Reflections On A Sunday – 31 January 2016

In Brisbane today starting out on a weeklong domain adventure. My journey also sees me head to Perth for a few days.

Looking forward to meeting a few people that I haven’t met in person before (but have communicated with for years). Also catching up with a couple of good friends “in the business”.

Very excited about my visit to Perth, as I’ll be doing the first of what I hope will be many training sessions.

What sort of training I hear you ask? 🙂 In simple terms, “The Art of Domaining”. How to make money in Australia from buying, selling, trading and developing domain names. I’ve been doing this full-time for many years, and it is something I am very passionate about. Over time, many people have asked me to share my knowledge with them, and I’ve always been happy to do so. I’m a great believer in the adage that a “rising tide lifts all boats”.

So now is the right time to add “training others” to my business model. My first course will comprise six people for 4 hours. The reason I chose Perth as my first session was simply because I had two people from there who had been nagging me to do something for ages. So I said if they got another four people together (to make it economic for me), I would come. And they did!

And given that I’m an old Perth boy, visting Western Australia is always a pleasure.

Beginning is winning. Lots more sessions planned. 🙂

Reflection 1

The Names Panel Report goes before the auDA Board in February for further discussion. For those that haven’t been following it, this is to do with whether or not direct registrations should be introduced into the Australian name space. And by direct registrations, I mean the ability to register a domain name without the .com in front – e.g. domainer.au.

Not sure of the mechanics of what happens thereafter, but I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough!

I was a member of this Names Panel, but given the confidentiality of the process, I will save my further comments and opinions until after the report has been published (following consideration by the Board). My previous thoughts are well documented on earlier blog posts.

Whatever is decided, I don’t believe that anything is going to happen overnight.

Reflection 2

Given the above – or even despite of it – I believe the .au market will continue to grow and thrive. I also think that prices on premium domains will rise as more businesses see the value in having the best possible online address for their business.

I’m also seeing overseas entities starting to purchase domains here. They can do this in a number of ways quite legitamately under current auDA policy. A favourite and easy method is via the trademark route.

Many overseas people that I spoke to at NamesCon weren’t aware of this option – and now that they are, interest is strong. They think our prices are “chicken feed” (which they are at the moment).

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As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Best wishes for your online success.