|
Corporate
Leaders
Timothy
Chen, CEO, DomainTools.com
|
Tim
Chen
CEO, DomainTools.com |
Tim
Chen: From DomainTools' perspective,
the activity within ICANN to create an Expert
Working Group to study and suggest new WhoIS
data protocols, is significant. The free
availability to WhoIs data has value not only to
professionals of all types within the domain name
community, but also more broadly in the areas of
brand protection, fraud prevention and network
security. We are doing our best to make sure the
constituencies within ICANN understand the value
inherent in such data-enabled tools and services.
From a broader
industry perspective, obviously the advent of
new gTLDs is a huge opportunity for
domain professionals. It is also a significant concern
for brand and trademark owners. DomainTools
has been focused in 2012 and 2013 on expanding our
core tools to include significantly more ccTLD
data, and in 2014 we will also include new gTLD
data. You already see this value in tools
like Whois, Reverse Whois, Reverse IP and
Screenshots. In 2014 look for similar improvements
in Domain Search, Domain Monitor and other
heavily-used DomainTools services.
|
Debra
Domeyer, CEO, Oversee.net
(parent company of DomainSponsor.com
and the Domainfest
Conference
|
Debra
Domeyer
CEO, Oversee.net |
Debra
Domeyer: For
all of us in the industry, it was encouraging
to see that the US economy picked up steam. DomainSponsor®,
Oversee.net’s domain monetization
business, had a breakthrough year with high
year-over-year growth. Our investments in
technology, mobile, and optimization paid off with
higher returns for our publishers. We introduced
the DS mobile app that gives domain owners
instant access to key financial information on
their domain portfolios. The new app offers
complete transparency with enhanced financial
reporting and tracking 24/7 from anywhere in the
world.
Oversee.net
started an incubator program to expand both
our monetization and online web businesses. We
hired new technology talent in engineering,
programming and mobile. WanderWe.com
is the first online business to emerge from our
incubator program. The only one of its kind,
WanderWe is a weekend getaway site which
allows users to book hotels, tours, etc. based on
their individual lifestyles and budgets. Made
specifically for tablet and mobile, it captures a
market that was previously ignored. |
|
Our
web businesses continued to give us unique
insights into the kind of traffic advertisers
want, how they want to measure it, and how to get
it—data which is invaluable as we continually
upgrade monetization options for our publishers.
Online web businesses, such as ShopWiki.com,
Compare.com, CreditCards.org and AirportParking.com,
are substantial contributors to the company’s
bottom line. This investment in build-outs
yields additional benefits in traffic acquisition,
conversion data and email marketing among others.
New
TLDs hit the market and the buzz continues.
While dotcom is still king, innovation will drive
the adoption of new gTLDs. With Amazon
and Google leading the charge, I fully
expect that these new extensions will become
premium names and give buyers additional choices.
Brands will dominate and there is no limit
to their inventiveness or imagination. I
believe that much like the early 1990’s; the new
gTLDs will give markets, brands and online
businesses a rare opportunity to engage with their
customers. From a parking company’s perspective,
it’s our goal to monetize these new domains as
they come to market.
|
Big
Data was a key focus in 2013 and will be in
2014 as well. We are data experts and have the
tech teams in place to mine data which helps our
customers and our businesses. Just an example:
Targeting, through Data, allows our publisher to
better reach targeted audiences across platforms,
countries and devices. It gives us the ability to
categorize across billions of keywords and
millions of lander combinations. |
|
The
good news for everyone is that the economy will
continue to strengthen. Increases in
consumer spending and personal incomes coupled
with decreases in unemployment will positively
affect all our businesses. 2014 will be a
very exciting year for DomainSponsor and
Oversee.net. The momentum that we saw in 2013 is
already continuing into 2014. Several
announcements soon will be coming.
At
Oversee.net, mobile continues to be a major
focus for all our businesses. In 2013, we built
out a comprehensive mobile strategy. Mobile
traffic is growing incrementally and we see more
than 25% of our traffic being mobile.
