If anyone knows of the best way to park 1500 domains, not great PPC domains but pretty good generics and branding domains, I’d love to hear your comments on it.

Unless the PPC company has transparent PPC rev share info, I’d rather hear about the multiple-path monetization companies.(I don’t put all my eggs in one basket).

Thanks for your help on this. I’m sure hundreds of other domainers will appreciate your input too!

Don’t forget to visit TitleDomains.com for some great inexpensive generics for sale. Get your picks before they’re gone!

REFERENCE:

Andrew Allemann
January 29th, 2012 | 7:14 pm
@ Stephen Douglas -

“That’s not true. You can file a trademark anytime. You can even file an “intent to use” trademark before you even start using it in commerce.”

My response to Andrew is posted here:

@ Andrew,

My experience over the last 25 years is that the TM won’t be registered in your name until you’ve used it in commerce publicly, and within the geographic area of your TM visibility, until five years.

You can file with the USPTO all you want, but it doesn’t mean you have a TM on the name just because you “filed”, or will be given the TM for it. Many companies file for the TM thinking this will scare off competitors, but if they haven’t used the TM phrase publicly, they’re not going to get the TM issued to them.

However, promoting the phrase publicly with the “TM” mark is the first move you need to make to secure your timeline of usage of the TM phrsae in commerce. Like I said, I’m not an atty, but I’ve won three TM contests in the last 25 years using this process as advised by my atty back in the 80′s.

Also, don’t hesitate “challenging” usage of your TM phrase, because even six months of a competitor using the exact TM phrase, even your company name, is too long to wait to secure your rights to the name. That one I lost… the story is too unbelievable and long to tell here, but the judge’s ruling was basically this: “If you have a TM name being usurped, you need to file a C&D or lawsuit against them in a timely manner, so they don’t invest money and time in using the identical phrase. The defendant in this case has already invested significant amounts of money and has many respondents with their families who are now invested in the defendant’s use of the name of your company.  Six months of no legal action shows this court that complainant was not vigilant to protect their company’s name.”

Thus, another company was able to continue stealing our company’s name and identity, in my same space, copying my company’s name that had been in use for three years. They even lured a past winner of our shows to represent them… which we found out was done with a lot of cash. Everyone has their price, I guess.

Filing for a TM immediately isn’t going to get you the TM. You have to show usage. You have to fight other entities trying to get in on your “genre” using your domain name. Otherwise, cash heavy companies could find thousands of startup companies “defining phrases”, and simply buy out the TM listing from under those companies. That’s not how it works, thankfully.

Wonder what all domain atty’s we know would say about this. It’s a very important part of keeping your most valuable domains safe and secure, so all of you domain buyers who think you are safe from being reverse hijacked, think again. And if Andrew is right in his assertions, you all lose your domains to the companies with the most money to steal TM phrases by just paying for “filing”.

Nope. But it’s close. The biggest con happening now will affect domain sales to large companies, even if it’s only for a short time. This involves a simple Facebook advertising link that companies (or their ad agencies) are using, trying to “expand” their client’s reach, without realizing that Facebook is MARKETING THE FACEBOOK BRAND FIRST.  I’ll explain this later on in this article.

First, a little history of Facebook. Launched in February, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has presented its seemingly innocent but clearly addictive website to the world, and millions have responded, thinking that having a system of sharing everything in their lives, including photos, messages, likes, dislikes, marital status, education, entertainment and basically anything a user could reveal about themselves to their friends and family and private people (if that’s their choice), would be safe. All this information about themselves would be kept private and open only to those people they wanted. *Zuckerberg snicker*

Facebook is now the premiere place for socializing, and it’s a magnet for sucking personal information out of you much more than you would want people outside your “inner circle” to know. Most of us would like our private information available ONLY to those we consider trusted and close to us. (Even that’s questionable. Just watch a few episodes of “Judge Judy” to watch people be bashed in the face by the crass and destructive nature  of their lovers, coworkers, friends and family who think destroying a relationship with you is worth $1,500 and a chance to permanently embarrass their names and faces on national TV.  Just think of the syndication rotation of these episodes, which I’ve seen sold on DVD, and replayed as “repeats” dating back to 2006. Facebook will hold all your info, photos, comments etc forever, even after you “close” your acct with them.)

