Today I brought dashboardads.com

I see a marginal if not spectacular interest in dashboard advertising either via videos or online / desktop games.

Total Cost : $9.20
Return On Investment : To be updated.

At times, It seems like a long time ago and at times, it seems it was only yesterday that I caught the Internet bug. It was 1996 and when I first came across a real live breathing Internet, I was excited. It was not mere technology which excited me. It was the possibilities that I saw then.

I was too broke to buy a computer. Or at least that’s what I believed then. I had plenty of money for other useless stuff. But I tried. I used to get some tech magazines and I read with great fascination what the Internet and the world wide web was all about. I saw those full page web hosting ads and I couldn’t spend enough time trying to educate myself with what a domain name was, what a web hosting was. I wondered what could be done to get my own website up and running.

I saw this full page ad from web host Inter Land. One ordinary day I called them up from my workplace at Manhasset University Hospital for a web hosting service. The guy who picked the phone explained to me that in order to get web hosting, I’d need a domain name. And he asked me to pick a name. I was live on the phone with him. I had to make a name real quick. I made one up.

I Am Unique. Yes, that was my first domain name. iamunique.com : (I don’t own that name no more. It expired a year or two later and was picked up again by someone back in 2001.)

Now that I had a domain name and hosting, I wanted to know how I could put something up there. During those days, web design was very expensive. I had no clear business plan. All I knew back then was I wanted a website. I jumped in. And it felt good.

Looking back, I don’t wonder about the what ifs. But this I know. A good number of folks who had the foresight to register premium names in the 90’s right after the advent of the web, went on to become millionaires.

I started registering domain names in earnest in 1999 through 2002. Although not too late from the investing point of view, it was not something very high on my agenda. My first wave of domain registrations were of decent quality. Over time, my job (I was a manager at a local Wendy’s) took it’s toll. Being as conscientious as I was, It kept me distracted. It took time away form what was more important. Scooping up prime domain names. While I flipped burgers, my peers went on to amass huge number of targeted names. Eventually, my portfolio went unattended. I sold a good umber of good names for a modest success and lost most of my portfolio to expirations. This in spite of some unheard of domain name sales which sensationalized the web.

My second wave of domain name acquisitions began in 2003 with renewed vigor and a sacred pact with myself that I will not abandon my quest to be successful in this business, no matter what.

It has been almost 5 years since and over 10,000 names later, I feel greatly accomplished. It is not about the balance sheet. It was all about how much I educated myself. It was all about how much effort I put in on a daily basis. It was all about looking towards the future with an expectation with guarded certainty. I had to know where this business would lead me.

All through these years, I saw domainers make a significant amount of money by way of domain sales, advertising and increasing the size of their investment. And I knew my time was just around the corner. I had missed on the first wave of Internet riches. I was not about to let the second wave pass me by. And I did not.

It took me 5 years to get even. Simply because of the size of my portfolio. Had I managed a small quantity of names, it would have been easier and I think in hindsight my success would have arrived at the platform of life much too sooner. But I did what I did and I have no regrets. My future is secure. I have no doubt in my mind, I will never have to seek another job from an help wanted section anymore.

I remember back in 1999 how easy it was to pick names. Pretty much anything you wanted other then 2 character, 3 character letters and numbers and one word names was available. All you had to do was punch in your credit card number, pay for it and look to the future.

Fast forward 2003-04. Domain names were harder to get by. The industry had matured and there were more players in the game. The field got crowded. My battle plan was just the same like when I started out in 1998. I hand registered openly available names. I did not have a big budget to begin with. I spent $20 a week and at times $100 from my savings to buy names of value. As time went on, I become more skilled in picking names. I could have done better. Sure!

Those who have any inclination of starting a domain name business will have no room for mistakes. If they start out with a tiny budget like I did, they would have to wait another 2-5 years to see progress. The business is fiercely competitive. Good names barely become available. If an existing domain name owner forgets to renew a certain name, it is snapped up the second it expires.