In 2013 we worked with domain owners and
mobile business partners to identify their mobile
traffic by device type and expand mobile
monetization for direct navigation traffic. This initiative continues as we get smarter about
analyzing traffic patterns. Our end game is to
bring added value to our publishers and help them
increase their payouts.
Following
on a strong year, 2014 will see the value of
domains increase. With our large owned and
operated portfolio, we have the added advantage of
being able to test our alternate monetization
technologies in a real-world technology
environment. We can immediately see if a new
optimization technology works.
In
2014, utilizing the right domain names in our
portfolio as brands to build out new online
businesses is a great opportunity for us. We
expect growth in all three of our verticals:
retail, travel and consumer finances. Here,
too, our push is on mobile with new apps or more
responsive sites. Our focus is on compelling
consumer products, "push commerce",
social collaboration, mobile innovation, and local
opportunities.
There
are many exciting initiatives in motion which
means that 2014 will be a significant year of
growth for Oversee. Stay tuned!
Tobias
Flaitz, CEO, Sedo.com
|
Tobias
Flaitz
CEO, Sedo.com |
Tobias
Flaitz: 2013 was a good year in terms of domain trading because
the volume of sales and sale values have
risen. Traffic Monetization followed the ongoing downward trend of the last six years, but Sedo was able to significantly increase its performance to keep clients’ earnings at a high level. Contrary to initial expectations, business around
new TLDs hasn’t fully ramped up in the secondary market but there was a very intense preparation phase with our partners and clients.
It
was both an eventful and exciting year for
the domain industry. As anticipated, 2013
was the year of the new top-level domains
(TLDs). It played out differently than
initially expected in terms of preparation
marking a critical point for Sedo and a
historical point for the entire industry. As
a company, Sedo established key partnerships
with registries to support the launch of
their new TLDs. It was great to see that
registries understood and liked our
approach, aimed at giving them a seamless
experience for the launch and promotion of
their new extensions.
With
our extensive global partner network,
including the United Internet Group,
Sedo gained momentum and was able to provide
our partners and clients with all the tools
and expertise they needed to make the most
of their
|
|
domains
in the near future. Our joined efforts were
well received, and led to some unprecedented
periods in 2013 for registries and
applicants.
The
marketing of the new TLDs is
important and extensions need to be
positioned well within the market – a main
responsibility of the registries. Starting
to educate the market and create awareness
and interest in the new TLDs is key to their
success. With dedicated targeted marketing
and PR campaigns, Sedo made big strides in
establishing consumer awareness of the new
TLDs coming to market, and worked to
demonstrate how potentially disruptive those
extensions may be when it comes to changing
how consumers and companies interact.
Creating awareness among end users was an
ongoing goal, and still is a critical
aspect when it comes to the successful
launch of new TLDs.
While
gTLDs were a main focus in 2013, sellers
of ccTLDs also gained serious momentum:
they remained successful in the marketplace
and have increased their median and average
sale prices. Not only internationally known
brands, but companies everywhere learned
that they need to speak the native language
of buyers and sellers across the globe in
order to succeed. This shift has led to our
own approach of offering localized versions
of Sedo’s marketplace and services in
important markets like Brazil and China,
successfully launching full service
Portuguese and Chinese language Sedo
websites.
It was great to see leading ccTLD
sales emerge on our marketplaces in 2013,
such as jobs.ca for $450,000 USD
or nu.com.br for $45,000 USD,
proving that buyers continue to place faith
in ccTLDs. We believe the global reach of
domains, especially premium domains, is
becoming even more important than the
existing TLDs.
|
An
ongoing goal for Sedo was to bring more
buyers and sellers together worldwide,
increasing sales and spreading the word
about the value of premium names. With our
premium and unique inventory of 18 million+
domains, we were able to expand our SedoMLS
network – including more international
partners from countries such as China, as
well as industry leaders like Tucows
and Web.com. This put more of our
customers’ domains in front of more buyers
across the globe. |
|
Looking
at other areas of the industry, our strong
partnerships with Google and an even
stronger network of advertisers has helped
to give our clients the highest earnings in
the industry. We continued to work on
additional improvements in the traffic
monetization sector, such as optimizing
parking layouts to deliver innovative and
outstanding traffic monetization options in
2013. Though PPC revenues saw
challenging times back in 2012, we are
confident that those difficulties were
conquered in 2013. This was confirmed by our
advertisers in that our CTR has grown
significantly over competition.
