Acro.net - Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

I was in the second grade at school, when a 10 drachma coin dropped from the pocket of a girl that was chasing me in the playground.

Girls chased me ever since because I was sweet towards them - hence, an easy prey. I picked up the coin, laughed at how she failed to catch me and gave it back to her. She then told the teacher I stole it from her in the first place. I had to prove that I didn’t steal it, by finding witnesses; other boys and girls that engaged with me in the game of chasing.

A few days ago, upon my unveiling of the shady deals and multiple profiles of a DNForum member, he went ballistic on me, with the following quote:

I had to come back online just to say this… if it was yesterday or days before i would not of said it, but i dont care now. Acroplex your an arragent stuck up prick, your head is way to far up your own ASSS, if i could get a flight out to america now i would kick your sorry butt in to the 3rd world. you think your so high and mighty, but you will come tumbling down with the attitude you hold some day! and before anyone go’s and question my attitude releating to this post, pisss off because i have a right to say it due to the way Acroplex has been with me. Anyone know his domain names, gladly PM me. Would love to FCUK them up! TOSSER!!!

Now, I have heard worse threats in the past and I respond in the manner I know best: Bring it on. At 6ft 2″ and 200 lbs, I am not exactly the person you’d want to push around in real life. No, I don’t have steel claws or a mean, scarred face but I am well-trained to protect myself in real-life situations, if needed.

Enter one of the Internet’s elusive species: the Anonymous Coward.

Within days of that threat above, I discovered a post on a forum about scams, claiming that I defrauded them of $3,000 for web design services. He proceeded with posting my contact info from the WHOIS of my domain, Acroplex.com, and claiming he was not able to reach me and that I blocked him on MSN. The only other post made by the same person on that forum, re-iterated the loss of $3,000 for some unknown service - using the same laughable, full of typographical errors writing style of our friend above.

My immediate reaction was to rebut this idiot’s claim with the full facts: using my full name and location I announced that I am the manager of Acroplex LLC, adding that not only such a claim was false but that I never talk business on MSN. The response of some other member of that forum with my full contact info was a lame attempt to unveil an alleged scam. Shame that vigilantism is the norm these days and no-one is innocent till proven guilty.

Such incredulous claims can put a dent in a person’s flawless reputation, both personal and business-related. The proliferation of such web sites, where anyone can put forth a claim of fraud, have shifted the burden of proving one’s innocence tremendously. Especially, when someone - like our Anonymous Coward - does not post any facts: no transaction details, no Paypal or credit card receipts, no verifiable information whatsoever.

The burden lies in the hands of the accused.

So our Anonymous Coward did not provide any supporting evidence. I pointed out my reputation scores at DNForum, and NamePros and willingly gave up personal contact information. Once a claim is out in the wild on the Internet, there is little one can do to have it removed. Of course, this does not mean that a case of libel or written defamation is beyond legal punishment. It simply requires time, effort and the involvement of a legal team.

The best approach with such false claims is to present the facts and let the impact take its course. There are various web sites out there that in extreme situations will spread “good karma” news in various venues, to improve the impact of a single bad claim. The bottom line is, that an Anonymous Coward can do a lot of harm temporarily; the recovery really depends on one’s resources and situations surrounding the incident. But one must always present the facts as a response.

The incident reminded me of a few things: one has to maintain a network of trustworthy, dependable and well-respected individuals that, given the chance of an assistance request, would offer their resources and advice. In the personal world, this is one’s immediate family. In the professional world, it’s the associates, partners, people one traded in the past or on a regular basis with; references and publicly-available feedback to transactions. It’s one’s wordkeeping that creates their reputation.

During the first day of discovering this false accusation incident, I had the pleasure of talking to Jarred Cohen (Mediahound / admin on DNForum) and George Kirikos, (GeorgeK) whose phone-calls offered me valuable information and the opportunity to break the voiceless/faceless medium of forum interaction. In the near future, I look forward to making even more such connections and meeting with more people of the wonderful world of domaining.

