60 Minutes is Educational for Domain Investors

60 MinutesI love watching television shows like 60 Minutes and 20/20 because I always seem to learn something. Frequently, what I learn has nothing to do with the Internet or domain names, but on occasion, it can help with my domain investment business.

Yesterday evening, after watching football and while waiting for a food delivery, I tuned in to 60 Minutes. After the lead in for the story about Marc Dreier and his Ponzi scheme, there was another lead in for a story about coal ash and how coal ash pollution has caused major problems for a town in Tennessee. Additionally, there are other areas that may face problems related to coal ash.

One thing that Leslie Stahl mentioned in the preview was that “there are no federal regulations for coal ash disposal which is dumped in hundreds of sites all over the country.” Later on, she said that coal ash is regulated by individual states, but the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to rule on whether federal regulations for coal ash are needed by December. Some people think coal ash disposal is necessary (despite the potential $13 billion cost) while others say coal ash recycling is the most economic way to deal with this problem, which hasn’t been determined to be an official hazard yet.

To me, after seeing this segment I believe that “coal ash disposal” or “coal ash recycling” will become big business opportunities. As a domain investor, this leads me to a business opportunity, and I registered CoalAshDisposal.com and CoalAshRecycling.com. In doing some follow-up research, I think these were good purchases, and time will tell. There are over 600k results in Google for “coal ash disposal” already, but very few advertisers. I am betting that this will change if/when the government determines it to be a hazardous material that needs to be regulated similarly to asbestos.

As an aside, I am always asked about registering other extensions on speculative buys like these as well as tertiary terms (like CoalAshRecyclers.com). In my opinion, my $16 investment will pay off very well if coal ash disposal or recycling companies are mandated, and the other tertiary names will have a much less pay-off. As a result, I didn’t feel the need to spend additional speculative money.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

14 COMMENTS

  1. i agree with your approach of performing research wherever it can be found for new domain ideas, e.g., 60 Minutes, but I think that you’re mistaken in not spending a few extra bucks to protect your new investments (by purchasing the tertiary names). the approach of registering a name here and there is fair so long as you really don’t believe in the space, itself. but when you stumble on something that your gut tells you has huge potential it seems foolish not to take out some additional insurance – by digging the rest of the moat to your virtual castle. i took my own advice in the area of ‘sentiment analysis’ by performing a systematic analysis of all the potential company, tool and software names any new entrant or existing player could possibly think of – and ‘invested’ in the whole lot: 200 in total. so it comes down to how much you really believe in the future of your your newest niche.

  2. Great hand reg there, no doubt.

    Funny, I did the same thing yesterday.

    I was reading an article about Atlantic bay scallops and checked… yep AtlanticBayScallops.com WAS available 😉

    Not as big of an industry as coal ash but just goes to show that we can’t read or watch anything without thinking about domains.

    Hey, for a few bucks now we get a year to see what happens before we have to renew.

  3. If you work out at the gym in front of a large bank of TV’s like I do and pay attention to what’s being advertised, you’ll get plenty of excellent ideas for domain names.

  4. I agree with you 100% on “tertiary” names. If it’s going to be a hit, your two names are the best far and away. If not, you’ve “wasted” about $15. Why double or triple your risk for 1/10th again the potential reward?

    I have made this mistake many times over, and I regret not having freed up more capital to diversify my speculative names.

  5. I probably wouldn’t pick up all the tertiary names on a speculative purchase however, I’d probably make an exception for CoalAsh.net which is currently unregistered.

  6. While I understand where Gene’s coming from generally, unless the “new things” products/services each have a high economic value/cost (unless you want to end up in a few months of buying with 10’s of thousands of zero-income names for years to come and renewal fees to pay), for another reason sticking with the top extensions like .com makes the most sense:

    If/once many-to-most of the tertiary names ARE reg’d, the .com version/s is/are going to be pure gold to the “big boy/s” who someday will come knocking at your door w/big $$$ in their pockets to buy your gold.

  7. I’ve been watching 60 Minutes ever since I was a a little kid. My father would always have it on and it would be more educational then the topics that I was learning in school. The show itself allows you to think about the issues which pertain to the US and Global economies.

    I had the pleasure of watching Sunday’s show and thought about the issues pertaining to disposal of coal. The lobbyist that was featured on the show provided for great comic relief.

    Great reg!

  8. I also watch shows like 60 minutes, 20/20 plus regularly surf from one 24 hr news channel to another looking for domain ideas. Occasionally, I even read a newspaper!

    Really I should say that I watch these shows and channels to increase my general knowledge about the world or the country as I have watched for at least 12 or 15 years prior to purchasing my first domain.

    Increasing my knowledge I believe improves my ability to find and analyze value among domain names as well as allowing me to hold my own at cocktail parties and the water cooler. Ultimately, it is one way to keep on learning about issues that may affect myself or my neighbours or fellow planet earth dwellers. When it comes to domaining…Knowledge is power.

  9. Yep, it is pretty tough to watch anything like 60 Minutes without a domainer’s hat on, and this happens everywhere on TV, not just investigative reporting.

    Recently, Old Navy launched a media campaign to promote their new line of coats, but are a combination of “cardigan” and “coat”, and they call them “CardiCoats”. Not a new term actually, but hearing the popularization of the term certainly got my interest.

    The domains were free for most of the day that I first saw the commercial, but just couldnt bring myself to bother spending yet another $15 on a couple of domains. Someone else finally decided to grab the singular and plural, but the point is to keep your ears and eyes open when watching commercials too.

  10. I checked after you posted Sunday and CoalAshRecyclers.com was available, but somebody now owns CoalAshRecyclers.com tonight. It is always a decision on how many good names to buy. You have to watch the budget sometimes.

    It is always interesting to see who is watching 🙂

    I enjoy your blog and look forward to what you have to say about domains.

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