There is a shift going on, you might not see it yet, but it’s happening – a strong interest is coming from investors across Asia and many of the top Domainers out there are cashing-in. If you attended a Domaining Conference last year then you couldn’t have missed this one – industry leaders got up and said, there is a very strong, growing interest in domain names coming from the Asian market, specifically China.

Sites like 4.CN have grown considerably in the past year and catering to investors that buy beyond numeric domains which was the original focus of the site. Short, brandable .COMs are hot and investors around the world are scooping them up, this is causing a shift as some of the best domains make their way to new homes, many of these in China.

Hong Kong has been on the Domaining map for some time now especially with .Asia headquartered in the city. The .Asia organization has done a great job of raising awareness about Domain Names all across Asia, but like many companies choose Hong Kong as their home-base. Popular Domaining company PPX has offices in Hong Kong and there are a number of Domain Investors who call Hong Kong home.

So what’s the big deal here? The big deal, as I see it, is the great opportunity for the Domaining community to grow as a whole. There’s a great community of Domain Investors in Asia and we should all be working together, making deals, and growing the space. As savvy investors you should always be asking yourself where the activity is in the market and how you can network with people investing in the space.

So put Hong Kong on your radar if you haven’t already. It’s a beautiful city and might just be one of the Domaining capitals of the world soon, if it’s not already!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you know that Francois from Domaining.com is putting-together his best newsletter yet which will go out on January 9th. Well, the clock is ticking and today is the last day to submit domains for inclusion in this newsletter. Partnering with DomainState, DNForum, and AcornDomains this newsletter will get the most eyes it has ever seen!

On top of this, Francois is going to be sharing the profits with Domain Bloggers. This is an incredibly generous way to start-off 2012 and I wanted to make it public that any money I receive will be going to the charity of my readers choice. That’s right, after this is all said and done I’ll take a poll and let all of you pick which charity will receive the money! There really is no better way to turn something positive like this into something positive to those less fortunate than all of us.

So make sure you submit a great name to the CAX.com Newsletter today, that’s right today! Don’t wait and miss-out on this incredible opportunity and the chance to get your name in front of more potential buyers than ever before. So stop what you’re doing right now, and submit you domain now. No really, stop reading this and get over there!

(Photo Credit: H is for Home on Flickr)

Have you been a naughty or nice Domainer this year? It doesn’t actually matter to me since my Christmas Newsletter goes to absolutely everyone who signs-up by Thursday, December 22nd! If you haven’t ready my newsletter before, here’s a recent comment from one of my subscribers:

Hey Morgan,
Just want to let you know that I always find a “gold nugget” in everyone of your newsletters.  Please keep them coming! Best, Doug

Every month I write a newsletter that is jam-packed with content. My goal is to leave every single reader inspired and with some great tools and ideas to get going the second they finish reading my newsletter. The focus of my newsletter is content and as you all probably know I’m a big fan of case studies and taking people through techniques step-by-step.

This year my newsletters have been seeing the best feedback, read rate, click-rate, and all those good things that make me know people are loving it. So for Christmas this year, I thought why not put-together my best issue ever as a Christmas gift to all my readers. I’ll be including some freebies, brand new development tips, SEO tips, and sharing one of my most recent (and effective) sales letters.

As always, what you find in my newsletter, you won’t find on my blog. This is an exclusive group of roughly 2,000 people and growing every day! I’m looking forward to welcoming many new readers this Holiday Season. If you want to end this year more excited than ever about 2012, subscribe to my newsletter by 8:00AM PST on Friday, December 23rd.

(Photo Credit: harold.lloyd on Flickr)

Last Friday daily deal giant Groupon nabbed MyLowGroupon.co.za from it’s owner who had registered it back in April of 2011. In January of this year Groupon announced plans to expand their business to Africa after buying Twangoo. South Africa is a big market and the .co.za TLD is the .COM of South Africa and putting it on Google’s Trademark radar.

South Africa has a very interesting domain market with some very high .co.za sales taking place over the last few years. Some of the top sales in the space have been:

Fly.co.za – $65,000
Porn.co.za – $45,000
AutoInsurance.co.za – $36,500
Toys.co.za – $20,000

Groupon’s South African site is run, not surprisingly at Groupon.co.za and if you’re in the area you could score a body wrap today for only R160!

If you’d like to learn more about Groupon’s expansion into Africa you can read TechCrunch’s coverage earlier this year. The moral of the story here is simple, don’t buy TM domains no matter what TLD you use. Otherwise there’s a good chance, that someday the Trademark owner might stake their claim.

Total Training, a company that offers software training went on a Microsoft Trademark buying spree last March acquiring domains like MicrosoftExcelFormulas.com and MicrosoftExcelTutorials.com. As you probably already know, companies like Microsoft aren’t a big fan of people buying domains with their Trademark(s) in it. Total Training must have thought they hit the jackpot last year buying these domains that exactly match popular search terms related to their services.