The Anonymous Coward is back inside his deep, dark cave of insanity.

In my early domaining days I was simply pointing my domains to a web form for visitors with an interest in purchasing, to leave their contact information. This went on for several years and I can easily say I lost several thousand dollars this way. In 2004 I shyly started using the parking service of Sedo.com, slowly adding more names until my account was upgraded to Sedo Pro.

Now, I sometimes have the reputation of an outspoken guy in online forums. That’s true; I will stick to my guns until the battle smoke clears up, but I always strive to be objective and accurate to the circumstances surrounding my point of view.

Sedo’s services and interface have substantially improved over the past four years. They offer a variety of templates with a customizable image and the editing is quick. There are some drawbacks that I should mention first - just to get them out of my system.

• Sedo does not support meta tags, such as description and keywords. It really hurts a domain in the long run, especially one that competes in Google for term relevancy. Sedo made a statement that Google asked them to do that and I simply cannot believe this statement.
• Adding domains is easy as long as the WHOIS info matches that of the account. For the most part, it works well. Sometimes, especially on a Friday afternoon, the domains will be delayed and added to the account the following Monday. Unless that Monday is a public holiday in the US, the UK or Germany.
• Changing the domain keyword is a pain; it takes up to 3 days for that to happen as they are manually approved.
• Google feed. Sometimes payments are extremely low, sometimes they are decent. Fluctuation has earned Sedo the term “yo-yo revenue”.

In mid-2007 I started using Parked.com right at a time that their feature list exploded: Custom templates, full-featured meta tag customization, addition of custom content including images & video. The guys at Parked.com really listen to what domainers need. Did I mention that their keyword parser - the code that splits a domain name into intelligible words - has no close competitor? I fed it the domain NATIONWIDEMORTGAGELICENSINGSYSTEMANDREGISTRY.COM and it properly split it into “Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System And Registry“. By the way, this is my longest domain and it does get type-ins.

Parked.com has some negatives, so I will list them here:

• Yahoo feed seems a bit sketchy after they implemented the “TQ” factor, some oddball quotient that pretends to judge the quality of traffic, awarding accordingly more or less money per click. I branded “TQ” as “Thieving Quotient” and it’s one Yahoo feature I clearly dislike.
• Template flavors seem to alternate unpredictably between single-click and two-click; the former awarding more money per click than the latter.
• Downtime. Sometimes it’s unplanned or with short notice, but it happens more often than necessary. Compensation does occur though.
• Donny’s special attention to all things Parked seems to backfire when criticism reaches a certain critical mass. He just takes things personally and the various such threads, mainly on DNForum.com become true battlefields. Still, he said once he’d buy me a beer so I think he’s a cool guy after all.
• No escrow services.

The things I like about Sedo include their unified approach as a company: nobody takes things personally, they do care about the customers despite certain complaints. They are very cordial on the phone - and trust me, I am not always the most soft-spoken person on a business call. Sedo offers great escrow service that almost never fails to deliver for both parties. Anonymity is implemented but for obvious reasons of not bypassing them, but why would one bypass the security of an affordable escrow service? Once one gets the hang of what keywords work best, it’s easy to change multiple domains via forms. Sedo pages load fast and certain template schemes seem to be really popular with visitors.

The things I like about Parked include the exquisite template customization, ability to add content and images, the intelligent keyword management and the visibility it provides in search engines via the meta tag management. Addition of domains and keyword modification is instant! Customer service is prompt and quick as well.

So, to recap: Sedo or Parked? I use both and it seems that domains that get lots of visits but few clicks at Sedo can be customized and perform well in Parked. One should try both PPC companies and preferably, split their domain portfolio among both. Currently, Sedo has a great geo-auction that will last for a total of 7 days, aptly titled “Around the World in 7 Days”. I have listed two of my domains there, Constantinople.com and Aegean.info - both with a reserve that matches the quality of the domain.

