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Domains - have my portfolio at hackernames.com. It's a good way to exercise your hacker knowledge and you can always use them yourself if you aren't able to fin

by vnorby 14y ago

Domains - have my portfolio at hackernames.com. It's a good way to exercise your hacker knowledge and you can always use them yourself if you aren't able to find a buyer.

gregcohn 14y ago
Can you elaborate more on how you make money from them? I have some interesting domains I've had for years -- selling or otherwise trying to monetize them seems interesting.
- vnorby 14y ago
  I sell through domain marketplaces like sedo/afternic/flippa/dnforum. I also reach out to startups directly that correlate to domains I own, it's a very effective way to sell domains. You can also develop them into SEO/amazon referral sites for product-related domains. I know a lot of people that make thousands per month off of pure referral sites, mostly auto-generated.
  - davidw 14y ago
    While interesting, actively buying/selling does not sound like "passive" income, though.
    - vnorby 14y ago
      It's not my primary income, it's something I do on the side. Once you've bought a domain, you don't need to do much work after the initial parking setup, which takes about 5 minutes.
peeters 14y ago
Forgive my bluntness, but my impression of domain sitting is essentially the same as patent trolling. It's not contributing anything to the economy or society, it just seems like legalized extortion of companies who just want to do business. Is there something I'm missing about this?
- charleshaanel 14y ago
  This couldn't be further from the truth. Have you read Edward Bernay's book called "Propaganda"? Do check it out. Your impression of things is no doubt a result of a good spin job. Domain investments are a proper alternative asset class and many people (some of whom have gone to the best schools in the world) are active players.
  - peeters 14y ago
    It seems like a bit of deflection to point me to a book written in 1928. My impression of domain sitting might be the result of spin, but domains didn't exist in 1928, so that book is not going to explain why what I said "couldn't be further from the truth." I didn't say that domains aren't an asset; that has little to do with what I was talking about. I'm not saying they're not a good investment, I'm just saying my impression is that they're a kind of investment which does nothing to further society, like other sorts of investments do.
    - charleshaanel 14y ago
      My comment was about the source of your "impression". I'm sure you'd agree that you weren't just say strolling along the banks of the Danube contemplating m-theory, when out of the blue - BAM! A thought came upon you - quite randomly - giving you the impression that you now contend you own. So rather than post an emotional response, why not engage that no doubt massive neocortex of yours and investigate. I give it to you to decide. And of course I'm being snarky here, it's a shortcoming of mine ;) On a different note, this firm has good research on the matter http://www.fairwindspartners.com/Why-It-Matters/FAQs/ http://www.fairwindspartners.com/Why-It-Matters/FAQs/ (NB: I'm not affiliated in any way)
      - peeters 14y ago
        I'm a bit flabbergasted by your comments, but a quick look at your comment history doesn't indicate that you're trollish, so I'll try to answer under the assumption you comment in good faith. I started by stating that my opinion was an "impression". Obviously by using the word "impression," which by definition means "an opinion (esp.) formed on the basis of little evidence," I was allowing that my opinion was influenced by external and implicit sources. I then asked for more informed input on the possibility that I was lacking an understanding of the issue. Your response started with "this couldn't be further from the truth," from which I assumed you would go on to challenge the content of what I had said. Instead of countering what I said, or even providing input (which I would value, since you present that you know about this subject) you resorted to challenging the source of my opinion...the very opinion I'm trying to become more informed about. This is a red herring, and I tried to say as much. If you considered my response "emotional" then I'm sorry, but you misread my tone. But all that said, I have given this independent thought and have come to the same conclusion: that by all I've come to understand about domain sitting, the act of buying domains that you don't wish to develop in order to sell them at outrageous markup later does not provide value to society, and in fact has negative value as it raises the cost of doing business without compensating by contributing value elsewhere. Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by domain-name sitting, which would seem to be true given the completely irrelevant link you provided above. The Fairwinds Partners' FAQ talks about having a cohesive domain-name strategy as part of a greater branding and trademark initiative. I fail to see its relevance to domain-name sitting.
charleshaanel 14y ago
Shhhh - you're breaking the code (of silence)! Renting quality generics is a good way to go these days as well. Frank Schilling's portfolio collectively pulls more traffic per month than Twitter but he's still managed to largely stay under the radar screen....
- gabemart 14y ago
  How does domain renting work? My first thought would be as soon as the party paying the rent achieved some measure of success, the party receiving the rent could essentially extort them.
  - vnorby 14y ago
    Not extortion, usually just a lease to own contract. Say you have a $150,000 domain and a startup wants it, they can lease for $4k/month and pay off the rest when they've raised their next round.
gabemart 14y ago
Interesting! How often do you make a sale? What kind of process do you use for the exchange? Do you have some kind of escrow, and if so who do you use for that?
- vnorby 14y ago
  Sales - depends on how many domains you own and how good they are. I make 5-10x returns on every sale though. For the exchange, I usually transfer within registry and only after receiving payment. I've used escrow.com twice for high value domains.

