BargainDomains.com auction

I listed a couple of domains on the BargainDomains.com site a few days ago, and I was really happy to see one of my domain getting send “directly” to auction. The domain is CrayonSet.com, and it has met it´s reserve price of $150. It is still 2 days to go on the auction, so if you´re interested head on over directly to the auction and place your bid! Also make sure to check out HomeTheaterAudio.net, FlashLightLed.net and EntrywayMats.com among others!

More of the Kiditect Network

I got a little inspiration from writing my post a few days ago about the Kiditect Network. So I decided to launch another site in the network – Toddler Sunglasses. I’m also working on another one right now that’ll go live quite soon.

Sully´s Blog – A new favorite of mine!

When I got involved in this industry about a year ago I read just about everything that anybody posted on every domaining blog. Now I’ve narrowed it down to reading just a few selected ones regularly. “Sully´s Blog” is the newest addition to those! If you haven’t seen it yet you really should give it a try. He mixes some great interviews with his personal dealings in the domain industry. Make sure to add that blog to your rss-feed and blogrolls and whatnot!

Another 2 iTect Networks Getting Born

After branding together my Toddler sites into the Kiditect Network, I decided to do the same with some other sites of mine. The first to get a collective network is the Petitect Network. That is the place for my dog/pet sites. I haven’t yet re-branded everything into this, but the recent TerrierGrooming.com design incorporates the “Part of the Petitect Network” in the footer at least.

The other one is the Shopitect Network (main network at shopitect.com isn’t live yet though). This is a new take with a brand new theme by me. It has the same basic function as the Toddler sites, but it´s branded more for tech/computers and so on. The first site to get re-branded was Window Air Conditioner, and then followed re-designs of MiniFoodProcessors.net and LcdAlarmClock.com along with a brand new launch of Multimedia Computers.

What better time is there to plan ahead then the end of a year, and beginning of a new one. 2010 here we come, and here is a short summary of my initial plan for the year.

Domain Names

I’ve already started to slow down on the buying side. Being on a small budget as I am, it isn’t category-killer domains that I’ve bought. But I have some domains that I think are nice, and will do well in the future when they are developed. I will still buy if I find some names that I believe in, but my focus will be on quality over quantity this year.

As many other new domainers I went out on a smaller shopping spree, and bought just about everything that sounded cool, when I first got into this business. Although I’ve already gotten rid of most of the really bad ones, I still have some domains that I probably never will get around to develop or do anything with. If I can’t sell them before their expiration date, I’ll just let them drop. I don’t want any dead meat in my portfolio anymore…

Looking Back on Current Sites

This past year I’ve mainly gone from project to project, and never really looked back that much. This will change from now on! Now comes the time to go back and polish, tweak and maximize the sites that I’ve already have online, that I think has potential. I will leave some of the sites to just sit and do what they can to survive on their own, or at least until I find both time and ideas on how to take them further. One focus will also be to tighten and strengthen the small networks that I have, and build stronger connections between the sites.

Development of new Sites

Quite recently I’ve picked up a 2 different domains that I really like and that has nice search volume and related advertisers. These two will probably be my main focus, and I’ll spend some extra time on them to make sure that they reach their full potential. I don’t want to give away to much details at this point, but if you follow my blog I’m sure you’ll notice when it happens!

Mainly my idea is to focus more on a few chosen projects, and do them justice, instead of only moving on to new projects all the time!

I thought that it would be fun/interesting to see what blog platform that is the common domainers choice. So I looked at all the Domaining.com feeds to see what kind of CMS (Content Management System) that are used.

While looking at the at all the 127 feeds that Domaining.com currently aggregates, I took a closer look at the 111 that actually resolved and have a blog. From what I can see, my stats show the following:

• Blogs on WordPress (hosted on WordPress.com or self hosted) – 85
• Blogs on other platforms (including Blogger.com and TypePad.com) – 26

According to this about 76% of the domainer blogs uses WordPress as the platform for their blog. That is quite an impressive advantage for WordPress! The minority choices included TypePad, Blogger and Joomla. Some  examples of blog´s that doesn’t follow the main stream is RicksBlog.com and Domainreport.ca.

Among the few that doesn’t use WordPress one really stand out to me, and that is DNJournal. The reason to that is that it seems to be made with FrontPage, at least according to the generator meta tag. In my world, using FrontPage is equally bad to as using Comic Sans as the font. But hey, whatever works for Ron is best for Ron as the old saying goes!

Before really starting to use this blog for it´s main intention, I’ll extend the warm up period with another introductory kind of post. This is a short summary checklist of my social interaction with the domaining community…

Start a domain related blog

As you might see, I just got around to doing this one. Even though I haven’t really started the “domain related” part of it quite yet, with this post being only the second one.

Ever since I started to get really hooked on domains, and reading other blogs about the subject I’ve been wanting to have one of my own. Not (only) because I want to be one of the cool kids, but more as a way of filtering what I read. Reading stuff and trying it out is great. But also sharing the experience, and putting it with my own words, is a good way to really stop and reflect about it more. Doing so might result in some new ideas and ways of working.

Interact more with the rest of domainer community

This one goes a little hand in hand with the one above. So, I’ve been following many blogs (you can see my favorite ones in my blogroll in the sidebar) and think I’ve read close to every single post for the past months. But up until quite recently I’d never commented or shared my thoughts on anything. I’m not saying that I belive that everyone are aching for my opinion though. But I do think that it´s nice to at least let them know that I appreciate reading what they have to say!

Tweeting and Retweeting

Along with this I also started to use my Twitter account more frequently. I couldn’t care less about Twitter earlier, but now that I’ve actually given it a fair chance I find it to be quite great! I’m not totally addicted (yet) or  tweeting about my breakfast – But if I find something that I think is interesting, and relevant, I make sure to share it!