News release from MarketWatch:
FRANKFORT, Ky. & WASHINGTON, Oct 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Internet Commerce Association, a non-profit trade organization representing domain name investors and developers and the direct search industry, today announced it will be participating in an emergency Summit on the State of Kentucky’s unprecedented, wrongful seizure of 141 Internet gambling Websites. Hosted by the Blue Grass Institute, the panel discussion will include representatives from the Poker Players Alliance, Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, and the Americans for Tax Reform organization. The Summit will be held on October 6, 2008.
Who: Michael Collins, executive director, Internet Commerce Association
What: The Summit will focus on reasons why the State of Kentucky’s seizure of 141 Internet gambling was wrong, as it violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, the state’s action lacks sufficient jurisdictional grounds. While Kentucky certainly has the right to regulate businesses that operate in the state and enforce the law within Kentucky, none of the domain names in the seizure order were registered or operated in Kentucky. The hearing for 141 domain names that Kentucky Governor Beshear ordered seized is scheduled for October 7.
When: The Summit will take place on Monday, October 6th at 1:00 p.m. ET
Where: Capital Plaza Hotel-Frankfort, 405 Wilkinson Blvd., Frankfort, KY
How: For more information, please visit: http://www.internetcommerce.org/Kentucky_Seizure_Case_Delayed
ABOUT INTERNET COMMERCE ASSOCIATION
Founded in 2006, Internet Commerce Association (ICA) is a non-profit trade organization representing domain name investors and developers and the direct search industry. ICA is made up of responsible businesses and individuals who have joined together to improve public confidence in internet commerce. Based in Washington D.C., the organization’s mission is to promote and share best practices among participants in the domain name industry and to educate consumers, policy makers, law makers and the media about the value and benefits of direct navigation traffic and the domain name industry. For more information, please visit http://www.internetcommerce.org/.
SOURCE: Internet Commerce Association
ICA to Participate in Emergency Summit
You Choose the Topic
I am working very hard on re-launching a completely new Burbank.com, so my brain is fried. A number of people have asked me various questions about domain investing in the past few weeks and I’ve tried to post responses when possible. Today I am asking people to submit questions to me which will become the topic of a post next week. I will choose the question/topic, and if I have the time, I will try to write more than one post from the submitted topics.
Investing During Tough Times
During these tough economic times, I am spending a good deal of money investing in my own business (via development) rather than buying new domain names. Although the TRAFFIC auctions were relatively strong and the domain aftermarket continues to show positive signs, I am still finding it more difficult to sell domain names. There are some good values out there, but I believe the market will get worse before it improves, so I am holding off on making acquisitions for the most part unless I am inclined to develop.
Since most of my sales have been to domain investors, and since people are being more conservative with their finances, my sales numbers are down in the last 3 months year over year. I am not going to complain because it could be much worse, but generally speaking, I think there is less money being spent by domain investors. I do think companies are still actively trying to buy generic domain names related to their businesses, but as the credit crunch impacts credit limits for all sorts of companies, this will be impacted as well.
With these difficult times, I am paying for development expenses rather than investing in other domain names. At the moment, Burbank.com is being completely revamped because I am not satisfied with how it looks. I put up a quickie site to ensure search engine links weren’t lost, but I am now building a directory and making the site more appealing. I think this will increase the value of the site, and I also think it will encourage businesses to advertise. This hadn’t been my focus since my priorities were on acquiring good domain names, but it is becoming my focus.
I am also working on my other sites to make improvements on them as well. I am adding interesting content based on keyword trends, linking to videos that could be of interest to visitors, and I am working on building links to my sites.
Like real estate, there will almost always be people buying domain names. People have tighter budgets these days, and it doesn’t appear that this will improve for a while. Of course I am willing to make strategic purchases for the right price, but determining what the right price is has become more difficult. For the time being, I am working on strengthening other areas of my business.
