Geodomain Shopping? 10 Cities Packed With Recession-Proof Jobs
What a month it’s been for me. After a nasty case of bronchitis followed by a fun case of sinusitis- neither pass quickly for an asthmatic- we made some big steps towards purchasing our first home. We’re having one built, which has been an exciting and scary process what with selecting materials and options.
On to some news!
Yahoo Hotjobs has posted their 10 great cities for salary growth. You know how I feel about these lists, and if not you can read about it here.
With the recession on, many have been watching the unemployment rate as an indicator on how bad it is, or how bad it is going to get. The article refers to the book “150 Recession-Proof Jobs” by Laurence Shatkin, who points out that health care, education, transportation and government jobs are industries that often remain healthy in a recession. This list consists of cities strong in said industries:
- Austin / Round Rock, TX
- Bakersfield, CA
- Charleston / Summerville, SC
- Huntsville, AL
- McAllen / Edinburg / Mission, TX
- Orlando / Kissimmee, FL
- Provo / Orem, UT
- Raleigh / Cary, NC
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Seattle / Tacoma / Bellevue, WA
If you caught the Top 100 Places to Live for 2008 by CNN Money (as well as my related post), you would notice that McAllen / Edinburg / Mission were ranked 11th in fastest job growth and Round Rock was the 7th overall best place to live.
As a domainer, the obvious way to capitalize on this is to plop the keyword “jobs” at the end of the city.com, or beginning- whichever your taste. But in general, lists like these will help you in your geodomain search. You never know what you will see at an auction or on a droplist.
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Freshdrop Gems 3
Some nice names made their way onto TDNAM this week. Using the service Freshdrop.net, this is what I have found on the TDNAM Exp Names listing:
SupportLink.com
$30 with five bids
Ends on 1.9.09 ~ 1:00pm
13 years old!
HikingLife.com
$10 with one bid
Ends on 1.8.9 ~2:50pm
SummerNight.com
$30 with four bids
Ends on 1.10.9 ~1:00pm
10 years old
NetPublisher.com
$205 with 23 bids
Ends on 1.10.9 ~2:20pm
13 years old!
BasicCare.com
$115 with six bids
Ends on 1.11.09 ~11:10am
10 years old
TrueMatch.com
$1005 with 32 bids
Ends on 1.13.09 ~11:10pm
HavingKids.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.14.09 ~2:40pm
NewDomainer.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.15.09 ~11:10pm
ChocolateShops.com
$15 with two bids
Ends on 1.15.09 ~3:00pm
10 years old
LawyersDWI.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.17.09 ~2:30pm
Excellent keywords, just unfortunately in the wrong order.
And a few decent geo domains:
HousesColorado.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.16.09 ~2:50pm
All 50 houses+state.com’s are registered. I prefer state+houses.com’s, but this is still excellent.
DallasPediatric.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.10.9 ~11:00am
Of the top 50 largest cities, more than half of the city+pediatric.com’s are registered.
BostonPediatric.com
$10 with no bids
Ends on 1.10.9 ~12:30pm
ChicagoPediatric.com
$25 with four bids
Ends on 1.10.09 ~3:10pm
Now, this is just 14 names out of 206,354 that are currently listed on Freshdrop’s Exp Names list. Check the site out and see if you can dig up a gem or two.
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2009 Predictions From Various Domainers That You Can’t Live Without!
I had an idea to get the opinions of a bunch of domainers on what they feel were solid upcoming trends for 2009. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much interest in participating, as only 11 of 29 replied. To those 11, many thanks and I appreciate your time. To the other 18… party poopers!
Anyways, I received a good variety of trend predictions for 2009. Many, including mine, seem to focus on technology. Part of that is because domainers tend to be tech savvy, the other part is that I think most people feel we’re in for a big exciting year in technology.
Reece over at LLLL.com posted his over on his blog, check them out here.
I will get things started with my own predictions:
- Portable/Mobile Computing/Tech. Not necessarily netbooks, but GPS, Google Phone, Android, PicoP and Kindle. I think Android can be absolutely monstrous. Netbooks will be big for a year perhaps, but will quickly lose popularity when people realize the one and only benefit is their smaller size. When they can’t multi-task or use those intense web apps, or get sick of the small keyboard/screen, they’ll go back to regular laptops. Throw in the disgustingly fast USB 3.0, and data transfer to these devices will be quick.
