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Snoopy, forever the optimist, worries about a LLL.com domain that sold for under $10k. That means nothing but a reflection of the SELLER accepting an unexpected lower price because of their own financial strategies. I will sell a good domain for cheap if I want to grab quick cash to cover renewing 200 domains. I will also hold onto a domain name I know will be worth a lot when the time is right. I also know 20+ lowkey domainers who buy these domains from cash-hungry sellers and flip them as quickly as 10 days for huge profits.

As for the domain conference that Stelladora refers to, it was the conference I produced, the Domain Roundtable 2007. One of the questions in the electronic poll I devised was about whether the domain market would show more growth by the end of 2008. The nTag technology I implemented at the show, along with other networking benefits, allowed the attendees to see, real time, what other domainers felt about the important issues of domain investing. The majority of domainers, of course, were bullish.

From my personal experience, I go with Andrew’s assessment of investing in domains over the stock market. The stock market makes me nervous. Even mutual funds aren’t safe anymore, and my wife loves those… but not lately. So I continue to sell domains at 1000-10,000% returns on my dollar. Show me a stock that achieves that in less than a year.

NOTE: Andrew was there at the DRT 2007, causing trouble with his entourage of bodyguards and Vegas showgirls. I asked him to “tone it down”, but TMZ was also there, and I was knocked down by the onrush of paparazzi trying to get video and comments from “AA”. Andrew just looked at me sprawled on the ground and laughed. He dropped a few $100 bills on me, saying “Douglas, you moron. You’re lucky I’m here. Now go get yourself a room and wash up.” He then hopped into a limo with Brad and Angelina and disappeared into the night.

I got a room and took a bath for the first time in 73 days. It changed my life! Andrew gives great advice!

Thanks Andy!

Once the domain industry has gained more infrastructure elements similar to the stock markets, we could see increased volatility but also increased valuations overall because of the increased liquidity that such infrastructure will bring.

LeaseThis, DomainCapital, DigiPawn and wholesale buyers are all contributing to increased liquidity in domain markets.

If more investors diversify away from the stock market, some of their focus will hopefully extend to the domain market.

In August, 2007 at a domain conference run by the organization that is now part of ThoughtConvergence, an informal poll of participants showed that respondents were looking for the domain market to take off at the end of 2008. Does that forecast still appear likely?

Ok, its partly social-psychology at play here, why domain names are going to be extremely valuable to investors that are “ALREADY IN” the domain market now. Even if you have not been accumulating domains over the last 5 years, there is still an aftermarket window of opportunity for about the next 3 to 5 years, but it does get a little riskier.

Why do I feel and suspect this? I’m going to ask everyone reading this piece, to assume you are now doing a Doctorate Research on the “Future of Domain Investments” and its impact on the Global Social Economy, live, work, business and play.

You will first diagnose what has happened over the last 14 years since the inception of the web uptil now, its impact on conventional business and human attitudes & behaviour towards the web, then you will now have to extrapolate where the next 10 to 15 years is taking the entire global ecomnomy.

Microsoft is very desperate to buy Yahoo and I listened to this on a BBC Podcast recently, because they earnestly believe in the next 10 years, every thing you see, think and do, will be online at the great expense of conventional media turned upside down.

Steve Balmer suggests there simply will no longer be “print deliverables” such as news papers magazines etc.. at least metaphorically. So therefore, if it is the case that New York Times one day says we are folding our print to go exclusively online, where do you now think all those businesses advertising in print media are going to advertise??

This is partly why the idea has been thrown around that Google could one day become a Trillion Dollar Capitalized company….their ad inventory will have to go up and competition will be fierce with far higher PPC pricing getting closer to what it costs to advertise in print. Now that is just one small part of my theisis.

The other part is GREEN TECHNOLOGY! Look guys, silicon valley believes GreenTech will be bigger than the web itself with the fate of human kind at stake, and Business Week believe people will be forced to work locally and socialize more online through social networks because “Peak Oil” changes everything including massive job losses!

So therefore, all of this massive online gravitation means that land online will become a big big battle and extremely competitive! Don’t forget, that is why mankind waged wars for centuries “LAND”…it is about to happen online in economic competitive terms.

So in closing, you can see my perspective is not just based on emotional domain psychology because they are trendy assets or something. Anyone who cares to decipher the acturial forecasts will come up with very similar findings.

A lot of very unkind people are going to be coming after the land you own online, so be very guarded indeed…its again what Rick Schwartz has been saying, it will get very very ugly, when they realize you hold all the cards and they have to have it! Most will pay you a fortune for it, but some will use cruder malicious methods to obtain it!

As for stocks, be very very careful indeed…the baby boomer generation is getting very scared and they about to retire within the next 5 to 10 years…they will sell big time!!