In
2014, the complex domain marketplace of the
last few years will begin to develop more
order. Continued collaboration with a large
network of registries and registrars is at
the forefront of Sedo’s goals, and we will
strive to make our services as approachable
to customers as possible. This is even more
crucial with the introduction of the new
TLDs as new consumers and businesses begin
to navigate the various phases of auctions
(sunrise, landrush and general
availability).
Our
vision should become reality this year:
Buying and selling domain names will be as
simple as any other kind of online
transaction. This applies to existing TLDs
(both cc and generic) and to the new TLDs.
|
Sedo
CEO Tobias Flaitz chatting with
attendees earlier this month at the
2014 NamesCon conference
in Las Vegas. |
In
2014, we will move on working
proactively to offer innovative solutions
and channels to make buying, selling and
parking more efficient and more successful
for Sedo’s customers. The line between the
primary market (registries and registrars)
and the secondary market (marketplaces) is
blurring more and more, and teamwork and
collaboration between those players in the
industry is more important than ever.
This
change is offering everyone in the industry
more flexibility in trading and more/new
revenue stream opportunities. In the end, the
way people are buying and selling domains
will change. Buyers from all over the
globe will have access to a much wider
variety of domains and TLDs. A side effect
of this excessive supply could be a stronger
need for proper pricing and guidance for
consumers. I expect to see users showing
preference for and buying generic, short and
memorable domains that either have potential
for investors or support business’ bottom
lines, while using the new TLDs to add
keyword relevance. It could be challenging
to sell longer domain names with more than
two keywords now that many TLDs are keywords
themselves.
|
|
While
the quality of a keyword in a domain name is
critical, the established gTLDs such as .com
and ccTLDs such as .de or com.br
will likely see an increase in both
registration numbers, as well as median and
average sales prices. Pricing will be a hot
topic for sellers in 2014 – a trend
supported by our marketplace data, which
says that almost 50% of all sales are
already Buy Now sales. Nevertheless,
Make Offer sales are generating higher
average sales prices.
|
An
ongoing goal for Sedo in 2014 is to grow the
SedoMLS network so we can provide end users
with access to premium domains both under
existing TLDs and new TLDs. With its
extensive global network of registrar and
reseller partners, SedoMLS will give sellers
an easy way to list their domains for sale
through their preferred registrar, while
guaranteeing their names will reach the
widest possible audience of potential
buyers. At the same time, Sedo’s global
team will provide local support, with
knowledgeable Country Managers that
understand the language and other factors
unique to their local markets. Together,
these factors will allow for faster sales
cycles and optimal pricing for all parties
involved in a transaction.
In
regards to new TLDs, Sedo is looking forward
to helping registries run sunrise,
landrush and premium auctions for the new
extensions, as well as helping
distribute premium names from the new
extensions through the SedoMLS network. We
will see the first domains sold under new
TLDs, providing a benchmark for the market
value and consumer acceptance of the new
extensions, and are excited to share the
data and key findings with the industry as
we did in the past decade with our dedicated
market reports.
Finally,
Sedo is focusing on its strengths that have
led to clients choosing us as their partner:
providing superior, innovative domain
solutions for our partners, buyers, parkers
and sellers, all in one location, with a
truly global reach. Sedo stands for
reliable, professional and feasible services
delivered in a format that supports our
partners and clients to enable their own
success.
Jothan
Frakes, Co-Director,
NamesCon
Conference
|
Jothan
Frakes |
Jothan
Frakes:
I’ve
noticed a few things of note in 2013.
Looking at the consolidation
that has been in play, we’re seeing
more public companies and private
equity take notice of the overall
domain industry and the robust
opportunities present. We’ll
see more consolidation – and lots of
amazing start-ups – in part I
suspect due to the new TLDs,
but I have a better theory than that
as to why we’re seeing more and more
private equity and venture capital at
domain events and ICANN
meetings. Domain Names are
just good business.