- Green IT and Solid-State Drives. Prices for just about anything related to the home PC have come down; RAM is sick cheap, dual core processors won’t be outdated as fast. About the only revolution we’re waiting for is getting these things to use less energy. SSD’s utilize the same technology that you find in USB flash drives, as opposed to the rotating platters of the now old-fashioned HDD. They made a big splash in the second half of 2008, and should be one of the top stories of 2009. Checking over at Newegg, you will see that they already have more than 50 SSD’s in their catalog. Some of the larger capacity SSD’s are still quite expensive, but you can get 30GB for under $100. These are ideal for OS installations since they are fast and silent.
- HTPC, Home Streaming and On-Demand Video. I think there will eventually be a home server or box in every household that will either store your movie library or give you access to one in the cloud. Home servers, or home theater PCs (HTPC) will become big keywords. Putting together an HTPC is not terribly expensive, especially now that storage is outrageously cheap.
- Retail Stores and Malls Will Close Up and Move Online. I think with the end of the Harry Potter series, book stores are doomed. May as well throw in video game and movie rental stores. With inexpensive mail rental options, these stores have no chance. I can see warehouses popping up where they store inventory, or perhaps mini-storefronts put on existing warehouses, where people can “manually” return their rentals/purchases to speed up the process. I think the only thing keeping toy stores alive is the simple fact that kids can touch and play with the toys. Otherwise, may as well buy them online. As for malls, I’m sure you live near one where only 30% of the spaces are being rented; these will start dropping like flies.
- Mashups Explode in Popularity. A mashup is a web application that provides it’s own content/data as well as content/data from other sources into one cohesive service. Examples of mashups are Zillow, WikiCrimes, SkiBonk, Big Contacts, and WiiNearby.
- Small Business and Freelance Explosion. Ok, I’m cheating with a 6th. With the recession on, unemployment is going to continue to rise. Some expect it to hit double digits nationwide. Think about that. What will all those unemployed people do? They will have no choice but to freelance or start their own business. This helps feed the local trend.
Andrew Allemann
Domain Name Wire
- De-leveraging . The trend toward unwinding debt, and all of the bad repercussions, will continue.
- Keeping Down with the Joneses. It used to be that people “kept up with the Joneses” by buying more stuff on credit and leasing cars. It will become fashionable to live within your means.
- Prefab Homes. I’ve been on this trend for a while and think it will take off when real estate rebounds. May not be until 2010-2011.
- Mistrust. Mistrust of government, mistrust of companies. Think extended due-diligence in the wake of Madoff. No more “Jeff is involved, so it must be good.”
- Tiny gadgets. Explosion in purchases of Flip camcorders, GPS units, etc.
James
Namecake.com
- More domainers start developing names - but this isn’t necessarily a positive move for them or the web as a whole. As the majority will be built with poor quality content and they will also find it very difficult to monetize them. People who just focus on one or two projects will also realize it’s a very tough job to build a site into a popular destination.
- SEO and SEM companies will experience a boom as companies, individuals realise this is a much more coste effective way to reach customers. Many people will get ripped off in this area as they search for the magic SEM campaign and company, when all they need is quality content and good links.
- Domains will continue to fall in value. There will be the odd big sale, but they will be few and far between. Now this doesn’t need to be negative as i think the new tld’s are nothing to worry about - they will in fact bring more people to the industry and lay the foundation for a boom in future years.
- Google will grab even more of the search market, but instead of acting with arrogance towards their customers and domainers - i feel they will try to work with us, as we are worth a lot of money to them in Ad revenues.
- The general economy will continue to deteriorate and domainers in need of cash will let go of some superb names very cheap. 2009 will be the year of the bargain. After meeting with various Hedge fund managers (the few remaining) quite a few are bullish on Q4 09, as the various economic stimulatory packages finally filter through to the economy - how long this will last is anyone’s guess as the the fundamental issues still remain and the average man in the street is short of savings and up to his neck in debt.
Jamie Parks
Domain Developer and Live Domainer
- Masses of unemployed and self-employed people all across the world will start seriously questioning all aspects of their lives. Governments, Gods, and what it means to truly do ‘Good’ will be intensely re-examined.
- Socialism will rise via Social Capital Investing. The movement currently driving the Semantic, Social and Mobile webs will expand at an unprecedented rate. Going ‘local’ will continue to foster the ‘green’ energy revolution. RFID, BioMetric, NANO and Ai technologies will be used in various widespread commercial applications.
