What's with all the subterfuge?

[ddfenton]

What's with all the "anonymous" greyed out man-shaped avitars and nothing-close-to-real-name-handles?
Is this indigenous to domaining or is it just internet caution on public forums? Is this because there's no filters for profile safety? Curious 'cause other professional forums I've operated in aren't like that.

 

[equity78]

Didn't mean any of this to be sarcastic or judgmental. Everyone is really friendly. I just don't get it and was asking directly.

Many many people, from long time domainers to newer entrants do not use their real name or their real pic. This first and foremost is a casual place and not a professional outlet like say LinkedIn.

Many domain owners do not want anyone knowing much about them unless they have something to sell or promote. There is no advantage in an environment with competitors, sure people might be friendly but they are also a competitor if domaining is anything more than a passing hobby to those involved.

With a name, people can use many tools to find out someone's holdings, track past sales, see if there is a pattern to their end user clientele, perhaps start soliciting those clients, outbid them in auctions in the hopes they can make quick flips. Etc...

Mods in the old days would place links to a developed site of theirs and members who were warned or possibly banned, would click bomb that mod's Adsense hoping to get their Adsense account closed.

For most when it comes to full transparency, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

 

[equity78]

But I think domaining is a very serious profession for some. Thing is, the design of the business, the registry houses being also the sellers, venue providers and sources of information are all by construct, conflicts of interest, which is why the market crashed when deregulations allowed banks to own other banks and be investment houses and insurance companies, etc, etc, simultaneously. Called monopoly and can kill free enterprise which I see still exists in domaining, which is great. It's a thin line between what Uncle Sam vs Corp America controls, with the latter, I think, having the upper hand.

First off domaining is not like the stock market, there is liquidity in the stock market, there is little to no liquidity in domaining. Short valuable names like 2,3 and 4 letter/number .coms are where the liquidity is, many here and other places have held a domain for years, never gotten an offer and then sold the name for $25,000. Sometimes people have listed names here where there is no reserve and gotten no bites only to sell the name for four or five figures. If there was liquidity for all names that would not happen.

You can make some analogies to real estate although I do not subscribe to as many similarities as others do. There are enough similarities where the comparison does work.

As far as the deregulation or conflicts of interest.

The players:

ICANN oversees all things domains, they approve new tlds and get a piece of every gtld that is sold. .18 on every .com

Verisign runs the .com registry, they have the contract for .com and .net and make $7.85 for each .com domain

Registrars - GoDaddy is the largest, GoDaddy does also compete with domainers with their NameFind.com, they buy portfolios and sell names to end users. They also own the aftermarket Afternic and they make quite a bit from GoDaddy auctions where expired domains at GoDaddy are sold to the highest bidder.

Aftermarkets - Sedo,Afternic,Flippa, Uniregistry Market, BrandBucket etc... These sites all have different policies and commission rates.

Registries - Donuts, Uniregistry, Radix, Minds & Machines and many more. These companies paid the rights to run certain new gtlds like .store,.sexy,.app and about 1000 more.

Parking Providers - Voodoo, GoDaddy CashParking, Bodis, you can change the nameservers and they host a page for you which shows ads and you earn ppc, you share that revenue with the parking company and Google.

Domain Investors - Some make millions, some loses thousands, most are in the middle, well probably most are in lower middle.

Domain Blogs and Forums - News, editorial,comics, advertising, chat and a little mental masturbation.

Aftermarkets do not provide any data but their own, you do not have to deal with any of them, you can run your own site, use a third party escrow company to handle the payments. Do not use Paypal for anyone you don't know and trust.

You don't have to deal with anyone you don't want to except for the registrar and registry provider, all the rest is who you think best fits your business model.

 

[Silentptnr]

Here its required to use the craziest image you can find as an avatar.

Its in the rules.

 

[Kate]

"I believe I can fly"

 

[Silentptnr]

Last time i checked...no.

Im his twin.

 

[ghcomp]

you can sell names almost anywhere but yeah you need patience sometimes ;]

I've come to realize I have no patience

 

[ddfenton]

And you are Obama?

Thanks, though

 

[forge]

Does anybody really sell names on Ebay? Some of them are ridiculously high and most are pathetically low.

Your questions are all over the place. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Of course people really sell domains on eBay. It used to be a fantastic venue for doing so. Not so much anymore, though some great deals can still be found there. But you have to wade through a LOT of garbage.

 

[ddfenton]

Didn't mean any of this to be sarcastic or judgmental. Everyone is really friendly. I just don't get it and was asking directly.

 

[ddfenton]

Thank you. That is what I suspected. And it shows the newness of the industry. There isn't a business round that isn't subject to underhanded dealings using sensitive information to gain competitive edge. Thus all the hacker paranoia. I think (maybe) the disconnect I'm not getting here is the extent to which there really is a free market and the extent to which the auction houses (I don't know what to call SEDO, GoDaddy and the likes) control the stats and values of stuff that pretends to be kinda sorta like intangible real estate (or IP) but is more like the stock market. To a degree, people like me who register names for their own use, or dapple in the market like using slot machines in Vegas, are important to keep in the mix because we help push the product on the "wholesaler?" level and keep the ball in the air by giving GoDaddy steady income and the industry as a whole, movement. And I don’t know how much information is coming from those invested in keeping everyone in the game. Anyway, I'm kind of rambling here and I get the need for caution. THANKS SO MUCH for your answer!!!!

 

[Silentptnr]

I haven't sold sh*t on LinkedIn.

 

[creataweb]

None of those have worked for me but I haven't been diligent and patient which is why I want out .

you can sell names almost anywhere but yeah you need patience sometimes ;]

 

[Pierre Barnard]

Hi @ddfenton (at least I know what you look like, if that is really you, and then again, does it matter?)

I guess everyone is different. Personally, I just always thought, hey! thats my name, that what I look like, why not use it? Nothing to fear, nothing to hide.

 

[creataweb]

 

[SirSkyborg]

This is my birth name, but my friends call me Sky.

 

[ddfenton]

Hmmm. That's a tall order and a low bar given so many are like, question marks. And why?

 

[Silentptnr]

Those havent uploaded. I think it is one of the default choices.

 

[ddfenton]

Hard to tell with the shades, baseball hat and glow pops

 

[creataweb]

I'm dumb. What does this mean?

Her bird avatar?

 

[Impaler The Vlad]

I haven't sold sh*t on LinkedIn.

Maybe because it's $hit?

 

[Nerevar]

We know each other passport names because of the domain WHOIS info and because it is a relatively small business community. On the other hand, I see forum names and avatars as a tribute to the fact the we are web people, internet hardcore guys and gals, not boring "suits"

 

[Silentptnr]

Those are real. They just look different.

 

[ddfenton]

seriously, why? Small players vs high rollers kinda thing?

 

[Cdomains]

The image you are talking about is the default image when an avatar has not been uploaded to replace it.

Mine is actually that image modified slightly.

There is no requirement I am aware of that says one must upload a different image.