When I launched my first web-based business on the Internet in the early ’90s, I requested (you didn’t purchase domain names back then) about a dozen domain names from InterNIC. I held onto them as other parts of my business went elsewhere in the mid-90s and I’ve sold a couple of them in recent years as opportunities present themelves.
Lately, I’ve been putting out feelers for someone to purchase tour.net from me so I can pay down my seed capital-providing credit cards.
It appears as though “Domain Names” are the latest get rich quick scheme on the Internet. I’ve heard radio commercials suggesting that people should get in on the ground floor of the “Domain Name Market” while they can. Domain Names are now the fastest, easiest, greatest way to make boatloads of cash on the Internet according to these folks. There’s no interest in tour.net yet, but I’ve have random people offer me 6-figures for jenn.com, and 5-figures for jenn.us, presumably for porn ads.
Domain names used to be about the branding. It sucks to see that the most acceptable source of income for “domainers” is the advertising cash generated by diverting the eyeballs and clicks of visitors stumbling upon their incorrectly spelled derivations of popular web business names or millions of dictionary-based words that host an ocean of useless advertising “link portals.”
What is the Web going to look like in three years when there are 300 million ad pages located at the root of 300 million domain names, registered and maintained with the sole purpose of being annoying web-side billboards stealing chance glances from people aiming for other addresses?
I predict there will be some old-fashioned Internet urban-renewal required in the future.