I’m a Big Deal

I’m a thinker. The problem? I rarely take those ideas and run with them. There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t quickly spec out a business idea. Putting those ideas into action would be a lot of time and effort. And that’s something I just don’t have these days.

What usually winds you happening is that about eight to sixteen months later I’ll read about an idea I’ve spec’d out being launched. The latest? The new dating site Engage.

One of the downsides about online dating is that most people turn to it because they are busy and do it in the comfort of their own home when they are alone. That limits the natural feedback that your friends bring. Engage aims to change that by allowing your friends to refer/introduce people they find to you but also to provide feedback on the people you’re interested in.

It’s a novel idea that I didn’t think was ready for prime time, so I was really excited to see it in action. I’m still not sure if it will fly as a stand alone site. If I were in the market for a relationship I think I’d have a hard time getting my friends to sign up for a site to help me find a mate. This sort of thing would work better as an app on FaceBook or something similar. Maybe Engage will consider that route if uptake lags.

If you decide to give it a whirl, let me know how it works for you.

Just about everyone who knows me will tell you that I often run on at the mouth about a wide variety of topics. Some of which I’m fairly knowledgeable, some not so much. So, imagine my surprise when I find myself at a loss for words.

That’s not exactly true. I’ve just being cheating on my own blog with a work related project. My boss asked me to start writing the company blog and well, I’m a whore for readership so I started writing there a couple of weeks ago. In many ways I think it’s a good divide between my personal and professional life.

So while you won’t be hearing as much about domain names as you might have if I didn’t start blogging for work, you will get to hear my thoughts on just about everything else. You lucky bastards.

Apparently it’s Spring Training time for Major League Baseball.

I just finished watching a movie and started flipping around TV when I landed on WGN. I heart WGN for so many reasons. When I was a kid WGN was one of only two stations I gave a rats ass about. WTTW Channel 11 was the other thanks to Mr. Rogers. But today I love WGN because it’s the superstation and no matter where I am in the country I can keep in touch with what’s happening in my hometown of Chicago.

Since I stopped playing and coaching softball I kind of forget when the baseball/softball seasons start or end. So when I hit WGN today and say the familiar blue of the Cubbie’s uniform I had to stop and watch for a little while. I really like Spring Training. I think I like ST better than the regular season. Spring training is a condensed version of triple A ball. And I like triple A ball because everyone is trying all the time. Some of the best, most amazing plays I’ve ever seen in baseball have been in Isotopes park in Albuquerque.

It’s all about hustle. That’s kind of the same in any industry. Sports, sales, domaining. I see this al the time in domaining. There are guys and gals hustling there names all over the place. Consequently, there’s a lot of noise on boards and in the aftermarket venues like Sedo and TDNAM. I’ll talk about noise in a later post, because it’s a big topic, but I want to address the hustling aspect.

There is absolutely money to be made in the low end of the domain market. I’ve hand regged 1200+ domains for my employer in the last few months. Granted, that’s $8k+ of investment, but we’re talking about very brandable names which can and should fetch $35+ per name at the low end of the aftermarket. I’ve also managed to snag some real gems. No, there’s nothing that’s likely to sell for six figures, but you never know. The key is to keep turning your inventory over and the reinvest in even better names.

What does this have to do with baseball? The Cubs organization has never once gone after the big fish. They never reinvest. They are infamous for bringing in very talented young players and then letting them get away. Then again, they don’t have to reinvest. Why? They have the friendly confines. Wrigley Field is a huge draw. It’s right in the middle of the city. There’s no official parking facility, it’s that much a part of the neighborhood. They don’t have to sell themselves.

I’m willing to bet that before the neighborhood caught up with them they had to reinvest in their product, improve the team, the stadium, etc. Domains, baseball, business… it’s all the same. You hustle your ass off when you’re a startup/rookie so you can coast a bit when you’ve made it. The problem creeps in when you are a startup/rookie and don’t realize just how much work those early months/years can be.

DomainNews published a wrap up of the biggest sales of 2006 and 2007. NameBio published a short list of domains that were purchased in the aftermarket and then allowed to drop. It got me to thinking about how as the economy marches toward a recession there may be some very interesting bargains coming up in the aftermarket.