Now let’s go out and make some money!

At the age of 15, I was the typical teenager: doing minimal effort at school, hanging out with friends, trying to impress girlfriends. There were no computers, no cellphones, no Internet to play video games - we hang out at the arcade, feeding coins to the game machines. We had time to go on trips on the weekends, go catch a movie or have parties. Healthy stuff.

Today’s teenagers are just too busy to claim that their leisure time is separate from work time or that there is a world of separation between them and adults. The Internet has created persistent expectations and rather firm stereotypes, bringing easy access to a myriad of goodies - directly to one’s bedroom. If you’re 15 and you have no cable access and a spanking new PC, you’re an outcast. Geeks are in and even chicks dig them these days.

The problem lies with young teenagers of both genders that attempt to overstep their age boundary and indulge into the commercial world of adulthood. One would argue that teenagers, being exposed to a variety of active environments these days, can actually mature faster and are therefore able to function more competitively in an effective fashion. While this might hold some water, studies show that the human brain between the ages of 12 to 20 undergoes an extreme fluctuation of its chemical secretion levels. Both boys and girls can act irrational, utterly emotional, unpredictable and with knee-jerk reactions that can sometimes be dangerous to themselves and to others.

Excluding children prodigies, which seem to evolve extremely well under the supervision of adults, young teenagers are simply too moody to successfully engage in the worldwide professional arena. There are certain qualities that are gained from life itself and cannot be taught in a family or at school. Such elements are crucial when engaging in business transactions with others, especially adults. Responsibility to one’s financial obligations, the weight and importance of one’s word, the ability to deliver timely what was promised, the ability to predict or rebound from the unexpected. These are qualities that one gathers in life, as we mature, from interaction with others through aging.

In today’s business environment, everyone with computer access and a few guidelines can attempt to form an online business. While exceptions are there, the overall rule appears to be that most teenagers are not to be trusted with managing tasks which involve a need for secrecy, the handling of large amounts of funds, delivering timely or in full. Teenagers simply don’t possess the experience and will to deliver all that, every single time, as they need exactly that - time - to stabilize their minds, to solidify their persona. And time is what separates young children from teenagers and young adults from mature individuals.

Should one avoid dealing with teenagers in an online or real life business transaction?

Whatever happened to the romantic entrepreneurial image of lemonade stands? The answer is: adults that engage in business transactions with teenagers must be aware of the consequences. In most western countries, a person under the age of 18 cannot - by civil law - be held responsible for their actions; their parents or guides are responsible for that. When an unscrupulous teenager fails to deliver and defrauds you in a domain sale, for example, good luck with trying to establish a case against them in the juvenile system of law; unless they ended up hacking the Pentagon.

I am all for supporting and rewarding the excitement of the youth as I have been one myself; if I had the opportunity to teach business ethics to a group of young people I would definitely attempt to encourage them to learn by listening more and acting less as adults and more like their own age. The best years of our lives predate adulthood and we cannot claim them back once we live them as adults.

Now, let me go back to playing my classic video game.

Forget about wedding oaths: they exist in order to be broken. People are not computers that obey to strict code commands, without ever changing their behavior, opinions and preferences. People get married and quite often, they get divorced.

A lot of married people are domain owners, or a lot of domain owners are married people. Or something along these lines; sometimes one spouse is pursuing domaining as a hobby or business, sometimes both spouses do - as a couple. More often, one spouse is unaware of the other spouse’s entrepreneurial quests into the exciting domain universe and only discovers this per the request of Smith, Jones & Abernathy, Esq. - or whatever law firm handles their divorce proceedings.

I speak from experience. It’s fair to say, that while my first domain name was verbalized by me, it was my then lovely wife who tagged the “.com” to it and prompted me to register it. Eleven years later, I’ve been divorced for some time and the domain is orphaned in the hands of the Registrar. Ah, the memories. Not!

