Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

A few days ago I explained why I don’t consider myself a domainer, a title and word that has yet to make any dictionary.

Simply put, the activity surrounding ‘domaining’ is not only misunderstood to those outside of the industry, it’s also often distorted and abused by those in it.

Allow me to explain, once again, that unless someone woke up one fine morning with a university degree that says “Domainer” on its certificate, no such pure thing exists.

My earlier post was about how the domaining universe is expanding versus contracting – Rick Schwartz used the word “shrinking” – and that’s solely because those that want to call themselves “domainers” are a fast-dying breed.

As a graphic designer & web developer, I have the luxury of observing the domain industry from a distinct standpoint, avoiding the pitfalls that many newcomers – but also old-timers – are running into.  You too can do the same, even if you are a musician, a real estate broker, a forex trader, an IT guy or an aspiring American idol.

To succeed in what you do with regards to domain names, you must step aside and away from the “domainer” mentality; keeping an one-track mind of what constitutes our industry is not going to get you anywhere. You need to take your industry’s perspective and carefully apply it to domain names; this way you will be having a distinct advantage over any self-professed “domainer”.

The domain industry is not in danger of contracting, simply because there is untapped territory that no hard core “domainer” will tell you about: the world outside of “domainers” – and this should be your business target, your goal, your oyster.

And reaching out, exploiting if you must the riches of that outside world, you have to first shed your domainer mentality – as if it were a sin.

There’s a new trend in the domain community: to dip crud in gold and promote it as if it were Aztec treasure.

While that epidermis of gold might look attractive, it’s actually *described* as attractive – all while it isn’t.

Epik aspires to be the next one-stop-shop for the hordes of frustrated domainers that are being swayed by the “evil” PPC companies. Rob Monster is extremely talented and systematic in his acquisitions and managing the company’s expansion.

I’m not judging Epik’s work, I’m judging their methods.

Brand new buzzword: development-worthy domains.

I will tell you, straight up, that the sister of “sour grapes” is the “sweet potato“: raising one’s expected worth by giving it a positive name or value.

In case you don’t get it: Every domain is “development-worthy” but those that receive this title are supposedly selected via a thorough and consistent process – during which they are given a “certificate” and thus about 10% of a valuation increase.

Take your best generic; it will actually be downgraded if it receives the title “development-worthy”. It is not an automatic gate to riches, not yours anyway.

Epik lists several such “development-worthy” domains daily and I have yet to be impressed in any way.

Epik’s latest blog post is titled “Seriously folks, who is dropping these?” which caught my attention obviously.

Then, I saw the pricing Epik has tagged to these domains that were dropped and which are now stuffed inside the Epik “content” window, with the RSS feed at the bottom and I wasn’t sure what more to say, other than shake my head in disbelief at those “development-worthy” long-tail beasts.

peoplephotography.net $140 -> Directory or How-to site.
mbadegreeprograms.net $2800 -> Directory
skiffs.net $1200 -> Store
customplasticbags.net $3800 -> Store
overseaspropertyagents.com $1300 -> Directory
airsoftsites.com $2000 -> Directory
boyinfantclothing.com $820 -> Store
hdmireceivers.com $1400 -> Store
ayrcw.com $50 -> Backorder
edhardyshirts.net $4000 -> Offer to Ed Hardy
aquahat.com $870 -> Store
carmelvalleycalifornia.net $1100 -> Directory
centralairsystem.com $880 -> Directory

A few months ago I implored Rick Schwartz to consider making TRAFFIC an invitation-only event, once again.

That conversation generated quite a bit of feedback and obviously invited opinions for and against the argument.

In today’s blog post, Rick stated that his intention of getting domainers together at a TRAFFIC conference without sponsors and “outsiders” has one extra reason: the number of domainers is shrinking, all while the industry itself expands.

This celestial paradox of a universe that expands and contracts at the same time requires some analysis.

The very definition of a domainer is not clear and thus, the numbers can deceive – intentionally or unintentionally.

A domainer - according to Rick - is a full time investor in domain names, who reaps his or her livelihood solely from the returns of a domain portfolio.

Using that logic, I am not a domainer, as my primary business is graphic design and web development. If you’re doing any type of creative, marketing or advertising work while delving in domains – whether you are successful at it or not – then, by Rick’s definition, you are not a domainer.

I will admit it then; I am not a domainer and I never was. In fact, I will go one step further and I will say that I don’t want to be a domainer.

Rick’s argument of “domainer shrinkage” reminds me of that Seinfeld episode, where George is caught with his pants off after coming back from the shower. Elaine witnesses a “scared turtle” of a manhood and George is forever scarred by the excuses he has to come up with.

In today’s domaining world there is no such shrinkage, simply because domainers are not what they used to be – gold-digging cowboys of the far west. Domainers of today are graphic artists, musicians, poker players, stay at home mothers, basketball players, lawyers and judges.

Some domainers live in Madison Street penthouses or Boca Raton mansions, others share apartments with their family in Spain, India or Kazakhstan. Some are 17 years old and still at school while others are 78 and still going strong. Some have budgets of $10 per year and some spend $1 million in every new TLD landrush.

