TrendDomaining.com Is 6 Months Old Today, Answers: What Is Trend Domaining?
Today marks six months since my first post. It went by so damn fast! September and October weren’t my best months, but I can attribute most of that to Ike, Dead Space and some writers block. After all, there are only so many trends one can write about, ya know? Eventually you get to things that don’t really warrant a full post; as I’m trying to avoid small 100 word “editorials.” It’s kind of hard writing a full interesting article about the resurgence of sockmonkeys, despite their racist beginnings.
What is Trend Domaining?
Earlier this month, Elliot Silver wrote a post on his blog about trend domaining. There are some excellent comments and I recommend you check them out. I feel Elliot writes some of the best posts in the domain industry. You just don’t get any BS from him, at least that’s how I feel. He stated that though he does some trend domaining himself, it’s a flawed strategy. This sparked more than a dozen comments both agreeing and disagreeing with his opinion.
Now, I feel they were discussing a more extreme way of trend domaining; something that doesn’t fully represent what this strategy is.
So…
What is trend domaining?
In short: it’s the strategy of identifying future or fresh trends and registering the best related domains. But it’s a bit more complex than that. Identifying future trends takes a lot work and time to do the research. Spotting surging trends and registering the best related domains for them also requires a good deal of work and time spent. Both ways require an element of luck, as well as a knack for choosing the right successful trends over simple fads.
Now, I’m not trying to fool anyone. This is not a super secret strategy. And it’s certainly nothing I made up on my own. Domainers have been doing this since the beginning. After all, almost the entire point of purchasing a domain is that, one day, it will be valuable. This holds true whether you intend on flipping it, developing it or whatever. You are banking on the fact that one day someone will either want the domain, or the related content/product that’s attached to it.
You’ve all purchased domain names with the hope that a surging trend will increase it’s value. That’s the whole idea!
Now, like anything else in the world, this is a good strategy in moderation. It is ideal to get the category killer domain name of any given trend. Examples of category killer trend domains that I have registered in the past few months:
MicroTheaters.com
IPatriotAct.com
HyperlocalDating.com
These aren’t premium domains. But they are the absolute best domains you can get for their given subject, which makes them category killers.
For some trends, it is worth acquiring second tier domain names. For example: let’s take the trend of coworking; the idea of independent workers of like-minded values or goals who gather socially at sites like coffee houses or even home offices. I got in late and was unable to register the category killer of Coworking.com. But being that this is a local trend, I was able to pick up a decent second tier domain in LocalCoworking.com.
Will these pan out for me? Who knows. Time will tell. But, I feel they were certainly worth registration fees.
Again, this is a good strategy… in moderation. What Elliot, and some commenters of his post, were concerned about were people who dumped a lot of money into acquiring large quantities of domains related to a single, or even multiple trends in hopes of making a quick buck. The best example I can give of this are domains related to the U.S. Presidential Election where Obama, McCain, Biden and Palin domains were registered by the thousands.
And we’re talking absolutely horrible domains like DougTheBarber.com, JoeThePlumberDotCom.com and McCain–Palin.info (actual names listed on eBay). These terrible domains were listed for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. They were registered in large quantities by domainers hoping to make a quick buck on a trend. Their strategy is that perhaps one or two of them will sell for good money, thus making up for their other crap registrations.
This is an extreme strategy and not representative of everything trend domaining is. It’s akin to acquiring 2000 LLLL.com’s with the hope that some company named Quinn’s Water And Valves will bust down your door and throw money at you for your QWAV.com domain name.
And I will be the first one to tell you that this strategy is not a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, it is the direct opposite. The idea is to acquire domains before a trend or early on in a trends life. You hold it and then sell, or develop it, when the time is right. That will not get you rich quickly. There may be exceptions, but not many.
Using this strategy in moderation also means that your portfolio should not be 90% trend domains. Anyone in any industry will tell you to diversify, and it absolutely applies here as well.
I think there may be a misconception that trend domaining involves hand registering only. Not true; and this is what makes trend domaining a valuable strategy for both novice and veteran domainers alike. Everyone can get in on hand registering domains. It can be fun even: Kevin of BigTicketDomains says that it’s “much like the excitement from the early days of domaining when treasures could still be found each day at reg fee costs“
But veterans, or those who have the funds, can purchase the category killers of future trends that have been registered for years. Examples would be:
WindTurbines.com
ElectricCars.com
NaturalGas.com
CarbonCredits.com
VirtualWorlds.com
These are just a handful of domains that you simply can’t argue against their future value. Novice domainers can’t touch these. But there are plenty of domainers out there that would be able to afford them. And they would be buying them with the expectations that these trends will keep on rising, making these domains more valuable next year, and the year after, and so on.
That is trend domaining.
Review of Trends Reported here on TrendDomaining.com
I’ve written about dozens of trends. I’d like to touch base on some of them now and share with you just where these trends sit today. In no particular order:
Aug 7th - Oil Bubble
The original post stated that the bubble was about to burst, which wasn’t a ground breaking statement by any means. However, in my September 1st Labor Day Recap I stated that the burst would show in October. Though this article is being published in mid-November, this particular section was written October 31st, where I paid $1.98 for a gallon of gas in Houston; less than half of what I paid earlier in the summer (Note: on Nov 5th I paid $1.89 a gallon and Nov 14th I paid $1.67 in Freeport, TX). In the original post, I also stated that everyone will move on to alternative energy. Well, as my bailout post points out, the government cemented my comment and this trend.
