Domainers.org
I received an email from Francois a couple days ago asking why I hadn’t yet gotten listed on Domainers.org.
I know some people like more privacy than others — Francois has made all information optional except an image. The image can be an avatar or a picture of you that is 48×48 pixels, although Francois’ site did a good job of reducing my larger image to 48×48 pixels. You can view my Domainers.org profile if you’d like to see what you’re getting — all the information you see there including the contact methods was strictly optional information that I chose to include. You can set up your Domainers.org profile from your Domaining.com account.
This service is completely free exposure — there’s no reason only 2% of Domaining.com subscribers should be using it. Francois told me he had someone tell him that the reason only 2% of members were listed was that 98% were cybersquatters that want to stay hidden. Care to help prove that wrong? It’s the little things like this which will help set us apart. Like I said – it’s completely free and won’t take more than 2 minutes to fill out, so what do you have to lose?
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July 17th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Some peoples’ concern might be that listing their real name on Domainers.org would likely cause a Google search on their name (e.g. by potential employers) to pull up that listing. The results on a Google search on one’s name conveys very much about they are, their background, etc. If one of top 5 results on [my name] formally identifies me is a domainer, this conveys that domaining constitutes a huge part of my life, i.e. it’s either my full- or part- time job. This fact might turn off potential employers because of the worldwide view that domainers are unskilled, “bottom-feeders”, or borderline malicious, whether or not in actuality I have a good head on my shoulders.
I think Francois’ objective is admirable and I fully agree with his mission of making the domaining community more open, transparent, and accessible to global consciousness. I’m just not convinced that Domainers.org (at least as it’s currently implemented) is the right a way go about this. I’m sure that if I sat on my couch for 24 hours and meditated I could come up with a feasible solution, but unfortunately I’m not in a sharp enough mindset at the moment to concoct one on-the-fly. As a temporary workaround, I’d personally suggest (though you/Francois would likely disagree) that the directory be set up such that one needs to sign up for a Domainers.org login to view profiles, which would obviously kill Google indexing but still allow domainers to search for each other — e.g. if they’d like to perform due diligence before reselling to another domainer.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:07 am
You should put up a real photo of yourself!
July 17th, 2009 at 7:12 am
/unsubscribed. I don’t know what he’s paying you, but I hope its worth it.
July 17th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I am with Matt. I don’t know what your connection is with him, but this post is pure garbage.
You really think that calling everyone a cybersquatter and that they have nothing to lose by signing up is going to drive massive registration? Set who apart? As far as I am concerned you lost any credibility at fueling the LLLL.com bubble, but if that wasn’t enough this surely is a nail in the coffin. If you’re saying not signing up puts me with the 98% of people not associated with you then I am in the right place. Good day.
July 17th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I would agree with Jeff, you should use a real picture. If Francois is making avatars mandatory yet letting them be false then it’s nothing different than a forum.
Now I’m not getting on you Reece. I’ve never said anything negative before. I just feel a real picture is in order for the service to be taken serious.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Dang! Seems a little harsh to be judging Reece that way.
He just repeated what Francois, someone else, heard from someone else. That does not make it his opinion.
I think Reece has a point, but the flipside is that it becomes a Whos Who of who to sue. It does not matter if you are NOT a cybersquatter, especially if you own great one word generic .coms. You WILL get UDRPd at some point, or several times even if you have done nothing wrong. It’s all about stealing the generic .coms, not about any TM infringement most of the time.
However, I have thought about this a lot in the last year or so and my conclusion is that living like a hermit crab, even if you are a domainer, and not a cybersquatter, will get you nowhere. Those that want your assets will track you down and UDRP or sue you anyhow. So my conclusion is that at some point it is better to come on out and say “Bring it On!”. If we don’t organize we will get beaten down.
July 17th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Well, in fact, I didn’t registered there because I’m affraid that sooner or later FC will come with his wonderful ideas and there will be a price… somehow.
Even if I don’t mind to buy paid services (I’ve already bought most popular ones except WordTracker) I hate when things happen the way they happened with Domaining.com
Perhaps there are more people like me.
All best,
Will
July 18th, 2009 at 3:53 am
First, THANKS Reece for your great efforts on promoting our industry.
Reece is NOT paid nor get any advantage when he support a service like Domainers.org as I am myself not paid other than by the feeling to create something that may help our industry get more exposure.
I am aware that the need to post a pic face has been a big barrier, first because everyone don’t want to show his face often for personal reasons and second because we ask for a small 48×48 pixel image (the same as Twitter) and domainers are not developpers so they don’t know how to resize a pic.
