2009 Predictions From Various Domainers That You Can’t Live Without!

January 5, 2009 · Filed Under Domaining, Friends, Lists, Tools, TrendDomaining.com News, Trends · 8 Comments 

TrendDomaining.com Oh yea

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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Prices for just about anything related to the home PC have come down; RAM is sick cheap, dual core processors won’t be outdated as fast.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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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

  1. De-leveraging .  The trend toward unwinding debt, and all of the bad repercussions, will continue.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.”
  5. Tiny gadgets. Explosion in purchases of Flip camcorders, GPS units, etc.

James
Namecake.com

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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™”

  1. The focus on building content and customization on domains in order to get them indexed on search engines.
  2. New niche technologies that have yet to be defined in the popular vernacular - pay attention and nab the generic descriptive domains for big payouts!
  3. Parking services expanding to include multiple revenue resources and features beyond simple PPC links from Google and Yahoo.
  4. More involvement from end user buyers, based on increased domainers’ efforts to educate the ad and marketing industry on domain name value.
  5. 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

  1. Alternative energy
  2. Mobile internet
  3. GPS
  4. Wifi
  5. Space travel

Krossat
Krossat’s Blog

  1. Wireless Technology / IT
  2. Fashion & Lifestyle
  3. Loans and Mortgages (wrt 2009)
  4. Tourism & Travel (New locations)
  5. Alternative Energy / Green Solutions

Neal R. Voron
FractionalDomainingBlog.com

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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!)
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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

  1. 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.
  2. Some new revolutionary Apple product. Not exactly sure what it might do/be, but I think Apple might release some cool tech this year.
  3. The Large Hadron Collider. I think that we’re going to see something REALLY interesting with this once it’s operated.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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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The Technologies That Shaped 2008

December 31, 2008 · Filed Under Domaining, Lists, Trends · Comment 

I’m sticking with the theme of Top 10 lists. Today I want to show you a great list from Popular Mechanics: The 6 technologies that shaped 2008. You’ve read a couple of them here on TrendDomaining.com. I fully expect all six of these technologies to continue on well into 2009 and beyond. Don’t be surprised if you see one or two of these on next years list as well.

  1. Netflix rocks internet movie streaming
  2. Pocket gadgets on the cheap
  3. Mobile applications
  4. 3D cinema
  5. Location-based services
  6. Microblogging

Good job to Netflix on not sitting on their old, yet still superior relative to the market, mail platform. Back in July I stated that companies like Netflix, Blockbuster and Redbox need to begin making changes in how they get their product into our homes. Blockbuster needs a miracle to survive. Redbox is doing well with their kiosks, but as far as I know they have no plans on changing that. Netflix, on the other hand, gets it.

Netflix not only came out with the Roku, a box that streams movies from Netflix to your TV, they also teamed up with Microsoft to add this feature to the XBox 360, as well as the TiVo HD DVR. Genius! They found a way to get their product into 21 million+ households that already have a player. Bravo, Netflix.

When they say pocket gadgets, they were referring to netbooks and camcorders. Though pocket camcorders had a good breakthrough this past year, I don’t see them getting nearly as big as netbooks.

Mobile applications was an inevitable technology given the iPhone and its copycats.

3D cinema. Aha! another trend you read here on TrendDomaining.com. It cites the “success” of Journey to the Center of the Earth. By success, they don’t mean the fact that it was a box office flop. They mean that most of its revenue came from 3D theaters, proving people want 3D even if it sucks!

The GPS stuff started getting big when you didn’t have to fork out $400+ for a GPS unit, and could get the same function on your iPhone and its clones.

Microblogging got big, of course, with the huge popularity of Twitter (By the way, add me!). Popular Mechanics, along with many other sites, feel that Twitter will eventually fade due to a lack of an actual business model. I’ve been reading many opinions that feel that Facebook is the future of microblogging.

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Stem Cell Breakthroughs Found In Top Medical Stories Of 2008

December 30, 2008 · Filed Under Domaining, Lists, Science, Trends · 1 Comment 

With 2008 coming to a close, people are publishing oodles of “Best of” and “Top 10″ lists.  Back in May on the third post I ever made on this blog, I talked about Top 10 lists and why domainers should read them, even if they are a bit lame or biased.  This still holds true today.  These lists, no matter how flawed, provide you with trends and the pulse of consumers, technology or whatever.