ICANN
showed more and more teeth in their
compliance with registrars in an
effort to increase the hygiene of the
registrar space, canceling a record
number of registrars and putting many
on notice. This is good news for
the majority of the good actors in the
space, as it hopefully has a longer
term impact of making the industry
perceptions better by elimination of
those who draw negative attention.
Another
trend I have seen is that the launch
of new TLDs have had a very
polarizing effect – not just
within the domain development
and |
|
providers
(registries, registrars, or other
service providers) but also in the
overall community of internet users,
application developers, and service
providers that use the domains.
As
the new domains trickle into the root,
there is more vigorous enthusiasm with
those who recognize opportunities that
may be there with the changes.
This is balanced out by more and more
visceral resistance by those who are
not as interested in the changes that
are coming. Whatever
your prediction is, the hazy future
date that folks have waited for (many
for over a decade – or two) has arrived
where these are lighting up in the
root zone and becoming active in the
internet.
Many
of the new registries are already
looking at innovative ways to market
their domain names, good and bad, with
pre-registration incentives or other
pricing models. New domains and the
story around them, large or small, has
eyes (and dollars) focusing on our
space.
My
outlook for the overall industry in 2014
is quite positive. We will see
more money come in to the domain
industry as the overall number of
global domain names registered
continues its climb. I continue
to see more and more private equity
players and big name firms at the
shows.
|
NamesCon
conference co-Director Jothan
Frakes welcoming attendees
to the inaugural event earlier
this month at the Tropicana
Hotel in Las Vegas. |
Speaking
of which, we will see more trade shows
in 2014. I am glad to announce
that NamesCon as a low-cost
content-rich premier domain industry
event was a successful
launch for January.
We will see other conferences
throughout the year all with different
focuses. Nothing will ever match
the experience and networking within
the domainer community like Howard
Neu and Rick Schwartz pull
off with T.R.A.F.F.I.C., but folks
won’t stop shaking it up with
content or cost options and other
strengths. All good for the
overall industry.
Another
big thing in 2014 - New domain names
will be lighting up throughout the
year. Registrars are facing some
incredible integration challenges in
the supply chain – figuring out how
to make this new merchandise available
to the public – and picking from the
thundering herd of registries to
determine what to offer.
|
We
will see the majority of the new
domains allocated during 2014.
The polarity between the TLD haters
and TLD lovers will increase, as will
the press about the changes and the
domain name industry. The press
is the good news, as long as it is
positive.
The
TLD haters like to spread
negative news, unfortunately.
Their efforts will increase pressure
with more and more alarming messages
about how the changes will break the
internet, and we’ll have the
opportunity to actually see if that is
fiction or fact. To be fair, we
may also get some early indications of
consumer choice, innovation, and job
creation that the new TLDs promised
– but I suspect it is too early to
tell in most cases. I think this
will hit more in the second half of
2014 and more into 2015-16.
2014
hopefully brings shorter, less absurd
movie URLs. As an aside, I am
writing this during the Christmas
break when folks are heading to the
movies, and after one myself I think
new TLDs can not hurt movie studio
URLs AT ALL. From looking at
what the studios are using for domain
names this season, the new TLD program
can certainly not hurt them.
None of the names had less than 14
characters (left of dot), most had
-movie or -themovie in the name.
Not much you could type on a phone,
much less recall to type at home after
a 100+ minutes of movie and 13 other
previews. A couple of the movies
show a Facebook sub-path in
lieu of a domain name of their own.
This
draws into mind a very fair thought
about the transitional aspect new
TLDs might hold. Think about how
many companies, now, today, are
advertising their Facebook sub-path in
lieu of their actual company domain
name. Where was Facebook six or
eight years ago? Would you have
moved your advertising there then?
That’s what companies are faced with
at the moment. It takes time for
that shift to happen and companies are
not going to quickly hop – many will
“me too” at an inflection point
that seems logical for them as opposed
to being the first mover.
|
I
don’t see the new TLD changes
causing massive traffic shifts or user
behavior tilts quickly – it just is
not that disruptive that it would
happen in the course of a single year.
