I am unbelievably excited to announce that DomainInvesting.tv, a dream that started over two years ago, has now become a reality! The final version of our first episode was finished this week and I will be bringing it live on DomainInvesting.tv tomorrow and onto the iTunes store in early February!

Since all of you have been so supportive of this project I thought it was only fair to let you be the first people to see it! I would also like to give a huge thanks to Oversee, without them this would not have happened. Through they’re sponsorship and support we now have a solid video to show anyone who doesn’t know what we do, but wants to learn!

Remember, the target market for this video is not Domainers or even tech-savvy people. The real goal of this video is to be able to show it to an end-user, let’s say a Doctor, Lawyer, or Investment Banker that knows about investing, but doesn’t know a thing about Domaining. I’m sure you’ll recognize some very familiar faces in this first episode – thanks to everyone who took the time to sit down and record an interview for the show, together we can show the whole world what Domain Investing is all about and grow our industry in 2012!

I am very excited to say that after two years, over ten conferences, charting the globe from Ireland to Vancouver, we finally have a finished product! It has been an incredible process and a lot of work to make this happen and less than two weeks the first full 30-minute online television program about Domain Investing will be live for the whole world to see!

As you will see from my post last year, the initial goal was to release this in March of 2011. Well, I’ll tell you, it takes a lot to put something like this together and I was fortunate enough to meet an incredible videographer and editor that have made this dream a reality!

If you don’t know much about this project, I started it back in January of 2010 filming interviews myself. What I quickly learned is that I’m not a great videographer, lighting guy, or editor. So after doing some great interviews I realized that if I wanted this to be professional, I had to get a pro onboard.

Afflatus Productions have gone above-and-beyond to make this first episode really sparkle. If you don’t know much about the project the idea is simple – make a monthly show about Domaining, but that is not intended for Domain Investors. That’s right, this isn’t a show you are going to watch, this is a show for you to show end-users, your parents, friends, family, potential buyers, etc. to introduce them to the industry.

None of this would have been possible without the incredible support and vision of Oversee, and specifically Aaron Kvitek who got this idea from day one! We’ve put-together a quick intro video to give you a taste of what’s to come:

As I like to say, stay-tuned! It’s time to do even more to expose the whole world to what we do!

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?

As some of you who have been reading my blog for a long time now know, I’ve been using Afternic since just about my first day in the Domaining world. My first interaction with the company took place through a blog post I wrote back in 2007. They were some of my first readers and also went out of their way to help me feel welcome in the domain industry. Fast-forward to 2011, four years later and I’m still a big fan of Afternic.

The company has continued to innovate over the years rolling-out a first-class parking platform with Smartname and constantly growing the Afternic DLS partner network. Recently they’ve added an “Instant Transfer” feature that takes all the complexity out of transferring a domain name after a sale. So I thought it was about time I did a follow-up from my posts back in 2007 and 2008 and take a look under the hood at Afternic now in 2011:

I hope you are all having a great weekend! As usual I’ve got a lot on my mind after a busy week. This weekend I was thinking back to some of the interviews I did last year and I thought now would be a great time to share these again. My blog has over doubled in readership over the last year so I’m sure there’s plenty of people who haven’t seen these interviews yet.

I think that one of the best ways to learn about Domaining is to hear from successful Domainers themselves. DomainSherpa has done an incredible job this year conducting interviews with some of the top Domainers on the planet. By far the best way to really understand Domaining is to attend a conference like TRAFFIC (coming soon!) or DOMAINfest early next year. There is no better way to get started in any industry than to attend a conference or trade event and meet the people that are actually doing it!

Below are three interviews that I think are absolutely essential for anyone getting started in the Domaining space.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ve seen a welcome new face in the Domaining blog community this year – DomainSherpa. Michael Cyger has been putting-together some absolutely incredible interviews and he recently did one with Andrew Rosener of Media Options that I really think is a must-watch for Domainers of all skill levels.

If you don’t know Andrew he is one of the top Domainer-brokers out there and responsible for the $440,000 sale of AutoInsurance.org earlier this year (go dot org!) which is currently in the top 5 domain sales for 2011.

I met Andrew at a conference last year and have to say – this guy knows his stuff. Andrew is one of those guys that has the right gut feel for Domains and he makes a nice living as a domain broker and investor. Andrew is also someone that I look to for advice in better understanding the domain flipping and sales market which as you all know is something I’ve been working at learning more about. Andrew has always taken the time to help me out and honestly the advice he gives is absolute gold.