For the first problematic point I started accepting avatars (but I recommend to use a face photo when you will have one available). For the second point we now accept larger photos (but square format still required), and at worst send me an email with your photo and I will resize it for you.
And please refrain critics, first ask you, what you have done to help our industry before post unpleasant comments to people that dedicate a lot of their time to try to help you.
July 18th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Hi Francois,
A quick suggestion regarding your resizing point - there are many very easy online tools to use:
http://www.shrinkpictures.com/
http://www.picresize.com/
http://www.webresizer.com/resizer/
http://www.freeresizer.com/
Have a look around them, though some can easily allow someone to re-size a pic to 48×48. Even considering writing a mini-tutorial on how to use one of those sites.
But I agree on the privacy point; some people are happy to post their names/addresses (via WHOIS) but posting an actual pic can be different sometimes.
And I agree that some of the comments here were OTT - the original post did seem paid, although people should have enquired first before making harsh comments.
Thanks!
Tristan
July 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am
This is the first time I ever made a comment on llll.com.
Matt & Kevin Ohashi - You both are so immature. If you don’t want to list your name, then don’t. Talking down someone else will only show who you really are.
And don’t worry, Reece and Francois won’t go low to go after you.
July 19th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Thanks Tristan, I will look at this monday.
July 19th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Good one Francois, but I’m afraid I wont signup with any of your service again cuz you might end up putting a price tag on it in future!!
Rest, as far as we all know Reece already is making enough from his domain business that he doesn’t need to do paid posting on such a quality space. Haters watch your mouth, before you open it!!
July 19th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Let’s be serious here for a minute. Regardless of whether Reece said it directly or just copies and pastes it in very little attempt was made to make clear if this part was Francois or Reece commenting ‘Care to help prove that wrong? It’s the little things like this which will help set us apart. Like I said – it’s completely free and won’t take more than 2 minutes to fill out, so what do you have to lose?’
So we are left to wonder, whose statement is that? Then does it matter really? If Francois wrote it, it speaks volumes to the way he looks at people in this business (posting everyone’s information first without asking permission is a huge violation of basic privacy - which is what happened originally and you could see everyone listed). If Reece wrote it, he just sounds like Francois mouthpiece who posts with no real thoughtfulness or insight at all into the people in this business and the business itself. So either way we are left with a pretty bad taste in our mouths after reading something like this.
@KL: my name was never listed. I don’t know why I would sign up to a service that I had created the same functionality for privately - it only takes a few minutes to setup an RSS aggregator.
@Johnny: living under your shell isn’t really a solution but this offers nothing either really. What value does it add? Who is actually going to go to this site and for what purpose? End users? no. Resellers? Maybe… but that seems like a poor approach, Lawyers? Probably your best bet. You’re better off getting in contact with ICA and trying to protect your assets from real threats or going to ICANN meetings and making your voice heard. Post comments and submit articles to tech, legal and other news sources spreading positive messages about the industry. There are things that could actually do good and waste space, this falls into the second category.
July 19th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Don’t kill Reece, the messenger. But Francois should have enough reason to be thankful that people are visiting his sites and he is well respected in the industry. Perhaps, that makes him appeared like he is getting big-headed by demanding too much info from subscribers, especially suggesting they post their pictures. He’s kind of sounding like FBI or DomainIndustryPolice.com. Come on, no-one commits crime here, people just want to read blogs. He is making rules that would not be well accepted by most domainers.
For instance, there were some double standards especially during the Domaining slogan contest - by say contestants should have twitter to contest. Some guys actually registered for twitter to contest .and their twit pages have not been updated after that. Very soon someone would suggest that every domainer should have a blog to be regarded as domainers.
He should understand that not everyone has the time or resources to do what he is asking for. Besides, people like him are doing great jobs of tweeting and blogging which are well appreciated. If all domainers blog and tweet, how much can one read? So, let it be upto domain buyers to demand more personal info before sales. Finally, the Domainer.org would be more credible if he tells people now that there would be fees for some service in the future and let people know why.
July 19th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
@ Kevin: I wrote that part myself. Nobody paid me to write it, nobody even asked me to write this post at all — I wrote it because I thought it was worthy of being written about. The same goes for the post about Brands-and-Jingles on July 16th, the post about Bido on July 8th, the post about EscrowDNS on June 19th, etc. I guess my writing style can come across as a bit “salesy” at times — unintended but I can see how it could happen.