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Is Domain Speculation Bust?
The latest Netcraft survey is more interesting than usual, because it reports a drop in the total number of registered domain names, as well as a decreasing number of sites reachable overall by the survey. It's been a traumatic year in the tech world, but the drop in domain names goes back to domain name buy-ups of 1999 (and looks like it will accelerate the same way domain speculation did in 2000). All is not gloom, though, and the number of registered domain names is not the same as the number of active sites. The Netcraft site points out that "as domains bought for speculative reasons are abandoned, we can expect a higher proportion of sites to be active." Read the rest of the survey report for more interesting information on the state of the domain world.
Example: http://www.melbournecup.com/ The melbourne cup carnival
.au land. When a company is registered, it automatically has rights to its .com.au name over anyone else. It ensures the registered business can have their online presence without having to negotiate around people already there and wanting $$$ for what you already essentially own... (doesn't apply to .orgs and .nets tho)
about a year and a half ago this was a dodgy website for "Melbourne Cups"...
I think domain speculation is going to be with us for quite awhile, but to be honest it really irks me. I hate the whole concept of sitting on something that you know someone else will have to buy off you.
in
Trademarks are a lot easier to enforce as I understand it, than company trading names...
-- Dan =)
Several weeks ago, I was sent an unsolicited "legalspeak" fax notifying me that I had 24 hours to respond, or I would lose all claim to the (My Company Name).info name. Interesting marketing technique.
:)
I called and pretended to be horrified that I would lose all claim to it, and told them our legal department would be in contact with them immediately to negotiate a settlement. The poor lady on the other end of the phone was conpletely thrown for a loop.
The game is scored by minutes kept on the phone plus 5 points for every repeated phrase, and if you get the marketer to swear, we win automatically.
Needless to say, it was great fun.
But once a few people got rich that way, naturally there was a "gold rush". It's no different than the Florida Land Bubble, the tulip bubble, or a zillion other speculative bubbles.
For that matter, how different is the stock market, with its rumor-chasing mentality? Or modern currency, which is valuable only because you can use it to buy Goods and Services -- which are produced only because they're worth money!
Which is not an argument for going back to the Gold Standard or shutting down Wall Street. It's just a reminder that speculation and fiat are both essential parts of a modern economy.
You may have noticed that, since February, entering a typo in the address bar of a browser is much less likely to send you to an advertising site. That's due to the FTC action against Gregory Lasrado. This may have helped reduce the number of registrations.
Once in a while the gov does something right.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Thus, no one can sell obvious things like "business.com" for $400,000,000,000,000 or whatever.
business.com sold for -- I kid you not -- $7.5M US in November of 1999. What were they thinking?
-Waldo Jaquith
Look at GreatDomains.com. Skip the "list prices" for domains, and look at the "recent offers" listings, which are all in the few hundred dollar range. Realistically, that's where the prices are now. And those are offers for ".com" domains. Off-brand domains like ".ws" (Western Samoa), ".tv" (Tuvalu), and ".to" (Tonga) are almost worthless.
ICANN is now starting up a "registry escrow" program to back up the registrars, so that when registrars go bust, the domains don't disappear. It's good that they're thinking ahead. A registrar shakeout is due.
It's over.
Microsoft's server market share is at its highest level ever, with much of the increased share coming from Apache.
That's NOT what Netcraft actually said.
"The drop has had particularly evident impact this month at the popular registrar register.com, which has seen the number of registered but unused sites parked at futuresite.register.com drop by 300k, accounting for the drop in Apache numbers this month."
In other words the drop in Apache numbers was actually due to lack of registration renewals at Register.com, NOT due to any gains by Microsoft.
If you look at the percentages based on ACTIVE sites, Apache actually INCREASED share this month, from 61.88 to 63.34, +1.46, while Microsoft increased at a much slower rate,
26.40 to 26.62, or +0.22.
Lest anyone claim that Apache's share is inflated by inactive sites compared to Microsoft, the Netcraft survey shows the Apache share for total active + inactive to be lower than the active share, while Microsoft's share adding inactive sites is HIGHER than it's active site share. This clearly Microsoft's numbers are inflated by a large number of inactive sites.
In fact, if you look at total number of active sites for the past THREE months, IIS has actually declined, while Apache has increased .
A big reason that there just aren't many domain names available any more is is Network Solutions, when a domain that they serve as registrar for expires, Network Solutions hold it for themselves. Rumor is that they were going to auction off all of their illegally collected domains at one point, but that still hasn't happened. Network Solutions is currently squatting on several domains of mine that I had let expire.