I just received a press release from the backers of the new gTLD extension .ICU. I’ve received a lot of different releases from different new gTLDs and it was tempting to put this release in the circular out tray beneath the desk….but then a few things caught my eye that caused me to hesitate.

For a start, the people behind .ICU include Kevin Kopas and Lars Jensen. Both founders have massive amounts of experience in the registry and registrar space with contacts that would leave most new gTLDs incredibly envious. Combine the contacts with their unique energy and drive and you have a formidable combination destined for success.

According to the press release .ICU already has over 100 registrars selling the extension and this is growing rapidly on the back of having CentralNic providing the backend services. So it would appear that despite the inevitable ICANN delays the two founders have been very busy indeed!

And then there’s the extension itself, ICU which is an acronym of “I See you”. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was the blockbuster movie “Avatar” where the main character would say to one another, “I see you.” For those of you that have been living under a rock, director James Cameron, is currently filming the movie sequels so the term “ICU” will be well and truly in the vernacular.

Each year, venerable venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins, releases a slide deck which has become the “State of the Union” for the Internet. Of the 294 slides, a number immediately caught my attention as they directly impact domain traffic monetisation.

There are over 3.6B Internet users in the world which represents 49% of the world’s population. The growth in the number of new Internet users getting online is slowing from 12% in 2016 to 7% in 2017. Eventually, you would expect the rate of growth to asymptote at the rate of population growth globally.

What this shows is the Internet is the single largest marketplace in the world and more than that....it's accessible by everyone. Natural type-in domain traffic should continue to increase at similar rates to the overall growth rate. User sophistication and technological innovations will and has impacted this rate of growth. The challenge as always been how to best remove the junk traffic from the real traffic.....more on this in a future article.

Internet advertising spend for 2017 in the USA continued to move upwards by 21% to a peak of $88B. Since the growth in the number of online users in the USA is almost flat the value per user from an advertiser’s perspective is continuing to increase. This will place an upward pressure on EPC rates and make domains with traffic that much more valuable.

For those of you that listen to the naysayers and believe that monetising your domain traffic is dead then think again. The reason why domain traffic continues to be valuable is because advertisers want to reach potential customers.

This demand for quality traffic has continued to increase while the volume of high value traffic has decreased as domains were dropped. Since the supply is diminishing and the demand increasing then the price paid for the traffic has gone UP over the last few years.

The question has to be asked, “If the price being paid by advertisers is going up then why are most domain investors experiencing a decline in their traffic based revenues?”

The answer is really simple. The advertising aggregators (of which Google is the largest) is taking a bigger slice of the pie. Ask yourself a really simple question, “How much of your earnings are exposed to Google?”

If the answer is “a lot” then don’t be surprised by the decline in your earnings. Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Are you doing the same thing as you’ve always done?

So how do you get an improvement in your results? I like to think about this in a similar manner to the gold rush. Many years ago, a farmer stubbed their toe on a rock, only to discover the rock was a nugget of gold. This was like the first domain investors monetising their domain traffic. It was an awesome time of easy money!

During this past week I watched my wife, Roselyn, cross the finishing line of a thirty-kilometre charity walk. I was incredibly proud of her achievement as it was the culmination of a large amount of sacrifice, hard work and dedication.

I remember when Roselyn first told me that she would like raise funds to save people’s eyesight by participating in the CoastTrek charity walk. Once the decision was made she quickly developed a laser focus to her achieve the goal.

Goals are amazing things. They can inspire us to new heights as we stretch the boundaries of what we thought was possible. To be worthwhile, goals need to be big and audacious! They are also personal.

For example, if an Olympic marathon runner signed up for the thirty-kilometre walk they would probably view it as a bit of a warm up. What they need to inspire them is something much longer over as short a time as possible. In the case of my wife, she’d never done anything like this before and for her it was definitely BIG!

I’ve been watching the Internet explosion of interest surrounding the news that prominent domain hall of fame recipient, Sahar Sarid, has been charged with a number of serious crimes relating to mugshots.com. If you read the many articles and forum posts you would assume the trial has already happened and that he, along with his three associates are guilty…..

I find it really sad that in this day and age the lynch mob is alive and well as they leap into action to grab their burning torches and pitch forks by vilifying a man before the trial. I would remind everyone that Sahar IS innocent until his guilt HAS been proven in a court of law. All we know at this time are the charges and not the outcome.

I should also say that I find the business model surrounding mugshots.com to be unethical (and if proven, illegal) and one that I personally would not have anything to do with. That being said, under our legal system Sahar is granted the right of the presumption of innocence and his guilt must be proven.