I see an ever-expanding domainer universe, forever leaving the center of the domainer Bing Bang and forever refusing to look back to the core. But then again, I am not a pure core domainer.

Nobody likes competition. Especially the guy who receives an email that clearly states just that.

A few weeks ago I received an offer at Sedo for a financial term, a dot net that I registered “by hand” in 2003. As the story goes, I hold domains until the Rapture occurs and since I am not a Catholic, this might take a full lifetime.

But back to the domain – a two-word compound term that returns 700k results in Google.

The domain was at Parked.com due to its higher PPC for financial terms, but I had also listed it for sale on Sedo. As with most Sedo offers these days, the negotiation started in the low hundreds. I was dealing with an aggressive US buyer that left me with little room to raise my asking price.

The final offer was closer to my expected price but still, I felt I was being short-changed. Don’t get me wrong, $1500 is still good money for a domain I spent $8 to register and another $50 in renewals over the years. But why not expand its potential, if I could?

After all, the sale of 360.org a year and a half ago taught me that if you don’t ask, you don’t receive.

So I sent the domain to auction on Sedo, with the final offer I had received being the reserve.

What I did next was a first for me.

Personally, I am sensitive about receiving emails from companies or individuals that I haven’t solicited. However, in this line of business, a legitimate contact of a person or company related to the product or service on offer, might lead to a potential sale.

I crafted an email that announced the domain name and the fact that it was in a live auction that the recipient could participate in. Then, I searched ZFBot - a great tool for domainers - looking for domains that matched mine – either starting with or ending with the exact string. Once I had these domains, I extracted their contact information from the WHOIS using DRT – Domain Research Tool.

It’s important to mention at this point that ZFBot can narrow down your target recipients by sorting the domains according to their parking status: in my case, I wanted to avoid contacting any domain owners that simply had parked domains instead of legitimate companies.

I double-checked every email to ensure there was no junk, “do not contact” or WHOIS shield emails; then proceeded with contacting them – a total of 50 or so – with a description of what I had to offer: the opportunity to obtain the keyword domain most closely related to their business.

I made sure that I explained what was on auction, where and when the auction would end. As part of the sales pitch I described the importance of generics and keyword domains, using simple words. When you sell to an end-user, you don’t simply sell them technology and gimmicks; you are offering them an extension of what they already have.

The only thing I did not foresee was the fact that I sent the email right before a long holiday weekend; Monday was a holiday and that took away a day from the remaining days of the auction as most recipients’ businesses were closed!

Twenty-four hours before the auction end I followed up with another similar but shorter email, announcing the ending of the opportunity and its imminent closing; in doing so I used a bit of a provocative subject: In 24 hours new competition is born.

With a few hours remaining, two new bidders started bidding up along with the original offer. The auction was extended several times, as bidder #3 battled with bidder #1 – all the way to a very nice $3350. I’m definitely happy with the outcome and especially with the fact that the buyer is a person from the term’s industry who will put the domain to good use.

Had I attempted to sell the domain via cold calling, I’d probably be given the runaround. But since nobody likes their competition to get an advantage with an asset that’s being openly auctioned, the domain sold at an end-user price.

When computer technology advances, I don’t simply move on. I’m known for keeping old, functioning computer gear for years.

In the case of my original laptop – a 2004 Compaq I’ll affectionately call “The Brick” – the gear itself hasn’t quite gone out of fashion. I recently doubled its RAM to 2 Gb and the installed Windows XP 64bit still delivers some good performance.

Not only do I like “The Brick” for its sturdy construction and sheer weight, but it has a tall, non-reflective wide screen. When I shopped for a new laptop early this year, every single model had a reflective screen; I ended up buying a lightweight SONY VAIO that shines like a mirror when sunlight hits it.

Back to “The Brick”. As the old faithful alternative to my main box, “The Brick” worked particularly well, even gained a secondary partition with Ubuntu Linux along the way.

But I never expected to wake up one morning and find a “black screen of hardware death” on its screen, the drive spinning with the sound of a lawnmower cutting through an Amazonian weed forest.

The drive was unbootable, spinning on its axis all while screeching. On it were several hundred indispensable family photos, that I had never thought of backing up to another medium. Somehow, due to the non-continuous use of “The Brick”, I foolishly believed that the hard drive would outlast the OS installed on it, but Bill Gates had to prove me wrong.

I searched for data restoration services; each and every one of them offered to do the job for no less than $1,000 – the cost would rise to $1,500 if certain mechanical issues were involved. Although one cannot put a price on hundreds of family photos, tossing a grand plus out of the window didn’t seem like the last option I should have.

Upon attempting to boot, the drive took a lot of stress, so I wondered how it’d behave as a secondary drive. Lo and behold, I searched on Amazon.com for hardware cases that’d allow me to plug the laptop drive to my main box as an external device.

After some research, I decided against the generic drive cases, as most of them have no power supply of their own, relying completely on USB power and also they are specific to the type of one’s drive; in my case, an old 80Gb PATA made by Toshiba.