Well this week Microsoft dropped the axe and took 11 domains from Total Training with the final ownership transfer taking place this past Tuesday. According to my research Total Training lost a total of 11 domain names, all very blatant trademark violations. You can see a full list of the domains below, all are now registered to Microsoft Corporation.

microsoftexcelformulas.com
microsoftexceltutorials.com
microsoftoffice2007training.com
microsoftoffice2010download.com
microsoftoffice2010professional.com
microsoftoffice2010rapidshare.com
microsoftoffice2010technicalpreview.com
microsoftoffice2010tutorials.com
microsoftofficeprofessionalplus2010.com
microsoftofficeword2007.com
office2010microsoft.com

Microsoft has already forwarded a number of these domains to Bing, specifically the search results page for the given keywords. Thus if you go to MicrosoftExcelFormulas.com you will be taken to a Bing search for – Microsoft Excel Formula. Lucky for Microsoft, Total Training doesn’t appear on the first page of Bing. This is just another great example of why buying domains that infringe on a company’s Trademark is about as far from investing as you can get. Total Training learned this lesson the hard way and something tells me they won’t be going down this path again anytime soon.

Today was a major day for the ICM Registry with the launch of the .XXX gTLD. Whether you love the new TLD or or hate it, there’s no doubt it’s definitely growing awareness for the domain industry, and, as usual, creating a bit of confusion. Let’s face it, the average consumer still doesn’t really know much about domain names.

I had fun looking at the different headlines come across the newswire throughout the course of the day and thought I’d share my three favorite with all of you! In the first two headlines you can tell the reporters were really just trying to sensationalize the launch as much as possible…I can tell you that ZDNet does have Porn Tuesday on their blog. Of course .XXX has been in the news non-stop lately with plenty more to come.

Porn Tuesday: Colleges, universities ‘not prepared’ for .xxx domains

Dot-XXX Domains Go Live, Escalating Battle for Smutty URLs‎ ‎

新的.XXX 互聯網域名今日開始發售

‎Feel free to share your three favorite headlines! I’m sure there have been plenty more and the buzz, and controversy will continue. Either way I think more and more people are discovering the Domaining Industry every day, and that’s a good thing.

For Black Friday this year I will be doing a special edition of my newsletter jam-packed with great special offers only available for 24-hours. Along with one-time special offers on some truly phenomenal products and services I will also be sharing some of the most exclusive tips and tricks I have ever shared on my blog, newsletter, or live in one of my talks. For those of you who have subscribed to my newsletter for years now you know that I’m all about providing exclusive content and deals to my readers, this Black Friday I am kicking it into high gear!

Just to give you a bit of a preview, here’s what the format of the newsletter is going to be:

Introduction

Article #1: Step-By-Step Through My Latest End-User Sale

Black Friday Deal #1: Private Until Friday

Article #2: Step-By-Step Through My Standard Site Build-Out Process

Black Friday Deal #2: Private Until Friday

Article #3: My Spreadsheet For Managing Income-Generating Domains

Black Friday Deal #3: Private Until Friday

Black Friday Domain Deals: 24-hour Domain Deals

So if you haven’t signed-up for my newsletter yet, and this issue sounds like it would be interesting to you – sign-up now! I look forward to sharing some great Black Friday deals and articles that will really get the gears turning!

I’ve now had a couple of months to really get under the hood and play-around with Epik. This has been a controversial player bringing some of the most spirited comments I’ve seen on my blog yet. However, one thing I’ve found with companies that push the limits and redefine the status quo is they get their share of critics. Just look at wildly successful startups like AirBnB or Groupon and you’ll find some incredibly harsh critics, people who claim their lives or businesses have been ruined by the service. Then there’s the rest of us, everyone else who actually sees it for what it is, a true innovation and massive step forward.

One of the first people I spoke with about Epik was Ian Lopuch, a good friend of mine who has been using Epik for a while now. Ian and I spent over an hour on the phone talking about Epik, his experiences, and how he’s using it to grow his investments. Ian has the problem that so many Domainers have, some truly great domains with good search volume and CPC but not enough time to build them out. We’ve worked with Ian over the years to build-out a number of his top properties but it wasn’t until Ian started using Epik that he really made the leap.

Ian has a goal that I think so many Domainers have – to build-out every single domain that he owns. The difference between Ian and most other Domainers is…he’s actually doing it, and Epik is making it possible. So far he has over 100 domains developed, 60 of which are built-out thanks to Epik. Ian has taken the time to put at least two articles on each Epik site and as I’ve said time and time again, content is king. Ian’s experience with Epik has been great, he is developing his names, making money, and building real assets.

