The night I left town Josh sent me this link which focuses on an interesting observation.

  While $4+ million worth of domain names just sold at the Las Vegas TRAFFIC auction, the real story is that actual bidding totalled more than $30 million..  I bid at least a million dollars for names that I didn’t win.. Others did too.  All-tolled there was more than $20 million of unrequited love, bids never to matter, a desire to own domain names that would not be satiated.

Again for impact, more than 20 million dollars of cash-money was bid in about a day (8 hours over two days) by a handful of people who wanted to own just a smattering of domain names.  Some of these names were good, many were just average, few would have blown the average man-on-the-strip’s hair back.  The would-be suitors were there with cash in hand, and many (like yours truly) went home empty handed..  or nearly empty handed.

All this happened during a week in which markets corrected, new credit/banking problems came to light, mortgage rates inched higher, inflation made headlines and other generally bad stuff happened or was foreshadowed to happen in the broader economy. It happened with less than 600 would be bidders worldwide in attendance!  How can that be?  Several reasons..

–1–  Because for the most-part, domain names are un-leveraged..  they have no debt on them..  and sellers can afford to tell you how they really feel by declining what you view as a generous overture. There is no incentive to “sell now” when your cost of carrying the investment is nil to low.

–2–  Because the shift of offline publishing to online is only getting warmed up.  Much promoted but under-delivered, just 7% of advertisers are online vs. 93% offline..  Domain registrants who understand the significance of their investment are sitting on the sidelines whispering “come to Papa” under their breath, knowing that you are not the first (or last) guy to try to wrest a name away with the siren call of cold hard cash.

–3–  Because a good domain name is like a storefront..  and you can’t buy a decent storefront for 50,100, 200 thousand dollars these days. You can’t buy a bad storefront in Rachel Nevada for that, you can’t even buy the bathroom fixtures in a storefront on the fabled Vegas strip for that. Not good ones..  not a bad ones.. Not any-ones.  Only about 7% of all domain names registered (11 million names worldwide) mean anything to anyone at all..  The rest are pretty much speculative crap that somebody has convinced themselves are good.. a virtual boulevard of broken dreams – or breadcrumbs of back-fill massaged into the meat of good portfolios; painstakingly built by smart investors like you. 

Those truly good domain names are what constitute the entire “visited” Internet. The “Internet that matters” exists on the domain names which matter to anyone other than you.. More on that another time.

If there’s one thing I know for-sure folks,  it’s that Las Vegas is not the only home of lonely hearts and unrequited love. What happened in Vegas the other day, happens all around the world each and every day..  Hundreds of millions - billions each year are offered for domain names which will never sell.

What’s a domain lover to do?!?  Sigh..  Perhaps I’ll have more luck at the Affiliate Summit Domain Auction at the Rio Suites this coming week.

I won’t bore you folks with the details of my trip, but suffice it to say, I was glad to get away for the holiday sojourn and will probably spend more time traveling this year.. (business and pleasure).

New years bring new resolutions, new promises — cleaning out old cobwebs, retiring issues and ramping-up for a new cycle of work/changes. One of my resolutions this year is to slow down on the blogging.  Charity starts at home and I need to spend more of my non-working time with my wife, kids, family and those close friends and acquaintances in our family’s life..  I just can’t do that, run a domain media co and continue to scribe each day.  Since I began SevenMile.com, several others in the industry have joined the blogging ranks ..  many of those folks have done a terrific job creating news-sites and the existing journals and periodicals just get better and better.  There are even mash-ups now about domaining where we can get the most recent commentary and daily news across many blogs/journals/sites.

I plan to continue to write, albeit much less frequently with more personal, concentrated and in-depth thoughts relating to specific industry affecting issues. I look forward to several such posts over the course of the year..  but I will leave the daily color and roundups to those who do it so much better than I could.  It has been fun sharing (daily) and part of me will miss that but hopefuly my personal relationships and biz will thrive with the extra time in what is sure to be a challenging 2008.

Looking back on the predictions for 2007 made in late 2006,  many of those thoughts came true..  increased trouble for the most flagrant violators of IP rights, continued consolidation within the industry as the big get bigger, coupled with a spreading of the cottage industry footprint of work at home hopefuls with stars in their eyes; broadening our great industry’s base as it continues to mature.

If 2007 and my winter vacation of the year taught me anything, it’s how incredibly lucky we all are to participate in a space where anyone..  anyone can still “make it” if they have the gumption and desire to dig-in and better their life.  There are no defined paths in the domain industry.. and domain names continue to act as the nucleus of all Internet commerce. If nothing in business happens without ‘a sale’,  nothing on the Internet happens without ‘a domain name’..  and it’s still an adolescent industry with lots of room for those who want to make a great life for themselves. 

The game today is similar,  but just a little different.  I encourage you to stake your claim this year if you haven’t in earnest and continue to work hard for a few years..  If you adopt that glass half-full outlook and apply yourself,  I predict you too will be reciting the words of that Talking Heads song…  as you “wake up in a beautiful house”, “find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile”.. and you ask yourself .. How did I get here?

Have a great year folks…

I’m gonna miss you guys..  I wish you all a safe and happy New Year with much domain prosperity in 2008 …  It’s going to be a very exciting year.