I was taking a look at the upcoming movies being released later this year and noticed that "Wall Street" is making a comeback with Michael Douglas reprising his role as Gorden Gecko. He was the character that coined the term "Greed is good, greed works."

I don't know much about the new movie other than what the shorts depict but it has caused me to reflect on what we do as domainers. For a number of years we were living the good life off our earnings and then the reality of the GFC hit and upset the applecart. In a panic many of us have been checking our stats on a daily basis willing them to go up and if they go down we call our account managers and demand an answer that we already know they can't give.

The sharp decline in revenues moved some domainers from sipping pina coladas to eating bread and drinking water. I've observed that recently domains have been dropping like rain as registration fees have become an issue that can't be supported on the back of PPC revenue.

The aim of the game has been to move as much traffic away from Google and Yahoo as possible in the quest for the half remembered good life that seems like an elusive dream. This has resulted in development jumping back on the agenda big time and second tier providers snapping at G&Y's heels on various market verticals. All power to them I say!

The greed and waste of the good years blinded many to the fact that we are part of a global economy and that the major advertising partners were scratching around to find revenue from ALL their business channels - including the lucrative domains. Hence our massive decline in what globally has been a rising Internet advertising market despite the GFC.

As normal the Gordon Gecko's of this world got it wrong and lost a bucket of money but there are some with a little more wisdom then him. I recently received an email from a domainer that studiously put aside a portion of his earnings each month and is now sitting on a property portfolio bigger than his domains. It was a slower way to grow his wealth but it definitely was more sustainable (especially now that he can take advantage of the housing slump).

All this quest for dollars in whatever means is often regarded as part of life but my recommendation is that you leave it as part of life rather than as an end in itself. In the soft glow of your PC monitor in the late hours of the night don't forget your loved ones and the fact that they are more important than any numbers on any screen. Invest in your wife/partner, your kids, friends, relations or whomever is important to you not just whatever is.....don't fall into the trap of chewing up your relationships like Mr. Gecko in his quest for the almighty dollar.

The road is where you are, it covers where you've been and where you are going. It's the place of meeting, it's the placing of going and the place you're yet to go. This road is not like other roads, it's full of twists, turns, ups, downs and potholes as it meanders through a tortuous terrain which is one minute jungle, the next desert and even sub-arctic. The road is not physical but is there nevertheless, it's the road that a domainer traverses on a daily basis.

In the semi-darkness of rooms all over the world domainers and would be domainers stare endlessly at numbers as they flash across their screens. Views, clicks, RPM combined on a daily basis on a domain by domain basis all coalesce into a picture that they can only see. These figures form the basis of a domainers life, their passion, their road.

It's 2am and their skin is bathed in the glow of multi-screens which stab a new set of information into bleary bloodshot eyes. The body is sore and tired, the eyes are aching but the mind is sharp, you see, the hunt is on.

Tracking past a myriad of obstacles the prey is in sight. An email address, a phone number and a contact is within their grasp that will allow them to do yet another deal, make another dollar and secure the glory that can only be associated with the generic mother-load.

A chime sounds as email drops into their inbox and their blood begins to rush through their "caffeine system" and a surge of adrenalin causes the mouse to momentarily jump as they open the email. The answers "yes" and all the pain, all the hours, all the work is now worth it.

Ok, ok, ok....I know I may have gone just a little over the top in these few paragraphs but I couldn't help reflect that in many cases domainers have been guilty of doing exactly what this fictitious character has done. Tracked down an owner, sent out an offer and received a positive response. How is this different from what happens every day all around the world?

Here's a challenge for all you budding authors....why not put up a few paragraphs in your most insightful prose in the comments area. I for one, would love to hear of your own experiences in the world of domains and the road that you've been travelling down.

I just received this announcement from Oversee.Net regarding the winners of the recent PitchFest held at DomainFest in Santa Monica. Enjoy the read as each of the winners was very deserving. Congratulations to each and every one of them.

