Job.ca is getting auctioned through MyID

Yesterday, MyID has announced that they’ll be auctionning a huge domain name —job.ca— on June 24-25th 2009.

This is very big news since job.ca stands to be the biggest domain name ever auctioned in Canada.

And whoever gets it will likely keep it forever so if someone needs that incredible name, now is probably the last chance in their lifetime they are given to bid for and win it.

Billions upon billions of dollars are being spent and made every year, regarding employment, in Canada.

Using the job.ca domain name provides an unbelievable strategic advantage for whoever uses it over all those who don’t have such an outstanding name.

And the “job.ca” suffix is just the beginning because the current owner had already registered the provincial suffixes such as…

• job.bc.ca
• job.ab.ca
• job.sk.ca
• job.mb.ca
• job.on.ca
• job.qc.ca
• job.nb.ca
• job.ns.ca

…and they’re all going to be awarded to the winning bidder. The other provincial suffixes can also be registered by the winning bidder, when in control of the “job.ca” domain name.

By all means, this event is likely going to make history for two reasons:

• the biggest domain name ever auctioned in Canada; and
• the expected largest bid ever made for a Canadian domain name.

If a company deals in the Canadian job market and doesn’t bid on this name, the C-level managers need to fire their marketing manager. Job.ca is way too big an opportunity to miss.

Lots of interested parties will want to get their hands on the job.ca domain name, such as:

• Job boards, domestic and foreign
  • The job.ca name is enough to completely reshape the job posting and resume acquisition landscape, in Canada.
  • No job board can pass this opportunity up because the consequences of having a competitor get such a huge name could prove financially suicidal.
  • Just imagine, for one moment, that “company A” gets job.ca and markets it, all over the country. How are all the other job boards supposed to counter that? That’s why every job board will likely bid way up to make sure they secure what will become the biggest “job-related” web address, in Canada.
• Employment agencies
  • For any serious canadian employment agency, winning the job.ca auction would mean almost instant gains, in terms of lucrative new customers.
• Universities, colleges
  • All educational institutions, in Canada, have placement services which, in many ways, are a vital cornerstone of their ongoing success. If students get a job once they graduate, more people will buy their education programs. It’s that simple!
  • By getting their hands on job.ca, a placement service could benefit from untold publicity, prestige and instant credibility. Year after year. Basically forever. This is the hottest investment they can ever make.
  • And the job.ca domain name will likely go up in value, forever.
  • By all means, this is a blue chip domain name.
• Large employers
  • Canada counts some of the richest employers on Earth and as such, they’d love to grab the job.ca domain name for their own job-related promotion activities.
  • People instantly understand that a given employer is at the very top if it uses job.ca, the shortest and most powerful job domain name ever to be registered, in the country… even before the CIRA was created!

Among the bidders for job.ca, expect to find bankers who understand cornerstone domain names are a new form of highly valuable currency that goes up in value all the time. It’s highly portable and generates revenue on its own.

Domain name speculators might also feel the urge to chip in because if they win the job.ca domain name, they might be able to auction it off for much more, the next day. Potential buyers who missed the name the first time (and again, it would be unwise to ignore this historic auction) will basically go all out the second time around to get it so if a speculator gets the name, there’s a good chance a new record will be set shortly after the anticipated record bid, on the first auction at MyID, June 24-25, 2009.

These are exciting times, indeed.

While people realize the economy may have slowed down a bit, it changes nothing to the fundamentals. Employers want to find talented people and workers are looking for jobs. And both meet at job.ca. Naturally. It’s intuitive.

If you’re looking to buy up one super-valuable domain name this year, job.ca is most likely it.

Nothing spells unlimited profits like the job market which generates untold billions of dollars, per year, in Canada alone. Job.ca is a golden bridge, or so to speak, to one of the most, if not the most, lucrative market, ever.

There’s no question people all over the world, and especially Canada, know the true value of the job.ca domain name. It’ll be very exciting to see who gets the name and consequently, crushes the competition by using the most intuitive, memorable, credible and timeless Canadian job-related name ever to have been registered.