June 6th - Untooning
Inspired by the post made here on TrendDomaining.com, The Little Devil Media Team has put together Untoons.com. This site is exactly what I had in mind when I posted about the new art form. “Untooned” is now getting ~880 searches a month, according to Google’s keyword tool. It’s not a show stopper, but a nifty niche nonetheless. And one that, if you follow trends, you could have acquired the category killer.
July 28th - Nichepapers
This article shows the certain death of newspapers, but perhaps the birth of a new genre where magazines and newspapers merge into one: nichepapers. One commenter said “Do you mean magazines?” In a way, yes, but this goes much deeper than people realize. TrendBird threw support in my prediction by posting an article on the rise of nichepapers. This will get bigger, and there are billions of niches out there for you to be the first to offer a printed nichepaper.
July 17th - Virtual Worlds
At the time of the original post, companies had pumped $395m into virtual words. In Q3, they pumped an additional $148m, according to TrendBird. That’s a total of $543m so far this year. To put that into perspective, $543 million is:
- $16m MORE than the domestic gross of The Dark Knight as of October 26th, 2008.
- About equal to the value of a 204 year old Spanish Navy treasure discovered earlier this year.
- Just $57m shy of buying the same data center Google just bought.
- $145m more than a bridge to nowhere.
- The price tag of about 32 hours of warfare in Iraq.
In other words: it’s a hell of a lot of money. You think MMO’s are big now? Just wait… 2009 and 2010 are going to get slammed by them.
On top of that, in a move that didn’t make any big headlines, Google is now doing adsense for INSIDE virtual worlds.
June 7th - Zeppelins
No no, not the led kind; the flying kind! Even though this predicted trend wasn’t panning out for me, I still feel I was on to something. Well, Airship Ventures launched recently in California, as reported by Boing Boing. It’s just the beginning. I think this has great potential for a healthy market.
Sept 3rd - Coworking
The post was actually about Edopter.com, a social trendcasting site. While browsing the site, I discovered new trends such as Coworking. Recently, “coworking business” was listed by Mashable as a business idea that will thrive in a down economy. Fortunately for me, I picked up localcoworking.com just in time for the trend to get big.
Aug 13th - Carbon Trading
I declared that the next big green trend will be carbon trading. On October 9th, the House revealed their plan to implement a carbon cap and trade system. Make sure you check out the best keywords in my original post, they’ll help you pad your portfolio with valuable domains.
Nov 7th - DNA
June 28th - Robotics
These two posts may as well be merged, as many of these trends fall under both. Just days after my post, Time named the Retail DNA Kit the #1 invention of 2008. On the transhuman note, the first commercial bionic hand was 14th on Time’s list. The synthetic organism was 21st. Or should that be under robots? Bionic Contacts were 24th. The mobile, dexterous, social robot was named the 17th best invention of 2008 by Time.
What’s next, artificial hearts? We’re getting closer and closer to being bionic!
Outside of that, there are dozens upon dozens of advances involving DNA that are hitting the news nonstop. One of the more interesting, and important, pieces of news was a glimmer of hope for AIDS patients.
Aug 30th - Body Art
This trend is huge. Every single day I am seeing articles on social sites about piercings, tattoos, paint, mutilation and anything else you can creatively express with your body. I’m also getting loads of organic traffic looking for all kinds of body art.
Aug 11th - Vinyl Wall Art
My 3rd most popular post; all due to organic traffic. This is because there is a huge demand, and not nearly the supply to meet it.
June 10th - Lego
All I really need to say is that this is my second most popular post of all time. It wasn’t popular at the time of posting, but through organic traffic it gets tons of hits; 10-20 a day for lego related terms. And this isn’t even a lego site. I still feel you could make money with a good Lego affiliate site.
June 8th - The ’80s
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/25/cassette_mp3_player/
June 4th - Virtual Fitting Rooms
These have a great future! They’re popping up everywhere.
June 1st - Space
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was named the 3rd best invention of 2008 by Time. The Mars Rover was 18th.
Hyperlocal Dating Gone Guerilla
I’m not one to give you a link, say two sentences and move on. But this evening a domaining article made the front page of Digg, which doesn’t happen very often. And the only reason I’m posting about it is because it involves one of the geodomain ideas I had written about.
The full article can be read here.
The author basically uncovers a massive advertising campaign for online dating using lawn signs littered about towns with their respective geo+dating.com printed on it.
I unwittingly wrote about it back in August, here.
A real fascinating, and well-written article.
It’s A Brave New World (And Other Biotrends)
I’ve got three words for you:
- Personalization
- Individualization
- Uniqueness
These have been at the forefront of trends for 2008; many of the trends this year tie directly into one of these. Now, perhaps more than ever, people want to express themselves in their own way. Well, I’ve got a trend for you that utilizes these three words to the absolute extreme: Biotrends.
It really wasn’t all that long ago when DNA wasn’t in our everyday vocabulary. It somewhat hit the news in the 1980’s with the discovery that it can be used for identification purposes. But it wasn’t until the early to mid 90’s that it went mainstream with FlavrSavr, OJ Simpson and Dolly. FavrSavr wasn’t a big hit, but the news that we can successfully genetically engineer food was enormous. I don’t really have to say much about OJ. And Dolly made headlines all around the world.