So I did a little analysis of the top 100 sales between the two years to see what’s being done with those names. In total, only 33 are fully developed, 8 are in development, 11 forward to an already developed site, 43 are parked and 4 are not resolving! The details:

From 2007

1. Porn.com $9,500,000 Developed
2. Seniors.com $1,800,000 Forwards
3. Tandberg.com $1,500,000 Developed
4. Scores.com $1,180,000 Developed
5. Chinese.com $1,120,008 Parked
6. Topix.com $1,000,000 Developed
7. Poker.de $957,937 Developed
8. Dollars.com $650,000 Parked
9. Cardiology.com $550,000 Parked
10. SheMale.com $520,000 Developed
11. AZ.com $500,000 Developed
12. Greenhouse.com $500,000 Forwards
13. Invention.com $500,000 Parked
14. LI.com $500,000 Forwards
15. Rebate.com $500,000 Developed
16. Rebates.com $500,000 Developed
17. Bald.com $400,000 Parked
18. CarSales.com $400,000 Forwards
19. Iran.com $400,000 Parked
20. Cowboys.com $370,000 Parked
21. Gibraltar.com $360,000 Parked
22. Greeting.com $350,000 Parked
23. Supplies.com $323,530 Server Not Found
24. RealEstate.net $300,000 Developed
25. Resume.com $300,000 Parked
26. Text.com $300,000 Developed
27. BDSM.com $295,000 Developed
28. Buckhead.com $250,000 Developed
29. Locals.com $250,000 Developed
30. Yearbook.com $237,500 Forwards
31. ET.com $225,000 Parked
32. Spices.com $220,000 Parked
33. Televisions.com $215,000 Developed
34. CrosswordPuzzles.com $210,000 Parked
35. Masculin.com $201,792 Parked
36. Settlement.com $200,000 Parked
37. CriminalLawyers.com $195,000 Parked
38. FreeHoroscope.com $185,259 Forwards
39. Chinese.net $180,000 Parked
40. BoiseIdaho.com $175,000 Forwards
41. Campgrounds.com $175,000 Developed
42. Clock.com $175,000 Parked
43. Ringtones.net $175,000 Developed
44. Walkers.com $175,000 Forwards
45. DreamLife.com $171,750 In Development
46. Event.com $165,000 Parked
47. Psychologists.com $160,000 Parked
48. Connected.co.uk $157,931 Server Not Found
49. Guy.com $150,000 In Development
50. InterracialSex.com $150,000 Developed
51. MegaYachts.com $150,000 Parked
52. OL.com $150,000 In Development
53. Pottery.com $150,000 Parked
54. Charters.com $140,000 Parked
55. Lips.com $135,000 Parked

From 2006

1. Diamond.com $7,500,000 Developed
2. Vodka.com $3,000,000 In Development
3. Cameras.com $1,500,000 Parked
4. NAV.no $717,978 Developed
5. On.com $635,000 Server Not Found
6. AntiSpyware.com $550,000 Developed
7. Macau.com $550,000 Developed
8. Bike.com $500,000 Developed
9. Blue.com $500,000 Parked
10. Gays.com $500,000 In Development
11. Wrestling.com $500,000 Parked
12. Sex.net $454,500 Parked
13. Templates.com $450,000 Developed
14. WirelessPhone.com $355,000 Parked
15. FunGames.com $350,000 Parked
16. Hotels.eu $329,509 Forwards
17. Jasmin.com $310,250 Developed
18. Blackjack.de $300,000 Forwards
19. Brown.com $300,000 For Sale
20. Cafe.com $300,000 In Development
21. CD.com $277,750 Parked
22. POS.com $252,500 Parked
23. Malta.com $250,000 Developed
24. Mortage.com (typo) $242,400 Parked
25. Ant.com $241,200 Developed
26. FlashGames.com $226,950 Parked
27. WiFi.com $225,000 Developed
28. SatellitePhone.com $201,600 Developed
29. Farm.com $200,000 Developed
30. Flowers.mobi $200,000 Developed
31. Nasty.com $200,000 Developed
32. Shopping.eu $196,803 Parked
33. UncleSam.com $185,750 Parked
34. Slimming.com $185,000 Forwards
35. HotelDeals.com $171,250 Server Not Found
36. HomeImprovement.com $166,650 Developed
37. Courts.com $155,000 Parked
38. Tractors.com $153,500 Parked
39. NHS.com $151,300 Parked
40. Date.org $150,349 Parked
41. Camp.com $150,000 Parked
42. Forclosures.com (typo) $150,000 Parked
43. Mortgage.net $149,000 In Development
44. AddictedGames.com $135,350 Parked
45. Blocks.com $130,000 In Development

