Congratulations are in order to all of the organisers of Domainers Meet in Dubai. The conference concluded yesterday and I know that a lot of business will be conducted as a result. This good news is that there are plans in place already to run the conference next year.

From the moment I stepped off the plane at the enormous Dubai international airport I could feel the incredible surge of energy of a city and a country going places. It's hard to imagine that just forty years earlier and I would have been welcomed by sand dunes.....instead a bustling metropolis of amazing skyscrapers and spectacular architecture greeted me.

The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, stands out as a shimmering spire surrounded by an oasis of a manmade lake that contains dancing fountains which make the ones in front of the Belagio look tiny. Everything about Dubai speaks of grandeur and an amazing vision towards the future.

Likewise, Domainers Meeting is backed by a team that really believes in not just the physical expansion of Dubai but also the virtual. This theme constantly came through in the conference. It's clear that Dubai plans on applying the same amount of energy to domains and the Internet as it has to carving out the remarkable city in the physical.

I had the privilege of being the opening speaker and it was somewhat daunting as I stood looking across at the attendees. Why was this the case? Because I was standing in the sand dunes of the virtual Dubai and the people before me were eager to turn the sand into virtual gold. They were hungry to learn and apply the same levels of enthusiasm to domain names that they have applied to everywhere around us.

Many domain luminaries shared their experience including but not limited to: Braden Pollock (LBDN), Tessa Holcomb (Igloo), Rob Monster (Epik), Rolf Larsen (.GLOBAL), Francesco Cetraro (.CLOUD), Daliah Saper (Attorney), plus a lot of others....it was jammed pack from early morning until late evening. A real highlight for me was hearing from Munir Badr who spoke on the state of the domain/internet industry in the UAE.

In many respects the Dubai Domainers Meeting had a very similar feel to DomainFest Asia. They both were not large events but you could feel the drive to break new ground in every conversation.....and I had the privilege of being on the ground for both events.

I'm already hearing rumblings about how much bigger DomainFest Asia will be this September and I wouldn't be surprised if the next Domainers Meeting in Dubai is considerably larger than the first. For those of you that were considering attending Domainers Meeting and made the decision to not go you really missed out on a special event. I would highly recommend that you decide to attend next year.

So once again, congratulations are in order to the entire team that put on the Dubai Domainers Meeting! See you next year :-)

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

This is the third part in a series that examines domains and the Chinese economy. The first two parts can be viewd by clicking on the following links: Part 1      Part 2

The biggest concern with a Chinese economic downturn is the impact that it will have on the rest of the world. As companies reduce spending and hunker down during the economic storm domain valuations will be the recipient of a perfect storm of less demand and massively greater supply courtesy of the new gTLDs.

If you are considering an offer right now on a domain, then my advice would be to take it, as I believe we will be heading into some rough water over the next couple of years. I’ve never regretted having cash in the bank and if I’m right, then there’s going to be some real bargains available in the not too distant future.

The biggest concern for me is the value of domain traffic in a financial crisis. Users will still have value but I’m concerned whether the value will be fully realised by domain investors in a downturn.

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) taught us that although domain traffic is valuable (businesses need customers) the position of domain investors in the domain ecosystem is currently quite weak. As the dominant advertising partner, Google is likely to try and take a greater share of the reduced volume of advertising dollars in a difficult market.

This strategy worked in the past because there was excess margin between what Google pays out and second tier advertising exchanges. We are seeing that this is not necessarily the case in every market vertical. Domain investors that leave all of their domains with a single company or try and move them manually between monetisation companies will achieve sub-optimal results.

The challenge for domain investors is to diversify revenue sources so that they are not all coming from a single company. A recent article on the “hidden value of optimisation” clearly showed how optimising across multiple revenue sources effectively hedges against turbulent economic times. In the case of the article it illustrated the cross-rate differential between the Euro and $US as an example.

I’m constantly looking at macro-economic factors that may impact ParkLogic clients and then devise ways to help mitigate any downside risk while increasing the benefits from any potential upside opportunities. It’s what keeps the team awake at night as we dive into not just domain data but data that may impact the value that underpins our client’s assets.

To finalise this series, here is a list of actions that you may wish to consider implementing:

• Finalise all active domain transactions.
• Review the prices of all of your domains with an eye to reducing them.
• Ensure all of your domains have buy it now prices on them.
• Get all of your domains into each of the active market places.
• Actively reach out to end users of your domains to market them.
• Setup a webpage with all of your domains listed and their prices. All “for sale” links on parked pages should point to this webpage. If a potential buyer clicks on one of the domains then it may route through to one of the market places to handle the negotiation etc. This will mean that all of the traffic from potential buyers will be routed through to your domain list and not used to potentially sell someone else’s domain.
• Outsource all of your domain management (especially for traffic) to a company that actively reduces revenue risk.
• Do not buy any domains unless you can see a clearly defined exit.
• Close any developmental projects that have a time horizon greater than 2 months.

I hope that you found the series on domaining and China interesting and thought provoking. I'm looking forward to DomainFest in Hong Kong to test out some of my hypothesis.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

I’m really looking forward to heading off to the Dubai Domainers Meet conference later this week. There’s been quite a bit of scepticism about whether the event will be successful or not and a number of people have asked me why I signed-up so early.

When I look at where the global growth in Internet is going to come from it’s really centred around emerging economies and the third world. For a start, it just so happens that Dubai is positioned as a global hub in the middle of the majority of this region. It's by no means a coincidence that Dubai is hosting the world Expo in 2020.

When I was traveling to ICANN in Dublin I happened to be on an Emirates flight transiting through Dubai and there was a radio show on the growth of Dubai as a regional economic powerhouse. It was clear to me that this was a part of the world that I really need to get to know, so I snapped up the chance to speak at the first Dubai Domainers Meet.