I remember when all three of these news stories hit. That was 12 to 14 years ago.
In the grand scheme of things, that simply wasn’t long ago. Hell, we’ve been on DNA’s tail since the 1800’s. And now? well, it’s so common that you can order home DNA paternity kits. It has spawned numerous companies looking to take things to the next level with DNA Personalization in a wide range of fields.
To start, let’s look how this meshes with another popular trend: dating sites. I sometimes like to combine trends to come up with new ideas, such as hyperlocal dating. If you take the growing ease and popularity of DNA testing and combine it with dating sites, it was only a matter of time that someone began using DNA to match people romantically. Make sure you send off your DNA to My DNA Fragrance and pick up some perfume before you go on that date!
Another emerging trend is DNA art, such as:
- Genome Quilts takes your DNA and replaces the four bases with patterns. This produces a large quilt that you can truly say is yours.
- The DNA Glowframe maps out your DNA on a backlit display for $900. DNA Art UK offers something similar. There are many companies that do something this, just search for “DNA art.”
Now THAT’s unique.
Bio technology is advancing at a rapid pace, uncovering new and amazing opportunities. With these opportunities comes great interest from Joe Consumer. By being ahead of the game, you can have the domains that will be needed by future end users as his field grows.
For instance, a family in Spain has a son with Beta Thalassaemia major, a rare hereditary disease. He is now 6, but isn’t expected to live past 10 years old. When discussing having a second child, they came to realize the new baby can provide a rare opportunity for their son in the form of bone marrow. However, because the disease ran in the family’s DNA, it was possible that the new baby would have it too and thus would not be able to help. So they had the embryo prescreened to make sure it would be immune to the disease, and it worked; the baby was born immune to this rare disease. So they took the blood from the umbilical cord and are now storing it for the older child for when they do the marrow transplant.
The part in the article that claims this is genetic engineering is inaccurate. The embryos were prescreened, not genetically engineered. The procedure is not even a huge accomplishment, medically speaking, and is becoming more and more commonplace.
It’s no longer sci-fi.
In fact, we are inching closer to Gattaca (actual genetic engineering), or, perhaps much further down the line, and more frighteningly, Brave New World.
It’s scary when you think about it.
So with our better understanding of DNA and the human genome, what else can we expect to come from this?
Well, the medical field is always a fantastic place to look so lets keep looking there:
- Kid DNA kits in case they get abducted or injured.
- Diets created specifically to alter your DNA.
- DNA supplements.
How about smart drugs? No, I don’t mean drugs that make you smart, although those may not be far behind. I mean drugs that are designed based on our understanding of how genes and proteins work. I found this fascinating article written in 2005 by Danila Medvedev, a self proclaimed transhumanist, futurologist and cryonicist, which speculates on the role that genetic engineering will have in the next 20 years of human existence. It gets a bit far fetched, but who knows? Most things today were far fetched at one point.
This overall biotrend is not limited to all things DNA. There are other ways to express yourself in an extreme, and 100% unique way.
There is a company that will take your bone cells and grow them on what is called bioglass, a sort of scaffold for the bone to grow upon. They will then shape the bone into a ring and put an inscription on it. You now have a ring made out of 100% your bone; the ultimate gift of something personally yours.
Or, on a much simpler, and far less painful, note: fingerprint art.
Biotrends, and more specifically genetics, are bursting with keywords. I’ll list some here, but these don’t even scratch the surface:
- genealogy
- anthrogenealogy
- transhuman
- bioengineering
- biotech/biotechnology
- bio product(s)
- biometry
- bioinformatics
- bioremediation
- remedial ecology
- biogeographical ancestry (BGA)
- cloning (and it’s other obvious forms that are already mainstream)
- nanotech/nanotechnology
- nanorobot(s)/nanobot(s)
- microbiology
- nucleotide(s)
- immunogenetics
- genome/genomic(s)
- genome analysis/gene analysis
- gene therapy/genetic therapy
- gene silencing
- genetic mapping
- genetic programming
- genetic modification
- genetic profiling
- viral genetics
- endocytobiology
- cytogenetics
- proteomics
- symbiosis/symbiotic(s)/symbiote
- haplotype(s)
- haplogroup(s)
- polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices (cheap personal DNA kit)
- smart drug(s)
- augmented reality
- extended identity
- human enhancement
- artificial general intelligence (AGI)
Finally, lets combine this with yet another trend: robotics. This is where the transhuman and nanotechnology keywords come in. Will humans and robots merge in the future? Some think so. And they say it may be closer than you think.
Halloween Has Grown From A Holiday Into A Season, And Domainers Should Take Notice
Horror is in. I mean, it’s never really been out. But it’s definitely in, now. And when I say horror, I mean generally dark themes; not just movies. This includes goth, video games and biggest of them all: Halloween.
Every kid loves Halloween. But historically once they reach the age where they no longer go out, people come to realize it’s a rather insignificant holiday. Sure, there are always adults who go to costume parties and whatnot, but in the past Halloween was always “behind” other holidays like Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
I say that’s no longer the case. And I say that Halloween is easily now the second most popular holiday in America after Christmas.
There are several reasons for this:
- It’s not really tied to a religion. Sure, the name comes from “All Hallows Evening” referring to the fact that it immediately precedes All Saints Day. But the actual act of starting a bonfire to end the harvest and to placate the dead was more of a superstition of the Celts. The point is that it’s not religious, making it more welcoming for people of all religions. People have also begun to move on from the thought that it’s directly tied to Hell or evil. Well, most have.
