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By special request, I am posting a poll to see if my readers would be willing to pay a premium to register/maintain their domain names at a registrar that distributes security key fobs to its registrants. Of course, the answer may depend on the actual cost, but I am looking for more of a general consensus. This comes on the heels of this morning’s post about Security Key Fobs.

Due to the poll causing my blog to become distorted to some viewers, I took it down. The numbers were pretty significant, with 78% of those that voted saying they would pay more for the fob.

There are many parallels between real estate and domain names, but I was reading an article in the New York Times last night about home teardowns, and I thought about this in relation to domain names. A fairly recent trend in real estate investing is purchasing a home on a nice lot of land, tearing it down, and building a nicer, more modern, and usually larger home. The investor then sells this piece of real estate for much more than the price he paid and the cost of building the new home.

In terms of domain names, I can see this being a profitable opportunity for an investor who happens to have development skills or a staff of developers on hand. If he is able to purchase a domain name earning PPC for a decent multiple, he could quickly build a custom website, get it indexed by the search engines, and start building traffic and revenue. Assuming that this website generates greater income than the previous PPC page, he could resell it for a higher price. By using the Hybrid Development approach I outlined before, costs would be kept down and this could be done across many domain names.

There are many advantages of domain names over real estate in this instance:

1) A person is not subject to weather that could impede a real estate rebuild.
2) Other than the physical labor involved with developing a domain name, there are not many material costs, other than hosting, with a website.
3) There are no added real estate taxes that will be incurred with a large property.
4) The Internet is worldwide, and geography plays a small role.
5) While searching for a buyer, the website is making money – the real estate property is costing money.

Whereas many domain investors buy and resell domain names based on the same PPC model (which I disagree with – but that’s another story), this could add tremendous value to the domain name. Many people believe they can increase the amount of money a domain name is earning by testing various parking companies and/or keywords, which may yield better results. By developing the name, you would almost certainly increase the value of the name much more than relying on PPC. Of course, development is difficult, so this isn’t for everyone. This is just another opportunity in the domain business.

At TheDomains.com, Mike talks about his experience buying an Ipod from a vending machine. Although the experience wasn’t as good as expected, its neat to see this type of POS buying opportunities.   Some day, Mike won’t even have to swipe his credit card. He will aim his cell phone at the vending machine, push a few buttons, and voila, a new Ipod!

I am here in the Apple store on Fifth Avenue again checking some things out, and they have some awesome point of sale (POS) technology. There are people walking around with handheld credit card scanners to complete the purchase. The only catch is that they don’t print receipts. How do you get your receipt, you ask?

Email!

What a great way to build the customer database for future direct marketing efforts. When they email you the receipt, they can probably send you an offer to make an upsell purchase. They may also re-offer you that extended warranty you passed on before. The sky is the limit with this technology. I am constantly impressed with the way they do business (the rep next to me is speaking in Spanish to a customer, BTW), and I am glad I bought some AAPL stock a couple of weeks ago.

I am curious if buyers are automatically opt-ed in to receiving future solicitations by allowing them to send your receipt via email. I may just have to make a purchase to examine their after sale direct marketing efforts. Regardless, they are certainly building a huge database with a ton of transactional information.

Just received some good news from Jerry Nolte and Mike St. John about their Domainer’s Magazine publication. These guys (and the magazine’s staff) have worked incredibly hard, and this is an offer that should be graciously accepted by everyone who is interested in the domain industry. Thank You!!”

Matamoras, PA, December 3rd 2007-Domainer’s Magazine will mark their one year anniversary by offering the online version of their magazine free of charge for the year beginning with the January/February 2008 issue and are also offering the ability to view any of this past year’s issues as well. Fellow domainers and creators of the publication Jerry J. Nolte Jr. and Mike St. John stated that they are happy to offer this “gift” to its readers as a show of gratitude for their tremendous growth this year. Additionally, the two believe the increase in viewers will allow their advertisers to reap even more benefits than before!

Over the past year, Domainer’s Magazine has grown in size, advertisers, and distribution. Managed by two domainers themselves, it is believed that their experience assists the team in knowing the issues to cover in each issue. Staffed by a team of professional writers with true unbiased journalistic integrity it appears the magazine is able to hit topics readers want to see while giving the information in an impartial manner.”

About Domainer’s Magazine: Domainer’s Magazine was designed to provide valuable insight and thought leadership into the domaining world. It is a first class publication and the original magazine that targets this industry which is becoming noted by some of the premier financiers of our time. Their goal is to continue to be a world class publication that is the eyes and ears of the “domainer”. It is a sister company to iMonetize.

About iMonetize: iMonetize.com was founded in 2005 and is one of the fastest growing full service domain management, Meta-PPC optimization companies. It provides a suite of services for domain holders, expired domain speculators, registrars and web hosts to maximize revenue while accurately analyzing performance and origin. iMonetize provides the most user-friendly and detailed domain name statistics in the industry in most cases all the way down to the individual domain level.

Below are a few unregistered domain names I believe have some potential. Although I am not charging anything for researching these names, I am requesting that the person who registers each makes a donation to a non-profit organization.

AftermarketSite.com  
OldAgePlanning.com
GeriatricPlanning.com
Rescuing.mobi
AssistVeterans.com
SoldierCounseling.com
AgreementTemplates.com
HandheldCovers.com
OnlineStripteases.com
RemoveRubbish.com

Three new additions – 2:30 update:  
CheapestGadget.com
CheapestDevice.com
ForeignLodging.com

A few non-profits I recommend (with the link to make a donation):

At this point, I usually recommend about 10 charities I think make a positive impact on the world. This time, I am requesting that readers make a donation to a single cause. One of my blog readers sent me this tragic story, and I am asking that anyone who buys one of the names above, makes a donation to the family of this tragedy to help them through this difficult time.

Please send donations to:
The Cain Family
183 Wayne Street
Mount Airy, NC 27030

Charities Previously Helped By Generous Readers of My Blog:

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
ALS AssociationCystic Fibrosis Foundation
National Multiple Sclerosis Society

Kiva