It's only a few days before TRAFFIC Downunder and I'm busy getting everything ready for what I'm sure will be an outstanding event. I can see myself mentally listing the items that I need to get together, "Clothes, check, flight plan (I'm flying the plane), check, wife, check". Hang on? Did I say wife?

One of the great things about TRAFFIC being in Australia is that my wife will get a chance to meet all of you. She's heard so much about everyone and is really looking forward to putting faces together with all of the great stories I've come back with over the years.

In fact, we've decided to start TRAFFIC a little early with a BBQ at my house in Melbourne with just over twenty avid domainers from all over the world. The first ones will be arriving tomorrow morning in about 12 hours time. It should be great showing my friends around and treating them to an aussie BBQ.

The last few days I've been pretty focused on researching material for my presentation at TRAFFIC Downunder and I must admit that I've managed to dig out some interesting data. There's nothing quite like crawling your way through annual reports, statistics, news articles and building massive number crunching spreadsheets. It's what I live for!

My wife and I will be leaving for the Gold Coast sometime Saturday morning in a four seater Piper Archer III. Flying along with us will be Tony Lentino in his Piper Saratoga, packed with domainers from overseas seeing Australia from a few thousand feet up. We'll be heading north to Wagga Wagga, Mudgee and then stay the night in Port MacQuarie before heading towards the Gold Coast on Sunday morning. It should be great fun!

As well as a few fun activities I think that the sessions that Fabulous have organized will be outstanding. I'm really looking forward to hearing from some of the world's foremost experts in the large variety of topics on offer. It will also be nice to go for a stroll and a surf down the beach. I just hope that there is time for play as well as work.

If you're not attending TRAFFIC Downunder I wish you all the best and I hope to catch up with you in LA at DomainFest early next year. For those of you that are heading to the Gold Coast I'll catch you in the bar. Cheers!

There has been a debate raging around the fact that many registrars are taking advantage of the commercial opportunity to acquire domains from their own customers in what can be viewed as unethical behaviour.

I believe that many registrars are potentially in conflict with their own customers over the resale of domains, whether they are dropped or held by the registrar themselves. Although on the surface this is a commercial decision that the registrars are at liberty to make it is far more important than that. The problem I can see happening is that it is now in the interest of a registrar for domains to drop and to ensure that they seize the assets for their own commercial benefit at the earliest opportunity. 

In the event that a domain is mistakenly dropped by a customer then the registrar can then value the domain based upon the work that company has done to create a brand with the dropped domain.

For example, let's imagine that google.com was dropped. The registrar could theoretically seize the domain and demand a payment of several million dollars from Google for it even though Google was the business that developed the brand behind google.com. This is a form of extortion. I see little difference between the activities of many registrars and this example.

From a domainers perspective.....it's also exactly the same. Rather than assisting customers to retain their domain assets it is now in the registrars interest to take a more draconian perspective and to immediately take control of domains at the earliest possible time.  

The counter argument from the registrars is that the domainer should not have let the domain drop in the first place. Although this may be true it is not the complete picture. For instance, the domainer is completely dependent upon the registrars systems to renew a domain. What if those systems fail or what if the registrar decides to make it difficult to renew domains on mass?

Who decides whether a domain has been dropped on purpose or because a failure in a system? The registrar decides and these same registrars are now viewing this as a commercial opportunity. Potentially by the time a domainer finds out about a change in their registrar's system it is often too late to migrate the names elsewhere.

For example, I've had situations where I've lost a domain because my international credit card was rejected.....even though there were funds available! The problem was found to be with a new upload of code by the registrar that impacted international credit cards.  

In the case of tucows.....as a domain community I think that we should do whatever is within our power to raise the issue as a complete conflict of interest and indicate that we will pursue the matter as aggresively as possible through ICANN. We need to take this action for any registrar who behaves in a manner that promotes a conflict between themselves and their clients.

The ICA (Internet Commerce Association) needs to take a stand on this matter as it strikes at the heart of what it means to be a domain owner. Without security in our assets and our registrar partners domain owners have nothing but bits and bytes that can vanish as fast they were created.

Domain wiki: Internet Commerce Association

It's been a while since I highlighted a few features of Whizzbangsblog but I thought that for the benefit of the community it could once again be worth while. You will need to take the couple of minutes to register (it's free) to get access to some of the features. I hope that you find your exploration of whizzbangsblog enjoyable and don't forget to leave any comments and suggestions on how they can be improved. Cheers!