- The loss of popularity of other holidays. It has been heavily taught in American schools that our Thanksgiving stems from the interaction between the pilgrims and Native Americans. And since it’s now common knowledge what was REALLY done to the Native Americans, this holiday has lost great popularity and respect. Easter is nothing more than a footnote now-a-days. I recall Independence Day being big when I was growing up. Not anymore; all people care about is getting the day off of work. Same goes for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. I’m not saying that to be rude, I just think the growing cynicism towards America among its citizens is hurting these holidays. No one ever really cared about Columbus Day, but they care even less now that it’s common knowledge that he wasn’t the first and he certainly wasn’t friendly to Native Americans. Check out this Google Trends report that compares Halloween to four other holidays.
- The success of horror video games. The Silent Hill and Resident Evil series have been quite successful; even moving on to the silver screen. In the past few years, some hugely popular horror games came out to critical praise and mainstream success, such as Bioshock, Dead Space, Condemned, Manhunt, Doom 3, The Suffering, the Fatal Frame games and FEAR.
- The success of horror movies. Cheap horror movies have been around forever, but you must admit that you’ve noticed more and more of them in the past decade or so. They are inexpensive and easy to make. They can post decent returns while always having that slight chance of a super hit, like The Blair Witch Project or Saw. Blair Witch costed $35k to make and grossed over $240m worldwide. It is the most successful independent film of all time (if you exclude Star Wars, which some consider independent) and has the highest ratio of box office sales to production cost in American film history. Saw was made for $1.2m and grossed $102m worldwide, while spawning successful sequels every year for four years and counting. This genre is in.
- Generation X and Y grew up loving Halloween. Now they are the primary consumers. And for almost the same reason why the 80’s are big again, Halloween is following these people into their adulthood. For a brief time you can be Boba Fett, Indiana Jones, Batman or Mario and almost nobody will laugh at you. Almost.
- Halloween is practically synonymous with autumn/fall now. People have always put up decorations, but it seems year after year they go up earlier, much like how people do for Christmas. It’s as if Halloween has become it’s own season. I’m sure this is in part due to haunted attractions opening up earlier and earlier in order to milk the trend.
- It’s gone heavily commercial. Consumers love their decorations, and only Christmas can trump Halloween in that department. When you go into big box stores, their Halloween sections are almost as big as their Christmas sections. Hell, Halloween stores even pop up just for the season. Do you see Easter stores open in May? How about 4th of July stores in June? Ok, well, other than fireworks. Surely, there are Thanksgiving stores in early November! No!
So, hopefully I made my point that Halloween is big. Now let’s move onto why you, as a domainer, should care.
I may be wrong, but I think many domainers shy away from seasonal domains and sites due to their very nature: they’re seasonal. In general, just about everything has popularity spikes at certain times each year. But not many things moreso than a holiday. I think the general thought is why build a site if people will only view it one or two months out of the year?
I think, for Halloween at least, there are so many different ways monetize that it makes it worth your while, such as:
- Costume catalog. You can list affiliate links to places where people can purchase costumes, or you can offer up ideas on how people can make their own. This would make a wonderful forum where people can swap ideas and help each other.
- Haunted Attractions. Haunted houses and the like are still popular to this day. Back in my day, we relied on the radio to report locations or the major newspaper would insert a flyer with a listing. These days, it’s much easier to go online and search for what’s going on near you. That’s where you can come in and offer a directory.
- Decorations. Like the costume catalog, you can post affiliate links where people can buy, and then offer how-to’s so people can create their own. Halloween is a very creative holiday and people love to get into it.
- Advertising. Haunted attractions and Halloween stores advertise like mad. They advertise everywhere: TV, radio, billboards, newspapers, the internet. They only have a month of business and need to make sure they stand out in a crowded field. And if you have a popular local website, they will absolutely advertise with you.
A Halloween site can be successful whether it’s national or local, so it can cater to what you prefer. But I personally believe you will have a better chance at success with a local site in a large metro area. If you went local, you should be able to find a great domain name fairly easily, and you will have a much better chance at selling local advertising on a local site.
I think Halloween will get more and more popular every year. Now is the time to build a site. The sooner the better. Build a community and gain trust as quickly as possible so that advertisers will come.
A Domainers Long Hard Look At Bail Outs Part 2: $700 Billion And Loads Of Green Pork
So you’ve heard about this economic bail out that passed recently. I’m sure you are wondering what this will affect as far as real world trends are concerned, and how can you pad your portfolio with that knowledge. You’ve come to the right place.
I read the actual bill. Yes, all 451 pages of it. You can download it here. Only about 112 pages are actual bailout, the rest are tax breaks, broker rules and energy improvements. I tell ya, it was boring as hell. But I learned a lot about what was added that didn’t make the news (basically everyone that voted “no” got some pork). On top of it, after three hours of writing this post, my Wordpress timed out and never saved, so I had to start all over. Not fun. In fact, it’s awfully defeating. Then came the $250b nationalization of the top eight banks. This explains why it took a while since Part 1 of my bail out post.
