Snippets – 7th September 2016

Here are a few snippets relating to the business of domain names.

Big Story Coming Tomorrow

Got another guest post from Robert Kaay – this time it’s about his trials and tribulations with auDA. In essence, he believes there has been an abuse of power by one particular person at auDA. He also expresses some grievances about what he considers to be “double dipping” by Netfleet. This is a story not to miss.

Regular readers would be aware that Robert writes very well. Earlier this year we published his very honest and illuminating 3-part series “My First Year As A Domainer”. If you haven’t read it, I can recommend it!

End Of An Era

On Monday, subscribers received the following email from David Goldstein of the Goldstein Report.

“Hi all,

Following on from recent discussions, I was notified today that auDA is cancelling their subscription for the “domain news”. So unless something changes, that was the last edition sent to the DNS list this morning. AuDA has subscribed to the domain news for 14 years providing it for the Australian domain industry, and themselves, since September 2002.

There are reviews going on internally at auDA and whether any of these have any bearing on the domain news returning I don’t know.

And if there is anyone out there interested in subscribing to the domain news for their own company, or even sponsoring/co-sponsoring the news for the domain industry, I’d be more than happy to discuss this with you.

Thanks to all who found the news worthwhile and got some benefit out of it.

Cheers, David”

Whilst I haven’t always seen eye to eye with David, his weekly aggregation of domain news from around the world was first class. I’m sorry to see it finish up.

Good Sales Template

I’m forever looking at how other businesses market their domain names for sale or lease. In my opinion, there is a huge market in Australia for an aftermarket sales platform to offer domain names with various “ownership” opportunities i.e. A “BIN” price (Buy It Now); a “Finance Plan” over 6 or 12 months; or a “Lease” (try before you buy).

Huge Domains has what I consider to be an excellent template. This is obviously designed more for dot com purchases – however it could easily be adapted for the Australian name space.

Have a look at this example – and make sure you click on the various options. It seems to tick all bases for nervous buyers. I really like the idea of a “money back guarantee”, and have been thinking about offering something similar for ages.

What are your thoughts?

People In Our Industry

Last week, I reached out to a fellow domain investor to see whether he would like to acquire a particular domain name from me. I’d never been in contact with him before, but had noticed his name on the expired auctions for some time. So I wasn’t sure what sort of response I would get!

Cutting a very long story short, he was one of the nicest guys I have done business with in a long time. He purchased the domain from me, and the transaction was as smooth as (even though he was overseas on business). We have subsequently done some mutually beneficial business on other domains as well.

So I wanted to give him a shout out – Joel Knott is his name; and you might see him as “295 Productions” on the WhoIs. His very successful day job is this!

Health Issues

Unfortunately, I am having some complications following my heart problems in July. This has necessitated me cancelling my trip to Hong Kong in the next two weeks. I was so looking forward to speaking at DOMAINfest. 🙁

I’m also looking for someone to take over Domainer.com.au. The right person is more important to me than the money. More on this soon.

Ned O’Meara – 7th September 2016