I imagine that as we get lower on that sales ladder there is a greater chance of a name not being renewed and allowed to drop. Could be interesting to watch.

While I was in Vegas I won a couple of domains at auction. Truth be told I only meant to buy one, but I left my paddle up too long for the second one and will shortly be the proud owner of both PremiumRums.com and Preprogrammed.com.

So for the first time I feel compelled to actual market names instead of just waiting around for end users to come and find me. Should be an interesting process.

I’m a big fan of the entrepreneurial spirit of Derek Powazek. When I read that he’d just launched Pixish.com into a beta test I jumped on it. Anything to do with photography and I have to check it out. Intriguing idea. Individuals, companies, non-profits, whatever, are in need of photographic images for specific reasons. They post “Assignments” and photographers offer up their wares for review and possible selection. Compensation is outlined at the time of publishing the assignment so photographers can choose whether or not to take the assignment.

Now, Derek isn’t exactly breaking new ground here. I believe it was iStockPhoto.com (though it could have been fotolia.com) who pioneered this notion online in late 2006 or early 2007. But, much like any thing on the web there is room for improvement and I had hopes that Pixish might better the space. Thus far I don’t think things have turned out quite the way Derek intended.

Though Derek started things off with an assignment where the pay was being published in his online quarterly magazine, Fray he made it abudantly clear that financial compensation for photographers was the goal. A perusal of the 20 odd assignments posted in the nine days since the beta launched shows that very few are offering monetary compensations and few still are offering compensation to make taking the time to do assignment work worthwhile.

Winners will be featured on a calendar that we’ll distribute to the site members for free.
You’ll bring serenity, hope and joy to people who really need it. Isn’t it great?

Our gratitude is the best prize of all.

Mentoring students = gratifying!

Ya, I like to give back, donate and otherwise make the world a better place as much as (who am I kidding? likely more than) the next person. But you know what? Sometimes I want to get paid. I get a lot of “hey, can you bring your camera?” from friends and acquaintances. I don’t want to spend time reviewing assignments and coming up with bumpkis in the bank.

And then there are folks who at least try to make things interesting. Yah, I’d probably give this guy’s assignment some thought if I were a designer:

The winning designer (based on the voting here at pixish) will receive an 8G iPod Nano, color of your choice, signed by me (if you want to ruin the beautiful finish). It will be loaded with all my music.

The top 5 designers will each get a signed and personalized Thing a Week Box, plus free downloads of my entire catalog in mp3 or FLAC format.

I reserve the right to print or not print the winning design or designs, depending on whether or not I agree with the community’s assessment of which is the most awesome.

I’ll continue to keep an eye on this because Derek is always interesting, but so far I’m not impressed with the assignments. *crosses fingers*

The alarm went off at 3:15 this morning and I managed to get to the airport by muscle memory in order to make it out to Vegas for Rick Schwartz & Howard Neu’s TRAFFIC conference. It’s my first time at a TRAFFIC event. I’m looking forward to meeting more talented and lucky folks.

I’ve already run into an old contact from my former life in the web hosting industry at registration which started off the festivities on a very friendly note.

Now, after grabbing some lunch I’m back up in my room doing a little work while I’ve got CNN on and I’m reminded of why I’m in this industry as CNN switches to a newscaster who says “and our viewer sent this into iReport…”. Rick Schwartz sold iReport.com to CNN for $750k just recently. Seems perfect to me.

Sure, I’d love a little bit of that action for myself, but I’m just happy that someone is getting that kind of action. I’ll get my piece of the pie soon enough. For now, I can concentrate on making my employer’s slice a bit bigger.