I was one of the lucky ones. When I started registering domains with the aim of reselling them, my obvious choice was to go with the cheapest and newest kids on the block: GoDaddy.com - at $12 a pop - a steep discount from Network Solutions’ $35 per registration.

Back then, GoDaddy’s homepage did not feature Danica Patrick and did not have Superbowl clips full of double entendre about her “beaver“. For if it had any such frolicking content, I would be in deep trouble - simply because my less-than-domain-savvy wife of that time, perceived all the credit card charges from “GoDaddy” as subscriptions to pornography. Ironic, isn’t it? Eight years later, Bob Parsons strives to bring domains to every American home by pimping all-American softcore beauties, but it was my former wife who discovered GoDaddy’s untapped pornography potential in 2000. Kudos to you, hon!

Going through a divorce is devastating, especially if it’s one-sided. When one is committed to the marriage and yet, somehow, the other decides to go their merry way. Under the pressure of these days, one can make desperate decisions that would not have made otherwise. Emotionally and financially, every divorce is a test for the person who - in disbelief - remembers the words they uttered at the wedding ceremony: Until death do us part.

A great guy I’ve known for the past 6 years, is going through an apparently bitter divorce, that has been sucking his physical and mental energy faster than an iPhone drains its batteries. He’s been paying ungodly amounts of cash as preliminary financial support. And deep down inside, I am certain he loves his wife - this is the hardest part of it all.

I exchanged a few words with him yesterday and our conversation sparked this very post, because I do not wish anyone to make the same hasty, desperate moves that I did when I was in the same situation. And trust me, they were plenty of them! At that point in time when one becomes desolate and uncertain about their upcoming financial obligations, when legal fees rise their ugly head in the not-too-distant horizon - that’s when one thinks that the best action would be to liquidate the most valuable assets first.

In all actuality, it’s a grave mistake to do this.

So I sold LLL .com’s for less than $1k, several actually, flipping them for a couple of hundred bucks in profit. And I watched my LL .net’s go for $1.5k - they sell for at least ten times that, today. And I sold dozens of 3-Char .com’s at a buck or two above reg fee; I could buy a new car today just by selling them at today’s $200 minimum. Eventually, after the divorce process was over, I had sold my very own domain to recover some of the divorce fees. I needed a new identity as well, to emotionally distance myself from my former spouse who had tagged the “.com” to the words of my choice.

Still, I consider myself lucky.

Ever since my divorce four years ago, I was able to focus onto my targets and goals, without fear of interference and without dreading any lack of support. I was lucky, because my ex never considered my domains to be worth anything and laughed at my practice of going through expiration lists of thousands of domains, one by one. Those “worthless” domains paid off my home and car loans and allowed me to pull myself out of a sticky financial and emotional situation. I was lucky, because I was able to prove myself - to succeed alone and unsupported - much like a gladiator relies on his own two feet and his own sword.

Life is hard when two people divorce; life can be considerably harder when one makes hasty decisions, selling off assets in panic in order to secure their position during a divorce. Us, domain owners, should be cool-headed and manage our assets, always planning for a better future - while always preparing for the worst.

A CEO of a construction company emailed me once, emphasizing how he’d have to “put food on the family table” than pay any type of fee for a domain I owned. In fact, he outright said that he needed the domain name and by declaring his inability to pay, I should hand it over to him. When I Googled his name and examined the location of his IP, it was evident that my family man lived in a very rich neighborhood in New England.

Then there was that email from a self-professed poor student from Central America, who had somehow discovered his true dream was to own the .com variant of a very busy .net domain. He needed the .com which I had, but he could not afford to pay for it, on his small budget. A little co-ordinated research done by my contacts in Latin America returned the location of the multi-national corporation that had set eyes on my domain.

