Domaining.com
edit: This has been amicably resolved.
Since all the domain name blogs seem to be talking about it, I thought I’d add my take on it as well. I have to say, I completely agree with Elliot about Domaining.com. So long as Domaining.com isn’t breaking any laws, Francois can do whatever he wants to do with his site — it’s his site. Francois has been kind enough to include me and many other bloggers on his RSS aggregator and I receive more traffic to my blog from Domaining.com than I even do from Google – thousands of visitors for free… Francois owns a business and when he’s offering a service to us bloggers for free, it’s understandable that he would ask that we not promote competitors. If we choose to, it’s our choice — just like he has the choice to no longer display our feed.
I was one of the people who also received a notice from Francois to remove the Namebee banner ad from my website and I did so. Domaining.com really has brought the domain industry closer together and alllowed many of us who can’t find time to attend domain conferences the opportunity to meet domainers who we likely wouldn’t otherwise have had the chance to meet. I’m very surprised by some of the comments circulating on some of the domain blogs.. You may not agree with the decision and that’s fine – you’re entitled to your opinion as well, however do you really need to bad mouth someone who has done so much for the domain industry?
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June 12th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Yuch… your post is disgusting. He gives you free visitors and in return you give him free content, it is a two way street. Stop letting him push you around.
There is not a dang thing about Domaining.com that gets visitors except the blogs themselves. You are his meat and potatoes and he is telling you what to do. Join together with others, tell them to use antother service, and tell Frank to get a life.
I just learned about this and I think that I am officially through using Domaining.com as my search portal for domain names, time to try out NameBee.com or DNGator.com.
Please don’t roll over dead for him…
June 12th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
By the way,
If you are reading this Frank, take me off your mailing list, I am done with your site. I dislike monopolies but especially monopolies that try to scare others into doing what they want.
Now that I am being honest… the domains that you list on your site suck anyway! Domaining.com has about the same value as Ebay when it comes to buying quality .com’s. The only thing of value you have are the blogs, and your keep acting like a jerk and you will loose those one by one.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Hi Troy,
Just to clarify a few points: The domains on Domaining.com are other people’s, not his, so he doesn’t have any control over quality or lack thereof. Domain name forums have for years not allowed the mention of a competitor.. Try saying Namepros on DN Forum or DN Forum on Namepros — your post will get edited or deleted. I’m all for free speech myself — someone can post on here that I’m an idiot and I won’t censor it. That said, I don’t hold it against someone who does or would.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Thanks for your support Reece, I started preparing a long post responding to complaints I have seen around today. Should be posted later…
…
Troy, i will delete your account as I have no interest to have unhappy members.
I just hope your reaction is not due because I decliend your blog in domaining.com - I noticed it’s the case of most of the ones having mad words…
Yes as Reece says the domain listed at Domaining.com are simply the domains that are currently at auction at SEDO, AFTERNIC, GODADDY, …
This means some were maybe your.
They are NOT our domains, now we own a lot of the ones listed at PremiumDomains.com, maybe these one are more aceptable for you.
Unfortunately it’s what you see at domaining.com that mainly sell everyday in the aftermarket and this is why we promote them to our members.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Reece,
What he is doing is weak, it is wrong, and to comply with it because others do it is simply failed logic.
For the first time I just got on NameBee.com. It is actually a really good site. It allows you to customize the feeds, including remove authors that you don’t want to see and add additional authors that you want to see. It is better then Domaining.com is in everyway and I did not even know about it until Frank made a stink.
His best response to a new competitor is to out work them, make his own site better, not try to take away peoples ability to use the other site.
The knowledge regarding stifling mentioning of the competition on DNForum and NamePros just shows how new and immature the domain business really is. That is bad business policy, it makes your company look like a spoiled child screaming at someone because they are talking nice about someone that you don’t like.
