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Here's the The Lowdown
from DN Journal,
updated daily
to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry.
The Lowdown is
compiled by DN Journal Editor & Publisher Ron
Jackson. |
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Paul
Goldstone Celebrates a 40th Birthday and TWO
15th Anniversaries All in the Same Week
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The
domain industry
is
such a young one that there are very few
companies that have been around for even a
decade. One of the industry's pioneering firms, Sedo,
just celebrated their
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i
Paul
Goldstone
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10th
anniversary this year. Yet Cincinnati's Paul
Goldstone, the personable transplanted Brit
who owns registrar DomainIt.com
and industry news and information resource iGoldRush.com,
is celebrating the 15th
anniversary of BOTH companies
this week! As if that weren't enough, Paul also
just hit a personal milestone in anyone's life -
his 40th birthday - the
big 4-0.
Back
in 1996, when he was just 25, Goldstone started
DomainIt, an ICANN accredited registrar
and hosting provider. He jumped into the field
early because, having previously been in the
custom imprint business, he knew the value of
company branding and realized that domain
names were going to be an integral part of
the emerging virtual world. When DomainIt
started domain registrations, modifications, and
deletions had to be done manually by
completing an email form that was sent to InterNIC.
We've obviously come a long way since
then. |
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At
DomainIt, Goldstone launched one of the first
and most extensive domain search (WhoIs)
tools of its time, used on both DomainIt.com and
DomainSearch.com. Paul said, "One of
the keys to my success early on was that I
didn't try to sell anyone a domain registration.
I simply provided the tools for them to see if
their name was available and I knew the sale
would follow. It was the old sell the sizzle
not steak approach!"
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Goldstone
added, "I'll never forget my first
ever domain registration order which
I printed then carefully typed from the
client submitted form over to the
InterNIC form, hand charged the credit
card on a touch-tone keypad, waited on
the email response,
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congratulated
the client, and ran into the other room
to tell my wife - we just made 50
bucks! I knew from that moment on
that this business was going to be hot!"
The
next day Goldstone registered 2 domains,
then 4, then 8, and within a very short
time he was working 12-14 hour
days hand registering over 100
domains per day, charging cards,
supporting clients, and updating the
website. With his new enterprise
starting to explode, Goldstone hired a
system administrator, purchased servers,
moved his home based business to an
office and incorporated his operation.
The company continued to grow over the
years to include website hosting, SSL
certificates, email services, website
promotion, and a host of value-added
domain and business development
tools. |
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Goldstone
acquired iGoldRush.com in 2000, buying
that company from founder Edwin
Hayward who had launched the site
just three days before DomainIt.com
debuted in 1996. |
Back
then there was no domain "industry" to
speak of and the Internet was still in its
infancy. When iGoldRush launched there were only
about 500,000 domain names registered
(compared to more than 200 million
today), and most people didn't know what a
domain name was. There was very little
information available that could help someone
learn about domain names and what purpose they
served, so iGoldrush set out to provide the
answers.
The site began as an educational guide
providing visitors with industry news and
information on how to make money from domain
names. iGoldrush became an instant hit and is
often cited as the site that helped many early
domainers get their businesses off the ground.
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Goldstone,
who had become close to the original
site owner over the years decided to
purchase the site and re-launch it with
a new look, updated news and articles,
and new information to meet the needs of
the ever changing domain industry.
Since
then, the site has continued to grow
with a focus on educating and empowering
domain investors, business owners and
Internet professionals so they can make
smarter domain decisions. The site
also provides more than 500 industry
links to help people further research
the business.
As
you would expect, Paul has a passion
for domains and has a personal portfolio
of over 1,300 domains, many from
the late 90s. He has developed a number
of successful web sites and also
administers the ICANN Registrar
Stakeholder Group web site. |
During
his 15 years of 12-14 hour days
Goldstone did a lot of "dining
in!" |
Paul
and his wife have three children and along with
his two business anniversaries and his own 40th
birthday, one of the kids is celebrating a 6th
birthday this week. So if you live in the
Cincinnati area and hear a lot of loud partying
going on, odds are the noise is coming from the
Goldstone household!
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(Posted Dec.
8, 2011)
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For
all current Lowdown posts - Go
Here
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We need your help to keep giving
domainers The
Lowdown, so please email [email protected]
with any interesting information you might have. If possible,
include the source of your information so we can check it out (for
example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site
elsewhere).
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