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PITCHFEST CONTEST WINNERS SHINE AT DOMAINFEST GLOBAL 2010

--adMarketplace, RapidDomainBuilder.com (eCorp.com) and RootOrange.com Recognized for Innovation in Domain Monetization and Scalable Web Site Development--

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The recent DOMAINfest Global® 2010 conference, hosted by DomainSponsor®, the domain monetization division of Oversee.net®, featured two PITCHfest™ contest sessions in which a total of eight finalists introduced attendees to new, innovative products and services designed to help domain owners enhance the value of their domain name assets. The DOMAINfest Global audience was comprised of nearly 650 domain investors and online marketing professionals, representing 24 countries.

Three winners were selected based on the creativity, viability, originality, and revenue potential of their beta stage or recently launched products.  Two winners collected their PITCHfest Service Innovator trophies based on votes from expert judges, and the third winner was chosen based on audience voting. 

The winner of the first PITCHfest session was adMarketplace, which was recognized for Ad Cloud 2.0, a proprietary and innovative new display ad unit that increases revenue for web publishers by offering users a menu of relevant text-based offers. Other contest finalists giving presentations were Verisign, Elephant Traffic, and Tempesta Media.  Judges for this first PITCHfest session included Frank Schilling (Name Administration Inc.), Adam Rioux (Octane 360), Eric Liaw (Technology Crossover Ventures), and Ron Sheridan (RSS.com).

The second PITCHfest session winner was Chad Folkening of eCorp. Chad introduced the new RapidDomainBuilder.com platform which provides owners of undeveloped domains a customizable, scalable, easy to use, domain building tool with fully integrated features and frameworks. Other contest finalists giving presentations included RootOrange.com, Skinected.com and DevRich.com. PITCHfest session two judges were David Liu (Jefferies & Company, Inc.), Douglas McPherson (Idealab), Richard Morganstern (Tech Coast Angels) and Ron Sheridan.

Attendees at the conference voted for RootOrange as their favorite. Co-founders Frank Langston and Camilo Acosta received their trophy for a new service that gives small businesses an affordable way to lease high value, generic domains exclusively for their local market and offers owners of those domains increased revenues.

“We received a large number of high quality submissions for our first-ever PITCHfest contest at the DOMAINfest Global conference,” said Peter Celeste, SVP of Oversee.net and GM of DomainSponsor Monetization Services.  “This contest added a new dimension to our agenda and, once again, reinforced our goal of presenting the most innovative ideas, talent and technology to professionals in the domain industry.   As new products and services improve performance and enhance revenue for domain owners, the value of Internet real estate will continue to grow.”

Why is it that there never seems to be enough time to do everything that needs to be done? Time seems to slip by faster and my "in-tray" continually grows and it's tempting to let the weekends become a time where I catch up on all of the work that I didn't get done during the week. It's crazy but it's a fun kind of crazy!

This week I decided the solve the chaos and sort all of the bits of paper, emails and e-notes into a single spot as my "to do list". It sounded ambitious, genuinely altruistic but I was never going to surrender to the weight of "stuff" that needed to be done. I decided to fight my in-tray to my last dying breath! Maybe that's a little over the top but it was an inspiring speech anyway.

So energised with a zeal to overcome I created the mother of all "to do" lists. Categorised, dated and even colour coded each item and five pages later I was finished. Hang on here.....five pages! Yep, five pages.....

It's said that if you want something done then give to a busy person but in this case I think that busy is a little overkill. I began to reflect upon my typical day that starts at 8am with calls to the USA until around midday. I then have meetings with the Australian ParkLogic team and actually get some work done myself until around 6:30pm. From 6:30pm until 9pm I spend time with my wife and family at the end of which Europe is at work and I finish with them until around 2am. I love Australia, it's a fantastic country but the time zones really suck!

For those of you who have rapidly calculated my hours of sleep being around 5-6 hours each night you'd be right. My grandfather used to say that "sleep is an insidious disease." I must admit it that I completely agree with him (although my wife Roselyn would have a few words to say to refute this position).

So do I work hard? No, not really. I actually don't regard most of what I do as work but rather as something that I really enjoy doing. I have the privilege of working with really smart people all around the world and combining that with global cutting edge technology is exhilarating. Since I enjoy doing what I do then I don't really call it work, I call it fun!

I have one golden rule, never work on the weekend unless it's a crisis and since it's Saturday I'm off to have fun with the family. See ya!