Frank has shown that he is immature for taking such an pathetic stand. As long as all you bloggers fall over backward for him it will not be long until he tells you that you are going to have to take your rss feed off of NameBee if you want to remain on Domaining.com. Stop him now, before he takes the next, anti competitive step.
Your blog by itself is better then all of Domaining.com combined because what you do takes creativity, Domaining.com only takes software.
The truth is that you stand in the power spot, not Frank. Everyone of you bloggers could get along without him, but Domaining.com would cease to exist without all of you guys.
I applaud Sahar for taking the step to tell Frank how he feels. If the rest would do it either frank would apologize for being such a whinny crybaby, or frank would simply loose all value from Domaining.com.
You are the value here, not him.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Frank,
I have never had a blog. I simply read the blogs of others.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Domaining.com has the same functionalities you are talking above … but it look likes you did not notice.
You can be the best singer, if you songs have never been played at TV or radio nobody will hear you and you will continue anonymous.
Domaining.com is not the artist, it’s the TV, the radio, … the stage that helped and continue helping bloggers be discovered and or heared.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Perhaps I did not notice because you did not put it on the home page the way that Namebee does.
Your comparison of being the TV is perfect, that is all Domaining.com is. As time progresses there will be more and more TV’s out there.
The competition is for TV’s to find the best artists, because without them the TV has no value. The best artists will never be at a loss for TV’s as long as they stick with what they are good at.
You are not in a strong position to bargain Frank, being just a TV.
You should be thankful for the artists that you have.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
The fact I refuse to list bloggers promoting competing sites in our newsletter does not mean I am not thankfull for the artists.
It’s a win/win situation and you are a good sample, look you are going away continue reading some bloggers domaining.com introduced you
June 12th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
“So long as Domaining.com isn’t breaking any laws,…”
Reece,
The domain forums are private membership sites. You have to sign up and follow
their rules.
For the most part, all the domain blogs are open to the general public.
Francois may in fact be breaking the law.
I’m not a lawyer so am not absolutely certain but on the surface it seems
telling you and others not to promote competitors and to remove any competitor
advertising violates anti-trust laws specifically Restraint Of Trade.
“Restraint of Trade refers to activity that obstructs, limits, or eliminates market competition.”
“Restraints are prohibited by the first section of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890… ,
the main source of American antitrust law, which forbids ‘every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce…”
“Restraint of trade takes a multitude of forms, (including) private activity (e.g., contracts between two parties)…”
“Common practices include noncompetition clauses, exclusive dealing arrangements, and price discrimination.”
Source:
http://www.answers.com/topic/restraint-of-trade
June 12th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Breaking the law or not, the bottom line to me is that it is just slimy. What he is wanting to do is bad for everyone, even him in the long run because he will alienate both readers and bloggers.
I agree with him in that he did introduce me to lots of good bloggers that I now read on a regular basis. Thanks for that but dont think it was done as some act of compassion, Domaining.com is a business for Frank like all of our businesses. My clients might thank me for what I am providing them but I am not doing it out of the goodness of my heart.
June 12th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Although I think your research is pretty cool Patrick.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
@Reece
I am flabbergasted to read this from you.
If Google or Yahoo sent you the same email Francois did, you’re be writing something completely different — RIGHT ?
Take off the rose glasses and call it for what it is. Your content is taken, with our without your permission. And then the taker is also telling you what you can post and whom you can work with.
That doesn’t sound right to me …
June 12th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Hi Richard,
I’ll be honest with you — I like Francois, he’s been very kind to me in the past giving me free advertising when I launched a domain auction website last year, he’s had 2 different domain blogs of mine on Domaining.com over the past 2 years, and he’s done one heck of a lot for the industry through Domaining.com and his many other domaining related websites.
Francois doesn’t put anyone on his RSS feed that doesn’t ask to be on it, so he’s not taking anything. And let’s be real honest here — Domaining.com has like 2 sentences of each blog post on it, so any domain bloggers thinking that 2 lines of content allows them to dictate what happens on Domaining.com is in my opinion both arrogant and conceited.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
“Domaining.com has like 2 sentences of each blog post on it, so any domain bloggers thinking that 2 lines of content allows them to dictate what happens on Domaining.com is in my opinion both arrogant and conceited.”