Tags: job.ca, job, job-related, canada, canadian, domain, name, domain name, domains, domainers, domaining, domain investment, domain blue chip, myid, myid.ca, myid auction, myid domain name auction, the biggest name ever auctioned in canada, canada’s biggest domain name, biggest auction ever, canadian namespace, cira, job.bc.ca, job.ab.ca, job.sk.ca, job.mb.ca, job.on.ca, job.qc.ca, job.nb.ca, job.ns.ca, job market, canada’s job domain name, auction in june, 2009

Worthy names changing hands privately

When you own a valuable domain name, the question of wether to use it for a given project, park it for future use, rent it to a third party or sell it eventually needs to be properly addressed.

Most domainers agree it’s best to launch a value-added and contextually-relevant web destination for every single domain name in their portfolio but with only 24h in a day, that might be hard to do with a more sizeable group of names.

So the next best option for busy domainers might be to use their domains as pay-per-click landers. DomainSponsor (for Google ads) and DotzUp (for Yahoo! ads) do a good job at that but it’s also possible to whip up your very own landing page. Like any kind of web design, it’s time consuming but if you do it right, the PPC revenues could be worth your while.

If landers aren’t bringing in enough money, you can always look to rent your domains to interested parties. For instance, any medical condition followed by a .com might be a worthy natural visitor generator for pharmaceutical companies. When such deals are inked, it’s usually for several years which bring you significant recurring revenues. And best of all, you remain the owner for the rented domain name!

In the last resort, domainers will look to sell their domain names. The most valuable ones stand to bring in the most revenue but from an emotional standpoint, they’re the hardest to part with.

Selling domain names you’ve owned for a while isn’t easy because evaluating the fair value can be tricky. Furthermore, some domains might become more valuable in the future, for all sorts of reasons so selling them early at a discounted price might sound good in the short term but prove to be a profoundly frustrating sell in the long term.

Newbie domainers like to evaluate past domain name transactions to put a price on their own but web sites such as DNJournal, DN Sale Price and Sold Names might not tell the whole story. They do a good job at keeping the score for publicly announced transactions but since most valuable domains change hand privately nowadays, it’s increasingly hard to know the real value “on the street” for domain names.

At the end of the day, many domainers simply go with their gut feeling to match a name with its fair price. Even if the price sounds right to the sellers’ ears, prospective buyers will always attempt to get the name for next to nothing, offering ridiculous amounts like 100$ or 1,000$ (depending on the name) and eventually settle closer to the fair price, which might be multiples higher than the initial offering.

Domainers with good negotiation skills, especially over the phone, will likely get more for their domains than those who attempt to hide and negotiate poorly. Domaining has become a business and selling names is just one more part of a bigger ensemble.

What smart domainers need to keep in mind is that once they sell a valuable domain, they might never have the money to buy it back as the new owner will likely develop it and therefore add significant value to it. As a rule of thumb, remember that if you sell a name, it’s because you -really- want to. There’s no “undo” in a domain name sale.

Finally, don’t be surprised if the buyer requests that you keep the transaction private, usually in exchange for a premium. That’s the way the most valuable domain name sales happen. It mainly has to do with rich companies not wanting to set precedents of paying top dollars for domains and then, having to pay even more for their next similar purchases. This logic might also extend to entire industries, like banking which is known to keep transaction details as private as possible.

Good luck with making the most of your domain name portfolio!

Tags: domain name monetization, make money with domains, selling domain names, sold domains, domain name sale, pay-per-click, ppc, monetization, landing pages, landers, parking pages, domainers, domaining, valuing domains, domain names worth, worthy domains

Details about the new extensions

The 26th of June, 2008 will probably be remembered as the day the ICANN, gathered in Paris, France, decided to allow for an unlimited number of domain name extensions to be created by registrars (not individuals).

Here’s what registrars need to create a new domain name extension, under the recently approved ICANN recommendation:

• A good idea for the extension (such as “.gaming” or anything else, really);
• Money, ranging from 150k$ to 500k$… or more;
• The networking resources to support the new extension’ management.

So that’s basically it — the ICANN will likely receive a considerable number of proposals by interested registrars, some of which might be industry leaders like Ebay looking to launch a .ebay for anything relating to online auctions. Such speculation might not last too long, though. The ICANN has said new domain name extensions might be approved as soon as early 2009 (there are talks about the second quarter of the year).