Now Epik is making big moves to make it easier than ever to acquire, build, manage, and divest all from within the Epik platform. I have been very happy with the Epik as a registrar since I can manage domains I’ve registered through any registrar, not just Epik. I can easily see all my domains, from all of my registrars, in one place and list them for sale on the Epik marketplace or develop them through Epik or DevHub. Not only does this make the acquisition and development process seamless, but selling your domains becomes a lot easier. To show this process I thought a picture would only go so far, so I put-together the video below:

Epik makes it easy by transferring the entire asset from Epik account to Epik account, and it’s instant. On top of that Epik has now made it possible to sell domains commission free and tax free. This is a first, and it will save Domainers lots of money. They do this because within the Epik platform the domain name never becomes cash, it remains virtual property, it simply changes accounts. No commission, no taxes, seamless smooth transfers of domains and websites – only on Epik.

Soon Epik will be adding complete integration with DevHub which means that in a matter of minutes you can register a domain, put a website on it, and put it up for sale in the marketplace. Along with DevHub integration Epik is also offering full hosting with cPanel support which means buying and selling WordPress sites can be just as seamless as with Epik-built sites. This is a big one for me since I’ve always found it is very challenging to transfer a WordPress site after a sale leaving the buyer confused trying to configure MySQL and move all the right files into the right folders.

Acquire, build, manage, and divest – turning domain names into brands and then allowing for those brands to be sold and transferred as frictionless and cost effectively as possible. Want to learn more? Create an account with Epik and try it out for yourself! In my next post I’ll be taking you all under the hood of Epik’s new Product Portal platform and showing you how to add unique content, optimize your site for SEO, and build a top-notch site with Epik. Of course, when you want to sell the asset you can feel confident knowing you won’t pay once cent in commission or taxes and the transfer process will be smooth and painless. It’s the Epik way and yes, it’s an epic move – but somebody had to get there first, right?

Two of the hottest classical music domains on the planet, Bach.com and Beethoven.com are going up for sale for the first time, and DomainAdvisors has been picked as the exclusive broker. These domains have an interesting history and I had a chance to speak with the owners and learn a bit more about when they first heard about domain names and why their vision was long before its time.

The owners of Bach.com and Beethoven.com come from the radio world and when the names were registered they owned WTMI (Miami), WQRS (Detroit), and WFLN (Philly) and wanted to make a foray into the online radio scene. Here’s the thing, while this might make a lot of sense to all of us now, the concept of online radio didn’t exist back then. Beethoven.com, being the more popular classical musician became the home of one of the first online radio stations.

Taking the online radio concept even one step further, Beethoven.com allowed visitors to make requests just like listeners would call into a DJ. Remember, these guys knew the radio industry like the back of their hand, and they extended the model onto the net. The site grew to over 100,000 visitors a month, which at the time meant a serious chunk of change in hosting fees. This early lesson is one that so many online radio stations encountered in the early days of online radio, and a subscription model was added to the site.

While offers have come in on both of these domains over the years the owners had never thought of selling them. For them, these domains meant a lot more than Internet real estate, these meant owning another radio station, but unlike the other stations they own, these stations are online. Don’t worry though, these guys haven’t stopped innovating, they are the current owners of WCCC in Connecticut (the station where Howard Stern started) and have grown the Facebook fan page to over 31,000 fans. In fact someone they even have a full-time social media manager keeping them on the cutting edge.

It’s always great to see people with real vision, and even more exciting to see people turn that vision into a reality. Now it’s time to pass the torch, and with DomainAdvisors as the broker I’m sure these two domains will weave a rich and exciting history for years to come! For more information please email info(at)DomainAdvisors.com.

Protrada, the Domain Exchange platform that has been making my life (and countless others) a whole lot easier has just released one of the slickest iPhone apps I’ve ever seen. Protrada’s platform has already become a huge hit and now they’ve gone a step further and released an iPhone app that gives you the same great interface and functionality on the go.

The new app allows Domainers to easily participate in the domain aftermarket like a stock investor would interact with a popular trading platform. Their user interface is second-to-none making it easy to keep track of all your aftermarket activity in one place. For me, a solution like this has been a long-time coming since it’s quite a challenge to manage aftermarket activity on a mobile browser.

This fills a major gap that we’ve had in the domain aftermarket for…well forever really. Using a mobile browser to access NameJet, Pool, and Go Daddy is far from an idea experience. In most cases bidding on domains from your iPhone has been a laborious process involving lots of zooming and scrolling. As you can see from the image above Protrada’s new app makes the process easier than ever before. As someone like me who is constantly hopping on flights and traversing the globe this app is an absolute must-have.

Here’s just a few of the comments already being made about the new app:

“I just checked two auctions I was bidding on while waiting in line for coffee. I am no longer tied to my computer!” (Craig Ashley Russell)

“Have been a buyer in the aftermarket for some time, finally i have this app to help manage this complex process.
It’s Awesome I love it….” (Andrew Chinn)

If you want to give the app a try for yourself just head on over the the app store. If you don’t have an account with Protrada yet, don’t worry – you can sign-up for a completely free trial right now!