When Is A Domain Niche A Dumb Idea?
November 29th, 2007 Posted in General Domain News
Back when I was producing the Domain Roundtable Conference 2007, I met a character by the name of Stephen Webb. He had a black t-shirt on that had emblazoned on the front “Iamdomainnames.com”. Truthfully, none of us domainers knew who he was nor what to expect from him. His t-shirt marketing technique immediately struck us as kind of cheesy, and he’s a tall handsome guy, who gives you a quick visual impression of David Hasselhoff.
However, as the conference played out daily, many of the domainers were drawn to his enthusiasm and confidence in his ideas of selling “I am _____.com” and “We are _____.com” domain names.He told us his idea for marketing the domains, and who he thought would be interested in buying. His ideas started to make sense, and what was strange was I was sober when his plan of marketing these domains suddenly looked quite possible! This fact disturbed me slightly.
A few other quite powerful domain players talked about him, and we discussed his angle, all of us wondering if he really had a chance with these domains. For some reason, most of us took the positive outlook and those who played devil’s advocate spoke of “why it won’t work” but their arguments didn’t seem to match the logic, confidence and intensity that Webb was projecting.
Eventually, people started looking at him as a kind of eccentric harbinger of possibilities for domains in the future. I introduced him to Ron Jackson of DNJournal, Patrick Carleton of Associated Cities, Seth Coman and Ezra James of Modern Domainer, and Webb pounded them all with his ideas, nonstop, without shame, almost to the point of “okay, we get it already!” However, we were slightly mesmerized by his intense approach to his domain plan.
When I returned home from the conference, I heard of some guffaws and jibes directed at Stephen Webb and his “Iam__.com” domain ideas on a particular domain forum. The seed of doubt about Webb’s domains was planted by a respected admin of the forum, and it seemed like a lot of “sheep” who hadn’t accomplished anything but making hundreds of forum posts all chimed in to attack and make fun of Webb and his domain project. I jumped in to the thread to support Webb and to admonish those who made ridiculed Webb without knowing the facts, and I was attacked by forum members who didn’t know me or Webb. People went as far as suggesting that I was damaging my career as a domain consultant by making statements on the thread in defense of Webb. I was flabbergasted at the negativity.
Their comments only reinforced something I’ve always understood: Those who spend time tearing down new ideas, no matter how crazy the ideas are, have nothing to offer, and only want something to gain on other’s failures, or they are failures themselves hoping to get more company at the bottom. It was a nasty thread.After a few weeks, someone posted to the thread a link to Ron Jackson’s http://dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm article this week on the fact that Webb had sold several of his domains to MAJOR CITIES, Seattle and San Diego. Hmmm… just the thing Webb was saying he was going to do when we talked with him at the Domain Roundtable Conference.
This might be the beginning or it can just be a fluke. However, it can hopefully show those who have a dream that by listening to CONSTRUCTIVE advice, even the weirdest of ideas of success regarding domain names can come true. Ask Rick Schwartz what his friends were telling him ten years ago when he was picking up domain names for big chunks of money. We don’t have to ask Rick how far his friends’ mouths dropped open when he told them how much he RESOLD the domains for.
Bottom line folks — you just don’t know what is waiting around the corner for all of us. With that in mind, don’t you think it’s a good idea to support and assist every domainer in order to collectively benefit from their success when they WIN?I do.