- Hollywood will be dismantled. Famous people will denounce their ‘fame’ in droves and embrace the Internet despite their contractual agreements. Lots of major chain stores will go out of business and be bought up by realestate speculators.
- The SEC will be investigated. All bailouts will fail. New currencies and monetary systems will be explored. The structure of the American Tax system will be radically re-designed to distribute the national wealth more fairly, starting with health care.
- The citizens of the world will continue to revolt until the illegal occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan ends. Veterans of all wars will use the web to speak out and share their experiences and opinions. Ideas of the devolution of WAR will be mentioned in the mainstream traditional medias. The U.S. Military will re-define it’s foreign policy. The Revolution will continue to be televised. Truth + Transparency + Accountability + Action = REAL CHANGE. Quite simple really…
Stephen Douglas
Vice President of Business Development
WhyPark.com - “Domain Content Development Leader”
President
Successclick.com
“Successful Domain Management™”
- The focus on building content and customization on domains in order to get them indexed on search engines.
- New niche technologies that have yet to be defined in the popular vernacular - pay attention and nab the generic descriptive domains for big payouts!
- Parking services expanding to include multiple revenue resources and features beyond simple PPC links from Google and Yahoo.
- More involvement from end user buyers, based on increased domainers’ efforts to educate the ad and marketing industry on domain name value.
- The dedicated and smart domainers surviving, and the “want to be rich quick” domain investors disappearing. Serious domainers will rise to great profits based on smart thinking, education, evaluation of opportunities, and understanding the total concept of a domain’s assets.
thevirtual
Member of DNForum
- Alternative energy
- Mobile internet
- GPS
- Wifi
- Space travel
Krossat
Krossat’s Blog
- Wireless Technology / IT
- Fashion & Lifestyle
- Loans and Mortgages (wrt 2009)
- Tourism & Travel (New locations)
- Alternative Energy / Green Solutions
Neal R. Voron
FractionalDomainingBlog.com
- Social Net Marketing. I expect the growth of Twitter and other social media to accelerate as the Internet marketing community becomes more knowledgeable about it and gets involved. More and more Twitter applications and Twitter-like sites (such as Musebin.com) seem to be launching recently… I see opportunities involving “Social Net Optimization” and social net applications.
- Personal Social Community Building. More people will be developing ongoing interactive communities on Twitter, etc. based upon their ability to personally connect with people… BTW, the key to effectively utilizing social communities like Twitter is to make meaningful connections with people — not just building a high number of followers, according to Warren Whitlock (@WarrenWhitlock), co-author of “Twitter Revolution”. Personal interaction and offering value is important.
- Tagging. When did online tags start being used? It doesn’t seem that long ago, and the practice accelerated in 2008. I expect the trend to explode in 2009 as Internet marketers and others see opportunities in philanthropic tag, reciprocal tagging, blog-tag, and many aspects that have not been addressed yet. (I’ve got some great tagging-related domains if anyone has grand visions of addressing this area!)
- Generic Personal Branding. When people do not know you by name, it’s often easier to attract attention to yourself and your niche by using a name like “Mr. Positive” (MrPositive.com), or more recently, “Girl In Your Shirt” (GirlInYourShirt.com). I expect this trend to continue in 2009 as more people seek ways to make a statement, stand out, and draw targeted attention to themselves.
- Investment Scrutiny. In the aftermath of government bailouts of various companies and sectors in 2008, as well the Madoff investment scheme scandal, it’s perhaps more evident than ever how important investment scrutiny is, and it’s a trend that will surely get a lot more media attention throughout 2009.
Owen Frager
Frager Factor
- To compete for consumer dollars, hardware manufacturers will have to contend with the new kid on the block: cloud computing. Under this model, consumers “rent” storage space through a service provider, such as Amazon’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) Elastic Compute Cloud or Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) MobileMe service. Earlier this year, EMC (NYSE: EMC) heralded its intentions to enter the consumer cloud computing space when it acquired Pi, a developer of personal information management software.
- Even in a down market, the need for storage continues to rise. Think of all the resumes and virtual home tours being posted right now. Longer-term investors who take the time to research which companies are best able to capitalize on this trend may find some bargains at today’s price levels.
Sammy Ashouri
Fka200
- Bigger Economic Crisis. I just don’t see the mess we’re in ending. I think parts of 2009 are going to be bad considering that it’s harder to find a job and gas prices are slowly going back up.
