As you can see from the image, I’m currently in San Francisco (where it is still Saturday).
What a beautiful city. Yesterday the weather was clear and sunny, with a maximum temperature of about 15 degrees. (Melbourne residents would feel at home!). So I jumped on Big Bus Tours, and did a 2.5 hour tour. Magnificent. 🙂
SF is quite expensive though – both for residents and tourists alike. House prices have risen sharply in recent years, and renting an apartment in the Bay Area is not cheap. And cost of office space is huge.
Silicon Valley has a lot to answer for!
Check out the following articles – and remember that prices are in US dollars!
And this:
Reflection 1
NamesCon was just the best. I’m so happy I made the decision to go – even though it cost big bucks.
The insights and knowledge that I gained were incredible; and the new friends and contacts I made were such a bonus. Also, as I said last week, to meet online friends in person for the first time was very rewarding.
I’ve come away with a different set of perceptions to all aspects of the domain business, and I will be writing about these in depth over the next week.
My recommendation to anyone who is involved in the “online world” is that you should do whatever it takes to get there next year. The benefits far outweigh the costs. Seriously.
Here’s a picture of “Two and a Half Aussies” at NamesCon – Troy Rushton from Name Investors, myself – and the honorary “half” – Bob Olea from California (front). Bob is an international airline pilot who used to fly into Sydney for a long time. He is well known and liked by many Aussie domainers.
Also met up with quite a few other Aussies (we’re everywhere!). Jonathan Horne made the effort to fly over from Melbourne, and it was great to catch up with him over a few days. Same goes for young Cameron Bell from Fabulous / Drop.com.au (pictured below).
Reflection 2
One of the big eye-openers for me at NamesCon was the increasing acceptance and popularity of some new gTLD’s.
Several far more seasoned domainers / domain brokers (like Andrew Rosener from Media Options) also expressed this same sentiment.
Prices being paid for some of these domains (at auction) really emphasised to me that I need to take my blinkers off.
Frank Schilling summed it up perfectly in his keynote address when he likened the new gTLD’s to this saying from Marty McFly in the iconic movie “Back to the Future”:
(Marty was addressing the shocked expressions at the dance after playing a wild heavy metal guitar solo – which they’d never experienced in there life before!).
I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.
So I have decided to “dip my toes in the water”, and selectively jump on the bandwagon. 😉
Best wishes for your online success …
Great to see you and the other Aussies at Namescon this year.
You really looked in your element Ned; Namescon is probably “the” conference to go to if you’re going to pick one.
Nice to catch up with you Cam.
And thanks for lunch – though I was small fry compared to the next client’s you saw! 😉
Careful with new tlds the hype and bandwagon does sweep you up but it is made up of smoke and mirrors the lasrge renewl prices and regos make them a sinking ship
There was a joke getting around about new tlds
How do you make a small fortune from new tlds , You start with a large fortune first and i think this is the truth
I have lasvegas.cash if interested in new tlds
@Shane – I’ve never been a fan. However, NamesCon changed my perceptions.
I saw with my own eyes gTLD domains being sold for 4 and 5 figures. I listened to the CEO of .Club tell everyone about their success to date (all verified). I listened to guys like Frank Schilling talk about the future. Sure he’s got “skin in the game”, but the Uniregistry / Domain Name Sales Platform is here to stay – and it’s selling heaps of gTLD’s every single day.
I also know that there is a lot of crap in gTLD land that shouldn’t be touched. However, it might pay for smart domain investors to have a calculated gamble on some of the new extensions imho. Just in small doses to start of course. 😉
Have sold both .xyz and .club domains for good profits on both SEDO and DNS. No bullshit auda rules to deal with.
Five figure sales at a convention of Domainers is nothing to write home about. Preaching to the choir.
CANNOT WAIT for the new TLDs to implode in 2017.
The cracks have already started appearing and the ‘many’ (just about all) rubbish new TLDs that are set to ‘go dark’ according to ICANN’s own internet security advisors will far outweigh (and drag down) the (literally) ‘few’ new TLDs that *might* have had a chance of mirroring the success of .info HAD THEY BEEN RELEASED TEN YEARS AGO.