So why then is is not arrogant and conceited for Frank to dictate to you what is on your blog?
June 12th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Troy,
Because I’m the one wanting to use the website owned by Francois. Domaining.com would continue just the same if my blog were not on it — I would be the one with 25% of my traffic gone overnight.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
@Reece,
“Domaining.com has like 2 sentences of each blog post on it, so any domain bloggers thinking that 2 lines of content allows them to dictate what happens on Domaining.com is in my opinion both arrogant and conceited.”
Ahhh, but that’s not the point. He’s filtering content that competes with his services, plus now he’s telling people that they need to remove links to competing aggregators or he won’t list them anymore.
I think that’s a slap in the face, especially to people like Sahar, Elliot, Mike, Andrew and a few more that I missed, who are the majority of the domaining blogging traffic, the same traffic that makes people visit domaining.com in the first place.
You should see the emails I am getting in private.
You’re not visiting domaining.com for the toolbar or the list of auctions either, right? You’re lazy like me and don’t want to use an RSS reader so you use domaining.com instead to read all the industry news. RIGHT?
BUT, the thought of that news being censored makes people want to look for another source, that’s not censored.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
What would happen if a considerable number of domainers deactivate the RSS for Domaining.com?
Domaining.com would become useless and people will stop visiting it.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
That’s correct — I haven’t yet used Domaining.com for anything other than the RSS feeds. I like Domaining.com’s layout much better than using Google reader or something like that, plus using Domaining.com saves me the time of making something like that. I mean this with no disrespect to the creator of Namebee but Domaining.com sends me 20 times as much traffic as Namebee does — anyone dropping Domaining.com for Namebee is in for a rude awakening traffic-wise.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
@Reece
Let me get out my small ladder and cone for a minute while I am here.
1. If you and lots of other bloggers spent a weekend tweaking your blogs to make the search engine friendly and then add some SEO bits (these are two different things, btw) then you wouldn’t care about domaining.com or namebee or any other aggregator site because you would be getting 80% of your traffic from organic search.
2. Then, do regular link building. Get up every day and get a couple links to the great content you’re writing on your blog.
Yes, I have written blog posts about this on my blog. Go read them. Please. I know, I don’t post enough, sorry. If you guys have questions, I am full of advice, just ask me. I don’t sell SEO services but I am happy to give you free advice or even tear apart your site and write a blog post about it.
If you don’t believe me, see my recent comments on Elliot’s blog and ask Elliot for his opinion.
If you want to beat the aggregators, it’s easily within your grasp.
June 12th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
@Reece
“I mean this with no disrespect to the creator of Namebee but Domaining.com sends me 20 times as much traffic as Namebee does — anyone dropping Domaining.com for Namebee is in for a rude awakening traffic-wise.”
Right, so with Sahar not being listed on domaining.com anymore, what happens when Elliot, Mike, Andrew, Ron and a few more guys tell Francois they don’t like is anti-competive policy? They don’t get listed on domaining.com anymore either, right?
So, tell me, why would you be using domaining.com anymore? You and I don’t post often enough to keep domaining.com updated. Oh and I’ve been banned too!
You see my point right, Reece?
June 12th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Domain Development is making a good point. You may currently get 20 times as much traffic from Domaining.com but as long as Frank keeps this crap up he will continue to loose more and more readers and many will go to websites like NameBee.
Give it time, and if Frank does not change, you will be getting 20x’s the traffic from Namebee that you get from domaining.com. The internet is fickle, get people mad too many times and it is very easy for them to go somewhere else.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Alright time for another blogger’s opinion on the matter lol.
First off i would like to state: I do not agree with what Francois is doing.
