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Prices for just about anything related to the home PC have come down; RAM is sick cheap, dual core processors won’t be outdated as fast.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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Guest Post: New Domain Registrations - Cheap Hot Tip For Great Domains
Many of you, including myself, are always looking for new sources of domains. You’d be surprised to know I spoke to Monte Cahn about a good source on Moniker’s DomainMaster radio over two years ago about this little-known secret, and I’ve helped many of my clients with this angle:
Take a look at online manufacturing industry catalogs and product pages. Find an industry, and investigate it, such as plumbing, electronic, auto parts, chemical, agriculture, etc.
There’s an easy way to find generic domains (do NOT nab product model names or anything with a ™ next to it). Surprisingly, the catalogs of these companies’ nicely define their products’ generic descriptions. That’s right. The catalogs of these companies are defining the generic description of their own products, and most of them don’t buy those domains while they’re designing the catalog. Some of my domains I found this way I sold within a year. I still have some popular ones that make some PPC too, like impactsprinklers.com and chemicaladditive.com. These are big products, and I bought them “OOTB -out of the basket” (New registrations).
With the evolution of marketing the domain name industry and the epiphanal marketing necessity for companies to own their prodserv online, they eventually will back up their popular products with buying the generic domains for them. It’s been done in the past, it’s being done now, and it will be even bigger in the future.
It can be time-consuming, and addictive. It also can be very lucrative. Be careful, learn a lot about the niche industry you’re thinking about following for finding their most popular product generic domains. Use their catalogs and product pages! A goldmine for domainers if you take the time to research.
Okay, now somebody owes me something.
Guest Blog Post by Stephen Douglas, Successclick.com
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Jamie Parks Donates Contest Winnings To ICA
Jamie Parks has generously asked to donate his $50 prize to the Internet Commerce Association. Done.
For those that are unfamiliar with the ICA, it’s a non-profit group that represents domain investors and developers. They’re fighting for us and what we do.
They accept donations. But you can also join as an Associate Member for $295 annually, with additional more expensive, and involved, memberships available. I know this fee is not feasible for most people. And I won’t say that you need to join it without having done so myself. I will say that I will be joining them when I can and perhaps you should consider it as well, when you can.
In fact, if any of you are in a generous enough mood to speed up the process for me and purchase the domain I have listed for sale in the right column, I’ll sign up as an Associate Member immediately and donate an additional $700 to the ICA. Just saying 
Again, thanks Jamie for participating and generously offering your prize to the ICA.
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Baby Boomers Will Trigger Many Trends
Boomer companions/caregivers where chosen as one of the top jobs of the near future, as chosen by MSNBC. They’re absolutely right. In fact, the Boomers will trigger several huge trends that have already begun to reveal themselves and will be in full swing just 2 years from now.
There are 78 million Boomers, and in the next couple years many of them will be turning 65, making them eligible for Medicare. 78 million! To give you an idea of how many people that is, it is the same amount that live in our three most populated states:
The Baby Boomers are going to begin retiring and hitting up that Medicare. Expect a surge in age-related illness/treatments such as Alzheimer’s and Diabetes in the next couple years. But is that really all that 78 million people can give us?
Hell no. You see, these people will be retiring and that will set in motion oodles of trends.
To start, someone must fill their positions at the workplace as Baby Boomers are one third of America’s workforce. This is something I pointed out in a post about Generation X. Gen X is set to take over. Know their tendencies, likes, dislikes, whatever.
Second, these people may be retiring from their careers, but some (actually, I think most… and so does CNN) will move on to an every-day job… either by necessity to pay the bills, by choice to fill the time, or to fulfill their lifelong dream of starting a business. You should see a boom in the following industries due to retired Boomers:
- Senior job placement and training services. To help them find a job they’ll be happy with.
- Volunteer and non-profit (especially the Peace Corps). Now that they have the time, many will volunteer it.
- Consultants. Many of these seniors will become consultants for the very field they retired from.
- Temp Agencies. Many people turn to them, and Boomers like them because it’s most likely how they started.
- Houseboats. Both sales and rentals. Boomers love them and can now actually spend time in them.
- RV’s. Oh this will be big. You heard it here first: I don’t care about the gas crisis, Boomers LOVE their RV’s. Boomers love to travel, and they’ll do it in an RV.
Third, Boomers are going to want to live in their dream home. The key is WHERE their dream home is located. Like I said: they love to travel, so Boomers have timeshares, second homes and favorite vacation spots all across the U.S. These are the places they will want to move to. So where are these?
In no particular order:
- Flagstaff, AZ
- Tucson, AZ
- Sedona, AZ
- Palm Springs, CA
- San Diego, CA
- Lake Tahoe, CA
- Aspen, CO
- Boulder, CO
- Tampa, FL
- Port St. Lucie, FL
- Sarasota, FL
- Key West, FL
- Orlando, FL
- Boca Raton, FL
- Fort Myers, FL
- Cape Cod, MA
- Santa Fe, NM
- Las Vegas, NV
- Reno, NV
- Myrtle Beach, SC
- Hilton Head Island, SC
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- Anywhere Hawaii
- OK, anywhere Florida
- The Caribbean
Boomers already own timeshares or second homes in these cities. I feel there will be a significant surge in population in most, if not all, of these cities/places over the next couple years as the Boomers move in permanently. They are already familiar with them and will want to spend their remaining days, and money, in the place that most makes them happy. Expect healthy real estate markets in these cities.
I’m sure there are plenty more trends as 78 million people are bound to produce many. Are there any you can see the Boomers setting off?
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Anyone Can Participate In The Geodomain Game
During the second part of my interview with Neal Voron of Fractional Domaining Blog, he asked me how I translated my research into actual registrations. I wandered off into an idea of combining trends, and suggested that you could combine:
Dating Sites + Gas Crisis = Hyperlocalized Dating
Off the top of my head, I gave three examples:
- LeagueCitySingles.com
- UticaSingles.com
- WestBoroughDating.com
I work out of League City, TX and Utica, MI is a city near the town where I grew up. Westborough was a city that just popped into my head because it was on a list I recently read. Anyways, I went on to say that even though these cities are relatively small, domains like these are more likely to be available than, say, NewYorkSingles.com.
Even though, overall, I’m right, in this particular instance I was wrong.
On Friday I was driving through League City and saw 5 signs on the side of the road that advertised LeagueCitySingles.com! When I got home, my curiosity lead me to check the other two and UticaSingles.com is also registered. Though the Utica was the NY version, not the MI, as it’s much bigger.
WestboroughDating.com is available.
League City, TX has around 45k people where Utica, NY has 60k. Even if 50% of the population is married, that still leaves more than 20k that are single. How many of those are comfortable with online dating? It may be a small number, who knows. But even if it’s just 1k, that’s more than enough to monetize a site. This is highly targeted traffic.
Obviously there are people thinking the same thing I am: You don’t need New York, Chicago, LA or Houston to have a great geodomain. What you DO need is a real functioning site on that geodomain.
EDIT:
I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before, but I just checked and HyperlocalizedDating.com was available. Not anymore.
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