Much of the risk associated with domains revolves around under what business model they were purchased under. For example, if I purchase a high value domain and I'm looking at building out a site then the investment is more in the business behind the domain rather than the domain itself.

If I purchase a domain as a part of a large portfolio that I'm hoping to sell at a premium to end users then I'm adopting the stock sales business model. In fact, this is the model that both NameMedia and Dark Blue Sea have adopted for their large portfolios.

If a professional investors purchases a domain based upon a cashflow stream generated by PPC revenue then they will want to get a return not just today but tomorrow as well. This is predicated upon the premise that the purchased domain will have consistent revenue and traffic into the foreseeable future. What if it doesn't? This is the professional investors conundrum.

Let's expand the concept of risk a lot further. Remember that professional investors are unlikely to know about web logs, EPC rates, CTR or even how a domain is generating cash. What they are investing in is often a cashflow stream so let's examine the risk profile of two domains.

Domain A.com earns $10 per day and has been for the past 2 years. The traffic is consistent, it is not potentially trademark infringing. Domain B.com earns $70 on Sunday and then nothing the rest of the week. In fact, B.com doesn't have any traffic other than on Sunday and is not trademark infringing.

On average both of these domains earn the same and have exactly the same traffic and legal risk associated with them. From a pure investment perspective which one is riskier?

To answer this question we need to dig a little deeper. Let's imagine that A.com can earn its revenue ultimately from a Google, Yahoo and direct source. No matter what the source it seems to earn $10 per day. On the other hand B.com only earns its $70 per day from Google and nothing from Yahoo and direct sources.

Clearly if Google "falls out of love" with B.com then this is a much riskier investment than A.com which can maintain its revenue line from multiple sources.

Currently when domain portfolios are sold they are typically sold on last months stats and multiplied by some factor. These statistics are normally dumped out of one of the parking companies and sent onto a potential buyer. This then means that the domains are earning revenue from a single source and their capital value (ie. sale value) should be discounted accordingly.

In order to get a more accurate picture of a domains value a domainer would have to send traffic to multiple sources (many in fact) in real time and roughly at the same time to determine the true value of a domain at these varying monetisation streams. If this was done, then the domainer could then normalise the data, calculate the splits across the major monetisation feeds and then alter the risk profile for a domain for a potential buyer. This is a complicated way of justifying a higher price for type A.com domains for professional investors.

Not wanting to blow my own trumpet this is exactly what ParkLogic has done for many domainers that are earning greater than $5K per month. It means that domains that are managed by ParkLogic will potentially have a higher sale value as this type of information is now available to our customers.

For example, where in the past an A.com type domain may have been sold alongside a B.com domain for 2 years revenue domain owners will now be able to segment their portfolios on a risk basis. So that A.com domains sell for 4 years revenue while B.com domains may sell for 18 months.

From our perspective the name of the future game is creating a future mechanism that will allow and encourage professional investors to purchase domains just like the purchase securities. A key component of this is to provide a standard metric that can be used industry wide for assessing risk.

Here I am once again sitting in the Qantas Club at LAX waiting for Qantas Flight QF94 to head back home to Melbourne. The last five days have been an absolute blur of meetings, presentations and of course, like any good domain conference, a chronic lack of sleep. At the moment I feel like I’m running on adrenalin and even a shower didn’t manage to wake up the flagging grey matter sitting atop my shoulders.

So was it all worth it? You bet it was! I’m so glad that I attended the event and had a chance to catch up with so many friends, make new business contacts and more importantly get energised once again about domains.

With TRAFFIC Las Vegas being the week prior I was worried that DomainFest may have suffered but this definitely wasn’t the case. Speaking of TRAFFIC, by all accounts it didn’t achieve the expected numbers and I heard that it lacked some zap. Some domainers seem to take a perverse joy in this and I would like to remind those people that TRAFFIC really launched the industry as a semi-coordinated whole by creating a meeting place for us all. Personally I wouldn’t rule TRAFFIC out and i’m sure that it will come back stronger than ever.

Let me give an example of how I measure a conference’s success. If the conference goes for three days  I could meet with a maximum of 15 people per day, making it possible to squeeze in a total of 45 meetings. So from my perspective there really isn’t any point in having over 45 people at a conference......in fact, having the 150 at traffic and the 500 or so at DomainFest was a mammoth overkill. The only caveat to this is that the 45 people need to be the right people.