Yet another time, a very inquisitive domain “speculator” called me up to share his excitement about “domain investing”. I wasn’t exactly excited hearing how he and his two partner buddies “scrounged up $300 each” to pay me a handsome grand for a 10-year old developed domain. When he made the mistake of giving me his phone number, I looked him up; only to find that his company had been bought up by Yellow Pages for several million dollars, a month earlier.

Greed, anyone?

Now, don’t think for a second that I am a heartless, frigid entrepreneur who enjoys to watch people suffer. On the contrary. I was never filthy rich and even by today’s standards I am neither rich or well-off. I’d say, I live comfortably by my own definition of comfort and needs. I don’t own a yacht, or an SUV, nor do I spend my time sipping pina coladas on some golden sandy beach. I do reside in Florida though - the state that pays in cents and sunshine.

But I detest beggars that think they can outsmart me in my own game. It used to be confusing at first, then intriguing, then funny - but once the emails started piling up with the proliferation of bulk emailing software, it’s combat time. As a former military, I am aware of the principles of being alert and I thoroughly examine the grounds around my perimeter. Every incoming offer is scrutinized, every generic “John Smith” with a Gmail address is seen as a 99% attempt to scam me - every inquiry from a “female investor” is seen as a lame attempt to capitalize on my XY genes.

I’d rather receive a lowball offer, which I’d then attempt to negotiate upon or not - again, based on my research of the person making the offer - than to waste time trying to reason with a preying, lying scammer, who uses a variety of social engineering methods to extract my property for free. I’ve learned that one has to earn their worth in business and life in general - begging as a profession does not cut it with me.

A few years back, I had the pleasure of networking with Nat Cohen, President of Telepathy, Inc., a web development and Internet branding company based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 1999 and since then has been associated with a hearty appetite for building - among others - a portfolio of generic domains and LLL .com’s.

In today’s short interview to Acro.net, Nat Cohen shares with the rest of us some interesting and valuable points that led his company to success through strategic acquisition of generics and LLL .com domains.

How did the idea of registering available LLL .com’s come to mind? When did that initial registration occur?

My first registrations occurred in 1998 from drops. All the decent LLL.com were registered even back then. The value in LLL.com seemed clear since they were so short, worked well as Internet addresses, and businesses love to use acronyms. There are hundreds if not thousands of worldwide uses for each acronym, so the supply/demand imbalance supported the value as well. It also didn’t require much mental effort to research them since they are a relatively small, defined group.

Do you invest in longer names, such as LLLL .com’s in a similar manner? Or other TLD’s in the LLL realm?

I have a handful of LLLL.com domains that I picked up cheaply a while back, but I’m not actively investing. The supply/demand balance is much poorer for LLLL.com, but I think there is still money to be made there. I am actively investing in LLL in other TLDs.

Do you think the .biz/.info/.us Registries should open the market to domains less than 3 characters? Is that something you’d invest into - 2 letter .biz/.info/.us domains?

I don’t see a reason for those registries not to offer 2 character registrations. I think 2-letter domains in those extensions would have value so I’d be a buyer at the right price.

What do you think of today’s aftermarket expansion, e.g. auction houses, registrars that perform auctions etc.

I think the development of a robust after market is very healthy for the industry. It has a down side because it is often harder to negotiate purchases with private owners since they want to expose their domains to the secondary market. But on the positive side it lowers the barriers to bringing domains to market so more domains are being made available for purchase than might otherwise. The aftermarket is a sign that the industry is maturing beyond its lone wolf origins. The aftermarket brings transparency to domain valuations and helps educate the public about the value of domain names.

What risks do you see ahead?

There will be an intensifying struggle over the control of the most valuable domains, and the rules that govern the rights to domain names. As domains become more critical to businesses, businesses will seek to control those assets in the most cost-effective way. Sometimes that means trying to seize domains rather than pay for them, or change the rules that govern domains to the business’ advantage. While I don’t know all the facts in the matter, the decision awarding myspace.co.uk, which predates the MySpace social networking site, to MySpace seems to be a blatant example of big business’s attempt to seize valuable domains.