Side note: I find it hilarious that the Republicans are the ones who nationalized our banking system…
So, the banks weren’t given much of a choice. Paulson wanted them to buy into it to ensure there is money in the market, and to show other banks that there is money in the market. A couple banks, like Wells Fargo, turned it down saying that they simply didn’t need it. However, Paulson talked them into it in under two hours, saying this is a one time only deal.
The U.S. is not the first to face something like this recently. Sweden had a very similar crisis in the early 1990’s. Sweden’s economy tanked after financial deregulation and a (commercial, not residential) real estate bubble burst at the end of the 80’s, ending with all seven major banks collapsing in the early 90’s. Their bail out package wasn’t too dissimilar from ours; mainly they made people accountable. They didn’t just bail everyone out… they fixed the problem that caused it too. And theirs was set on buying stocks in their banks. Our bail out wasn’t… well, not until this week.
Sweden spent the equivalent of $11b USD, which is about $18b USD in today’s money. That is 4% of their GDP. 4% of the U.S.’s GDP? $541b. Pretty darn close, uh, relatively speaking. So, in Sweden, the interest rates tanked 500% in one night, unemployment quadrupled in less than two years and in 1992 they did the bail out. The government ended up with huge amounts of stocks and assets from the bailout, to which they later sold at a monstrous profit.
Norway and Finland also went through something similar.
So what do you know about a guy named Neel Kashkari? I’m guessing not so much. Well, it’s a name you will hear a lot of in the future as he has been chosen to spend the $700b. He is just 35 years old and is seven years from earning his degrees. He was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs.
No pressure or anything.
Note: This isn’t the entire bill. I only included things I thought worth reading a bout.
For those who just want to know how this applies to domaining, I highlighted that text in red so you can skip around the boring stuff.
Division A: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (page 2)
- Sec 101. Purchases of troubled assets. Establishes the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). This allows the government to purchase (and resell) troubled assets from financial institutions, with rules determined by the Secretary of Treasury (SoT). This program will be laid out in full by Nov 14th (45 days after bill is signed). The assets must be sold at or below cost; institutions will not be able to profit from them. The key to this is c(3) which reads: designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Federal Government, and such institutions shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this act as financial agents of the Federal Government as may be required. This will scare the hell out of people. If anything can get abused, this will be. I think a lot of people will jump ship from their bank if the government takes on troubled assets or purchases their stocks. Credit unions may grow in popularity. An info site that lists banks and credit unions and how much, if any, the government got involved with them would be popular. I think people will want to keep their money away from those “government controlled” banks as much as possible.
- Sec 102. Insurance of troubled assets. This says that if (IF!?) TARP is established, then the next step would be to establish a program that will guarantee assets that originated prior to March 14th, 2008 to institutions that request it. This includes principal and interest, but can not exceed 100%. This must be laid out in full by December 26th, 2008. The SoT can set premiums, differentiating based on risk, that the institutions will have to pay. Fees collected from this will be deposited into the new Troubled Assets Insurance Financing Fund (TAIFF) where they can be reinvested as seen fit by the SoT.
- Sec 103. Considerations. The SoT must keep the interest of the taxpayers as his/her top priority, including maximizing returns and helping families keep their homes. It states that institutions can participate without discrimination of size, geography, form of organization, or the size/type/number of assets it has eligible for purchase. It ensures stability to counties and cities that have suffered increased costs/losses due to the market turmoil. It plans to protect retirement plans by purchasing their troubled assets.
- Sec 104. Financial Stability Oversight Board. Established to review the authority of these programs and the SoT. Will also be able to make recommendations to the SoT and report any fraud that may become involved.
- Sec 106. Rights; Management, Sale of Troubled Assets; Revenues and Sale Proceeds. Basically says that the SoT manages all the acquired assets and can do whatever he/she sees fit with them. Profits go towards paying off our national debt.
- Sec 107. Contracting Procedures. Allows the SoT to waive some provisions if it’s in the taxpayers best interest… or his… Also says that special attention will be paid to include minority- and woman-owned businesses. However, this is the case in just about every tax law.
- Sec 109. Foreclosure Mitigation Efforts. The SoT must implement a plan to mitigate acquired foreclosures.
- Sec 110. Assistance to Homeowners. The SoT may alter acquired residential mortgage loans and mortgages on rental properties in various ways including reduction of interest rates and loan principal. A site that goes into detail on what you need to do to convince the government to reduce your rates would be a hit.
- Sec 111. Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance. If an institution participates in this and sell troubled assets to the government, their senior executives compensation will be capped for as long as those assets are still with the government. This includes the recovery of previous compensation, including gifts, based on previous statements of earnings that are later found to be inaccurate. Notice they didn’t use “lied” or “intentionally misleading or false.” This will end the “golden parachute” that executives receive upon leaving. They define senior executive as one of the top five paid executives of a public company.
- Sec 113. Minimizing of Long-term costs and Maximization of Benefits for Taxpayers. The SoT can acquire (and sell) troubled assets through various means, including direct purchases, auctions and reverse auctions. It also says that if an institution participates, the SoT will receive nonvoting stock (or voting stock, but will not be able to exercise a vote) or preferred stock of that institution. The SoT may then sell, exercise or surrender these. These must contain anti-dillusion provisions in case of stock splits, mergers, etc. However, the SoT has the ability to make exceptions as he/she sees fit.
- Sec 115. Graduation Authorization to Purchase. This act is limited to $250b outstanding at any given time. This can be raised by the President of the U.S. to $350b and, 15 days later, can be raised to $700b. Don’t be surprised if it gets raised higher than $700b.
