Giuseppe Graziano, the Founder & CEO of Lisbon, Portugal based domain brokerage and consultancy firm GGRG.com, has enjoyed a lot of success since entering this industry as the Director of European Business Development for Domain Holdings in 2012. He moved on to found his own shop in 2014 and in 2016 Escrow.com gave him a Master of Domains Award as one  of the top 3 highest-grossing domain brokers in the world. 

A lot of Giuseppe's success comes from being able to easily serve clients around the world because he speaks five languages and has lived in five different countries across three continents. He also holds a Masters Degree in International Management from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

In addition to being known for his skills as a broker and consultant, industry pros appreciate the data Graziano collects, analyzes and publishes in his popular quarterly industry report on liquid domain sales titled LXDO. 

Giuseppe Graziano
Founder & CEO, GGRG.com

Now, Giuseppe is expanding his publishing activity with the launch today of a new series of interviews aimed at giving industry newcomers and veterans alike more insight into the domain business and how others have made a living in it.

I was honored to be asked to be the subject of Giuseppe's first article in that series, published earlier today. He told me the invitation came because he had been a long time fan of DNJournal.com, especially the many biographical Cover Stories we've done over the years. Graziano went on to say he thought being able to read our stories about Domain Holdings Co-Founders John Ferber and Chad Folkening before interviewing with the company helped him land the job there (he was also a big fan of a 2017 Cover Story about Domain Holdings Senior VP Alan Dunn with whom he also worked before starting GGRG).

For my part, having Giuseppe put me on the opposite side of the interview table felt a little odd, but it was fun re-tracing the journey from radio DJ, to TV reporter to record store owner to the domain business and DNJournal.com. It also brought home how incredibly fast so many decades have flown by. As I told Giuseppe, the positive thing about that was gaining an even greater appreciation for the precious time every new day gives us. At this very moment almost all of us around the world are being threatened by a deadly virus that could bring any of our stories to an immediate end. Tomorrow is promised to no one - so do everything you can to make the most of today (but for the time being at least, make sure you are doing that at home)!

A photo from Giuseppe Graziano's interview article with Ron Jackson 
(who is disrupting a 1980 publicity photo shoot at the ABC-TV station in Sarasota, Florida).

You can read Giuseppe Graziano's article here.

Verisign has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief (.pdf file) covering the 4th quarter of 2019. The new report revealed that at the end of the quarter, total domain registrations across all TLDs had reached 362.3 million worldwide. That is an increase of 13.5 million domains from the same point a year earlier, a 3.9% rise.  

Verisign administers several Top Level Domain, including the world's most popular TLD, .com, as well as the second most popular gTLD, .net. They reported total .com registrations reached 145.4 million at the end of 4Q-2019, outperforming the overall market with a 4.6% rise year over year. It remained a different story for .net though as that 

TLD continued to decline. .Net slid 4.3% from 14 million a year earlier to 13.4 million registrations at the end of 4Q-2019.

ccTLD (country code TLD) registrations underperformed the overall market but that category did show an increase, adding 3.3 million registrations in 2019 to close the year with 157.6 million domains, a 2.1% rise year over year.

Thanks to a surge in 4Q registrations, new gTLDs jumped 23.2% year over year to close 4Q-2019 with 29.3 million registrations. Of the 5.5 million domains added over 2019, 5.3 million were registered in the final quarter of the year! Without that late charge, new gTLDs would have shown virtually no growth from the previous year. 

We have several things to share with you today. Radix, who operates a large  portfolio of new gTLD domain registries, has released details on their 2019 revenue. The company reported gross revenue of over $21 million, a 26% surge from the previous year.  Radix's net profit grew even more, jumping by 54% from 2018. In another good sign, they closed 2019 with momentum on their side as Q4 was their strongest of the year.  

Radix, who administers 10 gTLDs as well as the .PW ccTLD, noted that 25% of their revenue came from standard registrations and 64% from standard renewals. Radix’s premium domains cumulatively generated over $2 million in revenue with 58% of that coming from 

premium renewals. The United States was the biggest contributor to Radix's revenue, accounting for 50% of the total. Germany was next highest with 12% then China with 7%. 

Radix also pointed out that they are the only registry portfolio holder that has put two of its new TLDs over the 1 million mark in domain registrations. .ONLINE reached that milestone in November 2018 and .SITE joined the club in February 2019.

Donna Adams (Mahony) was already a well established, highly respected member of the domain investment community when I stumbled upon this business back in 2002. Donna was one of the first female domain investors and was always one of the first to welcome and support newcomers (like me) when they showed up at DNForum.com, a site that was then the central gathering place for people who had an  inexplicable passion for domain names.  

Succeeding in the domain business was (and is) much more difficult than it appears to be from the outside, so newcomers desperately needed someone to show them the ropes so they could  avoid wasting their time and money along the way.  Donna was among the very best advisors, always generous with her time and resources. 

Donna Adams (Mahony)

Donna has always been a giver by nature but now she needs a little help of her own. She's not the kind who would ever ask for it, so one of her friends, Brian Gilbert, took it upon himself to sound the alarm, quickly drawing support from dozens of others who have been so positively impacted by Donna over the past two (or more) decades. Donna was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension several years ago, the same disease that led Brian's late wife, Charlotte (also a beloved member of the domain community and one of Donna's closest friends) to a heart/lung transplant and ultimately her untimely death early last year.

Now, Donna needs life-saving surgery of her own, and she has a chance to get it at the #1 treatment facility for this disease in the world. The problem is there are many expenses not covered by insurance that are obstacles that need to be removed from her path to recovery. So, yesterday Brian started a GoFundMe account to raise funds to help cover those expenses. Within hours, the modest goal of $7,500 had been surpassed as dozens of donors rushed to Donna's aid (a testament to how many people she has positively impacted along the way). 

As of this writing the total has crossed $10,000. Still, if you have ever needed medical care you now how quickly uncovered costs can spiral out of control. For anyone who can help with a few dollars I would encourage you to add what you can to Donna's account. She already has more than enough stress on her plate and not having to worry as much about mounting expenses will give her some well deserved peace of mind. 

In any case, whether you can contribute monetarily or not, I hope everyone will visit the GoFund me page to read Brian's meticulously detailed account of  the treatment journey Donna will be on for the next two months. It requires trips back and forth (with a helper) between Donna's home in Arizona and the treatment facility in San Diego.  It will not be an easy gauntlet to run but we can all make it a little bit easier just by dropping Donna a note, or leaving a post, telling her what she means to us and how  much we are rooting for her in this battle!  A positive attitude and support from an Army of friends are the most powerful weapons anyone could have in the kind of fight Donna is in now. 

(Left to right): Donna's friends Mike Robertson and Brian Gilbert 
with Donna Adams (Mahony) on a recent visit to her Arizona home.