How did this Pandora’s Box come about? Unfortunately, Facebook was “FREE”. No cost. Why is this unfortunate?  Because Faceb00k used the well-known trick of drug dealers by giving new customers their addictive wares for free or very cheap to get you “hooked”. So Zuckmeister built up a huge following for his “free” socializing service – using tactics at the beginning most of us would call “unethical”.  Now, the lure of “free” friend and family searching (sending the clunky “Classmates.com” to “Social-Outcast-land”) will come back to haunt those who’ve drank the Facebook Kool Aid.   The idea of having your  desire to be “accepted” back in high school struck a chord with even those who still want that past glory  into their “Senior” years.

Yet, nobody seemed to ask: How would Facebook and Zuck the Schmuck recover their costs and make money off the now close to 1 BILLION people registered with them?

Then comes the BIG BOMBSHELL – which exploded fairly quietly, spreading pieces of your private information shrapnel out into the unregulated corporate world. International companies, including magazines, auto manufacturers, clothing companies, discount warehouses and thousands more companies who suddenly became a part of your life without you even knowing it. They’ve got your photos. They’ve got your last few vacation info, including names of your guests, hosts, family members you’ve visited. They have your loves and likes.

Yes, you may not know it because they don’t broadcast it back to you, but every link of a FB advertiser you clicked opened up your “private” Facebook account to that company.  That company that advertised their Facebook link to you, and you clicked, have downloaded all your pics, comments, and personal information into their own database. Faceb0ok hasn’t really “sold” this info to them. Facebook sold their advertisers on how to “trick” FB users to innocently click on the advertising link connected to the company’s Facebook page.  Bingo! All your “private” info with FB is now available to that always-present and problematic “third party”.

I read about an amazing topic called “Marketing Myopia” on BusinessDictionary.com a few weeks back. The concept of marketing myopia was discussed in an article (titled “Marketing Myopia,” in July-August 1960 issue of the Harvard Business Review) by Harvard Business School emeritus professor of marketing, Theodore C. Levitt (1925-2006), who suggests that companies get trapped in this situation because they omit to ask the vital question, “What business are we in?“

For companies who are drinking the Facebook “Kook-Aid” (that’s not a misspelling), are not looking at the long run risk they make on allowing another company to control their brand (Facebook). When a company spends millions of dollars putting out a national commercial, which at the end of the commercial shows the company’s “Facebook” link… the first brand seen is FACEBOOK. The actual company running the commercial has their brand run SECOND, a huge no-no in Madision Avenue circles, except old style ethical advertising and marketing seems to have gone the way of Wall Street – Greed, quick payouts, what can we do to make big moves to benefit our short term stockholder expectations?

According to BusinessDictionary.com for “marketing myopia” is “A short-sighted and inward looking approach to marketing that focuses on the needs of the company instead of defining the company and its products in terms of the customers’ needs and wants. It results in the failure to see and adjust to the rapid changes in their markets.

What’s amazing is that even marketing experts have a word for people working for companies that choose to go old school, and when they decide to go “New Media”, they actually don’t do their homework first, and end up jumping on a dangerous “Badwagon” that will come back and haunt them later.

Just think.  A killer prodserv generic domain for a company might cost them $1 million for one year, but the maintenance of that domain is only $10 a year. Add to that the fact that millions of people will recognize the prodserv generic domain, equate that domain WITH the company that owns it, and get as smart as J&J with “baby.com” and Barnes & Noble with Books.com and Book.com.  These are just the basic realities that most domain analysts understand and try to promote in order to try to show smaller companies that their investment in a domain name is more valuable than taking out a magazine ad, or a TV commercial. Those ads are done in weeks to months, maybe even days.

However, buying a generic descriptive prodserv domain name relevant to the company’s prodservs is an “appreciable marketing asset”, which means, the money the company spends on a working marketing vehicle (medium) maintains and even appreciates in value the price paid for the domain name, even as that domain name enrages your competitors (oh, they try to use their similar phrases that match the domains you own, and all they are doing is promoting your domain.).

For example, every time Borders put out ads using the word “book” or “books”, all they were doing was promoting B&N’s domains, “book.com” and “books.com”. This is just logical marketing progression. I think Borders finally went out of business.