Technically, there will be a limited application period where any established entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will go through an evaluation process. It is already anticipated that there will be additional rounds relatively soon after the close of the first application round for those who will wait along the lines to see how the first round pans out.

Trademark lawyers might have a lot of work defending the established brands in these new extension spaces since they won’t be automatically reserved. There will, however, be an objection-based mechanism for trademark owners where their arguments for protection will be considered. Needless to say this will cost a lot in terms of time, energy and money.

The same kind of logic applies to offensive names that’ll be subject to an objection-based process based on public morality and order. This process will be conducted by an international arbitration body utilizing criteria drawing on provisions in a number of international treaties. The ICANN will not be the decision maker on these objections.

This proposal has been in the works for a while and as such, the ICANN has a multi-stakeholder policy development process that served as the foundation for the process design. It involved consultation with domain name industry, trade mark attorneys, the business sector, users, governments and technicians. There might be a few adjustments here and there, along the way but the basic idea of opening up the number of domain name extension is set to change the domaining landscape in still unforeseen ways.

The potential is huge for almost everybody. Those who play the new domain name game with the most flair stand to win the most. If you missed out on the big .com landrush back in 1995, 1996 and 1997, the launch of new domain name extensions in 2009 will probably be your second chance and nailing the hottest domains online, when they become available.

One might even say that the potential is downright exponential. Take the case of the already discussed extension for New York City dubbed .nyc, there will be people looking to register the word “tourism” in every popular language, followed by .nyc, such as tourism.nyc, tourisme.nyc and turismo.nyc, to name just a few.

All domainers should immediately make plans to profit from this new extension multiplication era. Hopefully, you’ll be part of those who come out on top when the dust settles!

Tags: icann, new extension recommendation, domain names, domains, extensions, dot anything, .nyc, new york city, paris, france, domaining, domainers, legal names, offensive names, trademarked names, branded names, trademark lawyers

Huge growth expected for new extensions

There nothing like bad debt to force non-profits, like the ICANN, into dubious decisions which are, in the end, motivated almost entirely by greed, whatever the risks to “the rest” of the business model.

The ICANN has announced its plans to greatly expand the domain name extension market, way beyond .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .name and such, to include just about anything a registrar is ready to pay between 150k$ to 500k$ for.

So we might assist to a giant IT business like IBM, for instance, paying the ICANN to establish a new domain name extension labeled “.ibm” which could then be resold to anyone interested in paying the yearly registration fee, which would be likely left entirely to the discretion of the registrar.

Imagine an online web where almost anything of any significance has its own domain name extension — it could get very confusing, very fast. As soon as early 2009, actually since that’s when the ICANN plans to fast track the approval for such extensions. The astute domainer should therefore understand that the ICANN needs lots of new money, fast.

Name extensions like .london, .melbourne, .islands, .vehicles, .loveable, .unbelievable and just about anything out there are expected to pop up faster than we can count them, changing the online landscape forever.

The ICANN believes in “choice and opportunity” as the two main lines of thought behind their move but the idea of letting registrars expand the domain name extension pool ad infinitum also holds great risks of overly diluting the current domain name extension momentum.

Individuals won’t be allowed to establish new domain name extensions as only companies with very deep pockets and the resources to operate such a service will be fast tracked through the approval process. Under these conditions, it’s obvious that Network Solutions and GoDaddy, to name only those, will be well positioned to launch a slew of domain name extensions.

Forget the principle of fairness in the creation of these extensions. The ICANN has decided to unilaterally favor the rich registrars because this, for all useful purposes, is a huge money grab for the folks at ICANN who will surely vote themselves a nice salary increase to cover for the added workload of managing this new mess. If university students want to study a case where a non-profit corporation ditches coherence in favor of sheer greed, this is it.

