10 Reasons Why You Need a Break From Domaining
At times, I’ve submerged myself in domaining to the point where I have made irrational decisions. It’s a serious condition that can be avoided if you maintain a moderate level of domain exposure, ample vitamin C, and daily exercise. Excess exposure to domaining, on the other hand, can be dangerous to you and those around you. Fortunately, there are early warning signs developed by the scientific community that you can look out for. Here are 10 reasons why you may need to take a break from domaining.
10. You hand regged all the ingredients on your cereal box this morning, including hydroxypropylmethylcellulose.org.
9. You give domains out for gifts on holidays.
8. You can’t remember your cell phone number but you can rattle off your top 300 domains from memory.
7. You think it would be cute to name your kids .com, .net, and .org.
6. You’re monthly Godaddy invoice is larger than your mortgage.
5. You scream out “WaffleIron.com” in the heat of passion.
4. You judge your friends by how many global monthly searches they get on Google.
3. Your license plate says DOMNERS
2. You have a tattoo of the “I Heart Domaining” button on your chest.
1. You honestly think hydroxypropylmethylcellulose.org is an awesome domain name.
The Experts Chime in On Why You Should Attend A Domain Conference
I haven’t yet been to a domain conference but it seems like a great way to network and meet some of the leaders in the industry. I am looking forward to the day I do attend one. There is no doubt in my mind that anyone attending will walk away better than when they arrived. To emphasize that point , I thought it would be good to hear from some of the leaders and bloggers in our industry as to the real benefits of a domain conference. I put two questions out to some familiar names and this is what they have to say:
Rick Schwartz - RicksBlog.com
Speaking of domain conferences, The Domain King is the founder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. To learn more, visit his blog or read my post where he previously answered some questions for me.
What is the most important thing you have learned at a domain conference?
Rick: Every minute is valuable and you never know who you are going to meet. As an organizer, I have learned to do everything first class or not at all and that attention to detail is never enough.
What would be one reason you would recommend attending a domain conference to someone who has never attended previously?
Rick: To take your business to the next level. To better understand how things may unfold. To be on top of things before they are made public. Look to meet people that can accelerate your journey and add value to your life. To propel yourself to do bigger and greater things by looking around and seeing so many others enjoying one level of success or another. The only thing I can’t do is give you one reason because there are just so many and I have barely scratched the surface.
But the #1 answer…..folks can’t afford to sit at home while others are cutting deals and doing things to make their business grow and their lives better. That’s the big one.
Michael Castello – CCIN.com
The award winning and geo domain extraordinaire of Castello Cities Internet Network, Inc. is a frequent attendee and speaker at domain conferences.
What is the most important thing you have learned at a domain conference?
Michael: There is a plethora of gifted people that as separate entities have great value, but as a group of like-minded entrepreneurs can succeed at anything they put their collective minds to.
What would be one reason you would recommend attending a domain conference to someone who has never attended previously?
Michael: Where else can you go to a conference where the top players in their respective industry are telling listeners their secrets to their past, present and next successes? These are people that succeeded from growing businesses organically from the bottom up and have an eye on the future. There is more than enough wealth and happiness to go around. Domain conferences are the Tim Pan Alley of the Domain Industry. They are the mixing pot of ideas. It’s an open field and besides most conferences are fun with great people. My brother David and I have not only made long time friendships from these gatherings but we have created businesses and dreams as well.
Elliot Silver – ElliotsBlog.com
Elliot is an successful Internet entrepreneur and popular domain industry blogger.
What is the most important thing you have learned at a domain conference?
Elliot: Some of the most interesting conversations and discussions take place outside of the panels.
What would be one reason you would recommend attending a domain conference to someone who has never attended previously?
Elliot: The most important reason to attend is that many people value a face to face meeting, and domain conferences are some of the only opportunities to meet other domain investors. Not only can you make deals with clients, but you can also learn from others. People seem to be more willing to share stories and insight in private rather than on a blog or public forum.
Mark Fulton – DotSauce Magazine
Mark has coincidentally had a similar discussion on his forum where you can read some additional perspective.
What is the most important thing you have learned at a domain conference?
Mark: I’d like to tell you I learned a lot from the keynote speeches or advanced domaining sessions. These were inspirational, but may not apply to everyone. I’m having trouble deciphering what little notes I took. I suspect the free alcohol was to blame.
Conference organizers inevitably do a great job lining up interesting speakers and timely educational sessions, but in my opinion it’s the networking that makes attending a domain conference such a memorable and valuable experience.
What would be one reason you would recommend attending a domain conference to someone who has never attended previously?
Mark: I never anticipated just how much all these short conversations would really impact my business. Meeting the people who make the industry tick face to face is invaluable.
While at DOMAINFest Hollywood, I had a chance run-in on an elevator with Moniker founder Monte Cahn where I pitched him my blog. Very cliché, I know. Later that night, I went out for drinks with FreshDrop founder Tan Tran. Both of these meetings resulted in key advertising deals.
I was able to meet countless other industry veterans that I look up to such as Sahar Sarid, Ron Jackson, Michael and David Castello, Ron James and so many others. Just as interesting though, was being able to meet and talk to “100% domainers;” those who may not be as well known, but are doing this full-time without even a break to stop and write about it. These movers and hard workers turned out to be the real inspiration.
Owen Frager – The Frager Factor
Owen is an Internet entrepreneur and profession as well as a popular domain industry blogger.
What is the most important thing you have learned at a domain conference?
Owen: That I am not alone and while there’s no road map or university to learn these things, there’s hundreds of people with interests like yours and you don’t have to go it alone. It gets very lonely out there bucking traditional thinking, and just the camaraderie and feel good support you get from peers can lift the spirits and inspire you to keep journeying on.
What would be one reason you would recommend attending a domain conference to someone who has never attended previously?
