Investing in Names with the Power of the Internet
Everyone knows that one of the best ways to make money is through investment. However, this can in itself be an issue. The ideas which everyone knows about are the ideas which will instantly garner a tremendous amount of competition. And for many types of investment this can have a huge negative impact on the overall compensation which one will be able to receive from it. That’s why it’s so important to look for alternative investment ideas within a large variety of different industries.
New areas of the tech industry
One of the more unexpectedly fertile areas of investment is that of the tech industry. This might come as a surprise to many people. After all, it probably seems like one of the standard areas of investment. It’s hard to turn around in some areas without seeing some form of funding or investment in startups. But what’s far more interesting is an angle that is far less examined. It’s not so much investing in the tech industry, as making use of the infrastructure they’ve laid out. In a way one might think of it as investing in a plot of land in the offline world. The digital landscape has unused land as well. This can range from servers to ip address allocation. But the most interesting and potentially worthwhile investments can be found in domain names. These are the things that one types into a browser to get to a company’s website. And every one of them has an initial cost associated with them. And if it can be bought and sold, it can be considered as a potential investment. And with larger companies the price can scale to match their reach. It’s not an exaggeration to say that with domain investing a powerful name can raise you as an internet millionaire. And sometimes at an initial investment price of only a few dollars. It’s just a matter of understanding the landscape involved with domain investing.
The power and value of a domain name
A domain name might not seem like all that important at first glance. But one should keep in mind how heavily tied names are with both business and publicity. Consider just how furious any company would be out in the physical world if they weren’t able to have their signs out up front. Companies spend an immense amount of money on advertising and brand recognition. Multimillion dollar advertising campaigns are far from rare these days. One would do well to remember why these advertising campaigns are able to work. The vast majority of them are centered around the idea of creating an emotional connotation to the company’s name and image. This is intended to be what they think of when the thought or emotion comes to mind. And it’s also intended to come up when they see the company’s name or brand. It’s all centered around the idea of an image which is instantly tied to name and brand identity. But this only works when the actual name and brand are readily available and identifiable. This works quite easily out in the physical world. But it’s quite a different matter when one considers the digital world.
On the internet, there’s only a limited amount of names and name combinations which can be used. Every name can be used only once for each item known as a domain name extension. These are items such as com, gov or net. Some are automatically out of bounds for companies due to the nature of domain name sales. This makes it even more important for companies to get their hands on the domain names associated with their company. In fact, it’s so important that companies are often willing to pay huge amounts of money for a domain name. The largest domain name sale at the moment is listed as $35.6 million. And the amazing part of this is that the original domain names often go for only the smallest fraction of that cost.
Stay ahead of the industry and the competition
Most domain names originally sell for something around a ten dollar mark. These are the domain names which nobody has thought to compete for yet. More in demand names will go for hundreds or even thousands. With, of course, the top names going for millions. The real trick is to acquire domain names before the wealthy companies think to. This will often require some understanding of business trends. But it’s also possible to do so by keeping track of language use and realizing what newer terms might intersect with a company’s interest. And of course the actual names of a company are almost always a metaphorical goldmine. It’s all about staying one step ahead of both the industry in question and fellow investors. But if one is able to do so than domain names can create a considerable payoff for the investor.
