I was speaking with a person the other day and encouraged them to start reading. Yes, we all read a huge amount of Twitter, Facebook, news feeds and even blogs but what I suggested they do is pick up a book.

We spend so much time “catching-up” that many of us forget that reading is more than just about getting the next sound bite. When you read a good book, fiction or non-fiction, you are entering the mind of another person and getting their thoughts on characters, plot or their views on a particular topic. This meeting of minds can have an impact of you by expanding your own horizons or challenging your own perceptions.

At their core, books are a structured set of considered thoughts that have often taken the author a significant chunk of their life to construct. This considered opinion is very different from a Facebook post which is more often than not, just an opinion or at worst an uninformed opinion.

For example, let’s imagine you see a Facebook post on climate change and immediately “like it”. You have effectively shared your opinion on the topic to untold numbers of people around the world, but do you actually understand the issues around climate change?

When I was in high school my English teacher drummed into me the art of critical thinking. Don’t take on face value what is being said, dig into the facts and seek to understand all sides of an issue prior to making up your own mind. Then, once you’ve formed an opinion, hold it lightly as it may be wrong.

I believe the desire to come to grips with real issues has been in steady decline as the world has become highly defensive in their haste to take offence. From experience, too many people react rather than really think. This may seem quite judgmental but ask yourself, when was the last time you argued against your typical position on a real issue to force yourself to view the other side of an argument?

I recently conducted an in-depth analysis of a statistically sound sample of a several hundred thousand domains. There was nothing special or selective about the sample and yet the results showed that contrary to many peoples believe, domain monetisation is alive and well.

I attend a lot of conferences around the world and I must admit that I get a little flummoxed when I hear over and over again claims that domain monetisation is dead. The reason for this is that my company, ParkLogic, sees the actual data from right across the industry and from our perspective nothing could be further from the truth.

When I say we see data for the industry I really mean that. Any domain traffic on the ParkLogic platform is evaluated every hundred milliseconds to see which company will pay the most for it. There’s no guessing or “gut instinct” involved, it’s all about the numbers.

I have two questions to ask the monetisation naysayers:

1. Do you have a statistically sound sample of domains that allows you to speak with any authority?
2. What have you done differently with your domains in the last 6 months?

The first questions strikes at the heart of credibility. If you don’t personally have the data or access to the data, then on what basis are you making claims that can potentially be damaging to the industry.

A few year ago, I was publicly ridiculed in a domain forum by an individual and told in no uncertain terms that I know nothing about domain monetisation. I took the condemnation on the chin and in a private message I asked my accuser how much revenue per month they were doing. The answer was $5.