We obtained a lot of new information so it’s going to take a month of reviewing it and focusing on building a “hot list” of FT domains that are in the forefront of maturing either now or very soon.  It seems that “cloud” adj/noun is a great for a domain, except that there aren’t any decent variations of this word as a phrase that is left for purchase OOTB. (I checked,      )

However, for my readers and FT samurai, I am giving specific info to assist you in what areas to focus on for “fast sales”. Successclick.com is getting four figure offers daily on several of our solar domains. The buyers are “reaching” and hoping to get them cheap, but all FT domainers know that Solar domains are actually here, and I’d say were about 50% matured into the mainstream consciousness, both consumer and commerce.  This makes many of them at least low to mid level five figure domain names.

I want to thank those FT domainers who took the time to present their domains, include a bio with some relevant links, to allow us to build a nice PDF directory out of all the information that describes what the FT domains are, and will be, in the future.  After we analyze the results, we might send out an idea form for our members to email us on ideas they may have to make the auction better, easier, which categories they think we should focus on, or should we break up each auction to include at least five major FT trend categories:  Solar, 3D, Wind, Electric, Apps, Alt. Energy, and others.

In the meantime, to show those people we don’t just have FT Domains,  we’re cleaning house, and you might like a domain or two for the price stated:

PatientServices.net                                $199

KneeBoarder.net                                    $299

WebCompanies.net                               $499

NetMediaPartners.com                        $199

PersonalInjuryAssociates.com           $599

SamoaResort.com                                   $79

Traderville.com                                     $599

Verifree.com                                          $3500

JudgementCollector.com                    $299

CatherineOwen.com                            $299

GlobalTechCenter.com                        $199

Of course, any domain can be “negotiated” but the best way to buy domains here is to buy two or more and get an automatic 25% reduction on the combined price. Our domains sell quick, we require payments made through our Verified Paypal Account at: dotplanners@yahoo.com

All you need to do is email us with the domains you want, say “SOLD” and make a payment within 24 hours of our email acknowledgement of your picks.

AND, don’t forget, the Snapnames private auction on your domains runs for another few weeks. so your domain could sell still. If you had more great FT domains, a better, more organized versioon of the Future Trend Domain Auction™ will be held sometime in January 2012.  Don’t burn your shorts!  Let’s get everything ready, work together, and prove the naysayers —- wrong.

Have fun everybody!
Cheers!

Most large domain companies (no names need to be mentioned) have “switched it up” for us domainers, because everyone knows how soul-less corporations work. It’s “let’s get rid of all those employees who treat our clients well, but bend rules just a bit to make them happy, and although forming great bonds with those customers, large and small, they may not be making our company the extra dollar we would like based on possible penalties, mistakes, miscues, fines, additional fees, etc. that we can legally extract from those customers, and that will add profits to our shareholders bottom line..”

Most corporate financial analysts of the heartless kind (oops, that was redundant) know one thing:  EXCISE ANY EMPLOYEE THAT HAS CODDLING FRIENDSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS WHO DON”T BRING IN REVENUE IN SIX FIGURES ANNUALLY. Warn them to keep kissing butt for those six-figure customers, but anyone less, they now have to toe the corporate line “because, that’s what the rules are, and the powers that be demand it.”  Then the next sentences you start hearing regularly are “Sorry, I don’t have the power to change this because upper management is bearing down.” uh huh.  (Translation: “I vaz only followink owrdaz”)

We all have our personal experiences in dealing with “new” employees who replaced those employees we became friends with and who bent over backwards to repair our stupidity and literally saved us tens of thousands of dollars or more in our relationships with the company even though yearly, we bring in thousands of dollars for them.

Things have changed across the board for most domain registrars and domain companies that provide multiple services, backed up with millions of dollars of venture capital and tens of thousands of expired domains they’ve captured from their customers who didn’t pull it together in time.

Ironically, we all make money from those domains that are put up for auction from this sad situation, but we still pay the companies who “nabbed” the deleted domains we buy from their own customers. The sad part is that the companies taking these domains from their customers is like telling your best friend that you are taking their $1500 stereo because that $100 they owe you hasn’t been paid, and you’ve given them enough warning. We’ll hear a “fake sorry”, but business is business.

Most Registrars and Multi-Purpose Domain companies have become:

1) Acquisition monsters
2) Removers of customer-favoring policy executives
3) Shifters or removers of “favorite customer service reps”
4) And with #1 above, very suspicious of any executive or customer representative who have built up a large list of customers who like working with the company thanks to that one representative working there.

(From what I’m told and what I have experienced, only Fabulous.com does NOT snatch up their customers’ domains when they expire).

But the new corporate dickwads running these domain companies don’t consider that, they only consider “bottom line” and the “stockholders” where each PENNY counts. Long gone are the friendly connections many of us domain pioneers built up over the years.

I can’t tell you how many times each major domain company I’ve worked with have eliminated the people I worked with who saved my ass when I needed it, who spent an inordinate amount of  time on issues I needed fixed, who bent the rules that saved me big profits because I screwed up, or who were receptive of new suggestions and ideas to make their company’s business run better.