Domain Wiki (domain encyclopedia)
The domain wiki is an attempt to capture the collective knowledge of the industry in one place for the benefit of all. Like Wikipedia any registered user is welcome to contribute to the domain wiki. Editing a document in the wiki is as easy as clicking on an edit button. You then have a simple toolbar to help you out or if you get stuck there is the one page help menu item.
Click here to enter the domain wiki

Forum
The forum is where domain owners can discuss topics as diverse as industry news, domain parking, domain optimization or even the best ways to develop domains. It's where you can share your experiences with others and learn from the community.
Click here to enter the Domain Forum

Domain Classifieds
This is where you can buy and sell your domains. There are thousands of domains listed for sale and some of them are real bargains. Some domains listed include bingonight.co.uk, taxcut.de, ir.org and webhostingforum.com. It costs nothing to buy and sell domains and is purely a service for the domain community.
Click here to enter the Domain Classifieds

Article Archive
In the article archive is every article that I've written in whizzbangsblog since the very beginning. There is a LOT of information contained in these articles on the domain industry, running a domain business, domain optimization and domain analytics to name a few of the topics covered. Whether you're new or old to domains this is a great place to get information and analysis on domains.
Click here to enter the Article Archive

I'm constantly thinking of new ideas for whizzbangsblog and I love hearing from readers on their thoughts about what would make the site better for them. If you have any ideas or questions then please feel free to leave a comment by clicking on the below link. In the meantime, have a great day domaining :-)

This is the second and final article the covers the results of the annual domain parking attitudes and experiences survey for 2008. The first article may be viewed at:
Part 1 - Results of the Domain Parking Attitudes and Experiences Survey 2008

How would you rank your parking company's support?
There are some really positive results around this question for parking companies. None of the respondents answered "terrible" in 2008 as compared to 2007 7% of people indicated that their parking company had "terrible" support. In fact, all of the results increased dramatically towards the "Excellent" end of the spectrum.

Well done to all the account managers and support teams at each of the parking companies. Keep up the great work!

Do you think that your parking company pays you for all of your traffic and is your revenue share fair?
Once again there has been a dramatic turn around this year as compared to 2007. Just under 60% of respondents indicated that they believed that they were paid for all of their traffic. In 2007 this was around 26% and represents a massive swing in opinion of domainers towards their parking partners.

Are parking statistics correct and do templates really work?
An increase of over 20% for 2008 as compared to 2007 of respondents believed that their parking statistics were correct. Their has been a big jump of 23% in confusion surrounding the effectiveness of templates.

I must admit it that after getting to this point in the results I began to get suspicious as to whether parking companies had told all of their employees to answer the survey. After digging back into the statistics I've come to the conclusion that this is NOT the case. The results are from genuine domain owners.

Do you feel that you are in a close partnership with your parking company?
In my opinion the answer to this question is critical as it summarizes whether a domainer views their parking provider as a supplier or a partner for their business. The great result for parking companies is that almost double the number of respondents from 2007 indicated that they had a close relationship with their parking company.

What is the biggest issue for you with parking in general?
Once again the much maligned issue of transparency is predominant in the minds of domain owners. Just on 40% of respondents in 2008 (up from 23%) indicated that this is their number one issue with parking. I think that the company that takes a stand on transparency will likely scoop up a large number of customers that are frustrated by the lack of action in this area.

Conclusion

After digesting the survey I would have to say that on the whole during the past year the parking companies have really cleaned up a lot of their past practices in the minds of domainers. This is a great positive step for the industry.

Even though it is clear that the parking companies have been hard at work on internal processes, support etc the major industry wide issue of "standards and transparency" is still yet to be addressed. I believe that there is a real opportunity here for the ICA to provide a leadership role for the industry and introduce standards and levels of transparency that will help the domain industry reduce the length of time it remains in its current mini-recession. Once again, many thanks to all of the people who answered the survey, your commitment to the domain industry is truly inspiring!

If you would like to receive a powerpoint copy of the presentation which compares 2007 to 2008 figures then please contact me by emailing me on this link. There will be a small charge of $25 per report that will help support additional analysis on whizzbangsblog.com.

Here I am sitting once again at my desk reflecting on the domain name industry. I gave the team at Fabulous a call yesterday to find out how TRAFFIC Downunder is progressing; after all it is only two weeks away.

Dan Warner happened to be away (I thought that I flew a lot!) so I ended up speaking with Mike Robertson. My impression was that they were all pretty relaxed about how the event was coming together. Being only two weeks out I actually expected a little bit of panic but like many of the things that Fabulous are involved in they get a plan and follow it. The result is order from chaos and a quite confidence that can only come from everyone knowing what their supposed to be doing. Sounds good so far!

What really surprised me was the fact that there is going to be over eighty Australians attending. I thought that I knew all the Australian domainers but I obviously was very wrong. It will be great catching up with some familiar faces as well as making some new friends.

With all of the interest in TRAFFIC Downunder it was inevitable that a few were going to be exploring Australia and more than a few make the journey down to my home town of Melbourne. It's going to be great having an Aussie BBQ at my place with a stack of jetlagged Europeans and Americans. Let me know if you're going to be around on the 13^th and I can see if we can squeeze a few more snags on the barbie and pass the "dead-horse" around. No guarantees with the offer as we're just about chock-a-bloc.