Now that we got off on the right foot here, lets examine why i chose to OPT-IN with Francois’ agreement.
1. Francois is a real person.
2. Francois understands, without the bloggers there is no domaining.com in its current state.
3. Because Francois understands that he needs bloggers, this is why he only provides and syndicates only the best and most useful blogs about domain names around.
4. Francois has always responded to my emails with polite and quick responses.
5. Why the hell would i not OPT-IN for domaining.com when there will be less bloggers. This means more “air time” for my posts. Which in all reality will bump my visitors from domaining.com. To be fair i do get traffic from namebee.com but it does not even come in to the top 10 traffic sources to my blog, Domaining.com is my 4th.
6. Domaining.com is a great asset to community, whether it is the services that spin off from it or the core site itself. It has in one way or another had some type of impact on most people in the industry.
7. Domaining.com is consistently updated and maintained. (This is something i do not want to do with an rss reader)
So everyone just get the hell over it and quit fuckin around. There are bigger fish to fry other than some bloggers being upset over this whole thing. Its stupid gossip. Shit, go reg CelebrityDomainer.com and start a gossip website about the industry.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
I feel you missed the point or our discussion Ross.
We are not discussing reasons to stay or even reasons for a blogger to go. We are simply saying why we think what Frank is doing is bad for most everyone involved. You also agreed with it by saying that you also disagreed with what he was doing.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
@Troy
Did i not say that was my opinion in the comment?
Quit bitching and get over it. Like it or not its going to happen.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
BTW, i did tell Francois that i do not agree with what he is doing. (Just for the record, before all of these comments and blog posts)
June 12th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I do not have a domaining blog, but being someone who has developed/marketed many successful sites both in and outside the domaining industry, here is my take on this.
I don’t know Francois personally, but from following the developments of domaining.com the past several months I have realized he is either a very poor business/marketing person, or he does not understand what he has with domaining.com
As RSS aggregator that displays other peoples domaining posts is ridiculously trivial to duplicate. There is nothing unique or difficult about what his site does. What he does have going for him are an excellent domain name (probably the best possible for domain RSS aggregation) and the fact he was the first site out there and thus the most popular and established.
A few months ago when he decided to charge for access to his site and people got upset, I stated that it was a horrible decision and that he really didn’t get what his site was. I said he would either end up reversing his decision or people would leave to a free alternative. Of course he eventually realized this and made it free.
To me this decision to not include prominent bloggers who link to a competitor is just as poor of a business decision. He still doesn’t get what his site truly is. By not including popular bloggers, his site becomes less valuable than his competitors. Why visit a site that shows you 75% of the news when you could go to any competitor that will show you 100% of whats going on in the industry?
Unless he reverses this decision (which I predict will eventually happen) he will slowly start losing market share as people discover alternatives with more of the headlines. It won’t happen quickly but if he continues to block prominent sites with good stories eventually it will happen.
June 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I wouldn’t do what Francois is doing if I were in his shoes, but he definitely has every right to be doing it and shouldn’t be attacked for it. I get 50-200 uniques per post from Domaining.com, NameBee sends maybe 5-15, and DNGator isn’t really even on the radar sending just 1-2 uniques per post.
It would be silly to drop Domaining.com for NameBee at this point, especially since linking to NameBee isn’t a requirement for inclusion. NameBee doesn’t provide enough value to make demands like that yet, so by sticking with Domaining.com you can be included in both.
I’m a little tired of hearing people say that Francois is taking content from bloggers. Like Reece said, there isn’t a single blog syndicated on Domaining.com that didn’t ask to be there. Besides, the snippets are so small that you literally have to click through to the blog. If he didn’t put at least some of our content up… do you really think people would be interested enough to click through? We help provide a reason to keep coming back to Domaining.com… but at the same time he gives us a level of exposure that it would take a year or two of regular, quality posts to attain. It’s a win-win, who wouldn’t like that?
