I'm still trying to think of something good to do with wrongknowledge ... very snappy but totally unsaleable. Thinking some kind of porn thingy at the moment. Apparently there's a HUGE untapped market, according to some (large and very geeky) group of people who were complaining about noone providing the service.
Investing in Virtual Property
- Thread starter netfleet
- Start date
Lemme clarify:
There are plenty of domains available to build a business around for $40 (2 yrs).
There ain't many to buy with the idea of selling at a huge profit.
And for the record I own a few hundred domains most purchased many yrs ago.
There are plenty of domains available to build a business around for $40 (2 yrs).
There ain't many to buy with the idea of selling at a huge profit.
And for the record I own a few hundred domains most purchased many yrs ago.
the real big money for domain name squatting were in those single word domain names. Those days are long gone 
also, i've recently read there has been talk of expanding the suffixes to include anywords instead of being limited to .com, .org, .tv, etc (ie: www.somersoft.australia). The proposed model would require an annual fee so to start with only large corporations could implement it but if this does happen and becomes mainstream then it will pretty much saturate the market to the point where all domain names will become worthless.
also, i've recently read there has been talk of expanding the suffixes to include anywords instead of being limited to .com, .org, .tv, etc (ie: www.somersoft.australia). The proposed model would require an annual fee so to start with only large corporations could implement it but if this does happen and becomes mainstream then it will pretty much saturate the market to the point where all domain names will become worthless.
Aren't you contradicting yourself here? Surely you wouldn't build a business around a domain name that was anything less than "generic" or "most decent"
Would be very interested to find out what domains you have - are they .au? Mortgage.net.au sold today for $13,500 which is a pretty big ROI for the guy who hand registered it a few years ago.
the real big money for domain name squatting were in those single word domain names. Those days are long gone
also, i've recently read there has been talk of expanding the suffixes to include anywords instead of being limited to .com, .org, .tv, etc (ie: www.somersoft.australia). The proposed model would require an annual fee so to start with only large corporations could implement it but if this does happen and becomes mainstream then it will pretty much saturate the market to the point where all domain names will become worthless.
Squatting is something different - that's only when you register a trademark or brand. Plenty of money can be made in 2 and 3 word domains, I assure you.
You are right about the ICANN proposal to increase the number of 'TLD's. This is expected to start next year I think. It will cost around US$250,000 if you want to set up your own plus a load of other hoops to jump through.
I don't think it will work because:
a) lots of these new registries will go bust. You have to sell a lot of domains to start covering setup costs and running costs.
b) people will be so confused they won't be readily adopted.
But you are right that there is a risk that these will dilute existing domain prices.
Kind of like a massive land release might impact land near it. However waterfront will always be waterfront...
this does raise a point. If they do implement this new business model and major companies migrate to it AND deregister/discontinue their current .com domain names, is there an opportunity to target these unregistered domains. If you are correct and they ditch the model maybe those companies would want to re-purchase their original domain names at a healthy profit to you.
ie: if www.nissan.com discontinues current name to adopt www.home.nissan, is there an opportunity for an astute person to register www.nissan.com on the hopes that naming conventions would revert back to .com, .net, .tv, .org, etc
ie: if www.nissan.com discontinues current name to adopt www.home.nissan, is there an opportunity for an astute person to register www.nissan.com on the hopes that naming conventions would revert back to .com, .net, .tv, .org, etc
Why not? Our main domain names are all less than generic. Two are made-up words and one is just our business name, hyphenated because some idiot with a garishly coloured website who lives in a university dorm and never updates his website has our business name as a .com and won't sell it ... never even occurred to us to get a .com.au, they cost about $90 each at the time and you had to jump through hoops to get them. Mind you we use the domain primarily for something that doesn't have a website on it ...
I used to have a .com.au and a .com matching pair, the .com.au ended up with about 4M of traffic a month and the .com is ticking away with about 9G a month. I let the .com.au lapse.
All the good domains were taken for our main project, hence made up word. It still means what we want it to mean though.
That's a point except I don't think it would really happen because companies would:
a) not let their .com or com.au lapse
b) easily win the domains back on appeal
This scenario would be a blatant attempt at cybersquatting so they wouldn't get away with it (rightly so)
Sounds like your domains are what domainers would term 'brandable' - an example is the new MSN search engine bing.com.
Nothing wrong with that at all but my own preference is to try to secure a generic domain if possible because
1) the name itself can help describe your business
2) easier to remember 'real' words
3) having relevant keywords in your domain name helps you significantly with search engine rankings
4) generic names have appeal and value to others so if you did want to let it go, you may be able to profit from it.
Are you going to let us know what the project is? I'm intrigued...
It'll a long time before those that bought it make their $$ back I'd guess.
With all due respect, I doubt you'll find out lol. Many are .com.au, a few .com, .net, .co,uk.
A few .com.au are fairly generic and some I'd say better as they are very common used words (1 or 2) under 10 chars. Had they been .com they'd be worth high 6 figures. They don't just sit there parked though, I build them little by little, and they bring in small change here & there.
Long ago (90's) I thought that instead of making a killer website (which i did with some others), it would be easier to have 100 small ones bringing in a a couple dollars a day. And of course some of them would be "prime real estate" or close enough one day, so I went out on a domain spree.
Its an adult roleplaying computer game we've been working on for some time now (give or take setbacks for renovations, having babies etc), the domain is registered anonymously and doesn't have a public website on it. The domain name basically translates to a placename.com, its short, easy to say and the translation is loosely "alternative island". It took a *lot* of creative thinking to come up with a snappy placename that wasn't taken.