It may not be as easy as it was back in 1994, 1998, 2003, but you can become a successful domain name investor if you cultivate the right attitude and educate yourself about the domaining business. Starting out with a big budget helps. You can start out buying better quality names rather than picking out what is available. They take time to mature considering what you picked is of any value at all.

I am still optimistic about the domain name industry. It is not consumed by the early adopters. You can still find your niche and create a decent portfolio you can be proud of. To say that all good names are gone and there is nothing of value anymore is to say that the child who was born today has no future in the domain name industry. You are way ahead of that infant.

The Internet is not the same as it was back in 1995. The web is always speeding on towards uncharted territory. There is always a new trend, new industry, new inventions, new possibilities and they all have to identified with a name. A domain name.

Go ahead - Register a name. Start with your name like I did. Invest in domain names. They are the true real estate in the global realm. Anyone can do it. Even a guy who worked at a Wendy’s once. Even someone who is on welfare can find the courage to get off of it. All it takes is a mere $10.

I never broke even in the first 4 years. The pain of not seeing any profit for this long was many a times discouraging. My loans ballooned. My creditors got testy and even bitter My family got disillusioned with me. But I chugged along always trying to remind myself of the pact I made before I started this business the second time around.

This year, I made close to 80k in 2007. Although, I am not even yet, it is a promising sign. My sales zoomed from a mere $2000 in 2005 to $10,000 in 2006 to an astonishing $80k in 2007. Sure there are domaniers who made more depending on when they started their business. But, I am proud of my achievements simply because I did the best I could. I gave it my all. I never cut corners and put in over hundred hours of work each week. I did pretty much all I could do within my means and knowledge to help make my business succeed.

And this is what I have to show for it today. A robust portfolio of over 10,000 names and breaking even with barely a sweat to boot. I still have bills to pay. I still have loans to fulfill. Who doesn’t. But I also know that soon enough I will never ever have to worry about paying bills no more.

Keep reading my blog and read about other domainers who have made it big in this exciting industry. Read, read, read and learn. There is money in it. Don’t wait for this industry to become mainstream. Don’t wait until you find every Joe trying to register a name. It just might be too late then. This business is easy folks. But first - Learn!

I used to love my job once. But I was not free. I love my domaining business even more. It sends my way money and the luxury of time. And I am rich for it.

Coins in the New Realm
By Brad Stone of The New York Times

HOLLYWOOD — Xavier Buck planned to spend $100,000 to bid for domain names, those parcels of virtual Internet real estate, at a live auction here last week.

He blew past his limit in less than an hour.

By the time the three-hour auction had ended, Mr. Buck, the chief executive of the Luxembourg-based company EuroDNS, had spent $150,000 for 15 appealingly generic names, including 7th.com, chaptereleven.com, microfinancing.com and computersystems.com.

“These names will pay for themselves within two years,” Mr. Buck said, as he sat in the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel with a business partner who wore an identical gray suit and shirt with the company logo. “The world is only now beginning to discover how important it is to have these assets.”

For the first time, people outside the traditionally insular and sometimes underground world of domainers, as they call themselves, might agree with him.

The practitioners’ fundamental assertion — that names of Web sites can be valuable, cash-generating assets just like stocks, bonds or property — appears to be gaining a broader acceptance that veteran domainers are not accustomed to and may not be totally comfortable with.

Mr. Buck and other domainers profit when inexperienced Internet users type those names into their Web browsers, and once on the site click on related advertisements. In the longer term, they hope to resell their domain names for large profits to companies that want to build real businesses with those Web addresses.

Domainers have generally had a negative reputation. Domain-name trading takes little of the actual effort needed to build a business on the Web, instead relying on clicks from people who simply guess at a site’s name or are too lazy to use a search engine. In its early years, the field was dominated by offshore players and secretive, if not illegal, tactics.

But increasingly, there is serious money at stake. Last year, 106 domain names drew more than $100,000 each, and one, porn.com, went for nearly $9.5 million. In 2006, only 70 domain names sold for more than six figures each. Millions of generic domain names, pointing to sites with little more than automated Google or Yahoo text ads, brought in untold millions of dollars.