Likewise, last year when DomainFest Asia was held in Macau I jumped at the opportunity to attend. That single conference opened my eyes up to the significant opportunities and problems that domainers in China face. From the one conference I’ve already made some fantastic contacts and done a lot of business…..I’m hoping I will experience something similar at the Dubai event.

It really excites me that the conference conveners are taking a very different approach to running a typical domainer event. They are really reaching out to end users, wider technical community and government authorities. Their focus has been to bring new blood into the domain industry….and I think they’ll achieve this.

Last week they ran a professional press conference at the Shangri-la Hotel in Dubai for mainstream media outlets and they managed to achieve a lot of press coverage. Click on the links below to view some of the exposure.

Al Bayan
Al lttidhad
Al Kaleej
Al Watan
The Gulf Today (english)

I personally believe that these efforts are really going to pay-off and the Dubai Domainers Meet conference will grow year on year.

I’m really looking forward to sharing on my topic of “Domaining, Past, Present and Future”. It’s caused me to journey both down memory lane and think a lot about where the industry is headed. As normal it will be packed full of anecdotes, data and personal insights into what I believe are significant domain investment opportunities.

If you have been on the fence about going to the Dubai Domainers Meet then I would encourage you to book your ticket…..it’s not too late and there are a LOT of flights in and out of Dubai. Remember that sometimes in business you need to invest into educating yourself, even if it means taking a risk on something new like the Dubai Domainers Meet. I hope to see you there!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

There’s nothing quite like your eldest daughter turning 21 to really focus your attention on the years that seem to have sped by. I’m so proud of the young lady that she’s become.

It seems like only yesterday that I held her in my arms for the very first time. Her wide open eyes soaking in the world around her…..and then she pooped in my lap. I really didn’t mind as the loving bound between us that was forged in those moments would stand the test of time.

In the early years, like every Dad, I was my daughter’s hero. I was like superman, able to lift large toy boxes down off shelves, build complex train tracks and give copious amounts of tickles. Holidays were times of laughter and playing games together.

In the teenage years Dad became a bit of a “he’s the old man”. The bound between us was tested but it was built of stronger stuff than steel. The transition from telling Sarah what she should do to advisor was a little traumatic at times as I watched her make mistakes, learn from them and then sometimes make them again. I wanted to reach out to catch her so many times but knew she needed to learn from her own experiences. It was tough being a Dad.

But now she’s 21 and I couldn’t be prouder of my daughter. Sure, she’s done some pretty amazing things such as getting qualified and working in her industry but it’s more than that. A lot more than that.

When I look at Sarah I see a young lady of character and as her father this is so much more important than her achievements. She’s patient, loving and kind. She loves telling me about her friend’s successes, while downplaying her own. She easily forgets the wrongs done to her by others in her desire to care for them.

She’s a lady that does her best to be truthful and protect those around her from harm. I’ve never seen anyone that perseveres like her and she always hopes for the best in every situation. More certain than all of these things I know that our love for each other will never fail.

So as we celebrate Sarah turning 21 today I have the privilege of looking at her through a father’s eyes, with all of our memories and knowing that we will make many more together in the years to come.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

This is the second article in the series on China. Click here for part 1.

Off the back of all of the China debt crisis, what’s going on in the domain industry? For the past year many western domain investors have been scratching their heads as they tried to work out why the Chinese were buying up all of the 4 letter/number domains.

Other than a few reasons which were largely due to mysticism and numerology there was no sustainable underpinning of the value of many of these domains. In short, it was spectulation run mad that rapidly pushed up the prices.

Despite the underlying values being questionable there has been a rush by many western domain speculators to register short character domains. The total goal was to then sell these domains to Chinese investors for inflated prices. While some people have made money, many are in the process of losing their shirt as the giant global ponzi scheme comes crashing down.

I recently spoke with a Chinese investor that has over $50m to invest in domains and she indicated that they are putting just about everything on hold to see what’s happening with the market. The domain industry has just experienced a bubble fuelled by cheap money that was looking for another asset class to invest into. The rule of thumb for bubbles is to get in and get out really fast so if you're holding any of these domains then it may be a long time (if ever) before you see a return.

As an example, a number of months ago I sold a whole lot of 4 letter dotcom domains to a Chinese buyer. I recently checked the market and you couldn’t get half the price for those domains now.

I have been upfront in saying that while the cheap money is available then in my opinion sell. It’s not often that you get opportunities like the one that has just past.

What’s really interesting is that many of the Chinese registrars are the companies that are moving massive numbers of the new gTLDs. As an example, registrar west.cn has sold 27.3% of the .xyz domains (1.13m). Congratulations should be made to Daniel Negari and his team as they really tapped into the Chinese market as a place to sell the .xyz brand in a big way.

Likewise, .CLUB has managed to sell over 60% of its domains to Chinese investors. It’s clear why Collin, Jeff and the team have been clocking up the frequent milers to China and back! Like a number of the other new gTLD registries they seized upon the boom time in China as a way to move their stock. It was a fantastic move!

The question that needs to be addressed is what will happen to the new gTLD market in a Chinese bust? Clearly renewals will evaporate from domain speculators and new registrations will return to much more modest levels. But is this really a bad thing?

What the Chinese boom has done for a number of the new gTLD registries like .CLUB and .XYZ is provide a massive injection of capital at a time when they most needed it. A Chinese bust will not be catastrophic for these companies as they've also been focusing their efforts in other parts of the world and in particular end users.

In the next article in the series I will go through what I think is a good domain strategy in the event of a Chinese economic collapse.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.