Not wanting people to link to his competitors is understandable, he needs to defend his model against the copy-cats. That doesn’t make him a bad person, it makes him smart. Besides, I see no reason whatsoever to have so many aggregators for such a small industry. It isn’t like NameBee or DNGator has added features that make them stand apart from Domaining.com. In my opinion they are both completely unnecessary.
This whole thing is blown way out of proportion. It is just two people who aren’t on the same page… it isn’t that big of a deal. Sahar is in a position where he has enough of a following that he doesn’t need Domaining.com, so rather than follow the rules he can just as easily walk away.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I have to agree with you Michael, although Russell does raise some good points as well.
For anyone doubting how valuable a resource Domaining.com is, take a look at this: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/llll.com/ . I made absolutely zero effort to promote my blog other than getting it listed on Domaining.com in May.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Honestly this is a no win topic. I believe all parties have valid opinions and I respect them all.
I received an email from Francois about a week ago advising the removal of my blog from his NEWSLETTER. Did I like receiving that email, not at all. Nowhere is it posted on his site that we are not allowed to showcase other aggregators. I agree we should have the choice to post whatever we’d like on our blogs. Looking at what Domaining.com offers and the other aggregator I elected to remove the other banner. Purely a business decision. As I have paid advertisers on my blog it is my job to earn as much traffic for them as possible.
Myself, I like Francois. We don’t always see eye to eye but that is life. We have a mutual beneficial business relationship. Not only has he spent a nice amount of money advertising with me but also delivers traffic to my blog. Domaining.com accounts for about 4% of my traffic or 900 ish visits per month. With great respect to NameBee.com they do not provide the results that Domaining.com does. I will say that NameBee.com has done a great job with, to my understanding, zero advertising.
I believe Francois has done a lot for domain bloggers in providing the first highly advertised news aggregator. Yes, today he only provides 4% of my monthly traffic but how many domain investors has he introduced to my blog. Those visitors now type in my blog url directly. I’ve seen where he advertises and how much he spends. All for a negative return. One thing I do not understand is how Francois can be spending so much on web hosting every month. You know what, it’s not my business. He can spend as he wishes.
In closing, if you disagree with any site owners choice, simply stop using their service and visiting. Francois, don’t worry about the competition and try to find a cheaper hosting solution. I’m sure you can find someone to trade off advertising for service.
Because this topic has received a lot of attention, instead of creating my own blog post I’ve decided to post this comment on all the blogs with related articles.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Patrick,
That’s the best comment I’ve read all day on the subject and there’s been a lot of comments!
June 12th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
@Troy,
First… LOL, his name is Francois, not Frank
“There is not a dang thing about Domaining.com that gets visitors except the blogs themselves.”
This is an incorrect statement. Some of the most important sites in the domain name industry hold the Domaining.com badge which bring in traffic. Escrow.com, Sedo.com, Afternic.com, Pool.com etc. More importantly, traffic from outside the domain bubble.
~~~~~~
As I said before on TooManySecrets.com, I do not agree with the removal of Sahar’s blog from the Newsletter because of a NameBee.com link on Sahar’s site. It doesn’t really make sense and is why I do not agree with the action.
Domaining.com is important to the domain industry as a whole. NameBee.com or any like site is a Good Thing for Domaining.com IMO as it drives to make Francois and all of us work harder and smarter.
So I think we just need to have Francois understand that competition is not a bad thing, but we all know there is a fine line with spammers, people only looking out for them self etc. If something is clear, we can for the majority, state and agree that something is right or wrong… well, at least 50% of the time.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
@Ross,
Please be nice, there are kids around
June 12th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Francois has annoyed me for a long time - hell I asked for my blog to be removed from his site over 6 mths ago. He has little idea how to run his site and moves the goalposts every other day and then moves them back again.
In essence he attempts to exert pressure on the folks listed on his site and this ruffles way too many feathers. His interpersonal skills are very very poor.
Long live the competition !!!