Further research took me to this wonderful multi-function connector that cost $19.99 and free ground shipping. The device supports 2.5″ (laptop) and 3.5″ drives, both IDE/PATA and SATA connectors and it came in a nice box with all the necessary cables and connectors. Quite possibly, the best item I’ve received this year with a Made in China stamp on it.

The manufacturer can be found at Sabrent.com

After plugging the adapter into the mains, I connected the drive to its power supply. The drive chirped rather pleasantly; the USB 2.0 cable was connected to my main box and sure enough, the drive was seen by Windows and everything was found in place, fully intact.

I backed up all the photos and other files that I had forgotten they existed; overall a great investment that saved me several thousand dollars and a whole lot of stress.

A must-have gadget to be used as the last resort before emptying your bank account in order to hand the drive over to expensive data recovery services!

Just four days ago I wrote about how a controversial new indirect taxation would affect thousands of .GR domains and their cash-starved operators; most of them Greek entrepreneurs operating portals, news web sites and forums.

That indirect taxation – called “aggeliosimo” – was meant to be an extension of the current taxation implemented onto press (magazine, newspapers) radio and television advertising.

The good news is, that by some unexplained reasoning that particular article was removed from the massive law up for voting this week at the Greek parliament.

Therefore, aggeliosimo no longer applies to Internet advertising.

Surely the backlash was enough for the law-drafting pencil pushers to realize that the introduction of the aggeliosimo tax was not only unethical, but also impractical to collect: Good luck with collecting that 21.5% aggeliosimo from Google Adwords advertisers.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of things in Greece are done under pressure and without much planning, when it comes down to technological progress. This is a lesson in provisioning laws according to their impact to society and business, not simply to collect a few “drachmas” here and there.

What is worse than having inept leaders?

To answer that question, one has to take a look at the number of anti-social measures stacked together onto a gigantic law up for vote this coming week at the Greek parliament.

Hit by a ballooning debt that was inflated by financial games played upon the back of state-issued bonds, the Greek government – elected under the socialist flag and led by American born George Papandreou, son and grandson of prime ministers – has shocked the Greek social strata by introducing a number of changes Greece hasn’t seen since the era of Dracon, 28 centuries ago.

The introduction of multiple layers of taxation, pension cuts and elimination of benefits for the elderly and women with children is about to alter Greek society for good. Wages in Greece, already at the bottom of the European Union with a monthly 700 euro average, are about to shrink even lower, due to immediate and secondary taxation layers.

Those that accused Greece of “partying” with loaned money need to have their facts checked; Greece is at the bottom of fund-absorbing countries in the EU, due to the sheer amount of red tape and the ever-changing direction of every elected government; the primarily bi-partisan system often leads to changes of power, much like Democrats and Republicans in the US. Debt ballooned primarily through the raising of interest rates and the bidding of international hedge fund managers such as Goldman Sachs against the Greek debt. At the same time, tax-evasion became the national sport thanks to the ineptitude of the government to police its own tax-gathering system.

Surely there is a number of healthy elements in this ongoing chaos, where those working in the public sector – a large, bureaucratic beast – grew, fed and multiplied sapping the energy of the much healthier private sector and the entrepreneurs.

Since its introduction in the early 1990′s, the Greek Internet has remained a relatively untapped territory with regards to government intervention; with the ever-increased globalization of services and the proliferation of web portals serving news and information via blogs, the government is now seizing the opportunity to add yet another level of taxation – simply because they can do so.

Enter, the aggeliosimo.

Starting July 1st, a special taxation of 21.5% referred to as “aggeliosimo” (literally: announcement tax) will apply to all advertising that Greek-based web and Internet portals engage into. In other words, operators of web forums, portals, news or information web sites in the .GR realm will have to collect an additional 21.5% from their advertisers and submit it to a special fund set aside for the Social Security Fund of journalists.

It is not clear which government pencil-pusher is the brilliant inventor of this incredible manifestation of entrepreneurial strangulation. Effectively, the 21.5% taxation will immediately strip thousands of .GR sites that carry advertisements of their source of income, as it will surely lead advertisers to portals outside of Greece.

No entrepreneur or corporation in their right mind would want to spend 21.5% more for the same amount of advertising, just because the Greek government wishes to expand its reach into untapped territory, particularly when the funds collected would benefit a well-established Social Security fund.

At the same time, the same legislation forces web portals that present a constant feed of news and information to insure their personnel under new, more expensive pension groups that would increase the piece of the pie ending into the hands of the Greek IRS.

It is uncertain how this will affect PPC companies that appear on parked .GR web sites along with major other advertising channels, such as Google Adwords. It would be interesting to see how the Greek government would enforce the collection of a 21.5% fee from Google, for ads that are displayed on .GR web sites. The process is clearly impossible and it will lead to the collapse of advertising on .GR web sites.

Overall, the decision to stifle the entrepreneurial spirit and technological investment in Greece is a clear shot in the foot of a government and the nation it’s supposed to represent.

As the Greek Prime Minister, Mr. George Papandreou is clearly incapable of retaining a clear, honest and effective control of the situation and is leading the country into social unrest, financial turmoil and towards the technological Dark Ages.