This brings me to a very important issue for all you international travelers. You need to learn the way the way us Aussie's speak. In the interest of international relations I thought that I'd provide you with a list of Aussie terms to help you out downunder. I would warn you that if you use some of these terms incorrectly then you may be in social disgrace :-)

This is the first part of a three part series that I will release over the next few days on the domain parking survey that concluded a few weeks ago. This was exactly the same questionnaire that I used in 2007 and compared to 2008 the results proved to be surprising.

I would first like to thank all of the people that took the time to answer the questions. Without people who contribute in this fashion it's much more difficult to bring positive changes to our industry. I hope that you enjoy reading the results of your survey!

The results
For the second year in a row Sedo has secured top place with over 19.35% of respondents indicating that they parked most of their domains with them. Although this is a large slip down from 2007 of 43% congratulations are still in order to the entire Sedo team, well done on a good years work!

The second survey question was aimed at who domain owners thought was the biggest parking company rather than who they actually parked with. In this case Domain Sponsor ranked highest with 38% of respondents believing that they were the biggest parking company and Sedo ranked in second place with 31%. This was almost a complete reversal of the two company's positions for 2007.

If I was to interpret the results of the first two questions, Domain Sponsor is still perceived as the biggest parking company while Sedo was where people preferred to park on a ratio of two to one. Even so, the recent volatility of the market is likely to produce some big changes in next year's survey for these two questions.

The previous articles in this series on domains can be reviewed by clicking on the following links:

Part 1 - Domain Industry and Valuations
Part 2 - The domain bubble
Part 3 - What caused the domain bubble?
Part 4 - Domains and the sub-prime shock 
Part 5 - Domain values and opportunities
Part 6 - The Pressures on PPC
Part 7 - domainers under the magnifying glass
Part 8 - Domain values increase
Part 9 - Domain valuation at point C
Part 10 - The virtues of standards

So what does point D look like? Is it domain name nirvana or is the landscape going to be littered with the destroyed dreams of the forever hopeful?

I should say up front that I'm inherently an optimist when it comes to domains. There are a number of reasons why I'm really positive about domains and the major reasons are:

1. Domains are unique - no two are the same.
2. While there is ecommerce there will be the need for a domain.
3. There will always be the need for quality traffic.

The first item in the list should remind us that we should never lose site of what makes a domain name special. Domains are unique and this uniqueness will greatly influence their resale price into the future. The value of the uniqueness will largely depend upon whether the domain can be applied to a functioning business.

As ecommerce continues to expand around the globe the demand for quality domains will increase. This demand will drive up prices so that new businesses can enter the boiling cauldron of e-business.

If you have a domain that generates type-in traffic then there will always be a demand for that traffic. Even if both Google and Yahoo abandon the domain channel and stop domain PPC advertising altogether (which I believe is very unlikely) someone else will step in and tap the valuable seem of gold which is highly targeted domain traffic. This traffic is valuable to advertisers and they will pay for it now and into the future. The challenge for the domain industry is how to educate advertisers on the benefits of our quality traffic and rid ourselves of all of the fraudulent players.

I believe that there will be a surge in interest by speculative investors after point C and that's when the wider non-domaining community will begin the see the value of a domain name. After the initial onrush a correction will occur and then like any mature market domain name valuations will continue to increase across time. The steepness of the valuation curve is unknown at this time but I imagine that it will be in the range of 10-15% per annum.

I believe that domain name owners that ride this journey out to its conclusion will be rewarded for your efforts and patience. The challenge will be to balance the risk/reward profile for your own portfolio of domains and then not lose your nerve in a time like we are experiencing at the moment.

This article concludes the journey that we've taken through the chart that I first published eighteen months ago. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it even as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

As many of you are aware I've just received my private pilot's license and I'm pretty excited about the prospect of flying my wife and I to TRAFFIC Downunder in a few weeks time. Flying is one of those pass times where you look at the clock multiply the time by a big number and you get your approximate cost......not necessarily a nice situation.

Being in the domain industry and a developer/hacker as well I thought that there must be a better solution to my new expensive hobby. After talking it over with my accountant I recently launched downwind.com.au which is a blog/resource for the aviation industry. I'm slowly getting it up and going with a lot of help from my wife who is writing a lot of the articles.

The articles are all about our flying experiences and what and where we've been travelling to etc. I've brought the site under one of my companies which means that it and all of my flying is now tax deductable. This is a great outcome and reduces the expense line of my hobby immensely. :-)

Ultimately, I hope to be able to generate enough traffic so that aviation industry advertisers begin to use the site to reach their customers. This would be another great outcome for me to earn a few extra dollars to support the enjoyment I receive from flying.

This brings up an important point. When you look at developing a domain it could mean that you are developing it not just to increase your revenue line but to decrease your tax liability. A critical part of any business plan should always be a good tax accountant that can advise you on how to take advantage of the tax law given your personal circumstances.

In the meantime, I have to go and have a fly, courtesy of the government and a little ingenuity of what you can do with a domain name.