As a result, over the last few months, private equity and venture capital firms have poured money into the largest companies in the field. Last year, Demand Media and Oversee.net, two companies based in Los Angeles that own hundreds of thousands of domain names each and offer hosting and advertising services to other domainers, raised nearly $400 million from investors.

“We think this is definitely a legitimate industry and a legitimate business,” said Robert L. Morse Jr., a partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners, which invested in both companies and is backed by the Bass oil family of Texas. “As with many early-stage markets, it is going through a transformation to professionalism.”

Investors are so confident in the growth of online advertising — and the ability of domainers to capitalize on that trend — that they plan to soon start selling shares of domain-name companies to the public, even in today’s volatile market. Last September, NameMedia, a company based in Waltham, Mass., which has a huge portfolio of generic domain names, filed to go public on the Nasdaq stock market.

“This industry could probably be an oasis, in the grand scheme of things, relative to the rest of the economy,” said David Liu, managing director at Jefferies & Company, one of the firms underwriting the offering.

The domainers now have their own trade group in Washington — albeit with only one full-time employee. They also have specialized financiers who will lend money and accept domain names as collateral.

“The industry was very secretive for a long time,” said Frank Schilling, an industry pioneer who hit it big with bare-bones Web destinations like drugproblem.com and diamondweddingrings.com. “When you make millions at home in your underwear, you are not telling a soul about it,” he said.

Mr. Schilling traveled from his home on Grand Cayman Island to speak at last week’s DomainFest conference, sponsored by Oversee.net, on his private Gulfstream IV jet, with a leisurely stop in Las Vegas.

But like other veterans, Mr. Schilling does not appear to be completely enthusiastic about the business’s new direction. “These shows let everyone know how good it is, and now the sniff is out,” he said. “The wildcatting days are over. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss them.”

The industry’s transition to respect and professionalism may not be entirely complete. One strategy that has cast a stigma over the industry is called typo-squatting — registering domain names with variations and misspellings of major brand names, in the hopes that Web users will inadvertently stumble upon the sites. It has not gone away.

In the last few months, Yahoo, Dell, BMW and Microsoft have all sued small domain registrars and domainers, asserting that they are profiting from thousands of names similar to their trademarks. The cases are pending.

Another questionable tactic is known as domain tasting. Domainers register Web addresses in bulk and, during a five-day trial period, test how ads do on those sites. They then let go of the unprofitable ones and get a full refund. Google and an organization called Icann, the nonprofit group that oversees the domain name system, have recently announced plans to combat the practice.

Domain hijacking is another strategy. Susan Kawaguchi, global domain name manager at eBay, said during a DomainFest session on domain strategies for corporations that her company spent a lot of time “trying to make sure someone doesn’t steal ebay.com.”

Mr. Morse of Oak Hill Capital said the business was “in its teenage years.” He added: “It is mature in many ways, but there are pockets of it that are still juvenile.”

A two-year-old specialty finance company called Domain Capital, based in Fort Lee, N.J., is betting that the practice’s tarnished reputation will not stop domain names from appreciating. The firm expects to lend around $20 million this year to domainers, accepting their choicest generic domain names as collateral.

Robert Alfano, the company’s co-founder, says he spends much of his time talking to Wall Street banks about backing his business model. Persuading traditional investors to view domain names as an asset is not easy, he said. “But the industry is growing up and all the negative connotations have sifted out.”

As the business matures, some of the smaller players worry they might get trampled. Don Bowman, a former auto liquidator from Columbus, Ohio, runs a domain-buying business with his sister, choosing names that might be culturally or politically relevant, like obamahillary.com and bloombergrice.com.

Mr. Bowman said the larger companies were developing sophisticated software to buy desirable domain names as soon as they become available, leaving little operations like his in the dust.

“Big changes are coming, and for the little guy it’s getting challenging,” he said. “The bigger companies can do things, and I can’t. We just have to work harder.”

From : The New York Times : February 1, 2008