None of us can say that our business sense has been perfect, or that we’ve been on top of every detail of our game when it was imperative. That’s when our customer representative and upstairs executive came in and showed that real people still worked in this secretive, burgeoning industry.

For all that I know, and my experience in many businesses throughout my life, I would give the ultimate reward for best customer/client representation for their company to Mike Robertson, formerly of Fabulous.com, and now of DomainGuardians.com.

Mike Robertson has risen above any other customer service rep that I’ve worked with since 1999, and truthfully, 20 years before that.  He has saved my portfolio many times, and from discussions with some of my high-powered domainer friends in this industry, there’s no denying this.  They have had the same favorable experience with Mikey.

So, in my Viking Bonfire Awards, I give Mikey the “Giant Bollars” Award of the Century. (“Bollars” means “balls” in Swedish… yeah, I give it a Viking term because Vikings were MEN. and it’s the title of a MAN who is bigger than the company he works for.)

Mikey “Giant Bollars” Robertson.

If we domainers, which I estimate to be around 10,000, submit our domains for auction and flood the market, we probably can sell most of our domains for the lowest price possible to a well-funded domain conglomerate or well-respected domain individual.

Yep. That’s right. Most of the buyers of our domains will be other domainers looking for a good deal. “Buy low, sell high” is the correct mantra, and even selling low for many of us is okay because we’ve already bought lower if we bought our domains “out of the basket” (registered).

In these times where some of the most powerful domain names are still not sold to the appropriate corporate buyers, what hope do we domainers have that companies will want our keyword generic domains that market and sell their products and services? We don’t have much hope for that, BUT, if the BIG domain industry buyers have unabashed cash coffers, they can lure us in and suck up our good domains for pennies on the dollar. Their investment probably will triple or quadruple in less than two years, but what do we care if we can make 1000% on a domain we sell? (The math goes like this: If you buy a domain for $7.50, a 1000% return would be selling that domain for $750. If I sold all my domains in my portfolio today for $750, I would pocket around $2,265,000. If anyone is interested in seeing my 3500 domains and can afford this pricing, contact me now! However, my appraisal of my portfolio is three times this amount, but who would turn down this kind of money?)

With the quickly rising stock of Domainfest 2008 (probably the new Big Dawg Domain Conference now) which be held in Los Angeles, California from January 21-23, 2008, there are many questions for domainers to ask. The answers just might tickle our fancy more than we expected. Before the Moniker acquisition by Oversee (by now old news), my guess was that most auctions were already geared towards bidders from the domain industry, and not marketing directors from Fortune 1000 companies. I’d like to see one comment from a domain auction house holding auctions in the next few months that list all or even 10 of the “Fortune 1000 Companies” who will be participating in their auctions. This business market is the domainer’s most important source of buyers — and there is no argument that can deny it.

Just how much money have domain auction services invested in contacting and educating marketing directors from companies who would best benefit and pay the highest prices for our domains? Which domain auction services have taken this extra step? Are they just hoping we’ll lower our reserve prices so that the domain conglomerates and big domainers will be able to pick off our valuable domains for cheap because we might need the cash? Maybe. The domain auction services get their percentage, and it’s better for them to seduce us to lower our reserves, and then sweet talk the big domain buyers into placing their bids to nab the “diamonds in the dirt”. Your diamonds.

Just how many domains in the last year have sold for a price that made the seller REALLY think they got the most from their domain’s value? It’s a hard fact to compile, but I have a feeling that there are a lot of domain sellers out there who wish they didn’t put their domains into any auctions in 2007. Take the domain, Dine.mobi. At the Domain Roundtable Conference 2007 auction, it went for only $5,000. FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS? Just one bidder. For a high popularity, four letter, perfect mobile location reference domain? That, my secret readers, was highway robbery. The problem was that there weren’t enough quality bidders outside the domain industry involved in the auction. That problem is a huge nasty tornado to tame.

That’s only one story. I’m sure there are hundreds more. Kudos to those who bought cheap from these auctions. Condolences for those who sold cheap at these auctions, expecting more but really getting less because the facts are this: The domain auction houses are NOT reaching the markets YOU need to reach to increase the bidding prices on your domains. As far as I know, only Monte Cahn and Victor Pitts from Moniker have taken the time to contact outside business conferences to hold live domain auctions at their events in an attempt to educate (and sell) valuable domains relevant to other internet services, like adult and dating sites. Now, Oversee will control the Moniker Marketing Monolith and the Snapnames Superior Systems of auctioning off domains. They seem to be our only hope now for selling our domains for reasonable prices. Will they step up to the plate and hit a home run for all the domainers out there who are selling? Or are they hoping to satisfy the few big power players ready to snap up domains on the cheap?

I don’t mean to be the guy who bums out the party guests, but who will deny me my opinion? Good luck for those with domains in any auctions this year. I will see what my domains selected for the Domainfest LDA will sell for, and then depending on the outcome, I’ll write an article with love in my heart or bitterness in my gizzard. Domains of mine that were selected to be auctioned at Domainfest are LeakPrevention.com, AirlineFares.net, RacingDogs.com, and HeavyDutyBattery.com. Please, those of you with big cash, go bid on those domains and help the “Stephen Douglas Legal Fund”.

Peaceout for 2008!