What are your predictions?

[soj]

As 2011 draws to a close, I thought it would be both fun and interesting to get your predictions for 2012 - domaining wise in Australia that is.

I'll start the ball rolling ..........

• Our market is going to grow even more than it did this year. There will be lots of new players venturing into the space.
  
  
• Expiring domain auctions (drops) will become even more competitive than they are now. Prices paid will sometimes astound (but we need to get used to that). The "good old days" are long gone.
  
  
• Aftermarket sales prices will continue to rise, and 5 figure sales will become more commonplace.
  
  
• Unfortunately there will be more complaints to auDA / auDRP (some justified; many not).

 

[Shane]

My predictions for 2012 are pretty similar to yours Ned, but I do have a longer term prediction...

I don't know how long it will take, but I think that by the end of this decade we'll start to see some serious consolidation in the AU space.

I liken it to the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of local newspapers that exist around Australia. Once upon a time a lot of them were independently owned, but today they're pretty much all part of either News Limited or Fairfax.

Like the small newspapers, websites with decent earnings will also start to be consolidated in terms of their ownership. Maybe it will be a company like Fairfax, or maybe we'll see a big player from within our own ranks kick off the process?

I can see someone raising a few million from investors (not too difficult if you know the right people) and getting a big portfolio together, then going public once the markets start to return to normality sometime later this decade.

Sure it's been tried before, but someone's going to pull it of spectacularly by 2020.

That's my prediction Ned!

 

[Data Glasses]

I dont think too much will change

 

[acheeva]

I agree with Ned that activity in the domain space will accelerate in coming years (at an increasing rate)

The back-flip (& push for an on-line presence) by the major retailers (e.g. Harvey Norman) has been a major turning point in 2011

The difficulty with attracting investment to the ".com.au" space (compared to .com) is the uncertainty created by the current the ownership rules & monetization policy

Having said that the "big" money will always come from developing appealing, topical & relevant content that bring eyes to a site, regularly & consistently

Where else can you generate $10K a year for an outlay of between $5-6K (not to mention the increase in the cap value)

This is such a low risk strategy

 

[acheeva]

As a follow-up I am an accountant by profession and when I was 18-19yo I knew everything (if not more)

I would talk to my mates from school who were abalone divers & commercial fishermen

I questioned why they would risk having $150K+ tied up in a piece of paper (aka fishing licence)

Those mates who ignored me ended up earning multiple 7-figure incomes and selling their licences for $5m+

I have lost contact with some of these guys now (possibly they were the ones that listened to me)

I would like to think that domain names could perform in a similar vein

 

[James]

In 2012 I believe we will see the following things:

1. EMD value will be decreased for low content based sites.
2. Investment will increase in .com.au domains, I think we will see more press for .com.au, more offline users/investors will come into the space and push up prices.
3. I feel we will see more investment in .net.au domains, I know users will feel .com.au is becoming too expensive and new users may see .net.au as a chance to get a decent deal.
4. I feel we will see more big prices on domains, possibly a 300,000 sale for just a domain...

 

[~james~]

I agree with the general consensus that domain name values will increase. I think that more end users will catch-on to this crucial aspect of their marketing plan and invest large amounts of money securing and developing domain names.

I know I was faced with two options:

Option A - Spend $x on a traditional print/radio advertising campaign which would run for 2 weeks

Option B - Spend the equivalent amount of money acquiring, developing and optimising a domain name that generates weekly, if not daily targeted enquiries for my business which will continue forever with low ongoing maintenance costs.

No prize for guessing which option I went for. As Option B gets more attention by business owners (e.g. media reports on online retailers taking over the world...), there will be much more activity in this space.

Exciting times ahead.

 

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

For 2012 I think that:

1. Due to the new Federal Personal Property Securities Register (which will be running earlier next year) we will start to see banks/organisations offering finance on domain names, this will help boost prices and investment;

2. Domain values will increase (in 2011 I brokered a number of large domain only sales from $100,000 to $350,000 all .AU). End users are waking up to the fact that for a return on investment for leads sales etc a good domain is key;

They are two of my predictions

Cheers
Erhan

 

[logicstorm]

1. Due to the new Federal Personal Property Securities Register (which will be running earlier next year) we will start to see banks/organisations offering finance on domain names, this will help boost prices and investment;

domainfinancing.com.au is dropping soon..

It'll be interesting to see what value this one gets on snapper.

 

[Billy01]

My prediction last year

was we would stay 5 years behind the uk.

My prediction this year is that we'll be 4 and a half years behind.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/online-gobbles-the-christmas-retail-turkeys-20111221-1p4lr.html

I also predict Gerry Harvey will live with his horses

FACT UK online sales will hit 13 billion dollars OVER XMAS this year thats SALES not advertising dollars.

Thats going to be the big difference this year ad agencies here are going to start looking at second tier players for the first time as targeted inventory will become scarce. (this will take 12 months) those that have good sites should be making lists now and following the www.iabaustralia.com.au/

 

[logicstorm]

The owner of the domainfinancing.com.au must have seen my comment here.

It was renewed with only a few days left.

The domain was actually expired but still had 30 days to renew.

Anyway, lucky for the owner.

 

[neddy]

The owner of the domainfinancing.com.au must have seen my comment here.

It was renewed with only a few days left.

The domain was actually expired but still had 30 days to renew.

Anyway, lucky for the owner.

That would be my domain you are talking about .............

If you have interest in it, please let me know.

I believe that in time to come there will be a lot of domain financing.

 

[James]

Have made a bit of a blog post on this subject - http://jamesnorquay.com/my-top-10-predictions-for-online-and-digital-in-2012/