For a good indicator of how important prodserv domains are for a business, there isn’t any company that has ever “rssold” their generic descriptive prodserv domains, unless that company was going out of business. And how would you like, as a business owner, to be able to make a profit on a domain name you bought, that’s been working for you since you bought it, and now the domain name is worth twice what you paid for it?

That’s the reality of domain name power. Using Facebook to STEAL that power from a company is plain crazy, and illogical. Any marketing director who allows their business to be listed as “second fiddle” to Facebook in their advertising needs to quickly STOP this practice, or be fired. No company needs some wimp buying into “social networking” without giving their company TOP BILLING.

The next time you watch a national network commercial, and see some sucker company ending their commercial with the tagline:  “Visit us at “FACEBOOK.COM/xxxxxcereal”, just think about the loss of that company’s brand, and the free exposure and continued trickery by FB by luring in marketing directors with the promise of providing “all the private info we have on those FB users/consumers” we have all over the world.

Don’t bet against the fact those “innocent users’ will someday find out that they’ve been tricked into letting major corporations download everything personal about their lives just by simply clicking on those companies’ advertised “facebook” links.

Remember, when a person clicks an adlink for a an ad-permission paying company using Facebook who gets that cash, that FB users is agreeing to release EVERYTHING about themselves to this THIRD PARTY — and this THIRD PARTY is paying FB for this right to obtain all info about the FB users who click the advertiser’s link. Just read the FB TOS to find that release by the user to allow this.

Be careful, and remember that generic descriptive domain names are simple, but powerful, backbranding power marketing moves online, and that a purchase of a domain name doesn’t diminish in value, and in fact, gains value the longer you use it.

I’d read this blog over again to understand exactly what was said here.

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!  (But first login using your “FACEBOOK” info)

It’s going to be obvious to everyone within a year or two that the domains featured in the first Future Trend Domain Auction™ were worth five to twenty times their asking price, and for those with no reserve… kick yourself for not bidding.

The future is now, and what is known today as “common word and phrases” that sell for significant amounts of money, will be joined by “future trend” domain words and phrases shortly. The reality is that common usage of a prodserv term, whether it’s a one word natural or a 2-3 word descriptive generic phrase, will change in the future because new products and trends appear every month and year.

If you bought the word “cloudcomputing.com” back in 1999, domainers wouldn’t give you more than $100 for it. Imagine its value today.

You laughed like I did when I first saw a domain name regarding printing food in 3D. Now I’m not laughing, and neither will you when you find out that this will be the biggest 3D product on the market within a year.

Forget about your limited research on 3D, thinking that it only applies to television and movie features. It doesn’t, although soon it will. If that link doesn’t spark your interest, this one will.

And to freak yourself out, try this one about car design by 3D.

Although I heard of many negative comments about the Future Trend Domain Auction™, I didn’t see them because they were based on ignorance, and I don’t have time for ignorance. Those who commented negatively either fell into two camps:

1) “Dang, I didn’t get any future trend domains to submit, and I don’t/didn’t have the time to actually look into this area of domain investing. Better go to a blog and make fun of those domains I didn’t understand.”

2) “Dang, I heard about investing in FT domains, but never really learned how to buy domains. This is my first domain investment run, and I just started buying without knowing what the hell I was doing. I thought I’d be rich by now.”

So, those two camps mean nothing to my company, except that if anyone wants to really analyze FT domain investing, and needs guidance in how to move forward in buying valuable domains at OOTB prices, our company provides these services for less cost than it takes for an uneducated investor to spend in a week because they think they found a “niche”.

Cheers!

Why 3D Advertising on its way to becoming the top mainstream advertising medium.

Snapnames
Afternic
Sedo
Moniker
GreatDomains

(in no particular order)

Then you have the “we don’t get involved with promoting the domain industry” auction sites:

Namejet
GoDaddy

Then you have the “new auction sites”, such as CAX.com (by Francois) and others.

Question for the week:    Which Live Auction Site Is The Best?

If I forgot any, feel free to add them below.

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!