- Some new revolutionary Apple product. Not exactly sure what it might do/be, but I think Apple might release some cool tech this year.
- The Large Hadron Collider. I think that we’re going to see something REALLY interesting with this once it’s operated.
- Americans will be a bit more united. I’m not exactly sure why, but I have this belief (or small hope?) that we as Americans will just unify in some way. There’s been a lot of separation amongst different groups, but seriously… with all the events going on around us, I think Americans will realize that we need to support one another to remain the strongest nation in the world.
- Year of the Green. I’ve been noticing a lot more “go green” advertisements/companies following along. I think 2009 is going to be a huge year for this “new trend” of being environmentally friendly. And I’m not saying just like somewhat noticeable, I’m really thinking some big explosion where all of a sudden it’s extremely cool to be “green”.
Kevin Jackson
eBusinessDomains
- Increased Demand Geo Domains. As more and more local newspapers shut down their operations due to increased cost and decreasing revenues, the focus will shift to an online presence. Locals will turn to websites serving their own communities, with news, products and services. This will result in an increased demand for geo domains.
- Web Development Will Be More Popular. With the demise of domain parking revenues, domainers will seek to find alternatives to domain parking. This will result in the development of more full scale websites, as well as mini sites, for those with huge domain portfolios.
- Domain Aftermarket Will Still Flourish. Domains will continue to be in high demand. However, we will see more domains selling in the low $x,xxx than in the high $xx,xxx, as this demand will be from Small Business Enterprises or home business entrepreneurs.
- Domain Auctions. Domain auctions will continue to be a very popular way of marketing and selling domain names. As more domainers seek liquidity than profits, we will see more great domain names being offered at zero-reserve.
Special thanks to you guys for taking the time to participate.
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Forbes: Info For Those New To Online Business
I’m sticking with the top 10 list theme for this week. Top 10 lists usually cover trends and niches. But some offer info that can be applied to how you do domaining, or more importantly, how you can move up and begin developing your domain names.
I have a love/hate relationship with Forbes. Now, I don’t read the magazine(s), but I do enjoy some of the articles on their website. They produce many top 10 lists, called In Pictures, which helps me gauge what people feel about certain subjects or niches. But they simply must put their top 10 lists across 10 freakin pages. I know they do it because they get paid per impression on the advertising, but it’s more annoying than a pop-up ad, in my opinion. On top of it, it auto-scrolls. Even when you stop it, sometimes it will just start back up on its own.
I hates it!
So anyways… a couple weeks ago they posted an article on how to make money online. There’s some blah blah blah internet does well during bad economy blah blah blah in there. Most domaining veterans won’t get much out of this, but if you are new to the industry or online business in general, this should give you some pointers and ideas.
Nine ways to make money online
- Targeted Advertisement
- Niche E-Commerce
- Lead Generation
- Software
- Vocational E-Learning
- Subscription-based Content
- Infotainment
- Freemium Service
- Software as a Service
This is great info for domainers looking to do web development instead of parking their domains. Veteran domainers already know this stuff, but this is good info for those new to domaining.
Also in the article, they give
16 solid small business website design tips
- Choose an obvious domain name
- Select a host
- Specify the front end: HTML vs Flash
- Highlight your brand
- Spell out your products and services
- Showcase your leaders
- Let happy customers crow
- Go easy on the graphics
- Nail down the navigation
- Choose smart keywords
- Get local
- Start a newsletter
- Sponsor a nonprofit
- Blog
- Measure performance
- Prime the pump
Ok to start: number 1 is for the win. It’s interesting that they say something n00bish like domains cost $20 a year, but then recommend people buy variations. As for HTML vs Flash, is there even an argument here for a small business looking for an internet presence? In general though, this is a nice simple list if you are deciding to diversify and develop your domain names.
Lastly, the article has
13 businesses you can start for under $5000
- Direct-retail sales
- Interior design
- Event planner
- Home landscaping
- SAT tutoring
- Yogai Instruction
- Computer troubleshooting and repair
- Child care
- Writing software
- Graphic design
- Consulting
- Public relations
- Web work
Um, some of these were quite unrealistic and funny to me, and not even related to the article’s theme. Public relations? Look at the description for computer repair! Anyways, I’m not suggesting domainers should consider interior design or give yoga classes, er unless you want to, I just like the idea of the list. Could you make a similar list, only for online businesses that domainers can do? And since we are, uh, “penny pinchers,” let’s scratch the $5k and make it $100? $500?
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