- Sec 119. Judicial Review and Related Matters. This says that institutions can not issue injunctions (unless there is a violation of the constitution) on the SoT, but can file for a temporary restraining order. However, once they participate in one of the programs, the institutions forfeit those rights.
- Sec 120. Termination of Authority. This actually all ends December 31st, 2009. It can be extended another year by the SoT requesting so.
- Sec 121. Special Inspector General for the Troubles Asset Relief Program. Establishes a new position appointed by the President with consent of the Senate. He/she conducts and supervises audits of the SoT and the acquisition of assets. Just another person/group to make sure the SoT does the job.
- Sec 122. Increase in Statutory Limit on Public Debt. Increases our debt ceiling to $11,315,000,000,000. We have a ceiling? What happens when we hit it?
- Sec 124. Hope for Homeowners Amendments. Increases eligibility for the Hope for Homeowners program. A site that goes into detail on what you need to do to take advantage of this would do well..
- Sec 125. Congressional Oversight Panel. New panel that will regularly review the financial markets. Yet another person/group to make sure the SoT does the job.
- Sec 134. Recoupment. If, in five years, there is a shortfall, the President must propose legislature to recoup those losses.
- Sec 136. Temporary Increase in Deposit and Share Insurance Coverage. This has received a large amount of press. The FDIC will now insure up to $250k, up from $100k, of your deposited money. What they’re not telling you is that this ends on December 31st, 2009. Though, if this crisis continues it may get extended next year.
- Sec 302. Special Rules for Tax Treatment of Executive Compensation of Employers Participating in the Troubled assets Relief Program. This applies to 1) companies whose assets exceed $300m and sell one or more of their troubled assets to the government and 2) execs whose pay exceeds $500k.
Enter green pork.
Division B: Energy Improvement and Extension Act (page 113)
- Sec 101. Renewable Energy Credit. Wind and refined coal facilities received a one year credit extension to January 1st, 2010. “Certain other” facilities received a two year extension to January 1st, 2011.
- Sec 102. Production Credit for Electricity Produced from Marine Renewables. Adds marine and hydrokinetic energy to list of forms of energy eligible for credit (excluding dams). The facility receiving the credit must produce at least 150 kilowatts.
- Sec 103. Energy Credit. Solar energy property gets an eight year extension of credit until January 1st, 2017. Fuel cell property gets a 200% increase of credit, and an eight year extension until December 31st, 2016. Microturbine property gets an eight year extension of credit until December 31st, 2016. A nice big break for solar and fuel cell. Some believe fuel cells are the future of the auto industry.
- Sec 104. Energy Credit for Small Wind Property. They define “small” as a wind turbine which has a capacity of no more than 100 kilowatts and is capped at $4000, such as this one. Like many other earmarks in this bill, this has potential to be an info/affiliate site. That is, if you can find an affiliate.
- Sec 105. Energy Credit for Geothermal Heat Pump Systems. Geothermal systems are added to the list of forms of energy eligible for credits. Lots of people are waiting for geothermal heat pumps to explode in popularity. They can reduce your energy bill by 30%-40% and the energy is 70% renewable, making it very clean… relatively speaking
- Sec 106. Credit for Residential Energy Efficient Property. This gets extended eight years until December 31st, 2016. Residential wind property will receive $500 for each half kilowatt, capped at $4000; or $1667 for each half kilowatt, capped at $13333, in cases of joint occupancy. Geothermal property will receive up to $2000; or up to $6667 in cases of joint occupancy.
- Sec 107. New Clean Renewable Energy Bonds. These bonds are capped nationally at $800m, with availability split into thirds to public power providers, governmental bodies and projects of cooperative electric companies.
- Sec 108. Credit for Steel Industry Fuel. Credit for Big Oil.
- Sec 111. Expansion and Modification of Advanced Coal Project Investment Credit. Credit is expanded from $1.3b to $2.55b.
- Sec 112. Expansion and Modification of Coal Gasification Investment Credit. Another break for Big Oil.
- Sec 114. Special Rules for Refund of the Coal Excise Tax to Certain Coal Producers and Exporters. This gives a tax refund to coal exporters who behave, in short.
- Sec 115. Tax Credit for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration. Tax credit for Big Oil if they dispose of their carbon emissions properly.
- Sec 117. Carbon Audit of the Tax Code. The National Academy of Sciences will review the tax code and identify tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon emissions. They will be given $1.5m to do so and must file the report within two years.
- Sec 201. Inclusion of Cellulosic Biofuel in Bonus Depreciation for Biomass Ethanol Plant Property. Cellulosic Biofuel gets added to the list of eligible biomass.
- Sec 202. Credits for Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel. Extended one year to December 31st, 2009. The rate of credit was also doubled. This is a big boost for biomass and ethanol.
- Sec 203. Clarification that Credits for Fuel are Designed to Provide an Incentive for United States Production. If a U.S. based company produces oil outside of the U.S., and then sells it outside the U.S., they will not be eligible for credits.
- Sec 204. Extension and Modification of Alternative Fuel Credit. Extended one year until December 31st, 2009. Adds compressed and liquified biomass gas as eligible fuels.
