opinion What Will 2022 Hold? Input for future blog post sought.

[Bob Hawkes]

I hope that many NamePros members will help me out. I am putting together, for publication at the start of 2022, a NamePros Blog article summarizing views on what the year ahead might look like in domain name investing.

What trends do you see?

• Is there a new niche that you think will become hot?
• What sectors will be highly sought?
• Are domain name prices on way up or down?
• Do you see the top, middle or bottom of market, price wise, as offering best opportunities?
• Will ETH, meta and NFT stay strong?
• Will the surge in .xyz continue?
• What about .io? .co?
• What about national country codes?
• Will there be more, or fewer, million dollar sales?
• What changes do you predict in the marketplaces we use?
• Will decentralized domain names grow in acceptance?
• What trends do you see happening in branding?
• Overall, do you think 2022 will be better or worse than 2021?
• What is your biggest concern about the future of domain investing?
• What one thing do you hope will happen? Perhaps a new service you think the industry needs.

I am not looking for you to comment on all of those topics! Just select one, or two, and give your opinion, or comment on something not on the list.

While space will not permit me to include everyone's comments, my intention is to quote, with attribution to you, a number in the NamePros article.

Please don't be hesitant to share. Having many viewpoints, from all parts of the world, and from different experience levels, will help produce a balanced article.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

PS Please vote in the associated poll as well!

 

[redemo]

Have you heard of Dan.com?

Yes I have. Have you heard of Google.com?

 

[Reyginus]

Yes I have. Have you heard of Google.com?

I doubt you have. If you did you wouldn't ask the above questions.

 

[redemo]

I doubt you have. If you did you wouldn't ask the above questions.

I didn't say I've used DAN.com. You asked me if I'd heard of DAN.com. The answer is yes, of course I've heard of DAN.com. It's mentioned on the forum often and appears in banner advertisements on a regular basis. DAN.com is currently ranked as the best domain name aftermarket of 2021 in the thread started by @equity78 that I'm watching and receiving updates for: https://www.namepros.com/threads/best-aftermarket-for-2021.1256384/. Maybe you'd like to share the feature on DAN.com which solves the above problem of marketplaces accepting cryptocurrency as payment for services?

 

[Reyginus]

I didn't say I've used DAN.com. You asked me if I'd heard of DAN.com. The answer is yes, of course I've heard of DAN.com. It's mentioned on the forum often and appears in banner advertisements on a regular basis. DAN.com is currently ranked as the best aftermarket of 2021 in the thread started by @equity78 that I'm watching and receiving updates for: https://www.namepros.com/threads/best-aftermarket-for-2021.1256384/. Maybe you'd like to share the feature on DAN.com which solves the above problem?

Dan pays in Crypto and it is a Netherland company. BrandBrucket, a Brandable marketplace, recently worked with BitPay to pay sellers in Crypto too.

 

[Reddstagg]

2020 was armageddon
2021 was sending Bruce Willis
2022 will be happy ever after...I don't wanna miss a thing

New company registrations and registrations of .IE extension are up over a quarter this year and I can see this trend continuing into 2022. The Irish seem to be predisposed to work for themselves and be their own Boss. We don't like being told what to do lol. The Fighting Irish.

Technological advancements will continue to be the playground of the bold and the 1% ers. I've heard of most of them but I will not be investing money in any of them apart from having $6 invested in a cool exact match keyword domain.

Health and wellness and the way we live our lives will continue to rise year on year for at least the next 5 years as we try to address the abuse of our bodies. Eat better. Sleep better. Be better. Be fitter. Be less stressed. Be less. Anything that can contribute to this worthy cause will be generating billions every year. Buy the solution...not the dream.

NFTS, Metaverses etc etc is like comparing a 100 year old black and white film to a $200 million film of today or comparing 'Snake' to the latest $1Billion 8K must have video game lol. Videos...what ever happened to them lol.

I am optimistic for the future...mine and yours. Never stop learning...never stop believing. Never STOP!!!

Rgrds,

Reddstagg

 

[redemo]

What about voting for your favourite @Bob Hawkes blog post of 2021?

 

[redemo]

What about voting for the best posts from all members in 2021, ranking the top ten and giving the top three a prize like a free subscription to Namepros (if they haven't already got one) or a special badge on their profile or some Namepros collector's items. Just throwing ideas into the mix. Cheers. To edit a post - make life easy as possible find the ten posts on Namepros in 2021 with the most positive reactions. Expand the idea by listing top posts from main categories. That's going to help shine the torch on the best Namepros content which is very useful.

 

[wintersnow]

A health passport system that takes control over your life and you cant visit certain sites online or even a physical location unless they are verified locations or domains where everything has to align with the main stream narative.Then later the health passport turns into a social credit score type system, like in China? Where you cant board a train if you do not bow down to the leadership in every way and are too frightened to warn the other people of the world of what is actually taking place over there?

