I’m Back! And I Have A Couple Great New Tools
I have electricity once again after Ike took it from us for 11 days. The site was also down today. Apparently the Google positioner plugin I use stopped working and made the entire site go poof. It’s gone and the site is back.
I’m a bit out of touch at the moment; haven’t been able to keep up on news and trends very easily. What I do have, however, are a couple great tools recently released by Name.com.
To start, they now have Domain Suggestions, Expiring Names and a Recently Deleted section.
The Domain Suggestion feature isn’t terribly special; it seems like any other suggestion engine. Though, I was able to find a couple decent names using it.
The Expiring section lets you buy names for $19.99 before they get deleted. Again, not terribly special but I did find a decent name or two.
Now the Recently Deleted section is a different story. I was able to find plenty of decent names here for the bargain price of reg fee. Eliminating hyphens, numbers, .nets and dropping the length below 20 yields some nice domain names for the keywords you enter. I love how you can search back X amount of days as well, but beware: the searches can take a long time (and I hate the location of the checkout button; my mousehand loves to click on it).
Let’s take some recent trends reported here on TrendDomaining.com and search the Recently Deleted feature on Name.com
- BambooTips.com
- TattooFinder.com
- RobotMachinery.com
- KyotoCarbonCredit.com
- CheckCarbon.com
- CarbonNeutralising.com (Yes, I know this is British)
- CarbonActivist.com
- ReduceOurFootprint.com (Call-to-action is the in-thing)
- CharlotteDayTrips.com
- SolarHerald.com (what a great name for a solar news site)
- OntarioSolarPower.com
- HomeEnergySolutions.com
Enter broken record: Yes, these aren’t CarbonCredit.com, SolarPower.com and Robotics.com, but these are worth reg fee and would do an end user well.
There is one last tool Name.com has given us: e-mail alerts for deleted names that contain your hand picked keywords. You can reach there through a not so subtle link on the Recently Deleted section called Get email notification of newly deleted names.
You can enter as many keywords as you like, such as Houston, Chicago, NewYork, Bamboo, etc. Then choose a max length, hyphens, numbers and e-mail frequency and Name.com will send you a notice as soon as the domain gets deleted.
Like Google Alerts though, this thing can spam ya. Do not leave the max length at 63 unless you really are interested in xomphoenixnightlifewhiteoutparty.com. Yes, I did receive an e-mail alert for that.
I really like how it will bundle your alerts into one e-mail instead of one for each name or even each keyword. Excellent idea.
These are a couple nice tools to add to your ever-growing arsenal. They need some polishing, but it’s a good start for Name.com in bringing in new features.
Social Trendcasting Site Is Great Tool For Domainers
Ran across a nifty site today; I have no idea how it slipped by me. It’s called Edopter.com and they brand it as social trendcasting. You are able to browse and follow trends, even submitting some yourself (requires free registration). As a member, you can comment on submitted trends and even help hype them. You are given credit for discovering trends and can give credit to others.
The popularity of a trend can rise and fall, and it will show you the difference from the previous weeks popularity.
The site does use information that you enter to help define trends. For instance, you enter your date of birth, zip code and gender upon registering. The site will keep track of the trends you submit and support. So if a certain trend is wildly popular among 20-24 year old men, the site will say that.
I spent a good deal browsing the site and found some interesting trends and clever start-ups. A few examples:
- Spikeball - Like volleyball, only different… just $50 and enjoyed by males ages 25 to 30 from Chicago. Being the curious fella that I am, I checked in with Google Trends. The trend report for “Spike Ball” supports this claim. Check out the cities: LA is first, with Chicago second. Pretty neat. (ChicagoSpikeball.com is available Spikeball is the name of a product, not a sport. So it’s trademarked)
- OLED’s - Organic LED’s are more efficient and powerful.
- Coworking - The idea of work-at-home employees getting together in a community area such as a cafe or a shared office.
I even found one related to domaining: Backwards-spelled domain names. Sorry, not sold.
Taking a look at the most popular trends and you will see a watered down list of obvious things like the iPhone, Obama, Apple, Firefox, etc. The real treasure is found from browsing the trends.
Plenty of stuff here for domainers to sniff out. Some of these trends are quite early, which is a great time to get in on it. Let’s go back to the Coworking trend: If people are searching out comfortable places to work, a directory could be worth building. How much competition will you have? LocalCoworking.com is available.
Check the site out, spot anything that has potential?
TrendWatching.com Releases July/Aug Briefing, TrendDomaining.com Had A Few Right
TrendWatching.com has posted it’s bi-monthly briefing early this morning. These briefings are free and every domainer should check them out when they are released. It is an essential tool as far as I’m concerned. This edition is INNOVATION AVALANCHE (link fixed), as they claim there is more innovation happening right now than ever before. This report discusses 41 copy-worthy innovative ideas.
This is a great site. I’ve used a couple of their reported trends to register domain names. They have a huge trend report that they put out at the end of every year predicting all of the next years trends. At $800, it isn’t for the average Joe. But it would be a wise investment if you could afford it.