Owen: You never know who you’re going to meet. I’ve met a lot of people that taught me a lot, became clients, customers partners and or lifetime friends, and provided solutions that took my domains to the next level.
Revised
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Inbox
| X |
|
|
|
|
|
|  Reply
What is the most important thing you have
learned at a domain conference?
On 8/30/10 3:48 PM, “Mike Sullivan” <michael.k.sullivan@gmail.com>
|
Quick Interview with Wiggio
Dana Lampert is CEO of Wiggio.com gave me some quick answers to some quick questions. Wiggio is a groupware program that aims to make it easier to work in groups. The name of the company itself comes from the phrase “working in groups.”
Mike: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your business.
Dana: I started Wiggio when I was 22, and a senior at Cornell University. We’re now a small team of 7, and Wiggio has over 500,000 users. Wiggio is a simple online tool that makes it easy to work in groups. People are creating Wiggio groups for groups from project teams to small business, non-profits, musical groups, sports teams, and social groups.
Mike: Can you tell me what wiggio.com means or represents?
Dana: The WIG in Wiggio stands for “working in groups” – which is what the service is all about.
Mike: Have you received any feedback on the name from peers or customers?
Dana: I’ve been told it’s very memorable, and sticky. People see the word on advertisements and remember it.
Mike: Why did you decide to chose a brandable domain name over a generic or keyword domain?
Dana: We wanted to create a name the matches our product – unique and innovative. We felt by making up “Wiggio” is makes us stand out and break through the clutter a bit.
Mike: Is this your only domain name or do you owns others? If so which domains do you own?
Dana: We own wigio, wiggeo, and a few other spellings.
Mike: Are you willing to share your visitation statistics so far?
Dana: Can’t share specifics, but we have over 500,000 unique users
Mike: What type of marketing are you doing to promote the site? Any online such as seo or ppc? Any offline advertising?
Dana: We do online and offline promotion. Online is Facebook ads and Google AdWords. Offline is geared to college students, and include posters, cards and chalk on campuses.
Mike: Do you have any advice for others looking to chose a brandable domain name for their business?
Dana: I think it works best when it means something, or there’s some kind of story behind it. We get asked about the name constantly.
New Domain App
There aren’t a whole lot of apps available for mobile device that I would consider essential for domainers. The latest app from Network Solutions doesn’t qualify as essential either, but it’s nice too see a new mobile device tool that actually has some value.
Domain Storm, by Network Solutions, is an iPhone app that allows you to search for domain names quickly, showing which TLDs are available and at what price. While Network Solutions doesn’t have the most competitive domain registration prices, the tool is decent. The app also allows you to check alternate, expired, and premium domains based on your original search term.
The next feature is “Brainstorm,” which requires one or two keywords. Then give your iPhone a quick shake and in Vegas style slots, you wait for the two word combination to appear from the spinning windows. There you have a suggested new domain name with availability per TLD. The Brainstorm feature also has the ability to check alternate, expired, and premium domains based on your search terms. There are other options as well. You can turn hyphenation on and off as well as adult terms. There is also a geo option that will append the city, state, or country to your possible names based on your current location.
The WHOIS serach didn’t work for me. After hanging for about 30 seconds, it crashed the app on my first attempt. It worked with the second try, but the disclaimer information took up just about all of the available text and left me with no real WHOIS data at all.
By the way, the name DomainStorm.com is registered and has been since 2004. I wonder how this would play out in a trademark case.
Overall, I like it. I wish I could use this app but set my registrar of choice to make a purchase. While it doesn’t show any search volume stats or valuation estimates, it still has a place in my app collection. There are a limited number of TLDs listed, and .CO isn’t one of them. Are there other apps that you like to use as part of your domain toolbox? If so, I’d like to hear about them.
E-mail Expectations for Businesses
I know there are several people that would choose to argue with me on this point, but when it comes to e-mail correspondence, there is a different level of expectations than other methods of communication. Now, I’m speaking specifically about the expectations around consumer to business e-mails, not shooting a note to your buddy or your even your boss or co-worker for that matter. My expectation is this… when I send an email to a business, as a consumer I expect a reply within a couple of hours. Realistic? Maybe not, but it is what I expect. Why? Because it’s easy and cost effective.
Maybe my expectation is more focused on the small business owner, but a counter intuitive example is frequently given by large companies like GoDaddy. I have some domains and some hosting with GoDaddy and periodically need to interact with the sales or support staff. My preferred method of communication is usually e-mail for this type of situation because I don’t want to be sitting on hold on the phone. However, if you e-mail your question, you may receive a response like the one below.
24 hours seems like far to long of a wait. I don’t have that much patience. While most companies are trying to reduce costs and push users toward the web and email, GoDaddy makes it easier to call… which is fine. That’s not a bad alternative and they clearly set expectations upfront. Where I take issue is with companies that provide an e-mail address on their website and then don’t respond for two or three days. Sometimes even longer.
Back to the small business example. I recently had some logo work done. I narrowed down my selection to two small companies. I sent a couple of questions via email to help finalize my choice. The first firm responded almost immediately and we exchanged a few emails over the course on an hour and they won the work. The second company responded three days later. Really? Three days? Did they think that I was still in the market for this need?
The interesting thing is that this isn’t the only example of this type of delayed response. If you’re going to be out of the office, use an auto responder to let people know. If you are too busy to respond, use and auto responder to let people know that too. I have seen some great auto responses that state things like “I check e-mail twice per day at 10am and 4 pm and I will respond to you then.” I have even seen one that says “I only check e-mail on Mondays.” I am perfectly fine with these replies. If you are going to stray from my expectation of a fairly immediate reply, let me know so I can call and get what I need.
If you have any questions about this post, please email me and I’ll get back to you in a few days.