That might effect our internet experience a little bit.?

 

[redemo]

A health passport system that takes control over your life and you cant visit certain sites online or even a physical location unless they are verified locations or domains where everything has to align with the main stream narative.Then later the health passport turns into a social credit score type system, like in China? Where you cant board a train if you do not bow down to the leadership in every way and are too frightened to warn the other people of the world of what is actually taking place over there?

That might effect our internet experience a little bit.?

A tad excessive mate but I agree with your general narrative. We need to find a way to stay safe as communities whilst opposing unnecessary restrictions and government with media help controlled systems which end up curbing our civil liberties. How then @wintersnow do you think all of this will affect the domain name industry in 2022? Let's hold hands around our ouija board and call out to our long departed luminaries John Dee, Tycho Brahe and Nicolaus Copernicus as they set about scrying through a spinning crystal ball with festoons fluttering around in the shadows.

 

[Jensen_00]

xyz, io, co will keep selling and prices will keep going up and up on them

 

[fatter]

Sad to say domaining will be pretty much a thing of the past, like the dotcom era. I believe this because for 9 dollars and a good name you could make some good money in the past. Now instead of regging 100 domains you can buy 100 startup crypto coins and make a killing in crypto market. There will still be a domain industry but I think there will be few newcomers, because crypto is much easier to strike it rich. I will let a bunch of my names where i was waiting for the technology to advance, or legislation to advance expire. So instead of keeping names for ten years i will buy 100 xrp tokens. There will still be a market for the best in this industry, but for the average domainer like myself Doesn't look like it. I learned a lot and made some good money but won't put much time in it anymore.

 

[Global Rebrander]

I hope that many NamePros members will help me out. I am putting together, for publication at the start of 2022, a NamePros Blog article summarizing views on what the year ahead might look like in domain name investing.

What trends do you see?

• Is there a new niche that you think will become hot?
• What sectors will be highly sought?
• Are domain name prices on way up or down?
• Do you see the top, middle or bottom of market, price wise, as offering best opportunities?
• Will ETH, meta and NFT stay strong?
• Will the surge in .xyz continue?
• What about .io? .co?
• What about national country codes?
• Will there be more, or fewer, million dollar sales?
• What changes do you predict in the marketplaces we use?
• Will decentralized domain names grow in acceptance?
• What trends do you see happening in branding?
• Overall, do you think 2022 will be better or worse than 2021?
• What is your biggest concern about the future of domain investing?
• What one thing do you hope will happen? Perhaps a new service you think the industry needs.

I am not looking for you to comment on all of those topics! Just select one, or two, and give your opinion, or comment on something not on the list.

While space will not permit me to include everyone's comments, my intention is to quote, with attribution to you, a number in the NamePros article.

Please don't be hesitant to share. Having many viewpoints, from all parts of the world, and from different experience levels, will help produce a balanced article.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

PS Please vote in the associated poll as well!

I think once again new developments in new technology will eventually bring in much of the new hot domains just like the words coin, token, crypto, nft, metaverse had in the last few years. It will be interesting to see what new developments we see in the crypto space as well as what new technologies under RND currently go into mainstream like LiFi

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thank you for all the views, everyone, and hope we will have many more come in.

Particularly interested in predictions on hot niches, of course understand if people do not want to share!

What about voting for your favourite @Bob Hawkes blog post of 2021?

I would, respectfully, vote against that idea, but thank you for the thought, @redemo. I find that the existing system gives me lots of feedback on the type of posts people most appreciate. I am truly appreciative of NamePros for allowing me the opportunity to write a weekly blog post, and this amazing domain community.

What about voting for the best posts from all members in 2021, ranking the top ten and giving the top three a prize like a free subscription to Namepros

Offhand I don't know if this has been proposed or not. Probably this thread is not the place to discuss it (but I do see the link with year). There is a section for suggestions to NamePros, or its own thread are probably the best place to discuss it.

Thank you everyone, and best wishes for 2022.

Bob

 

[redemo]

new technologies under RND currently go into mainstream like LiFi

That's one I hadn't heard of before reading your post. Cheers mate. Living is learning. Sharing is caring. Anybody investing in LiFi domain names?

 

[Global Rebrander]

That's one I hadn't heard of before reading your post. Cheers mate. Living is learning. Sharing is caring. Anybody investing in LiFi domain names?

LiFidevice.com

 

[Corey]

I will continue to invest in liquid domains, LLLL.com as a long term investment.

Cheers
Corey

 

[FolioTeam]

Dan pays in Crypto and it is a Netherland company. BrandBrucket, a Brandable marketplace, recently worked with BitPay to pay sellers in Crypto too.