We will see some brilliant things done
that will attract users to using new
TLDs – and ultimately we will see
some grab large adoption, but over the
course of 4-7 years is my
prediction before there is any cooling
on the .com secondary market, if any.
2014
will probably not see noticeable
reductions in .com renewal rates or
registration pace – in contrast to
when they do the price hikes. In
fact I suspect we will see some record
sales in the secondary market for
.com domain names and continued
growth unless they continue to raise
the renewal and registration fees
again.
ccTLD
domains will continue a trend of
being a growing market. We will
see ccTLD registries getting creative
or abandoning old ways… some will
open up their second level 1-2
character names from restriction like .UK
|
.Com
image from Bigstock |
|
have done (In fact, take a look at www.divido.org
– they’re doing it at .IO, .AC,
.SH right now). .NZ
and .UK will open up second
level registrations, and we might see
some more previously closed ccTLDs
start to liberalize their registration
restrictions. |
The
secondary market will continue to be robust
throughout the incumbent TLDs, and we
will continue to see activity at all
the various price tiers. Parking
will continue to be strong for the
killer names and continue to trend
worse and worse as the long tail
flattens out for mediocre names.
If
I may take this opportunity, I’d
like to mention that in the coming
year, I hope to see more robust
industry support for the ICA
and the new global association –
aptly named ‘theDNA’
(The Domain Name Association). The importance of
resources for spreading accurate
information about the domain name
industry and educating the reporters
and new entrants cannot be
overstated. Each time you
invest 5-10 minutes in leaving someone
with a favorable opinion of our
industry you have saved our industry a
rant from someone (potentially one
with a large audience) smearing domain
names and may actually excite them to
speak positively about the industry.
Publicly
accessible best practices help
demonstrate the positive majority
within our industry. These
associations help provide bright line
information, coordinated messaging,
and educational templates that can
help accelerate the process of someone
getting their feet firmly aboard the
clue train and understanding domain
names and our industry – often
preventing that flame of visceral
misunderstanding in the media. Only
you can prevent forest fires.
Support the associations in the ways
you can if you’re making a living in
this space.
Tessa
Holcomb, Founder & CEO, Igloo.com
|
Tessa
Holcomb
Founder & CEO, Igloo.com |
Tessa
Holcomb:
2013
was an amazing year for domain
brokerage with sales numbers
blowing away those of the two
previous years and average sales
prices sky-rocketing. Although
the majority of the largest
sales of the year remain
confidential, it’s safe to say
that several of the
world’s most valuable domains
changed hands in the past year.
It’s been called a “perfect
storm” of patient and capable
buyers coupled with premium
domain owners who had not
previously been willing to sell,
finally ready to listen to
offers and negotiate at a
reasonable level.
As
for why the change of heart for
these owners, we saw a range of
factors reflective of industry
trends including declining
parking revenue stemming from Google’s
search engine changes,
development challenges, and, of
course, the influx of the new
TLDs creating just enough
uncertainty to make it that much
harder to turn away significant
offers.
Another
trend experienced by
Igloo.com was a shift from
outbound sales to branding and
acquisitions. While we certainly
still specialize in reaching out
to potential buyers and
educating end-users, Igloo saw
more and more business coming
from Start-Ups, VCs and
established |
|
companies
looking for help with naming
exercises and / or challenging
third party acquisitions. We
also saw an increase in
acquisitions involving domains
owned (and often very much in
use!) by other companies.
Lastly, we saw more companies
buying names as a defensive
measure even if they weren’t
necessarily ready to use the
domain yet.
