Wednesday’s 10 Random Domain Thoughts

I’m always having trouble coming up with a regular article because I have a lot of ideas but none of them are worth writing a whole post about.  So I’ll just gather them and put them into one.  Here’s the first edition

1.  I’m going to anoint Merlin Kauffman the next Frank Schilling.  Part of being successful is in the attitude.  Merlin seems to always be in a pretty good mood and enjoying life. All the while making some pretty good business decisions.  Merlin always takes times to shake hands and give out hugs when he enters a room.  Frank always makes everyone in the room comfortable.  Merlin has that same gift.

2.  I hate Network Solutions and Register.com and would never keep a domain in their account for one reason only.   I have to wait FOREVER to get an authorization code. I have to call every time.  They say they are trying to protect me from theft even though there are 100 better ways to do it.  They are just trying to be a pain in the ass.  Just send me my auth code.

3.  I also hate it when I try and list a domain on Afternic and it won’t let me because the last person that owned it had it up for sale.  If they are going to rely on manual deletion from previous owner then this will always continue to be the case.  Need to come up with something

4.  While I have Afternic in front of me. I was told by them that their staff of evaluators said that my Buy It Now price was too high on Vato.com.  I quote “To maintain the integrity of the marketplace for our buyers”.  I wanted it to be $25K and they said they wouldn’t let me put it above $20K.  Even though I’ve been offered 10 and 15K in the last year. Did the same thing for TheTrunk.com which I have had offers of 10K for. It’s not like I’m not taking offers.   There goes their 20% <<<——–Perfect use of there their for the first time

5.  I spent 2 hours and zero dollars scanning names for the ‘Early Access Program” of the Donuts names that went up today.  The names I liked are taken (or held back) and I also did a “what can I get in dot com for this price” and decided to spend my money elsewhere.  I want to buy a few names to test the waters.  I actually know which of these new TLDs are going to be hot but I’m not sharing

6. While I think that it may be chance, but I started changing my keywords an some of my domains at Domain Name Sales to more actively reflect what I think people are looking for on the type ins.  The computer models can’t know everything.  So far it’s been an extra $18 plus a day.  I don’t think it will continue but I hope it does. No doubt in my mind it will improve though.  I am going to run through it again this weekend and fine tune it.  I only have 300 or so domains so it’s manageable.

7.  Not Domaining related but economy related.  Has anyone watched the price of natural gas and propane lately?  HUGE story but not many are talking about it.  I of course pay attention because I use so much of it for my business.  We lock in a price so we know exactly what it will cost but normally I don’t lock in total use.  Last year for some reason and I can’t exactly remember why but I went and locked in 20,000 gallons when normally I would lock in 12,000.   We normally use 15-20K gallons a year.  The contract is going to save me $30,000.  Not save me from what I spent last year but what I would have had to spend with all this bad weather. I can’t imagine what the people that took the risk at market price. They are getting killed. You could have saved some money buying at market the last three winters but you would have lost everything and then triple that amount this winter.

8.  There were some sizable business deals done for me at Namescon.  While I do think the event had some to do with it (obviously it was the reason everyone was there), much of it had to do with me having a history.  After four years, most know who I am and what I do and just needed a little more info about me to set up the partnership.  I also found a few people i want to work with and we’ve been talking daily since.  There will be some big news announced in the next few weeks.  At least big to me

9.  I think dot info still has some room to run.  The key to keeping it moving forward are a few examples of endusers or buildouts showing that something that earns income can be built using a dot info.  That needs to happen soon or eventually the run will fail.  I’m a flipper at this point.  When I see some new functioning websites I will be an investor.

10.  I love dot XXX.  As a tld. Unfortunately I just can’t be in that business. I move back and forth morally but as a business person it just works for me.  Clearly defines the purpose of the site.  Easy to remember and the people that have done well with it are making big money that they will be willing to spend on more names in the space.  I don’t own any but I think about buying them all the time.  Until I get home at night and remember why I shouldn’t .