June 13th, 2009 at 12:33 am
“done so much for the domain industry?”
what has he done again that makes you say this ? I’m confused.
June 13th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Adam,
Francois has spent hundreds of thousands promoting the industry for little in return. There are domain sites out there that would have struggled to survive without his funding. Other than Domaining.com, Francois has had many other sites over the years and still has many others today. As Jamie said, Francois has Domaining.com banners on not only almost all the major domaining websites but even non-domaining websites like Escrow.com, helping bring more people into the business and helping those already in the business find resources that can help them take their business to the next level.
Not singling out anyone in particular, however I honestly think some people don’t like Francois and are using this as an excuse to publicly out him — I have a feeling if someone else would have made the same decision, it wouldn’t have raised one tenth the controversy.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:14 am
Really though we all put our time,energy,effort and money in to this “for little in return”. Let’s not keep score, please and let’s not use one’s efforts as some sort of an excuse to skirt a criticism.
I’m just guessing but I don’t think Domaining.com wasn’t created only to benefit the industry. The fact that this controversy is about a business decision that effects his potential revenue/income makes that crystal clear.
Francois made a business decision that clearly is not a well received one. But Francois will do what he has to do, which means he’ll do it in his best interest, whatever that may be. So much for doing “so much for the domain industry?”
I really don’t care either way about this ‘controversy’ . I’m going to make a decision the same way Francois did. . . based on how it effects my business in the long-term. I’d imagine people could be a little more constructive in their criticisms here but there’s nothing wrong with people calling him out on this and pointing out what they feel about this decision. In the end it’s his choice to make and we all have a choice to deal with it or not.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:43 am
In all honesty Adam, I don’t think Domaining.com’s current revenue means much to Francois — I know he was certainly spending more than that in the past when he had leaderboard ads on major domain forums. I’ve looked into advertising on DN Forum and have advertised on Namepros — it’s not cheap to have a sitewide ad on either for an extended period of time like Francois did when launching Domaining.com. When Francois explained it to me recently, it was that he felt the domain industry only needed one aggregator and to be completely honest I would have to agree. I have nothing against the other aggregators out there but if people were unhappy with all the features currently found on Domaining.com, they could have just asked Francois if he could consider adding in those features. It’s not a product which costs us anything to use, so the whole idea of perfect competition doesn’t make sense in my opinion. More aggregators just means more confusion in the domaining industry and more money spent on advertising instead of on continuing to provide features visitors will value.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Imagine you were getting all your search traffic from BING, thousands of hits a day. One day the Microsoft legal team shows up at your house and says “You have to remove all the Google search boxes and Yahoo banners from your site or we’ll de-index you.” I wonder, would we be so quick to accept this as our new business model? Wouldn’t just about every US gov’t agency step in and halt this action? Wouldn’t Google and Yahoo immediately seek damages in court?
This is very anti-competitive stuff. Based on my experience of Francois, he will change this position. I haven’t yet figured out if he lives for controversy or actually jumps before he looks. Either way it is a stupid thing to do, especially when the term “Domaining” implies a free market.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:08 am
The thing is. You can’t compare yahoo vs google and domaining.com with other rss aggregators.
It is Francois website. He knows he get bloggers to create content for free. Bloggers know they get traffic for free as well.
You like it - you use it and follow the rules. You don’t like it - ask him to remove you and never again visit domaining.com
It is very simple. Don’t make a drama out of it. For me it looks like a lot of you got bored and have no subjects to discuss besides this obvious thing.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Copied from another board. Just think can this apply to domaining.com.
Just replace myspace with domaining.com
“”The problem isn’t necessarily with MySpace as much as it is with the nature of online social network users today, said Jon Gibs, vice president of media analytics for Nielsen Online, a research firm.
Web users are fickle, he said.
“It seems that social networks are incredibly portable, meaning that me and my friends can go from MySpace to Facebook to Twitter without blinking much,” he said.