If you want to learn about how to value Generic Domain Names, Andrew is your guy and the Domain Sherpa interview with Andrew is definitely a must-watch. Below are a few of the key points I thought Andrew brought-up in the interview:

• Use the Google Adword Keyword Tool to find exact-match search volume and CPC
• Andrew’s formula for calculating domain value - (# Searches) x (% Click-thru) x ($ per Click) x (24 Months)
• Adding a hyphen to a domain name typically will make it worth 5%-10% of the corresponding non-hyphenated domain
• For building a brand .COM is king
• In hot lead generation spaces like insurance domains are more and more selling to lead generation companies rather than end-users

There’s a new Domaining blogger that has been really going above-and-beyond this year with insightful posts and some of the best interviews I’ve ever seen online. I’m talking about Michael Cyger from DomainSherpa and he’s done some amazing interviews with people like Ron Jackson, and Elliot Silver and I am excited to announce that my interview with Michael is now live on DomainSherpa.com!

You can view the interview by clicking on the image below. It’s an hour long so make sure to get yourself a coffee, beer, or glass of wine to really enjoy the full experience!

I would like to personally thank Michael for the great interview – it was an absolute blast and I hope that it allows all of my readers to get one step closer to understanding what I do and how I do it! Remember, I have a full time job that I absolutely love with a company I am more passionate about than just about anything on this planet. My day job easily takes up over 60 hours a week but hey, I love Domaining and spend just about all my extra free time buying, developing, and monetizing domain names. As you’ll hear in the interview I’m a passive income guy and there is no way I could balance Domaining with the intensity of my job if it wasn’t for the passive income I make from properties I’ve developed and monetized. It’s all about building a business (or building businesses) that run whether you are working on them or not.

Enjoy the interview and feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below or of course you can always just shoot me an email!

I am excited to announce the launch of DomainInvesting.tv, the online television show I have been working on since January of 2010! Last year I traversed the globe interviewing Domainers all over the world. From Dublin, Ireland to the Bahamas it was a blast and I ended the year with over 80 interviews.

Of course editing and perfecting all of these interviews has been a long and expensive process (editing isn’t cheap folks!) but I’m excited to say that the first episode will air in March of 2011! The new site was announced earlier today to a small group on Facebook and a press release will be going-out next week.

So what is DomainInvesting.tv?

Simply put, DomainInvesting.tv is an online television show about Domaining, but not for Domainers. Doctors, Lawyers, Investment Bankers, etc. all invest in either the stock market or real estate. Many of them would probably want to invest in domains, if they only knew the industry existed!

When I first started shooting these interviews people kept asking me, “How do you make money with this?” I don’t! I make money monetizing and selling domain names – I’m a Domainer, this is what I do for fun and to make an impact. I am confident that if we can encourage more traditional investors to join the space we can all benefit and make more money together.

Next week I will be filming interviews at DOMAINfest in Santa Monica and then onto iTunes! I would like to give a huge thanks to Oversee for sponsoring the first episode and believing in me and my vision. Also I couldn’t have done this without all of you! I’ve received incredible support for everyone in the industry, it’s been one of the most inspirational journeys of my life…and it’s just beginning!

So get ready everyone, soon our industry won’t just be Domainers, it will be investors, entrepreneurs and everyone else out there who doesn’t know who we are and what we do! It’s all happening at DomainInvesting.tv so stay tuned and get ready to watch our industry grow!

P.S. If you like the idea please make sure to become a fan of DomainInvesting.tv on Facebook. You can become a fan by visiting the site and simply clicking the “Like” button on the sidebar. Thanks for your support!

I can’t believe that DOMAINfest is less than a week away! To help everyone get excited I’ve decided to feature some videos of DOMAINfest last year and what better way to start than with the President of Oversee. Jeff is one of the nicest people I’ve met and a true visionary, this is hands-down one of my favorite interviews and I hope you all enjoy it. Stay-tuned tomorrow for another video highlight from DOMAINfest 2010!

DNCruise is over and I’m back in Fort Lauderdale with Patrick. While I am desperately in need of a nap I couldn’t resist sitting down with Patrick and getting his reflections on DNCruise.