I ran across an interesting one the other day on ABC News.  The article is the top 10 medical stories of 2008, spread across four pages of course.  And they are:

  1. The JUPITER trial. A cholesterol pill that some think may be too good to be true.
  2. Birth from a whole ovary transplant. On Dec. 10th a girl was born using the first ever ovary transplant.
  3. The ENHANCE trial. More cholesterol drugs.  This showed that Vytorin may not be as good as originally thought.
  4. Malaria vaccine. On Dec. 8th, the testing of a new vaccine showed that it was 50% successful among infants and toddlers in preventing malaria.
  5. Continuous glucose monitoring. In September, a 24/7 blood sugar monitoring device was unveiled.
  6. Stem cell genes and Alzheimers. In January, scientists discovered Lhx2, a critical gene in cortical development.  And it’s probable that it can be treated with stem cells.  Um… Lhx2.com is available…
  7. Progress on parasites. The Guinea worm has been defeated.  It’s rare for diseases to be completely eradicated.
  8. Early blood test for Down syndrome. The test can show signs of Down syndrome 12 to 13 weeks into the first trimester.
  9. Stem cell trachea transplant. A 30 year old woman in Spain was the first to receive a full trachea transplant grown from her own stem cells.
  10. Face transplant breakthroughs. This made some big headlines in the past few weeks.

Remember, Obama is a strong supporter of stem cell research, some of which I have previously written about.

Using lists like this, you can better inform yourself when buying domains or building new sites.

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Looking To Buy Some Real Estate Domains? Avoid These Cities

December 29, 2008 · Filed Under Domaining, Geo, Real Estate, Trends · 4 Comments 

According to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, California is in for a rocky 2009.  Overall, the 2008 Q3 report shows a 16.6% drop in the index, continuing the trend of it falling every quarter since 2006 Q2.

As for their forecasts for 2009, 8 of the 10 cities with the worst forecasts are in California.  The top slot goes to Los Angeles, with the median home price projected to drop 24.9%.  Here are the remaining 91 cities and their projected drops:

  1. Los Angeles, CA -24.9%
  2. Stockton, CA -14.7%
  3. Riverside, CA -23.3%
  4. Miami, FL -22.8%
  5. Sacramento, CA -22.2%
  6. Santa Ana-Anaheim, CA -22.0%
  7. Fresno, CA -21.6%
  8. San Diego, CA -21.1%
  9. Bakersfield, CA -20.9%
  10. Washington, DC -19.9%

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New Addition To The Site

December 27, 2008 · Filed Under TrendDomaining.com News, Trends · 2 Comments 

Recently I sat and pondered whether I should update my Wordpress version to the new 2.7.  I was sitting at 2.5.2 (I think) and never had the balls to update it.  I’ve done some small tweaks here and there and was sure that updating would either delete them or completely mess up the site.

So I decided to buck up and do the update.  Luckily my wonderful webhost, Lunarpages, has Fantastico in their CPanel (of which I used to originally install this site).  I disabled all of my plugins and updated it with a single click (after testing it on a couple other meaningless sites I have).  It worked!  I reactivated my plugins and updated them as well.  And like that, it was done.

To think I was fretting all this time.  The tweaks ended up being in the template code, which was untouched by the updates.

I wasn’t sure about the admin area of the new Wordpress, but it has already grown on me.  I like it.

On to the update.

You may have noticed the new link in the primary navigation bar at the top, called Trend Feeds.

I have put together a great set of RSS feeds that I personally use to watch trends and set them up in a nice little aggregator to make for a one-stop page for watching trends.

As of now, I am showing:

Trendhunter
MSN
Reddit
Google
Digg
Newsvine
Yahoo
Twitturly
Small Business Trends
AOL Hot Searches
Trendbird
Trendwatching
Buzzfeed
TechMeme
PSFK
Springwise
Trend Central
Mashable
BoingBoing
EcoGeek

More will be coming soon.

If you can spare a moment, I would appreciate your thoughts on a couple things.  Is it too bulky or slow?  Is it too long to navigate?

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