NOTE FOR FIRST TIME AUCTION SUBMITTERS:  A lot of first time domain investors in a custom Live auctions like this one sometimes get worried if there are no bids on their domains out of the gate. There are strategies most “domainers” use to pick up a domain for a cheap price, and that strategy is: “Don’t bid on the domain right away, if at all. Wait until the auction is over and then bid on it during auction cleanup. The person will be desperate or dismayed that his/her domain didn’t sell, and they’ll take anything for it.”

Obviously that doesn’t work if someone else places a bid that matches the reserve. Then that “hurry up and wait” strategy fails, and they stand a chance to lose a great domain name to someone else.  The problem is MOST domainers play the “wait game”, and at the last 30 minutes,  start bidding up the domain. Even if someone bids on the domain outside domain investors (an end user), the smart domain auction bidders will wait until the last few minutes of the auction. That’s called “sniping” and people who want a domain name need to be very aware of that tactic. It could be the last five minutes and you have a bid on a domain name, nobody else seemingly bidding, so you fall into a comfort zone thinking the domain is yours. Then five minutes to the end, somebody bids the domain up $100. If you’re not watching, you could lose the domain by not counter-bidding.

Most auction sites, including Snapnames/Moniker will push 5 minutes extra on the domain if a bid comes in within a certain time period close to the end of the auction. That gives the other bidders a chance to splash water in their face and go “yipes! gotta get my bid in there!”  Then another five minutes are added, or less minutes, depending on the auction site, and it goes that way until someone gives up.

For those who think this first Future Trend Domain Auction™ is going to be wowing the world, don’t get your hopes up. We’re nowhere near the amount of marketing we want to do, or have done to this point. This is a slow process, but we have time because we’re “future domainers” anyways… and our domains just grow more valuable as each month passes.

Imagine feeling disappointed not selling your domain in this auction, and then four months later, you enter your domain back in the next Future Trend Domain Auction™ with double the price, and someone buys it?  It’s a great feeling, and it’s happened to me several times.

We worked very hard in finishing the Directory. However, we didn’t want to put it up until Moniker had reviewed it and synched the domains in the Directory with their catalog.  Same thing goes with sending out the Directory to our marketing contacts. We didn’t do “pre-promotion” of this event, because we want everything to be perfect before we approach the serious buyers. I don’t think we reached “perfection” in our first auction preparation, but we learned a lot. That knowledge will help all of us for the next auction

Everyone who has submitted their domains to this auction, and had those domains accepted, have been included in our Future Trend Domain Auction™ DIRECTORY. This is a Powerpoint-style PDF that we are using to send to marketing websites and other New Media contacts.  We aren’t bombarding our complete list yet, because we didn’t get the DIRECTORY completely filled out since at least 25% of the domain submitters didn’t provide us with 15o word descriptions and at least two links to news articles backing up their domain name’s value.

Most people who look at these domains will scratch their heads or at least have to go do that research themselves, which slows down the interest in someone buying the domain. Who’s going to buy a domain, or even spend time researching the domain, when that was the job of the seller to provide that information so the potential buyer could see the potential benefits of the domain. Not ever hearing of it before is a slight hindrance to buying the domain!

As each serious FT Domainer continues to learn and filter their FT domains in the coming months, a core group of knowledgeable players in this group will appear. They’re appearing already, and their comments and domain purchases are clearly showing their value.

If you strongly see the logic in buying Future Trend domains, then keep up your research and analysis, and we hope you join our group by signing up for our Successclick.com email newsletter.  We’ll be running the newsletter more often to keep everyone updated on the Future Trend Domain Auction™.

This auction could have been a little more advanced, and I blame myself in certain areas of this. I injured my arm badly right in the middle of forming the auction details, which took about 2 months out of my preparation.  I’m healthy again, and ready to see this auction through, keep talking with the FT Domainers Group, and I thank everyone who has become a part of this movement that isn’t going away. If it does, I might be able to finally buy at least one more domain name with the word “solar” in it that makes sense!

Good luck everyone!  Please do me a favor, and start your thread here for all comments moving forward on the current and next Future Trend Domain Auction™. I can’t keep checking emails for comments on Embee’s blogs. It makes it very hard for me to answer and stay synched with what’s going on here, without having to jump over to “TheDomains” in order to answer people’s questions or complaints.

In Summary:  The Future Trend Domain Auction™ DIRECTORY should be available by Friday for download. If not, it will be up on a few sites this weekend.

Thanks again.