While
I see the .COM market
holding strong, I see premium
domain brokers like Igloo.com
being presented with an
overwhelming amount of
opportunities as new gTLDs
launch and owners being faced
with some very tough (and
important) decisions. Do they go
with a one-stop-shop who can
handle everything from
marketplace sales to auctions or
do they work with several
companies based on the
individual strengths of their
respective brokerage teams? Just
as a domain investor needs to
decide if or how much to
diversify and introduce new
gTLDs in their portfolio mix, it
will be important for domain
brokers to decide which gTLDs
they really believe in and can
maximize sales prices for when
it comes to actively selling
premium gTLDs.
|
Igloo
is taking the same approach we
have always taken when
evaluating any business
opportunity. First of all, are
we truly the right broker for
the job? Secondly, are we in
sync with the owner regarding
pricing and overall
expectations? If we’re not
certain the answer is yes for
both questions, we pass and
often work with the seller to
find them a better fit with one
of our collaborating partners
and, if necessary, make the
introduction and sometimes, if
it makes sense, even partner
with another broker on the
opportunity.
|
|
Lastly,
I feel that pricing of premium
gTLDs will be a huge
challenge in 2014. While the
introduction of the new gTLDs
has definitely opened the
public’s eyes to domains (and
more and more people I speak to
not only know what a domain is
now but even know what an
extension is!) However, when it
comes to attaching a value to
these names, there will be
definitely be some kinks to work
out. Either way, I’m excited
to see the first six-figure gTLD
sale hit the books in 2014 and
curious as to what it will be!
Daniel
Law, COO, RookMedia
|
Daniel
Law
COO, Rook Media |
Daniel
Law:
As
many of your readers are
probably aware, 2013 saw
some of the most significant
changes to the
Google Monetization
Platform we have seen in
the past years, with the
DRID (Domain Registrant
ID) implementation and CAF
(Custom Ad Frames) switch.
Fortunately, these
technical revisions and
additions are on the
forefront Google’s drive
toward increasing
transparency and traffic
reliability for
advertisers, leading to
increased participation
rates on their part.
What
many of your users’
might not be aware of is
that while these changes
are overall positive
developments for the
continued viability of
domain name monetization,
their implementations
certainty did not come
without growing pains. One
of our greatest challenges
of the year was to ensure
that the by the launch
date none of these changes
had a major impact on any
of our customers earnings,
structural set up, or ease
of usability. I feel that
the fact that we pulled
this off without any
disruptions to those key
areas for our customers is
the primary unsung success
story of 2013.
I
certainly need to give
major kudos to both our
development team, and that
of Google’s, as we both
managed to leverage our
strong partnership into a
great cooperative effort
to |
|
roll out successfully,
despite the many obstacles we
encountered
behind the scenes. This is
an important first step on
a road that should lead
the way to a much
brighter future for domain
parking, and I am
happy to be able to say we
are progressing
comfortably down it.
In
many ways they are one in
the same. One of the
greatest challenges of
domain name monetization,
is that it still in many
ways is hidden in the
shadows as it were, and is
seen as niche as best, or
at worst as an easy way to
funnel fraudulent traffic
to unsuspecting
advertisers. Obviously
Google is our greatest
ally here in helping to
bring our sector out into
the light, and dispel many
of the misnomers that
often clouds the true
value of this traffic
to advertisers, misnomers
which cause many of them
to opt out of the domain
channel entirely. This is
at the crux of the Google
changes: resting on the
greater transparency and
quality that they now have
brought about, Google can
with ever increasing
confidence, show
advertisers that traffic
in the domain channel
actually converts to sales
for the advertisers at a
rate several times
greater than most
normal search traffic, and
is something advertisers
do not want to be missing
out on. This is where
the opportunity lies:
as more and more
advertisers come into the
space, many for the first
time, the competition for
the traffic, and what
advertisers are willing to
pay, will increase,
leading to better returns
for the portfolio owners.
|
We
also need to get better as
an industry at defining who
we are and our role
in E-Commerce. The
core of what are doing is
helping people who are
lost in the Internet find
their way to goods and
service that they are
searching for. Broken
links and 404 error pages
help no one, and our
service is a key one that
provides a win-win,
for consumers looking for
a product or service and
advertisers looks to sell
one. The current
fragmented nature of our
market makes this external
difficult at best, as well
as complicating many other
aspects of the strategic
side of our collective
business. It seems to me
that the field is ripe for
consolidation and I think
one of the further
challenges of 2014 will be
how to take advantage of
and engender this needed
maturation, as well as
tempering it to be a
positive change clearly
evident to the outside
world. |
|
You
can read more about
RookMedia in our April
2013 Cover Story
profile of the company. |
Jason
Miner, Chief Operating Officer, NameMedia.com
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Jason
Miner
COO, NameMedia.com |
Jason
Miner:
2013 was a notable year
for NameMedia in
that we completed our run
as the owner of Afternic.