- Sec 205. Credit for New Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicles. Tax credit will be $2,500 plus $417 for each kilowatt hour of battery capacity in excess of four. This is capped at $7,500 for vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) less than 10,000 pounds (think regular Chevy and Ford trucks and smaller). For vehicles 10,000 to 14,000 pounds (think Chevy 3500 or Ford F-350) the cap is $10,000. For vehicles 14,000 to 26,000 pounds (think moving and delivery trucks) the cap is $12,500. For vehicles more than 26,000 pounds (think AT-AT) the cap is $15,000. These numbers get smaller once 250,000 of these vehicles get on the road and ultimately ends on or before December 31st, 2014. Property used outside the U.S. does not qualify. Obviously this will greatly benefit this auto niche. An info/affiliate site could be worth doing.
- Sec 206. Exclusion from Heavy Truck Tax for Idling Reduction Units and Advanced Insulation. Benefits truckers that use alternative units to run a/c, heat or electricity during idle (such as when the driver is sleeping in the truck), which will be less strain on the engine thus causing less emissions. This is a big winner: energy self-sufficient units to assist semi trucks. This could be a great affiliate site if you can find the affiliate programs. I’m sure truckers are looking for any possible way to offset the costs of fuel, and a site with info on how to receive the tax breaks with affiliate sales should be a winner.
- Sec 207. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit. Extended one year until December 31st, 2010. Added “electricity” as an eligible fuel source. The original bill provided a popular tax break for stations that dispensed E85 fuel, a fuel used in flex-fuel vehicles (FFV). FFV’s may continue to (very slowly) gain in popularity, but there are currently only 1,500 such stations in the U.S. Compare that to 176,000 world-wide. Still, this could help the popularity of electric vehicles if they have stations to charge up at.
- Sec 209. Extension and Modification of Election to Expense Certain Refineries. Adds fuel derived from shale and tar sands as eligible. The original bill is a tax break for Big Oil for them to upgrade or build new refineries. Some believe the refining of shale and tar sand emit far too much Co2; more than petrol. This will not be popular among environmentalists.
- Sec 211. Transportation Fringe Benefit to Bicycle Commuters. Tax break for those that ride their bikes to work, and to employers who compensate employees for doing it. Includes new purchases, repairs and storage. Amounts to about $20 a month. Is it worth claiming? heh…
- Sec 301. Qualified Energy Conservation Bonds. Bonds available for conservation projects such as green community programs, renewable energy, research facilities, development, auto batteries, mass commuting and public education, among many others.
- Sec 302. Credit for Nonbusiness Energy Property. Adds residential biomass fuel stoves as eligible for credit. “Pellet fuel” may become a popular keyword if biomass fuel stoves catch on. I doubt they will.
- Sec 303. Energy Efficient Commercial Buildings Deduction. Extended five years to December 31st, 2013. This provides a deduction for commercial buildings who install energy efficient lighting the year they install it. Energy efficient commercial lighting should do well for years to come. This could make an excellent affiliate site.
- Sec 304. New Energy Efficient Home Credit. Extended one year to December 31st, 2009. Widely considered useless because of the constant threat of expiring before anyone can claim the tax credit. After all, the length of time it takes to plan, fund and build a home can exceed one year. If they were to extend it, say, 5 to 10 years, it would become popular.
- Sec 305. Modifications of Energy Efficient Appliance Credit for Appliances Produced After 2007. I won’t go into specific numbers because there are so many, but this gives credit for energy efficient dishwashers, clothes washers and refrigerators. Sure, energy efficient appliances will likely rise in popularity for time to come. But would an affiliate site for something people would rather buy at a brick and mortar store do well?
- Sec 307. Qualified Green Building and Sustainable Design Projects. Extended three years to September 30th, 2012. Otherwise known as “green bonds,” these provide funding to finance environmentally friendly development while replacing “brown fields.”
- Sec 403. Broker Reporting of Customer’s Basis in Securities Transactions. A huge section with a ton of new laws to help keep brokers honest. My head hurt after reading this bastard.
- Sec 404. 0.2 Percent FUTA Surtax. Extended one year to “through 2009.” This has been around since 1976, so it’s nothing new.
- Sec 405. Increase and Extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund Tax. Raises the rate from 5 cents a barrel to 8 cents a barrel, and up to 9 cents a barrel beginning in 2017. Of course, this gets passed on to you when you fill up.
So, plenty of stuff here to further fuel the alternative energy trends. Just about everything got a little boost here, including wind, solar, biodiesel, geothermal, hydrokinetic, cellulosic biofuel, electric vehicles and general alternative energy for residences. Sure, this had nothing to do with the bailout, but it’s still something the public has been wanting needing.
I think wind, solar and electric vehicles were the big winners though.
Enter other pork…
Division C: Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008 (page 261)
- Sec 201. Deduction for State and Local Sales Taxes. Extended two years to January 1st, 2010. The original bill gives those who live in states without income taxes a deduction for their state sales taxes. And an R&D credit, which is popular in the business community. It was used by 10 million people last year.
- Sec 202. Deduction of Qualified Tuition and Related Expenses. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 203. Deduction for Certain Expenses of Elementary and Secondary School Teachers. Extended two years to 2009.
- Sec 204. Additional Standard Deduction for Real Property Taxes for Nonitemizers. Extended one year to tax year 2009.
- Sec 205. Tax-free Distributions from Individual Retirement Plans for Charitable Purposes. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009. The original bill permits tax free charitable contributions from an IRA of up to $100,000 per taxpayer.