Domain Convergence, Great Learning Opportunity
There are just a few days remaining to register for Domain Convergence, an intimate gathering of domain investors and developers just over the border in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada from October 6-8. The conference is going to provide a relaxed environment with great networking opportunities and information you can use to grow your domain-related business. This is a small conference, and the size will allow for some great discussion.
In addition, there will be a live auction hosted by Fusu. To help save you some money, the conference organizers are offering my blog readers a $100 savings simply by entering “elliotsblog” on the registration page. I would be attending the conference if not for three prior commitments during that week that I am unable to reschedule.
The published conference agenda is below:
Oct 6, 2008
12:00 pm Registration opens
3:30 pm Founding Meeting of the Canadian Domain Owner’s Association
5:30 pm Wine Tasting & Winery Dinner in Niagara on the Lake
Oct 7, 2008
9:00 am Breakfast
10:00 am Domain Name Monetization Options
11:30 am Developing Domains, personal Experiences
1:00 pm Lunch
2:30 pm Domain Name Law
4:00 pm Workshop: Develop this Name!
6:00 pm Dinner
Oct 8, 2008
9:00 am Breakfast
10:00 am Understand your traffic
11:00 am Don’t send your visitors away: Capturing visitor information
12:00 pm Lunch
1:30 pm Mass Development: Developing Domains on a large scale
2:30 pm The best tools to develop your domains
4:00 pm Fusu Domain Live Auction
5:00 pm Closing remarks
Domain Beginnings: Andrew Allemann
The domain industry is made up of a diverse group of people with vastly different backgrounds. I’ve always found it interesting hearing about how domain investors became familiar with domain names and ultimately decided to invest some (or all) of their money in these virtual assets. Today we learn about how Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, became interested in the domain industry.
“I started registering domain names in 1997 when I was in college. At first it had nothing to do with domains: domains were just a means to an end to create web sites. But as I created my first web site I realized their was a lot of value in the domains themselves. I got addicted when I sold my first domain name on eBay. I would track expired domain lists and look for good domains to register (back then you could get good expired domains even days after the domains expired). The only problem was that domains were $70 to register, and that’s a lot of beer money. I didn’t register nearly as many domains as I should have.
I still remember getting all of those paper registration notices in the mail from Network Solutions for each domain I registered. My roommates thought I was crazy. I also remember when registration became deregulated. Dotster was offering domains for something like $15, and I went crazy. I was one of their first dozen customers — I think my order number was 19 or something like that.”
Domain Beginnings: How I Started Investing in Domains
The domain industry is made up of a diverse group of people with vastly different backgrounds. I’ve always found it interesting hearing about how domain investors became familiar with domain names and ultimately decided to invest some (or all) of their money in these virtual assets. Beginning today with my domain beginning, I will be posting stories from industry veterans, so you can learn how they became involved in the domain industry.
When I was in graduate school studying direct marketing at NYU, I wanted to earn some extra money – New York City is very expensive! One week, a family friend was contracted to clean the theatre curtains in the Empire State Building, and since I lived next door, he asked for my help. For 3 days, we cleaned the curtains, and I got some sage advice from him, an entrepreneur who has built a very successful business in California.
I was told I should find some type of unique product to sell online – maybe using a venue like Ebay. Since my apartment was small, the product would have to be compact, so the inventory didn’t take up too much space. I spent a few days looking on Ebay for products that were selling, and I saw that some domain names sold for hundreds of dollars. I looked into this some more, and I found unregistered names that looked similar to ones that were commanding big bucks.
After a few hours, I made my first purchase at Network Solutions. It was something related to the legal field, and I remember that it had a hyphen. I still have the receipt packed away somewhere, but I forgot what the name was. I do remember that I tried to sell it a couple of days later for a few hundred dollars to no avail. I eventually broke even on the name and found Godaddy, where I could buy names for much less.
I spent the next several months buying and selling domain names on Ebay, reinvesting almost all of my profits along the way. I continued to learn about what makes a good domain name, and had some good luck along the way.