Last Thursday we published photos and highlights from a major meeting attended by some of China's top domain investors that was held in Xiamen a few days ago. As all of our regular readers know, Chinese buyers have practically taken over the domain aftermarket, bringing 

unprecedented liquidity to several name categories while changing the definition of what makes some domain  names valuable. Take four-letter .coms with random letters excluding vowels for example. A year or two ago most considered those nearly worthless - now they routinely sell for four figures to eager Chinese buyers - even in bulk purchases. 

It is a phenomenon unlike any we have seen before and a lot of people in the West are still struggling to get their head around what this sudden change means for domain buyers and sellers. One of the smartest guys in our business, Alan Dunn of NameCorp, wrote an article for TechCrunch that was published over the weekend. His piece, titled China is Making Domain History, is one of the best written on this topic to date - especially for mainstream business people who had no idea this key corner of the Internet was undergoing such a major

Alan Dunn
NameCorp Founder

upheaval. As Alan noted it is a sea change that has made a lot people wealthy in a very short period of time and many of them are not the usual domain investment stars we are familiar with. Alan's piece is one everyone should read and share with their friends. 

The China boom has naturally triggered more interest around the world in who the major players in China are, what they are buying and why. In the year ahead you are likely to be hearing a lot more about China's domain investment pioneers who are that country's equivalent of wildly successful people like Frank Schilling, Michael Berkens, Rick Schwartz who are so familiar to investors on this side of the globe.  In some cases the similarities even extend to nicknames. For example we have Schwartz, known as the "Domain King", and they have Peibi Wang (王培陛), who is known as China's "Domain Captain"!

In fact, just last week, China Market Consulting (a consulting service of TLD Registry) released a video interview with Wang who, in addition to being an influential and successful domain investor, is also the Founder of Chinese domain investment forum, YMQ.cn. 

(L to R): TLD Registry Founder Arto Isokoski, Peibi Wang and 
translator Luke Qiu at a meeting in Beijing last month.

The video, that runs less than five minutes, is an excerpt from a 90-minute discussion between Wang and TLD Registry Founder Arto Isokoski (with translation help from his TLD Registry colleague Luke Qiu) that took place last month in Beijing. In the video Wang spoke about several aspects of domain investing, including which TLDs he's been buying and how the domain investment space is different in China as compared to other parts of the world. He also goes into brief details about pinyin names, and how he wants to connect with more western domainers. That is an invitation that will no doubt by accepted by many smart investors on this side of the world.