“Snoopy,” a longtime domain industry participant, posted a poll on Twitter asking people what they think “has been the biggest domain industry change this decade?” Snoopy provided four options from which to choose and invited people to comment if they have another suggestion beyond the four he chose.
I would be interested in seeing what others believe to be the biggest industry change this decade either in Snoopy’s poll or in a comment:
A response I have come to see regularly in a domain name sales negotiation is that the prospect is content building the business on Facebook, Instagram, or another social media platform. Because they had some success building a following (and possibly a business) via social media channels, some business operators seem content continuing down that path, building a business on a third party platform.
A tweet yesterday evening from Y Combinator founder and venture capitalist Paul Graham should serve as a bit of a warning to companies who build their businesses on third party platforms:
Buying domain names is one of the easiest things someone can do. Being able to profitably sell domain names can be an elusive task for some people. One of the great things about domain name investments is that there are many ways for people to make money from their domain names. Learning how to profitably sell domain names – either as a hobby or a full time profession – can be a time consuming and expensive endeavor.
I was sent a link to a LinkedIn video posted by Peter Mahoney, CEO of a company called Plannuh. In the video, Peter shared some thoughts about domain names. I had not heard of Peter prior to being sent the video, but from his LinkedIn profile, I can see he has a considerable amount of marketing experience for a variety of businesses of different sizes. In fact, he was CMO of Nuance Communications, maker of the Dragon speech recognition software, which owns Dragon.com.
One of the fun (perhaps?) aspects of owning a portfolio of domain names is the offbeat inquiries that come in through the offer forms and landing pages. Sometimes the inquiries come in the form of a threat, some are nonsensical, and some are humorous. Andrew Rosener shared a funny inquiry he received yesterday:
Best domain purchase inquiry I've had in a while: pic.twitter.com/NWn3QyfW8j
— Andrew Rosener (@andrewrosener) December 18, 2019
Elon Musk is currently on trial in Los Angeles where he is being sued for defamation. The Guardian published an article about the trial that briefly summarizes what the case is about:
“Those were the questions at the center of the billionaire’s second day of testimony in the defamation case brought by Vernon Unsworth, a British cave explorer, against the Tesla entrepreneur. Unsworth told the federal court in Los Angeles that Musk’s 15 July 2018 tweet calling him ‘pedo guy’ made him feel ‘humiliated, ashamed, dirty’.”