As many of your readers
know, Afternic was the
very first domain
aftermarket platform,
founded in 1999 as “The
Domain Name Exchange,
serving brokers,
corporations, individuals
and NICs”. Shortly after
its founding, it was
acquired by Register.com,
who in turn sold it during
the Internet meltdown in
2002 to entrepreneurs Michael
and Roger Collins.
When NameMedia acquired
the site from the Collins
brothers in 2006, our
vision was to build a
unified
aftermarket—creating a
platform that would
connect all the demand for
domains—from the search
queries entered at
registrars all over the
world—with the largest
supply of verified,
premium domains offered
for sale. Fast forward to 2013,
and Afternic now finds
itself again owned by a
registrar—GoDaddy—that
embraces that vision of
having a single standard
that connects the entire
aftermarket. Removing the
friction and frustration
that has long stymied the
growth of the aftermarket
by allowing
cross-registrar promotion
and transfers of
aftermarket domains is now
assured with the largest
registrar in the world
adopting the Afternic
standard—and committing
to operate it as an
industry utility.
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This
year will mark the 15th
anniversary of BuyDomains,
and it’s fitting that
this will also be the year
that our domain portfolio
will surpass one
million domains. We
are energized by the
continued opportunities
presented by the domain
industry, and intend to
use the terabytes of data
we have accumulated
over these 15 years to
continue making smart
domain investments —
including broadening to
new namespaces. This year
will also mark the
unveiling of a new
publishing platform
for our developed
websites that has been
in the works for nearly
two years. In short, 2014
will be about investment
and innovation.
Nico
Zeifang, CEO, ParkingCrew.com
& DNTX.com
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Nico
Zeifang
CEO, ParkingCrew.com |
Nico
Zeifang:
Our main activities relate to the monetization of direct navigation traffic with
ParkingCrew serving the publisher-side (domain portfolio owners) and
DNTX serving the advertiser-side of the business.
At ParkingCrew, this past year was characterized by one major event as well as a global trend:
In December 2012 our upstream feed provider announced the introduction of a
completely new ad delivery technology that was to be rolled out in
October 2013. Our tech team went to work right away and spent the better part of the year tweaking our system to make the most of this new technology. Nine months and more than 1000 A/B tests later, we rolled out the new technology and have been
extremely satisfied with the results.
While little of these changes are visible to the outside, we have found the most significant outcome to be a more granular quality scoring that
rewards high quality traffic
with better ad inventory and higher ad rates. This adjustment constitutes a much needed correction of how direct navigation traffic is priced and in the long run should
benefit the entire domain channel by weeding out the |
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poor quality traffic leaving the entire advertiser spend to a smaller set of high quality traffic that will attract much higher ad rates.
From a more global perspective the most significant trend has been the
shift to mobile. You can see it every day: in your doctor's waiting room, in the subway or at a bus stop. People no longer read newspapers or magazines. Smartphones have changed the way we consume media in less than 5 years. The percentage of visitors that reach our parked pages via mobile devices is growing every day. In some countries it is happening faster, in others not so fast. Nevertheless, it is a global trend that cannot be neglected and that we pay a great deal of attention to at both, ParkingCrew and
DNTX. Mobile is the future and we are doing everything we can to be prepared for it. While there are certain verticals where desktop is still the preferred point of sale (especially when a lot of text input is involved in the order process), I can assure you that this will change and with it, more marketing dollars will be finding their way to the mobile channel.