History proves this point, he said, adding that no site has been able to successfully recover from a substantial loss of popularity.”"
So the question i ask is this;
Can domaining.com ever recover if it loses its popularity ?
June 13th, 2009 at 11:24 am
nam.es says: “You can’t compare yahoo vs google and domaining.com with other rss aggregators.
Please post the names of such services that embody the same principle. I have provided a great example of how things might be if the shoe was on a different foot. Feel free to do the same.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Nam.es is totally right…
I use domaining.com every day to get a update about the domain industry…and its great that you can see all blogs in one place.
Stop with all of that and Nam.es is right, its Francois site and he can do what ever he wants with that…its not a government site that you obligated to some rules.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
First off I would like to say hello everyone. Next, I will give my opinion on this matter and shed some light on why it truly doesn’t MATTER! Regardless of what stance has been taken by domain bloggers, Francois is going to win this battle. Whether the publicity is positive or negative you are still providing him with site promotion. For those that have never seen nor heard of domaining.com, you can believe that they will know about it NOW.
In addition to this, it is his choice and if he decides he wants to be selective in the way he runs his site (business) so be it. Rick Schwartz has a great entry on his blog describing how domaining is no longer a small circle of people who have banded together to help one another. Domaining has changed into an all out business. You can read his post here: http://www.ricksblog.com/my_weblog/2009/06/golden-era-of-domains-about-to-end.html
A great deal of us tend to get emotional about the industry that we all so dearly love. It is our passion, it is our motivation, it is our bread and butter. During this emotional state some of us tend to forget that we are actually partaking in a business and the best way to represent ourselves is in a professional matter at all times. Some of you have displayed childish mannerisms replying to Francois in a negative matter, literally calling his site (business) a complete and utter failed project. Whether this is right or wrong, don’t harm your own individual brand to slander his. Think twice before posting an opinion which has more to do with your personal relationship with Francois as opposed to the relationship you have had with his business.
I have taken no stance on this and feel that everyone is entitled to there own opinions. To shed some light on my interaction with the domaining.com business, I will let everyone know that I actually applied to be on the aggregator twice but to my amazement I was turned down. When I initially applied my site was either a PR2 or a PR3 then after not posting for a few weeks it went down to having no PR. The first comment Francois made for my initial application:
10/8/08
Hello Jason,
Drop me a note next month. If I see you have been continuing blogging about domaining, sure I will add your feed.
Cheers,
Francois
The second comment Francois made in reference to the acceptance of my blog in his site’s aggregator:
Your site is still PR0, there is no change?
I replied to him with the following statement:
LOL, is that another requirement Francois?
He replied back with:
This is the first I have since the first blog we started listed at Domaining.com
It strange I did not talk you about it.
Then replied again with:
It’s the first one, in fact very rarely a blog with a PR0 has been added.
So in the end, my site has never been added to domaining.com, since it is a PR0. I am not mad at his decision and hopefully in the future he will decide to eventually accept my blog, but until then I have learned about namebee and dngator which are willing to welcoming me with open arms. It’s great to know that there are alternatives for sites like mine and I wouldn’t have known about them if it weren’t for this dispute that has taken place! So thank you everyone!
June 13th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I just checked my email and it looks like Francois is now okay with domain blogs advertising for competitors.
June 13th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
@reece all these efforts lead to an end result, a goal of profit. You don’t just spend money on all this becaues you are a nice guy and are bored. . . . Maybe Francois can correct me if I’m wrong there . Sure he might not care about domaining.com’s profit but I’m sure Francois is like the rest of us and cares that what he puts in he gets back in some way shape or form. The work we all put in is for profit (for ourselves) and along the way it benefits our other domainer associates. This isn’t charity work so lets stop patting people on the back for doing business
June 13th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Adam,
Getting back what you put in means different things to different people and is not necessarily a money thing. That said, just because someone makes money doing something shouldn’t mean you can’t admire their contributions just the same — who isn’t thankful we have DN Journal?