Reliance is a funny thing. Amazon’s web services were down on Friday. So if you used services that relied on Amazon for their storage facilities (Twitter, SmugMug and others) you likely found yourself either with a little extra time on your hands or you found yourself repeatedly visiting the sites trying to complete work you needed to do. Either way it speaks to our reliance inherently unstable technology.

Years ago before I moved to Albuquerque from Chicago my then girlfriend was utterly stymied at the fact that we could not get an airline ticket voucher delivered via Fedex on Labor Day. Now, the irony of that aside, let’s think about how reliant we are on things completely outside of our control.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not at the mercy of someone in a foul mood; someone who moves too slowly for my tastes; someone who is unwilling or unable to help me. Then there are things like air travel. The ultimate “out of my control”. I fly at least two times a month. Many months find me on a plane for four trips with back to back destinations. Now that I live in a snow state again it’s a complete crap shoot on whether I’ll be able to fly at the appointed time. I digress.

My question is, what do you do when you can’t do the things you need to do because of a technological failure? I wind up getting more work done. Anyone else?

For years I fought against exposing myself too much on the web. This has obviously changed a great deal in recent years. I believe that the biggest reason behind that is that I’m living my life in a much more authentic manner. So I’ve been loosening the noose on my online persona.

With that comes the freedom to trust some web apps with my information. Today I found PageOnce and happily loaded it up with a bunch of usernames and passwords to all of my most oft-used sites. Everything from banking, credit card and travel sites. It’s a lot of stuff for someone who likes to think that she lives a spartan life but I really dig being able to look at all that data at once.

There’s lots of stuff that I use regularly that they don’t support and it’s frustrating. I long for the days when there’s a standard set of protocols for this sort of things and companies stop trying to hold so tightly to their little fiefdoms. Some day.

From 5/2007:

I was looking for something today. I couldn’t remember how long ago I bought something. I remembered that I bought it via Amazon, but couldn’t recall when. So I logged into my account and looked through my recent orders. Not only did I find what I was looking for, I found every order I’ve placed through my Amazon account since 1999. Holy crap what I timeline!

I don’t remember if I was ordering from Amazon before 1999 or not, but apparently the first thing I bought under this account was a gift for my then girlfriend, Laura. Then what apparently were a couple of holiday gifts.

In 2000 I was clearly in a minimalist state (it happens!) because I ordered exactly one thing: The DVD of Heathers.

From 2001 to 2003 I was “strongly encouraged” not to spend on frivolous things. I ordered nothing. In retrospect this was an awesome thing for me. I learned how to talk myself out of buying the things I wanted just because I wanted them. But it’s still strange to think that I went three solid years without buying a new DVD, book or CD.

2004 was a light year but I indulged in a single DVD, a CD (the soundtrack to Prey for Rock and Roll - shhh!) and a gift (Invader Zim - Doom, Doom, Doom)

I went to town in 2005. Feeling flush and on the rebound from a breakup in late 2004 I sought solace in stuff. Books, movies, music, gadgets. Everything from a book about the deadly heat wave in Chicago to trashy dyke television, with a stop off for a scanner mid-year.

In 2006 Amazon rolled out a new program called Amazon Prime. For $79 a year Prime allows you to get free 2 day shipping on thousands of products sold directly by Amazon. this means most books, music and movies as well as a surprising variety of other items. For an additional $3.99 per item you can get next day shipping too. Their bet is/was that customers will buy/spend more if they don’t have to think about shipping costs each time.

I guess they were right in my case. I placed 20 separate orders with them totaling more than $1200 over the course of the year. Granted, I bought a digital camera for $544, but still… I took the bait. Did I come out ahead or behind? Well, arguably I lost in the deal. I spent $1200 in one year on stuff I probably could have done without. About $200 of that was gifts that would have had to be spent somewhere, but the rest of it? probably could have saved a few hundred bucks.

So, now I’m faced with whether or not I should renew my Prime membership. It’s set to renew on March 20 and I just can’t decide whether I should tempt myself with it or try to keep myself from buying things. Dilemmas.