For the industry as a whole,
2014 will see a lot of
new gTLDs entering the market. While some of them will be a success, I expect to see many of them
get barely noticed by the broader
public. As a provider of services in the traffic monetization space, I don't see them as a big revenue driver for us as initially, few of these domains will be receiving natural traffic. Nevertheless, at ParkingCrew we make sure to support each of these new gTLDs as soon as it becomes available.
This new inventory of domains will mostly drive registrations and sales for registrars and
aftermarket venues which is good as it will
attract press coverage and thus provide more spotlight for our often overlooked industry.
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We as a company will start 2014 the way we ended 2013: listen to customer feedback to find out what the market wants, adjust our products accordingly and strive to built the best customer experience out there. We will also continue to focus on technology and machine learning so that we can continue to keep our overheads low and pay out the maximum revenue shares to our customers. |
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What has also set us apart in the past and continues to be a company philosophy over here is:
Every single visitor is valuable and can be monetized to the maximum. While most companies know how to monetize a desktop visitor from the US searching for car insurance, it
gets a bit harder when the visitor is from say the
Ukraine, surfing on an outdated cell phone and looking for free ringtones. Or even worse, when a single domain name is
fail listed by tier 1 upstream ad networks thus not attracting any bids from their advertisers. That was part of the reason we launched DNTX: We thought that tier 2 traffic wasn't earning what it was worth. One key to achieve higher bids for such traffic is
targeting: The more granular the advertiser can target, the higher the advertiser can bid. DNTX continuously expands its array of targeting options. Another key is tracking: the better an advertiser can distinguish converting from non-converting traffic sources, the more an advertiser can pay for a conversion. This brings us back to what I mentioned earlier: quality traffic gets rewarded, non-quality traffic gets punished.
You
can read more about
ParkingCrew.com in
our February
2013 Newsletter.
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You
have now heard from
the eight corporate
leaders on this
year's State of
the Industry
panel and, on Page
1, from
eight leading domain
investors and
developers. As we
also noted on page
one, we have one
additional industry
leader to hear
from that has a foot
in multiple camps
and we will give him
the last word. Howard
Neu is a
leading industry
attorney, as well as
a co-founder of the
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference, a
blogger and a
private domain
investor/developer!
Howard
Neu, T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
& NeusNews.com
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Howard
Neu |
Howard
Neu:
There were two
major events
in the world
of Domain
Defense
Litigation.
UDRP Panels
are generally
becoming fairer
in balancing
the equities
between
Trademark
Complainants
and Domain
Name Investor
Respondents.
This has
shown up in a
substantial
increase in
findings of Reverse
Domain Name
Hijacking
by a number of
panels both at
WIPO
and NAF.
Also, the
first Decision
in favor of a
Respondent on
the equitable
basis of Laches
was made and
then followed
by additional
panels. This
is a big
breakthrough
in UDRP
litigation.
The
names of the
Panelists who
have decided
on behalf of
Respondents
and have found
RDNH against
Claimants will
be published
at NeusNews.com,
as I have been
doing every
six months.
2014
promises to be
a very good
year for
Domain
Investors.
Once
again, there
will be two
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Conferences
and Expos,
one at the
world-famous Bellagio
Hotel and
Casino in Las
Vegas from
May 28 -
May 31,
and the other
at the
world-famous
Fontainebleau
Hotel and
Spa October
28 - November
2. Both
of these
venues are
ideal for
doing Business
and having fun
in the
process.
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This
is T.R.A.F.F.I.C.s
10th
Anniversary
Year, and
there are a
lot of great surprises
in store
that have
never been
seen by the
Domain
Community.
From
Keynote
Speakers to
big Parties,
to exciting
networking
among true
professionals,
to 10th
Anniversary
Gifts and
Prizes, this
will be a
truly exciting
year for all
domain
Investors and
Sponsors.
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We
hope the
information
provided by
our experts
will help you
and your
business
reach new
heights this
year. We again
want to thank
the 17
industry
leaders
who took time
out of their
very busy
schedules to
share they
views and
expertise with
us. This
annual State
of the
Industry
report would
obviously not be
possible
without their
support.
Go
to Page 1 of
this Report
-
Go
to
DNJournal.com
Home Page |
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