So, if you’re in a lazy mood, here is the Cliff’s Notes version of the briefing:
The first 3 innovative ideas are based on the premiumization trend. You take every day normal products or brands and, well, pimp them. For instance, stylish fire extinguishers or the Hi-Q tire company. Premiumization was predicted to be a top trend in 2008, and it’s living up to the prediction.
Ideas 3 and 4 are hyperlocal trends. Sound familiar eh? That’s because I’ve blogged about hyperlocal dating. They go on to say that we spend 49 weeks a year in our local worlds, making the hyperlocal trends inevitable. I agree 100%.
Ideas 6 through 11 are based on the “crowd” or “crowdfunding” trend. These companies are using scores of people to execute their business platform. From a community-managed brewery that donates one third to charity, to rewarding companies that “do good” with mobs of shoppers. This trend is focused on empowering the public, and there are some pretty nifty ideas listed in this report.
Ideas 12-14 focus on the “FREE” trend. Companies are looking for ways to profit off of free products, and a few of them have made it work. Universities are giving away free notebooks that are plastered with advertising. The students get free materials, the University makes a little profit (or breaks even) and the advertisers get impressions; 96 a semester if you’re counting.
Ideas 15-18 are “ItGredients.” This is predicting the next it-ism in the food and beverage industry, such as red espresso; made from red tea and much healthier than regular espresso. Also featured: chocolate covered ants. Yum. They also talk about high-end juices. I almost wrote a post about high-end juice a couple months ago. I figured it wasn’t a trend that domainers could not capitalize on enough to warrant a full post.
Ideas 19-23 are “Tryvertising.” Along with premiumization, this trend was expected to be one of the biggest for 2008. This is another trend I almost wrote a post on. SeatGuru is an example; they have detailed info on the seating layouts of commercial airplanes. This will help you choose the best seat for your next flight. Other examples would be a site that helps you find hotel rooms with the best views and restaurant ratings not for restaurants themselves, but individual dishes they serve. That way, you can “try” them out before you actually purchase.
Ideas 24-28 are based off of making radical eco-friendly decisions that can greatly benefit your company. Examples given were pedal-powered street vendors, solar powered kiosks, mattresses made from recycled materials and something I blogged about: First Look. First Look sells detailed reports to businesses that wish to generate their own power using wind, solar or whatever. This can be extra helpful to domainers who are looking for green geodomain names.
Ideas 29-32 are the “Meconomy.” Not only did I think about blogging about this trend, I have a half-written post on it already. This trend is the personalization of EVERY-FREAKIN-THING: Baby movies, M&M’s, magazines, etc. This is a trend domainers would be interested in as you can plop a “me” or “my” on just about any domain name.
Ideas 33-36 are the convenience economy. This trend focuses on doing things faster, simpler and better. Things like bike stations, they say. They also talk about press-on eyeshadow. This is another topic that I have a working post on. It’s not totally focused on eyeshadow, but is about a bigger, different trend.
Ideas 37-39 are feeder businesses. These are businesses that feed off of other businesses and/or trends. For instance, a company that will put your items on eBay for you. Without eBay the company doesn’t exist.
Idea 40 is the “Eco-Iconic.” We’ve gone from eco-ugly to eco-chic to eco-iconic: proudly showing off your trendy, efficient personal eco-friendly goods. They give a solar-powered lawnmower as an example. I’ve I blogged about personal solar power here.
Idea 41 is “Off=On.” The success of the online revolution is leading to many companies taking advantage of it. Some of them are even mirroring the online world in their offline manufacturing processes and procedures. They give a chocolate company as an example.
Totally Tweriffic Twitter Trend Tool
Twitter has a gem of a domaining tool that no one knows about. This is something that’s not on their page: it’s hidden. It’s called Search.Twitter.com. The name is self explanatory.
So I did a search for “new trend” and it was quite obvious what trends people have been talking about. This is hitting up trends pretty early on. Twitter and texting is about the first thing people do when they communicate now-a-days. It’s usually too late to get the category killer domain names once a trend hits the news. But I hit one or two using this search engine.
This is what I found:
Apparently Christina Aguilera and Tyra Banks have started a new trendy hairstyle called Goffered Hair. I registered:
- Goffered.com
- GofferedHair.com
This is something I noticed myself during the Olympics but never really thought of it: lenseless glasses. I saw several tweets of this and one referred to this article. I registered:
- LenselessGlasses.com
A big trend right now is making an avatar of your manga self. You take your face and manga-ize it. I registered:
- MyMangaAvatar.com
- MyMangaSelf.com
- MangaSelf.com
Other weird trends I read about: Fish fighting, cats in purses, pre-tween beauty waxing, precycling, SIGG bottles, white hair, insourcing, large ariel font and short wedding dresses.
These are trends that I otherwise would never have found. I was able to hit them up super early before they got into mainstream media.
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?