..How this subject is even relevant to Australian readers is questionable, since Australia accounts for only 1.03% of names registered under the new program, AND FALLING. See ntldstats.com.
What should Australians be interested in? Their own .net.au ccTLD which has THREE times the number of names registered than all new TLDs *combined*, and more than 95% to end users, or the investment offal that is the new TLD program, where more than 90% of names are held speculatively and more than 73% of names are parked?
@”Paul”
Don’t mind you having a contrary opinion, but at least get your facts right. 😉
As at December 15, 2015, net.au had 313,586 registrations (down from the previous year of 322,687). http://www.ausregistry.com.au/reports/2015/1512General.pdf
As at January 16, 2016, new gTLD registrations amounted to 11,508,113. Of those, .club had 572,387. https://ntldstats.com/tld
I love com.au – and it will probably always be my number one. All I’m saying is that times are a changing – and that was driven home to me in Vegas. Have a read of one of my posts later this week about the interview with Paul Stahura of Donuts fame. Very smart man. http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2015/july.htm
Correct, 313,58 registrations for .net.au. This is about THREE times the number of new TLD names registered by Australians (which is only 118,335 see nTLDstats.com > handle > by country). I was speaking exclusively about the relevance of new TLDs in Australia (1.03%). Could’ve explained what I meant better, but the point is there: after 2 years of new TLD hype, Australians prefer .net.au to all new TLDs *combined* (3:1).
Yes times are changing. I urge interested readers to look at the nTLDstats.com and notice that China accounts for 44.75% of all new TLD registrations. Applying that percentage of 44.75% to the “unknown” handle of 14.07% brings China above the 50% level. The US is only 12.78% plus a proportion of the “unknown” handle.
How do you feel knowing the new TLD program is completely skewed towards China, and to a lesser extent, the US, while other countries are barely interested?? -Germany 4.1%, UK 2.67% and everyone else *even lower*
How do you feel knowing that in Australia (Australia’s 1.03%), 46% of all names have been registered with Crazy Domains and GoDaddy, while only 10% have been registered with Mebourne IT which is the preferred registrar for corporations?
@”Paul” – I’m an .au fan through and through. Always will be. If an Australian business or enduser doesn’t have an .au, then they’re bonkers imho.
But what I saw and heard last week made me think a bit differently as a domainer. I’m talking about domaining opportunities on a world wide stage. I’m not advocating that Aussie businesses solely register TLD’s!
It’s not just domainer to domainer sales on the new TLD’s – I listened to the guys from GoDaddy and Uniregistry explain the number of new registrations and aftermarket sales they are getting from endusers.
You had to be there to really understand!
Sounds like hype from sellers. Oh wait it is he he.
agree with david Of course there are high sales there has to be or the house of cards would have crumbled a year ago . Wait till china sees that there investment is going nowhere these things will be dumped faster than anything . Dot com is king and will always be see the sales results for dot com daily not every now and then. It is all smoke and mirrors with new tlds the high price to rego them makes them not cost effective to hold onto for many years . They rely on pump and dump and this does not work. I know i have owned alot of new tlds tried selling them everywhere sedo , flippa , private you get silly low offers trust me you will see
100% @David. The ‘value’ of anything is often completely illusory, from ‘tulips’ (16th Century) to ‘bitcoin’ (today). What’s so funny about the new TLD program is that 9 out of 10 domain name investors (‘the converted’) can smell this one a mile off, and have called this supply-side fantasy and ICANN money-spinner for what it is: a rancid, financially toxic experiment that does little for ordinary business and next to nothing for the consumer.
At a convention full of ‘the converted’, *two years* on, a bunch of five figure peer-to-peer sales means NOTHING. GoDaddy and Uniregistry anecdotes of OUTLIER sales to end users sound to me like desperate pleas for new TLD momentum (which has in fact been declining the past 12 months – ICANN has *twice* revised its program estimates downwards http://www.domainmondo.com/2015/07/new-gtld-domains-walking-dead-and-dying.html).
Intelligent readers and investors, enjoy.