coming

 

[Jeff]

Very well compiled Spade. Rep coming ...

Agree. :tu:
I'll be back later this weekend on the .MOBI Illusions trend / outcome ... among other items ... :talk:

Thanks again Slade, and Happy Holidays! :santa:
-Jeff

 

[mis_chiff]

Great topic to start, an informative
thread for us without this knowledge
to watch and learn from.

I'd throw in my 2 cents, but I haven't
gained it yet :lol:

Rep+ on the way :santa:

 

[Spade]

Thanks again Slade

Slade? That definetly sounds cooler than Spade.

 

[bricio]

nice post Spade...

i like .mobi a lot and i have to agree with what you said in the last paragraph of .mobi topic... it is urgent a great advertise to make .mobi known and definitely launched to people that are not in the industry

i have a question as you didnt write anything about... and L-L-L.com?
i would like to hear your opinions

 

[lzy]

Interesting post, I'm betting your comments about .mobi will garner the most responses. :hehe:

Wholly agree with S~, .TV is definitely gaining traction and I have no doubt they'll gradually increase in value.

 

[smashfactory]

hmmmmm, slade


i also think .tv will be the 2008 sleeper- i think there is going to be a large increase in online marketing, and money spent by consumers online.
i also think the 2008 election is going to drive more online political interaction as we saw this year with youtube.

i also predict the opening and success of a company that will compete with sedo and afternic, and quickly move to the top 3.

i honestly think 2008 is going to be a milestone year in many ways.

 

[NickRac]

Illusions: The End of Parking

Domain parking is far from dead. With click fraud running rampant, and advertisers demanding better results - domaining is changing. The current model of advertisers buying visitors will continue through 2008 although expect revenue to decrease.

Domain Parking firms are learning that type in traffic is nice - but so is SE traffic. They will be working hard in 2008 to release better SEO pages and more unique content. Expect imrpoved parking this next year.

This is long needed - cheers Justin and lets hope parking companies make some good advancements soon.

 

[Spade]

i have a question as you didnt write anything about... and L-L-L.com?
i would like to hear your opinions

Illusions: L-L-L.com's will continue with large gains

The issue with L-L-L.com's is a simple one. This market exists only as speculators drum it up. Pretend your a company - If your choice was to buy an L-L-L.com domain name or keep looking - what would you do?

I dont believe any company in their right mind would spend the time to market and build a brand around that kind of domain name. They would "bleed" traffic, and eventually HAVE to buy the LLL.com (which they would have helped build additional value to).

Justin

 

[DotWeekly]

I see CVCV.'s and clearly pronounceable LLLL's doing well for a long time!

Watch out for the Sleeper........ .org! I let My Secret out, but this extension is already well known to people, and they get the warm and fuzzy feeling from the extension. I am seeing more companies using the extension for business reasons and not just for organizations! Mainly One Word .org's will do very well. Some strong two worder's will some damage as well. I have been investing for sometime now, so we will see. I have a gut feeling about this one, and the fact about people Knowing the ext, and the Safety feeling people already have is a Huge Plus!

 

[Jeff]

Slade! :lala:

Goodnight for now. :zzz:
-Jeff

 

[networkmsia]

Very good post there Justin.

Any thoughts on .asia landrush coming soon ?

 

[npcomplete]

I see CVCV.'s and clearly pronounceable LLLL's doing well for a long time!

Watch out for the Sleeper........ .org! I let My Secret out, but this extension is already well known to people, and they get the warm and fuzzy feeling from the extension. I am seeing more companies using the extension for business reasons and not just for organizations! Mainly One Word .org's will do very well. Some strong two worder's will some damage as well. I have been investing for sometime now, so we will see. I have a gut feeling about this one, and the fact about people Knowing the ext, and the Safety feeling people already have is a Huge Plus!

This is very insightful. You have to be careful with category, but I have noticed that some of my .org's get excellent ppc returns and search engine placement. I think it is related to the concept of security one gets with the extension.

Marc

 

[htmlindex]

You have made an excellent post which has been very informative.

Which LLLL.com's will turn out to be busts? LLLL.com's with random poor lettering. Domains containing x, z, q - ect. These names although should gain some ground - not enough to make the hold worth it. There are substancially better investments then this class of domain.

