I just noticed this one. Maybe this is why epik took away the public stats.

Hobbies.com just sold for almost $300,000

On this page that I just wrote the last post I noticed that Hobbies.com was an epik site & the week stats are here.
http://domainersadvantage.afternic.com/2010/12/hobbies-com-sells-for-297500-through-afternic-dls/

In one week times the site had about 553 visitors. It made about under $10 for the week. For IDN investors I’d like you to use this as an example that you can’t judge a domain just on traffic. Yes I think it’s a great keyword & worth the cost to the right company.

I have quite a few IDNs already that beat that for weekly traffic, & I’ll have more of them next year.

I was a bit surprised to see this but I guess I will have a permanent mark in domaining history.

Thanks

http://www.thedomains.com/2010/12/06/the-20-most-influential-people-in-the-domain-industry-2/

Vinton Cerf
Former ICANN Chairman/ VP and chief Internet evangelist for Google

Rick Schwartz
CEO, President and Cofounder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C.

Ron Jackson
Editor and Publisher of DNJournal

Monte Cahn
Founder and CEO of DomainSystems

Kevin Ham
The Man Who Owns The Internet

John Postel
Editor of the RFC document series, and for managing the creation and allocation of Top Level Domains and IP addresses in the pre-ICANN era.

Frank Schilling
Pioneering Domain Investor /Sevenmile.com

Adam Dicker
Owner, DNForum.com / Go Daddy VP of Domain Name Aftermarket

Russell C. Horowitz
CEO, Marchex / Chairman of the Board Director

Yun Ye
Elusive and successful domain pioneer

Tim Schumacher
Co-Founder and CEO, Sedo

Tim Berners-Lee
Director of the World Wide Web Consortium/ WWW Inventor

John Berryhill
Patent Attorney and UDRP legal specialist

Chris Chena
Pioneering Spanish domainer

Bob Parsons
CEO, Go Daddy

Craig Nine
Founder, IDN Forums

Sahar Sarid
Co-founder Recall Media Group/ Conceptualist.com

Ron James
Founder, NamePros.com/ Director 1Plus.net

Rick Latona
Founder, DigiPawn

Christmas season is upon us & I’ve been hit by the development bug again.

Over the summer I’ve created a bunch of Shopping sites. I’ve creating a bunch with different themes & little minor changes. By doing this I can see what sticks & what doesn’t. I’ve had major errors with some, I’ve had some great success with others. Lot of people say that they don’t have time for testing but if you can be on the internet for long periods of time you can learn simple development or just hire someone.

I realized that I never did finish the アニメ.com (Anime) site. So I completed an ok first phase. I’ll admit the sites look crappy from a design standpoint the outer wrapper can always change. Christmas is coming & my limited amount of sites has already ranked first page for 2 of the sites for very hard keywords (well one of them anyway) & currently I’m experiencing 3 to 12 orders at least a day.

Using the data I can clearly see trends & plan for 2011. Plus for the domains I started with over the summer they now are a bit more indexed & I can tweak them a bit without being slapped with penalties.

Anyway control your investments…

Had a good week in China & Macau where I was able to just enjoy the culture. Hong Kong is a big tourist capital of China so I didn’t see many websites advertised outside to attract tourists. This makes sense because most may have researched before coming to Hong Kong.

I did see the Macau.com advertised there. China is different than Japan. Way different.

When it comes to IDNs domains we must really put aside our personal feelings as an investor & try to think about the average domain user. Like the current explosion of the Russian extension. This reaction is the same I see with Japan & China when the domains become fully internationalized. The ccTLDs have an advantage that they are managed locally. The people who live in these places trust their own first & others later.

These are my personal opinions. There are also new domain services in Japan recently. I’ll write more about them when I have time. Things are picking up here. As I said about 4 years ago the IDN markets needs services that cater to local people. These are beginning to get launched one by here in Tokyo.

Anyway Hong Kong was great hope to have another week there exploring someday.

One aspect of domaining that is a risk is acquiring a domain that obviously only one organization can benefit from. It’s a risk sometimes you win sometimes you lose. Recently the Cowboys.com is back on sale.

Many in domaining claim it’s a great loss of the Dallas Cowboys by not buying the domain on the aftermarket. I look at this from a marketing point of view. If the team owned some abstract domain such as  Dallas-Cowboys.us or CowboysOfficial.com I would understand domainer’s logic. What I’ve never seen in any domain article is the fact that they own DallasCowboys.com. The domain is over 13 years old.

I saw the comment on Elliot’s blog that if a user goes to Cowboys.com looking for tickets the stadium  the team would loose money. They wouldn’t see ticket info & go to Ticketmaster instead. How many of you buy your tickets by guessing the URL of the sports team? Do you buy concert tickets by typing in the singer’s name & putting dot com at the end? No you don’t. You might look for generic information this way but you don’t purchase this way. Now Elliot is great writer & I like reading his blog but comments like this are too common in the domaining world. Actually ticket transactions on DallasCowboys.com are redirected to Ticket master anyway.

I think that if more articles just wrote about what companies have already as a URL they realize some buys are unnecessary. Dallas has a great domain that matches their brand. There are plenty of companies with horrible domains that could use generic domains to support their business. The Dallas Cowboys isn’t in that boat. The economy in the US is bad guys. Changing their domain may even do more damage short term than good.

Purchasing a highly competitive keyword that brings plenty of business’ sales or leads, that’s a great domain no matter what the language.

I just started to test a few new things this year. With development there’s not a lot of IDN Investors who develop now. I’ve only recently realized one of domains is doing extra well. Actually it’s way better than it’s supposed to be doing.

This is why development & testing becomes so important. There is not a lot of public info on IDN development. Large corporations are pretty savvy now. They could buy your parked domain as a blank slate because of the keyword value or they can buy your developed site with knowledge from you on how to make the IDN work for them & bring them clients, & or consumers. This is what end users want.

I don’t buy into the “They just get it” theory. Not with IDNs. I know the technology big corporations have to use & most of it is not IDN compatible yet. IDNs though are great for what I call campaign domains, or satellite sites. These sites can bring targeted consumers to the company without giving up the main brand site.

Even though I didn’t develop any new sites last month, this test I did & results made me look at new ways of developing & marketing. I can share this with knowledge with Global clients in GroupM or with potential site buyers (end user companies).

Parking is great for domains that you have in surplus, but I recommend to anyone develop at least a few domains. Get international college kids if you can. Test out stuff see what works, see what doesn’t. It will benefit you more if you can recommend to potential end users who may have interest in your site on how to bring traffic. Because that’s what they will want the domain for anyway.