Domain owners do not hold secure title to their domains. Registrants of dot-com domains and the other primary extensions have to agree to arbitration rules that can result in the loss of their domains. The arbitration rules are very loosely written, subject to wide variations in interpretations, and decided in an environment where allegations are often substituted for facts. The risk/reward ratio is heavily tilted in favor of the Complainant who merely risks some money and has no other downside, whereas the domain owner faces the risk of losing a potentially very valuable domain and the expense of defending any claim, no matter how frivolous.

Many domain owners have an aversion to politicking, lawyers, and lobbying. But the viability of domain ownership may depend on becoming active in these areas. Anyone making a living or seeking to make a living from domains should support the Internet Commerce Association. Domainers have been very fortunate and to protect our good fortune we need to become more engaged with ICANN, to donate domains to ICA fundraising efforts, and to contribute to legal defense funds.

Six or seven years ago, I saw a market for short, easy to memorize .com domains. Short, as in 3 characters in length, including one or more numbers; because the LLL .com namespace was long gone.

I wrote a Perl script that would go through all the permutations of 000 to ZZZ - all 46,656 of them (26 letters plus 10 digits, to the 3rd power) and it’d look up the .com of that generated string. This technique is called “brute-forcing”. To my surprise, hundreds of them were available.

Back then, domain registrations were finally cheap. GoDaddy was one of the first affordable new era registrars, and I believe that I was paying $12 for each registration. Later on, I got a reseller account with Stargate and the cost dropped to less than $7.

It was a non-brainer. I registered dozens of 3-character .com domains, then I became picky: I’d only select the LLN or the LNN flavor, simply because it’s easier to remember KP3.com or T11.com instead of 8SP.com or 7V4.com

Many of them were sold on eBay at $50 a pop, others reached triple digit status there or on various domain forums. Others, were sold in private through various inquiries. Companies offering parking pages were non-existent back then; I simply forwarded each domain to an inquiry form. There were so many of them available on a given day, that I started giving away free lists of available domains.

Time passed by and things have changed - there are no more 3-char .com’s that ever make it into the wild, not even for a day. The proliferation of after-market auction houses such as Sedo and Afternic and the sneaky entry of registrars into the game, made it impossible for such a thing to continue happening.

Eventually, entrepreneurs and domain speculators moved onto the next thing: LLLL .com domains. That is, four letters (A to Z) regardless of letter quality. It made sense that somehow, these longer but still short domains would be valuable in the future. Not too long ago, all LLLL .com combinations were registered. All 456,976 of them (26 letters to the 4th power).

The fact is, hundreds if not thousands of these domains were registered en masse by speculators, attempting to capitalize on this apparent “craze” of LLLL mania. The fact is, several good letter LLLL .com’s drop daily and are offered via auction houses and drop-catching services. The fact is, one day not too long from now, thousands of LLLL .com domains will drop within a few days of each-other.

Artificial bubbles do burst eventually.

There is a trend in the domain market - much like in the stock market - to facilitate sales via the spreading of rumors. The difference is, the pump and dump techniques of the stock market are punishable by law. So what is the current rumor in the realm of domain speculators? That 5-Letter (LLLLL) .com’s is the next big thing.

Give me a break.

OK, so I might own a few myself. One that pops to mind is Glute.com and it’s a valid dictionary word. It’s that big muscle that forms my butt-cheek. There is a difference between being an ass and making oneself an ass in public. And LLLLL .com’s being the next best thing since sliced bread, is exactly a manifestation of that.

No, I won’t be going through 11,881,376 permutations of LLLLL .com’s (26 letters to the 5th power) in order to find the ones that are available. I can simply select the few valid, dictionary words of 5 letters and look them up for availability - or not! Because most valid dictionary words are already gone, folks.

You won’t be seeing me in the LLLLLLLLLLLL .com arena, a couple of years from now. I have better things to do than be a lemming of wishful things that never happened in my time.