Even Porkbun, a registrar, now accepts payment in crypto when registering a domain with them

 

[RogueWriter]

Still early days in poll, but surprised how positive everyone feels about the momentum continuing.

Bob

For me, my offline business was extremely strong in November and December, which finally gave me balance to move forward. I am feeling confident looking at the new year, and I think that confidence is simply flowing into my other side hustles, such as domaining. I am setting a goal of finding and buying a xx,xxx domain to develop by the end of 2022. It is not something that will happen right away, and I will probably have to buy on contract. That may not sound like a huge leap, but given most of my acquisitions are hand registrations, for me that will be quite the commitment.

 

[ixex]

xyz, io, co will keep selling and prices will keep going up and up on them

this would be great!

 

[redemo]

Drum-roll please!

My 22 predictions for the domain name industry in 2022 are:

1. Dot com will continue to be the world's most popular domain name extension (duh!).
2. Dot com domain name registrations will continue to rise (duh-duh!).
3. Overall domain name registrations will continue to fall.
4. Average domain name character length will continue to become shorter.
5. More companies will use descriptive domain names (buy.tickets, visit.london).
6. " Meta ", " metaverse " and " xr " related domain names will be become more popular, as will sub categories including " vr ", " ar ", " mr " and other gaming related domain names.
7. I do not expect there to be a noticeable surge in " immersive " keyword domain names (no source).
8. " Eco ", " solar ", " sustainable ", " electric / e... / electro / electricity ", " enviro(mental) " no pun intended, " ethical ", " canna(bis) ", " cbd ", " hemp " and related environmental / organic / medicinal domain names will become more popular.
9. " virtual " related domain names will become more popular as people continue to isolate socially and work remotely professionally.
10. " machine learning ", " ml ", " ai " and " (ro)bot(ics) " related domain names will become more popular.
11. " invest(ing) " " crypto(currency) ", " loan " and related financial domain names will become more popular.
12. " app " domain name sales will continue to surge as mobile phones take over the world and Google airdrops solar powered Google Chromebooks to Chief Madidi of the uncontacted Toromona tribe living near the upper Madidi River in northwestern Bolivia (no source, but stranger things have happened).
13. More domain name marketplaces will have https landing pages by default for free (no source) while Estibot gives all paid Namepros members free access to domainleads.com (no source).
14. More domain name marketplaces will accept cryptocurrency transactions (no source).
15. TikTok will remain the world's most popular domain name, ahead of Google, by traffic.
16. Brand protection will become critical with more companies acquiring their dot com (and exact match social networking names).
17. The number of W.I.P.O. domain name U.D.R.P. dispute cases will continue to rise noticeably in 2022 as it has for the past three years (2019 saw 3693 cases, 2020 saw 4204 cases, 2021 saw 5051 cases), and over 90 % of U.D.R.P. complainants will continue to win their cases and have domain names transferred.
18. Physical business address will become more important for SEO as Google robustly pushes Business Listings as a core part of its organic (and to a lesser extend paid) algorithms.
19. Consumers and search engines will expect everything on the internet to be faster, especially when visiting domain names (domain name marketplaces and domain name portfolio owners, you have been warned), oh and they need to be mobile friendly, and voice search friendly, and stray cat friendly....
20. LiFi might become a thing, in which case I predict " lifi " domain names will also become a thing.
21. Crafty domainers will be monitoring the S.S.A. (Social Security Administration) website to find the latest trending baby names and swiftly register any new ones twenty years before an end user is old enough to actually use them, before which they will probably never be developed or sold and therefore dropped many times over by different registrants before anyone makes any profit (apart from the registrars, of course).
22. Your taxes will be due in both the U.S. and U.K. in April of 2022 (multiple sources).

As always, I could be wrong.

Sources

• https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/registry-reports
• https://www.verisign.com/assets/domain-name-report-Q32021.pdf
• https://www.nominet.uk/news/reports-statistics/uk-register-statistics-2021/
• https://www.heartinternet.uk/blog/7-domain-name-trends-for-2022/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/265677/number-of-internet-top-level-domains-worldwide/
• https://blog.cloudflare.com/popular-domains-year-in-review-2021/
• https://www.rackspace.com/blog/three-technological-challenges-predicted-2022
• https://www.networksolutions.com/bl.../what-is-cybersquatting-and-how-to-prevent-it
• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/search/2021-year-in-search-digital-strategy/
• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/con...ng-visual-stories/google-search-data-insights
• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/2021-search-insights/
• https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/statistics/cases.jsp
• https://giga.law/blog/2021/10/27/domain-digest-q3-2021
• https://www.akamai.com/blog/security/2021-soti-security-year-end-review
• https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/technology-our-lives/lifi
• https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/
• https://namebio.com/
• https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/201543014.pdf