From a legal standpoint, if you have a brand that you need to protect in the digital realm, expect to be financially fleeced out by the seemingly never-ending multiplication of domain name extensions, in the years to come. Keep in mind that the ICANN has no “overall” rule that’ll protect your brand within all domain name extensions since every single registrar may rule over their extension as they please. So unless you want to be sending nasty cease and desist letters all the time, paying your lawyer premium fees to do so, you’ll probably end up buying out your brand name in all of these extensions — in both cases, the ICANN has setup a system where almost everybody has to become paranoid about protecting their brand.

Examples abound. Think of Apple Computer. They have their “apple.just-about-anything” brand established worldwide but what happens when .london pops up. They’ll probably want to buy apple.london. And then, what if 250 more popular european cities pop up. Apple will almost certainly want to buy apple.paris, apple.lyon, apple.rome (or apple.roma, for the locals) and if certain cities don’t see their extension purchased by such industry heavyweights, will they turn their back on them? For instance, if Apple chooses not to buy apple.prague, will the people living in Prague see this as an offensive gesture?

This is just one example among countless others that’ll make domaining a new, uncharted world of utter confusion, frustration and exploding costs.

Some domainers might get their hands on interesting domain names, like gamers.london or visiting.london but overall, there’s no guarantee these new extensions will draw natural visitors. The mainline .com will likely remain “king of the hill” for many years to come -but- seeing the failure of the much hyped .biz might send a chill down the back of those registrars who feel they can push any extension down potential domain owners’ throats.

It’s already expected that some of these new domain name extensions will be more attractive —and expensive— than others but if the ICANN allows for a seemingly uncontrolled expansion of the extension pool, it’ll almost certainly backfire and the internet, as a relatively healthy entity, could be hardly hit.

Let’s hope for the best with this latest ICANN move but at the same time, let’s also (discreetly) brace for a bumpy ride.

Tags: icann, new domain name extensions, new extensions, registrars, domain names, domains, domainers, domaining, rich registrars, expensive extensions, greed, internet, naming system, root dns, new names approval

Hot market for domain names

Domainers have known this for quite a while but now, the mainstream business world is now taking a second look at the hot market for domain names.

CNN recently published an article about the current state of the domaining business and by all means, it’s on a roll.

The article describes how two domainers, Larry Fisher and his financial backer, Ari Goldberger, battle for the highest bid to land prestigious domains, like “megayachts.com” for a cool 150,000$. During the online bid, Larry and Ari are on the phone discussing ways to land the names they value most. Larry does the bidding from his laptop and Ari runs some background research on the coveted names.

This dynamic “Larry & Ari” duo is the only team of tech-savvy netrepreneurs looking to bank on the rush to buy up quality “type in” domain names.

The better the domain, the more chances web surfers will directly navigate to it, entirely bypassing the search engines while providing a healthy (pay-per-click) revenue stream for the domainers owning the name.

Services such as DomainSponsor, DotzUp and Parked help domainers monetize their domain name portfolio. Their services are especially useful when a domainer owns many domains and can’t optimize them all — external help then makes perfect sense.

The industry is estimated to be generating 2 billion dollars, just related to the buying and selling of domain names. That number is expected to explode to a whopping 4 billion dollars, by 2010. Not too bad for an industry that’s not even a decade old. Needless to point out how exciting this is for domainers, especially those who happen to already own quality web names.

Since domain names are inherently unique, domainvestors see them as a stake in the online world, a virtual real estate lot, if you will. The “.com” names stand to win the most from this growth but different names can have regional (such as “job.ca“) or vanity value (like “greatest.name“) as well.

If a name is bound to be naturally typed in by users, it has value. In a web 2.0 era, perhaps a name like “staffr.com” will someday rise up to become an online brand. Invented words fare well with millions of users looking to explore new business concepts and ways to connect with one another. Domain names are often the foundation for entire business concepts. A name like “flickr.com” proves that point quite well.

If you’re looking to join the millions of domain name owners who are participating in this massive “virtual land grab”, it costs a mere about 8$ per year (everything included) to have a “.com” name. Once you’ve purchased all those you like (which happened to be available), you can sign-up (for free) with DomainSponsor, DotzUp or Parked so they can help you monetize your domain name portfolio — until you figure out what kind of web destinations you’d like to turn you names into.

Happy domaining, everyone!

