People ask me why I invest in domains and I give them a simple answer. It’s not the beginning but it’s early and I’m going to take advantage. Early enough to be a part of one of the best money making opportunities we’ve seen in the last 50 years. I can buy Internet land and prices that are just a small percentage of their future value. I buy just like I buy real estate, beach front and highly desired locations. There is plenty of land and plenty of domains, but the most wanted will continue to stay the most wanted. Here are 10 other reasons why I can still make millions with domains in the near future.
1. 7 Billion people on earth and increasing at 80 million A YEAR: Before the 20th century, no human had lived through a doubling of the human population, but there are people alive today who have seen it triple. Sometime in late 2011, according to the UN Population Division, there will be seven billion of us. Every year a larger percentage of people have access of the Internet
2. Most people believe all the good dot coms are taken. While there are still domains related to new technologies, current events, and trends to be hand registered, most are now in a taken or resale state. Limited supply of anything is positive for the future. You can make as many new tlds as you want but there will only be one dot com.
3. Companies spent more on Internet advertising than newspaper. The old king of media has officially been replaced by the net. Next up…. TV.
4. It’s human nature to think you can do better. The wonderful thing about humans is they think they are better than other people. Give a designer a logo and 99% of the time they think they can do better. It applies to domaining as well. It doesn’t matter if you can monetize a domain or not, someone will always think they can make more money from it. They think they can sell it for more. As long as they don’t lose that instinct you’ll always have this to help you move product.
5. The average price of a domain at Sedo rose from $1600 to $2000. Prices for domains that are most wanted are rising. You just have to figure out which domains sell.
6. Big sales lead to buyers with big dreams. Again, it’s human nature to dream of making a million dollars. Every time a big domain sale comes up it gets people excited. Even more importantly, are the large selling prices for domains that are unexpected. Names that many people didn’t think really had that value. Everyone dreams of that wealthy enduser that absolutely that has to have your domain. All this leads to people taking the gamble.
7. The CHEAPEST average price of a 30 second National Tv commercial is $76,000 a minute. On Fox it averages $200,000. And that’s national. A domain is worldwide. Makes domain prices sound cheap doesn’t it?
8. Companies are still willing to buy domain names AFTER they release the product or start the company. The surest way for a company to get a domain at a fair price is to have some foresight and send a middleman to buy the domain before the release of a product. Fortunately for domain owners, companies still release products and buy the domains AFTER. It gives the domain owner the upper hand in negotiations and ensures a big payday.
9. Real business minds will rule the lazy and profit accordingly. Now that the easy money in parking has ended and the minisites are following the same trend, the business mind that create individual businesses on their domains will create enormous wealth. Now is the time of the large build out. Consumers are figuring out whether it’s a “legit” site within seconds of the landing and with Google moving to TrustRank, the sooner you build trust, the more money you’ll make.
10. The average time spent online is increasing at an incredible rate. Over the last five years, the amount of time spent watching TV has increased about 5%, but the time spent surfing the Web has grown 121% to an average of 13 hours a week, Forrester Research said in an annual report about online consumer habits. Add mobile and you’d find that the Internet is a bigger part of the day then any form of communication and entertainment. And the roadmap of this communication is defined with domains. The owners of these properties will prosper.
Nice post Shane.
Nicely done article with excellent inspiration and encouragement to the domaining business.
Interesting comment about population growth and internet access. Note that internet usage / penetration is growing rapidly in non-English speaking countries particularly compared to the US.
You hit it out fella.
Well said. Well done.
Nice inspiring post Shane……..!
No. 7 is what matters most and brings in big bucks.
Also add-in the Internet advertising that many companies are spending on. You can get a broad picture of that using Estibot’s lead gen tool.
** Nice ** Excellent Analogies. The progression of i-revolution is evolving and just now beginning to create explosive paradigms. The .Coms will be the keystone.
Shane,
Sounds very good and all of us (domainers) will become dirty rich. My biggest fear is that technology or something else might make domain names obsolete. Then it wouldn’t matter if you have .com or .pigeonshit. Fortunes on paper will be lost. Of course if you have solid business built that won’t be a problem.
Nice post Shane.
“7 Billion people on earth and increasing at 80 million A YEAR”
There’s more on that at IDNForums.com
Very inspirational – and timely – post, Shane. Thanks.
Your post got me thinkiing that what the domain industry needs at this critical stage is to create a ‘Domain Name Value Proposition’ (which would likely encompass some of your points, and those of other bloggers, and should be written with end-users in mind).
If, as a group, we could ‘crowdsource’ to create a 10-point value proposition, which every member displays on their site, and actively promotes – so as to sing from the same tune -, it would be very powerful statement of solidarity: and something that would take us one step further down the roads of legitimacy and respect.
And I think that you’re the person who could best spearhead this, so please think about it.
Gene
DomainJD.com
As I slowly buy domains, there are lots of good names in the drops everyday.
@Gene
Your idea sounds brilliant, if there was more solidarity amongst Domainers everyone would stand to benefit. As it is, the “Everyman for Himself” mentality in the industry is detrimental to the industry as a whole.
You hit a lot of great points, many are the reasons I am still working at it. I just read that within 5 years there will be more Chinese language internet users than English speaking internet users. Just something else to keep in mind when choosing domains.
These exact reasons are why I would hold for close to my asking price instead of selling short of your target goal.
Excellent summary of what it’s all about.
great post!
im hoping that the media does in fact change to all TV – specifically .TV domains!
great points – you nailed them