by vnorby 14y ago

Domains - have my portfolio at hackernames.com. It's a good way to exercise your hacker knowledge and you can always use them yourself if you aren't able to find a buyer.

gregcohn 14y ago

Can you elaborate more on how you make money from them? I have some interesting domains I've had for years -- selling or otherwise trying to monetize them seems interesting.

vnorby 14y ago
I sell through domain marketplaces like sedo/afternic/flippa/dnforum. I also reach out to startups directly that correlate to domains I own, it's a very effective way to sell domains. You can also develop them into SEO/amazon referral sites for product-related domains. I know a lot of people that make thousands per month off of pure referral sites, mostly auto-generated.
- davidw 14y ago
  While interesting, actively buying/selling does not sound like "passive" income, though.
  - vnorby 14y ago
    It's not my primary income, it's something I do on the side. Once you've bought a domain, you don't need to do much work after the initial parking setup, which takes about 5 minutes.

peeters 14y ago

Forgive my bluntness, but my impression of domain sitting is essentially the same as patent trolling. It's not contributing anything to the economy or society, it just seems like legalized extortion of companies who just want to do business. Is there something I'm missing about this?

charleshaanel 14y ago
This couldn't be further from the truth. Have you read Edward Bernay's book called "Propaganda"? Do check it out. Your impression of things is no doubt a result of a good spin job. Domain investments are a proper alternative asset class and many people (some of whom have gone to the best schools in the world) are active players.
- peeters 14y ago
  It seems like a bit of deflection to point me to a book written in 1928. My impression of domain sitting might be the result of spin, but domains didn't exist in 1928, so that book is not going to explain why what I said "couldn't be further from the truth." I didn't say that domains aren't an asset; that has little to do with what I was talking about. I'm not saying they're not a good investment, I'm just saying my impression is that they're a kind of investment which does nothing to further society, like other sorts of investments do.
  - charleshaanel 14y ago
    My comment was about the source of your "impression". I'm sure you'd agree that you weren't just say strolling along the banks of the Danube contemplating m-theory, when out of the blue - BAM! A thought came upon you - quite randomly - giving you the impression that you now contend you own. So rather than post an emotional response, why not engage that no doubt massive neocortex of yours and investigate. I give it to you to decide. And of course I'm being snarky here, it's a shortcoming of mine ;) On a different note, this firm has good research on the matter http://www.fairwindspartners.com/Why-It-Matters/FAQs/ http://www.fairwindspartners.com/Why-It-Matters/FAQs/ (NB: I'm not affiliated in any way)
    - peeters 14y ago
      I'm a bit flabbergasted by your comments, but a quick look at your comment history doesn't indicate that you're trollish, so I'll try to answer under the assumption you comment in good faith. I started by stating that my opinion was an "impression". Obviously by using the word "impression," which by definition means "an opinion (esp.) formed on the basis of little evidence," I was allowing that my opinion was influenced by external and implicit sources. I then asked for more informed input on the possibility that I was lacking an understanding of the issue. Your response started with "this couldn't be further from the truth," from which I assumed you would go on to challenge the content of what I had said. Instead of countering what I said, or even providing input (which I would value, since you present that you know about this subject) you resorted to challenging the source of my opinion...the very opinion I'm trying to become more informed about. This is a red herring, and I tried to say as much. If you considered my response "emotional" then I'm sorry, but you misread my tone. But all that said, I have given this independent thought and have come to the same conclusion: that by all I've come to understand about domain sitting, the act of buying domains that you don't wish to develop in order to sell them at outrageous markup later does not provide value to society, and in fact has negative value as it raises the cost of doing business without compensating by contributing value elsewhere. Perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by domain-name sitting, which would seem to be true given the completely irrelevant link you provided above. The Fairwinds Partners' FAQ talks about having a cohesive domain-name strategy as part of a greater branding and trademark initiative. I fail to see its relevance to domain-name sitting.

charleshaanel 14y ago

Shhhh - you're breaking the code (of silence)! Renting quality generics is a good way to go these days as well. Frank Schilling's portfolio collectively pulls more traffic per month than Twitter but he's still managed to largely stay under the radar screen....

gabemart 14y ago
How does domain renting work? My first thought would be as soon as the party paying the rent achieved some measure of success, the party receiving the rent could essentially extort them.
- vnorby 14y ago
  Not extortion, usually just a lease to own contract. Say you have a $150,000 domain and a startup wants it, they can lease for $4k/month and pay off the rest when they've raised their next round.

gabemart 14y ago

Interesting! How often do you make a sale? What kind of process do you use for the exchange? Do you have some kind of escrow, and if so who do you use for that?

vnorby 14y ago
Sales - depends on how many domains you own and how good they are. I make 5-10x returns on every sale though. For the exchange, I usually transfer within registry and only after receiving payment. I've used escrow.com twice for high value domains.