In this article, I’m going to let you into a little secret. You may not have heard of anyone else approaching domains the way I’m about to outline but in my opinion, it’s the future. These ideas are what keep me so entranced by domains.

If you are wanting to extract the maximum amount of value from your domain names then the answer is in the data. It really doesn’t make a difference whether you are a buyer, seller, developer or traffic monetizer, the key to generating additional revenue always comes back to the numbers.

As I’ve spoken at conferences or written different blogs I’ve been accused of many things but there has been one consistent accusation that I’m actually quite proud. “You’re always banging on about the numbers!” I love my numbers and more than that, I love trying to interpret what they are telling me.

Over the past 10 years, my ParkLogic business partner and I have continued to be fascinated by domain names because the data tells so many different stories. We’ve taken this to the extreme level by tracking around 250 different metrics for every domain on our platform each day. This leads to hundreds of millions of data points that can be algorithmically analyzed and trend curves plotted over time to see where the next seam of gold will come from.

We are surrounded by the most incredible advances in technology the world has ever seen and yet we can be accused of becoming increasingly complacent about the miraculous.

Just think about it for a second. Just over 100 years ago the Wright Brothers flew for the first time at Kittyhawk. A few weeks ago, my wife and I soared at 40,000 feet in a chair in the sky while we watched movies. Forget around the world in 80 days, we did it in 28 hours.

I watched my daughter start shaking her mobile phone in frustration because a message her friend had sent hadn’t arrived as yet. I asked her when was it sent. She replied, “A few seconds ago” and as she stormed off she yelled back, “I saw she was typing!” I presume this explained everything.

I first got online back in the 80’s and I remember sending email around the world via the amateur radio network (remember FIDONET?). It was incredible! I could write something on my computer and 2 days later I would get a response…..how fast was that! The other day I was in a skype session and the person I was speaking with sent me an email and I calmly respond a few seconds later with, “Go it.”

I love technology and have been an early adopter of an Oculus Rift VR headset. For those of you that don’t have one…..just pay the money and get one. It will open your mind to so many possibilities. Everything from entertainment through to education will be transformed by VR. If you think domain names will be immune then think again and don’t even get me started on AR.

I’ve written a number of articles over the past year on the looming problem of the Chinese debt situation. It’s currently just shy of 300% of GDP and this doesn’t bode well for domain investors reliant on cheap Chinese capital to purchase their domains at hugely inflated prices. So should we really panic?

I saw the following charts in a recent Bloomberg article that puts the Chinese debt problem into perspective. What’s interesting about this chart is that China’s flatter line shows that it’s not getting as big a GDP bang for its debt buck compared to some other nations. Also notice that Germany is retiring debt even while sharply increasing its GDP per capita.

The USA is continuing to increase debt while getting a lot of GDP per capita from it.....but the debt still continues to increase. At some stage the piper has to be paid and if the current trends continue it will be more when not if.

Some of you may have noticed that I didn’t do any posts last week. Yes, I’m fine and nothing disastrous has happened in my personal life. I just reached a point of work saturation.

Have you ever been working so hard that no matter how fast and how diligent you are your in-tray just keeps on mounting up? Well, that was me last week. A number of nights I found myself working until 3:30am and up again at 7:30am because there was just so much going on.

So what’s been happening? Everything from reviewing legal agreements, managing partners, sorting through client issues, working with the ParkLogic team, designing graphics, cleaning up websites, debugging servers, launching new platforms, coding client requests into existing systems and working with spreadsheets that literally take 30 minutes to calculate. The last issue drove me crazy because if I touched my PC during a recalc Excel would just stop! Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

I’ve just been trying to debug a pretty complex program. One screen displayed the error logs, another the database changes while yet another the actual code. For some stupid reason, nothing appeared in my browser when I run the application……it’s safe to say that I'm pulling my hair out in frustration!

It was then that it dawned on me…..you moron! I’d forgotten to save my code. Yep, the most obvious of solutions lay withering on the vine of my single-minded focus. A simple control-S saw everything instantly display as it should and my universe come into alignment….well, almost anyway.