- Sec 301. Extension and Modification of Research Credit. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009. Simply a tax cut for companies that do big R&D. Past companies that received the credit include Harley Davidson, Microsoft and Boeing.
- Sec 302. New Markets Tax Credit. Extended two years to 2009. The original bill gives a credit to investors who invest in underserved areas.
- Sec 305. Extension of 15-year Straight-line Cost Recovery for Qualified Leasehold Improvements and Qualified Restaurant Improvements; 15-year Straight-line Cost Recovery for Certain Improvements to Retail space. Extension of leasehold and restaurant improvements gets extended to January 1st, 2010. However, “new construction” was added to the list of eligible improvements. Also, retail establishments are added. For retail, improvements not eligible: enlargement of building, elevators, escalators, and various structural frameworks.
- Sec 310. Extension of Mine Rescue Team Training Credit. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 311. Extension of Election of Expense Advanced Mine Safety Equipment. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 314. Indian Employment Credit. They mean Native American. This was extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 315. Accelerated Depreciation for Business Property on Indian Reservations. Again, they obviously mean Native American. This also was extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 316. Railroad Track Maintenance. Extended two years to January 1st, 2010.
- Sec 317. Seven-year Cost Recovery Period for Motorsports Racing Track Facility. For real? This was extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 318. Expensing of Environmental Remediation Costs. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009. Environmentalists will love this one. This was a popular bill that helped in cleaning up “brown fields”
- Sec 319. Extension of Work Opportunity Tax Credit for Hurricane Katrina Employers. Extended two years to apply to four years following the disaster.
- Sec 320. Extension of Increased Rehabilitation Credit for Structures in the Gulf Opportunity Zone. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 321. Enhanced Deduction for Qualified Computer Contributions. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009. Original bill is a credit for companies that donate computer technology and equipment to charities.
- Sec 322. Tax Incentives for Investment in the District of Columbia. Extended two years to tax year 2009. Extends the Zero Percent Capital Gains Rate two years to tax year 2010. First-time Homebuyer Credit extended two years to tax year 2010. I don’t get this, why is DC so damn special?
- Sec 323. Enhanced Charitable Deductions for Contributions of Food Inventory. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 324. Extension of Enhanced Charitable Deductions for Contributions of Book Inventory. Extended two years to December 31st, 2009.
- Sec 401. Permanent Authority for Undercover Operations. This strikes paragraph 6 of the law, which states that the law ends on January 1st, 2008. No termination date was given, which makes this permanent!
- Sec 402. Permanent Authority for Disclosure of Information Relating to Terrorist Activities. This strikes clauses that terminated laws (that were terminated last year!) where your personal info (IRS, etc) can be disclosed to authorities if you are a suspected terrorist. It does not give a new termination date, which makes this permanent.
- Sec 501. $8,500 Income Threshold Used to Calculate Refundable Portion of Child Tax Credit. Originally, it was $10,000. But it’s reduced for tax year 2008.
- Sec 502. Provisions Related to Film and Television Productions. Gives tax breaks to U.S film companies when they film inside the U.S. California pork!
- Sec 503. Exemption from Excise Tax for Certain Wooden Arrows Designed for use by Children. Yea, you just read that. It actually goes on to explain, in detail, arrow shafts and if they use all natural wood and how big the diameter is. It’s crazy.
- Sec 503. Income Averaging for Amounts Received in Connection with the Exxon Valdez Litigation. If you received a settlement due to the spill, the money is now to be treated as engaged in fishing business. For real. Remember, someone was pissed off enough to force things like this into the bill.
Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (page 310)
- Sec 512. Mental Health Parity. Applies to group health plans with more than 50 workers. This basically says that if your annual limit for regular health benefits is $1m, your plan can’t set the limit on mental health at a lower amount such as $100k. There is a loophole that allows them to charge larger co-payments, and limit the quantity of visits though. Still, this means more people will receive mental health and substance abuse treatment. Both of these niches are rich in keywords.
Other Provisions
- Sec 601. Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-determination Program. A complete rewrite of a law that was aimed to restore stability to annual payments to states and counties for rural public schools, roads, etc.
- Sec 602. Transfer to Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund.
Heartland Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2008 (page 394)
- Sec 702. Temporary Tax Relief for Areas Damaged by 2008 Midwestern Severe Storms, Tornados, and Flooding. Applies to Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin. It basically says that they will receive the same relief that Katrina victims received. In fact, it literally takes the Katrina emergency act and replaces “Katrina blah blah” with “Midwestern blah blah.”
- Sec 704. Temporary Tax-Exempt Bond Financing and Low-income Housing Tax Relief for Areas Damaged by Hurricane Ike. Almost does the same thing as Sec 702; it takes “Katrina blah blah” and replaces it with “Ike blah blah.”
The rest of the section goes into great detail on changes made to disaster relief. Lots of changes.
That’s it. Thanks for taking the time to check this out; hope it is of assistance to you. Even though there isn’t anything groundbreaking or huge in this, it does give great strength to the overall alternative energy trends.
A final obligatory note: remember, I am Joe Domainer, not Joe Lawyer, Joe the Plumber or even David Hasselhoff. Everything here is my interpretation and could very well be wrong due to me not knowing a damn thing about reading laws. Read it and use your own judgement, or better yet, if it greatly concerns you, a lawyers judgement.