In particular, I totally agree with you on the above point. I also can't see much gains in value in those LLLL.com full of crap letters in them like qzxq.com. That's why I didn't waste my money buying any of them when they were the only ones left even though people were snapping them up.

 

[accent]

I don't know if this is in store for 2008, but an innovation that is desperately needed is pay-and-go sales of aftermarket domains at a fixed price.

The potential end user probably never sees Sedo or Afternic.
If he does he is confronted with millions of domains with only basic, not contextual, search. Trademarks and misspellings are mixed in along with tons of pure junk.

If he finds one he likes then the price is usually "make an offer" or somewhere in the neighborhood of Saturn.

If somehow he makes a deal then he still has to hope the seller follows through. And he gets his domain weeks or even months later.

Fabulous tried to set up cash and carry domains, moderated for quality, with immediate delivery.
And then set the commission so high as to kill the program.

It is a great and needed idea. Enduser buyers would be far more likely to buy aftermarket domains if there was a simple and immediate method to do so.
It only awaits some clever investor to set one up.

 

[sashas]

Excellent post S(L)pade

I'll agree with you on all counts. I expect the poorest LLLL.coms to be dropping at renewal. I also expect .mobi to see some revision, unless some big company actually acquires premium names and develop them, as opposed to just domainers speculating.

I've never understood the appeal for L-L-L.com names. They might have their buyers, but these buyers usually are the folks who have very little idea of the internet and would choose names like My-Favorite-Internet-Web-Site-Cool.com. Just awkward to pronounce and type-in.

I also expect a slight revision in premium LLL.com and CVCV.com pricing. These two have been running wild lately, with increase of several thousand over just a couple of months. Nearly 20k for an average premium letter (the L, the H, the T, etc.) is getting a bit off hand. I expect them to come down a notch. Same goes for premium CVCV.com

I also expect to see a rise in 2 character .com value. These names haven't really seen any big surge in reseller prices, despite their 3 character counterparts enjoying a healthy increase, LLLL.coms being regged, and LL.coms going for a 100k.

I expect .asia to come and go. I'll perhaps spend a couple of hundred bucks just being creative with it. I don't expect it to be of much use, however.

LLL.ins, you should see them all regged out by Feb-March 2008, which should see a brief surge in prices before renewal comes around in fall when we'll see loads drop because of the $13 renewal fee.

I also think LLL.biz will go down to $40-30 in 6 months. No one buys these names...

 

[yanni]

Trends: Expect more international investments

As domain investing continues to become more and more acceptable, watch as international groups (outside the US) take advantage of a weak dollar and invest in generic domain names.

The dollar continues to under perform, and its a perfect time for European investors to take advantage and start buying from US portfolio holders. Some excellent value can be purchased at a steep discount.

Right on the money.

Also consider that some of that foreign investment might actually go to local language domains (see: IDNs) which is the sleeper here and worth exploring further.




.

 

[bricio]

Illusions: L-L-L.com's will continue with large gains

The issue with L-L-L.com's is a simple one. This market exists only as speculators drum it up. Pretend your a company - If your choice was to buy an L-L-L.com domain name or keep looking - what would you do?

I dont believe any company in their right mind would spend the time to market and build a brand around that kind of domain name. They would "bleed" traffic, and eventually HAVE to buy the LLL.com (which they would have helped build additional value to).

Justin

thanks for your answer Spade
i asked you as i wanted more opinions about it... and you know very well this industry

do you think it is a good point that about 25% of them are developed (or at least redirecting to another site)? i mean there are people using them

as LLL.com are at least mid $x,xxx right now (the "worst" if there are bad LLL ) they can be very expensive for small business, so wouldnt L-L-L.com be a good alternative if their value would be no more, lets suppose, than 20% of a LLL.com?

i am not trying to say they will have value, i am just bringing some points that i dont know if they could change the L-L-L.com market

I've never understood the appeal for L-L-L.com names. They might have their buyers, but these buyers usually are the folks who have very little idea of the internet and would choose names like My-Favorite-Internet-Web-Site-Cool.com. Just awkward to pronounce and type-in.

i will put this link here that i think might be useful

developed L-L-L.com