This really means that as long as the right people are in the right place at the right time then a conference gets my thumbs up. Let me assure you this was definitely the case at DomainFest where my biggest problem was there were so many “right” people to meet with that I sometimes felt like a stunned deer caught in a cars headlights. Too many opportunities, too little time, where do I go and who do I meet with?

The vibe of DomainFest was electric. It felt like the domain industry had left behind the depression of 2009 and was being rebirthed with a sense of energy and purpose that I hadn’t seen for quite some time.

The Oversee.Net organisation went like clock work and even when I’d lost my badge (along with 400 hundred others) they seemed to be able to magically replace it. Congratulations to all of those tireless behind the scenes workers that manage to make the upfront guys look good and the attendees feel loved.

Sadly, other than the keynote I didn’t manage to get to any sessions....as I said, there were just too many people to meet with. Other than the 15 minutes that I fell asleep (courtesy of Mr. Jetlag) the keynote was riveting, witty and at times hilarious. Interviewer, Oversee.net CEO, Jeff Kupietzky managed to tease founder of Zappos, Tony Hsieh into revealing quite a number his more intimate moments in growing Zappos as well as his philosophy on customer service starting with a happy staff. All good!

The night at the Getty was a cultural experienced that could only be sharply contrasted by the reports coming back from the Playboy mansion experience the following night. When I reflect upon both evenings they both represent various forms of art. A tastefully painted nude may adorn the wall of the Getty while a similarly clad woman adorned many domainers at the mansion. I must admit it that I found that the dinner and conversation I had later on with a number of domainers who didn’t go to the mansion scintillating compared to that of those that did go to the mansion that seemed to be more titillating. For my part I felt more at home in the Getty and opted out of the flamboyance of the mansion.

I do find it mildly amusing that over the years the domain industry has done its best to distance itself from its roots in the seedier side of the Internet but now finds itself embracing once again its heritage. I just hope that any domain company that plans on an IPO or raising venture money doesn’t find the press all over some of the pictures that are bound to make it onto Facebook.

The auction was a great success in terms of numbers and professionalism. The system worked, buyers bought and sellers sold. When I looked at some of the prices that a number of the domains sold for I was pretty excited as it meant that my own portfolio must be worth billions. Congratulations to those owners that managed to get buyers excited and buy some domains that I personally would have just dropped. At the same time there were also a number of bargains that were snapped up by some very savvy, cashed up purchasers.

So as I write this blog post at 40,000 feet I find myself pausing to reflect on the last few days and ask whether its been worth it. I can only say that if you weren’t there then I think you’ve missed the opportunity of the year....but all is not lost, there’s the Domain Mardi Gras just around the corner, followed by TRAFFIC which is followed by Domain Roundtable which is followed by.......

Just over a week ago I decided to head across the Pacific and attend DomainFest. The first problem I discovered was my passport was about to expire so after a mad dash to fill in the paper work, pay the “rush” fee it turned up in the mail a couple of days later. What’s even more amazing is that it was a government department that managed to pull this quick turn-around!

As many of you know I normally attend all the various conference, work my way through the jetlag only to return home and experience it all over again. The reason why I was debating about attending DomainFest is that after about 12 months work ParkLogic has just finalised its enterprise platform domain management solution. As you can imagine, with this just launched it was pretty hectic back home in Australia but I managed to get away all the same!

For those of you who go to our website you will see nothing.....sorry to disappoint you....ParkLogic has always been very low key. If you meet our domainer criteria of making over $10K per month from traffic revenue then I’d very happy to demonstrate the system to you. You can either contact me via my blog or pull me aside at DomainFest. We have found that the primary method of removing fraud is to make sure that we personally know the domain owner and their needs. The result is clean traffic, a lot less hassle and working with people that we enjoy doing business with.

Now that I’ve completed the 15 hour flight to LA I’m really excited about DomainFest. As well as lots of meetings, some quite interesting sessions and a whole lot of fun what I’m really looking forward to is catching up with a lot of high quality people that I have the privilege of calling friends.

Across the next few days I look forward to saying “hi” to as many of you as possible. So whereever you are let's grab a drink, a bite to eat or sit down for a chat.