Tags: domain names, domains, domainers, domaining, monetize, pay-per-click

Traffic 2007 in Las Vegas

Savvy domainers already know their domain names need to be continuously optimized to yield the highest possible revenues, especially when they’re configured to display a pay-per-click lander.

The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2007 domain conference and exposition, held from March 5th to the 8th, at The Venitian Hotel, in Las Vegas, intends to shed even more light on how to fully monetize domain names. If you can’t attend this conference, two more are scheduled, in Miami and in New York. Indeed, it’s a busy conferencing year for domainers!

Conferencewise, Traffic 2007 has quite a lineup, featuring Adam Dicker from High Impact Sites, Ammar Kubba from TrafficZ.com, Dan Warner from Fabulous, Jordan Rohan from RBC Capital Markets, Mathew Bentley from SEDO, Monte Cahn from Moniker, Ron Jackson from DNJournal and Robert Hoult from InterSearch, to name just a few.

You can also browse the event’s full list of sponsors and participants (which includes the rapidly growing Parked.com landing pages provider) to get an idea of who will move and shake when the show floor opens up!

After all, this event is about bringing the most active and serious domainers to meet, discuss and do some domaining business, in a comfortable setting.

Tags: traffic, domain name conference, domain expo, domainers, domaining, las vegas

DomainFest Global kicks off in Hollywood

Set in the glitzy entertainment capital of the world, the much awaited DomainFest Global gathering brings together domainers who look to network among themselves but also and, probably most importantly, monetize their valuable online properties.

It’s no secret, the domain name landing page industry has helped “liquidate” clicks from the major search engines’ pay-per-click business for the last few years and it seems that relationship is only going to get better as those landing pages get upgraded, over time, to content visitors will want to bookmark and hopefully come back for.

More quality clicks is good for everyone. Domain name owners, domain name landing page operators (if relevant) and pay-per-click advertising services all get their share of the booming domaining business.

For instance, DomainSponsor which is presenting this event at the Renaissance Hotel, offers a domain name landing page service to anybody looking to monetize their domain portfolio, may it be one quality name or more. Their service includes access to their smart landing page technology which continuously updates the content shown to visitors based, in part, on the historical preferences. More targeted links usually lead to higher conversion into valid clicks, by visitors. Overall, a typical domainer can point hundreds of domain names to DomainSponsor and have them manage the content which is presented to the type-in visitors, which usually turns out to be quite profitable for both parties.

The event sponsor list reads like the who’s who of the domain name business, such as Bank of America (who financed Oversee.net, DomainSponsor’s parent company, to the tune of 60M$, a few weeks back), Casale Media, Sedo, Klickerz, .mobi, Ask, LookSmart, Studley, Marchex, Name.com, eurodns, iMonetize, WebMoney, CPX Interactive, Miva, SnapNames, Jeffries, .asia, Domain Capital, Domainer’s Magazine, Circle ID, Skenzo, Logic Boxes and Afilias.

Contentwise, DomainFest Global addresses both the broader industry concerns and in-depth training for individual domainers, which makes it interesting for everyone. The concept of “portfolio productivity” is also on the menu as more advanced monetization approaches require more work to “make the clicking magic happen”, so to speak.

For those who look to update their contact rolodex, the event’s speakers listing page might come in handy. There aren’t any e-mails or phone numbers in the page but there’s a nice bio and that usually enough to locate (read: to “google”) the contact data.

I can’t attend the event by I sure would’ve liked to meet with Lawrence Ng, CEO and co-founder of Oversee.net who is a USC graduate with both a knack for business administration and domaining.

Industry trends, pertaining to the domain business, include big name mergers, more useful content libraries on landing pages, more sophisticated monetization schemes such as sign-ups, e-stores, contests, news and full-blown web destinations.

If the past years saw lots of generic landing pages with more or less relevant links shown to visitors, expect the future “landers” to be a lot more bookmarkable because the new name of the landing page game is “repeat business” or, in this case, quality visitors shopping for their ideal solutions, from lists of providers who pay to be seen.

With events like DomainSponsor’s DomainFest Global, the domain name monetization industry is gaining serious momentum.

Tags: domainfest, domainsponsor, domaining, domainers, domain festival, hollywood