Vast majority of domainers understand the value of short, one word generic domain names, but still Slay.ca is far from being a premium domain name, and definitely doesn’t have any traffic. I explained to my friend that all the domain names have “you never know” factor, and one word dictionary names, even unpopular words, have more of it than anything else.

Sometimes, if the price is right, you simply have to buy a name. Even if you are not going to use it, you still buying it and taking a risk, because you never know – someday this word or phrase might become popular. That was a case with Slay.ca, MyID.ca helped me to acquire it through TBR, and I was lucky enough to pay only $22 for it.

I gave one example to my friend about this “never know” factor, and even though it is a good example, it was a lesson to me too.

On September 23, 2005 I hand registered a list of .ca domain names including Occupy.ca. Why would I register that name? It was insane at the time to even think that somebody would want to develop that name in the future.  My reasons for registering the name though simple: it was a dictionary word, relatively short,  a verb calling for action, and cheap price of $10 for hand registration. When I left on vacation on September 23, 2011, exactly 6 years after my registration of Occupy.ca, I didn’t know anything about Occupy Wall Street movement.  I read an article about mass protests organized by this movement only in the middle of October when I sat on the plane back to Canada. On my way back I was wondering if I still own Occupy.ca.

It turns out that I sold Occupy.ca to another domainer in 2006. I don’t regret selling it, even thought I let it go for cheap. This story a good lesson to me, it reminded me about that great ability of absolutely any generic phrase or one word domain name to become more valuable at any moment.

As you all know by now, there is no Stanley Cup for Vancouver this year. No soup for you! (soupnazi from Seinfield). We will need to wait for another 10-15 years probably for another run. Just like in 1994 the streets of Vancouver were rocked by the angry fans. Actually according to the politicians, and media they are not fans, they are not TRUE FANS we are told. Who are they? At the beginning I heard on TV and radio that we are dealing with a small number of troublemakers. After that we were told that there are some anarchists that came to watch the Canucks game (!?). More and more people begin to realize that this is not a small group of people, and these are not some kind of outsiders. This is where we live, and these are the people that live here, and all these people are the fans of the beloved Vancouver Canucks.

I am still proud of Vancouver though! Many came out the next day to help with the clean up efforts. There is an extraordinary effort underway online and offline to identify these who participated in rioting and looting. Thousands of Vancouver residents let their feelings be known on the plywood pieces covering the broken glass of the Hudson Bay’s store on Granville street.

I went to downtown Vancouver yesterday.

It was nice to see all the people cheering for the home-team. At the same time it was very disappointing to see Roberto Luongo to collapse again. It kind of reminded me of Dan Cloutier time – you wait for a pizza guy to arrive, you just open a beer bottle, and all of the sudden Canucks are 2-3 goals down.

Yesterday I hoped for a cruel ending for the Boston Bruins fans, and now the stage is sat for the major showdown in game 7.  As many people understand game 7s are a flip of the coin in many cases, and even though I heard the statistics somewhere that home-team won 12 out of 15 times during the last 15 seasons, I still have some doubt that Canucks will come through. I mean I want them to, but now I am not sure.

I didn’t like the way Canucks played last game, I don’t understand the way the game called either. Canucks had to find a way to play better last night with the Stanley Cup in the building. They didn’t. At the same time, I don’t understand why penalties not called on Bruins. I heard a guy saying on the radio that Boston’s strategy is to play on the edge, make 100s of infractions during the game – who cares, the refs are not going to call all of them anyway. So, it kind of becomes a new normal to punch Sedin 4-5 times in the face, and only on the 6th punch you will be penalized, if at all.

Vancouver hopes for the best.

I witnessed the anger and upset fan’s faces yesterday when Miami Heat was outplayed by Dallas Mavericks to capture their first ever NBA Championship.

It must be so sad to see your team fall in your own building in the last game of the finals. The opposing team holds that trophy that your team wanted so much. All this hope, and reasoning to support your team collapsed. You can’t leave the building, because you want to see that ceremony, that you may never see again, but you can’t be happy because the other team crowned.

Vancouver Canucks can cause similar pain in Boston, if they win pivotal game 6 tonight. Boston’s pain won’t be similar though, after all the adversity of the Stanley Cup Finals it will be very cruel to see Boston Bruins fall in their building. Fans will be pissed to see Aaron Rome to raise the cup above his shoulders, they will remember THE HIT. They will be pissed to see Alex Burrows with the cup, because of  THE BITE.  I really want that cruel ending to Boston Bruins season tonight.

Go Canucks Go!

This week Pool.com had particularly strong showing with mentioned above IRM.ca (2), and Phrases.ca (4), Benefactor.ca (7), MapleRidgeRealEstate.ca (14), Curlers.ca (15), FEZ.ca (17).  The same can be said about eGate with 6 domains in the first 20: CruiseHolidays.ca (10), BankingNews.ca (11), MPN.ca (12), Sufficiency.ca (16), HotelSuite.ca (18), and Stolen.ca (19). Sibername had a decent performance with WeList.ca (5), Patterson.ca (6), and Proctology.ca (9).

Number of dropped domain names: 5,330

Number of registered domain names during the TBR session: 255

CIRA total of domain names registered: 1,679,308 ( April 30, 2011)

Sibername caught two more domain names at the top 20 – RID.ca (4) and LSI.ca (5). 10dollar.ca/FastWebServer registered another valuable domain name – Belt.ca (7). One of the names I really liked was PublicOpinion.ca (17) and it was picked up by MyID.ca. At the end of the day 237 domain names were registered during the TBR run this week. Once more time I want to mention how awesome MyID.ca is. This company registered 75 domain names during the session, and it accounts for almost 32% of all the domains registered!

Number of dropped domain names: 5,644

Number of registered domain names during the TBR session: 237

CIRA total of domain names registered: 1,669,744 ( April 15, 2011)

FastWebServer.ca/10dollar.ca was one of the best performers last week when company acquired two of the best domain names during the TBR session: Mayonnaise.ca (2) and Breeders.ca (3). That was last week. This time, again, FastWebServer.com was fast enough to catch Offshore.ca (2), and CosmeticDentist.ca (4).

Number of dropped domain names: 4,655

Number of registered domain names during the TBR session: 214

CIRA total of domain names registered: 1,656,223 ( April 2, 2011)

As many of you know, domain name WILLS.ca is for sale at Pool.com auction. Less than 24 hours left until the end of the auction, and last time I checked there are no bids placed. The main reason why any of the bids weren’t placed is a hefty price tag. The reserve price of the auction is at $20,000, and the buyer will be expected to pay at least $22,400 including tax. Is it a good deal? There is no obvious answer to this question.

Wills.ca is a premium, generic domain name. It clearly describes the product, and anybody who visits the site knows ahead of time what they expect to find. I went to few of the local lawyer’s offices in Vancouver with the purpose of finding out how much it will cost to “create a will”.  The prices ranged from $350 to $450 dollars for simple cases. You should note though, that if you own a business it might cost significantly more to prepare a will, and even more if your business is not easily understandable by most of the people. For instance if you are a domainer with a large portfolio of names, it will take more time for a lawyer to draw all necessary documents to describe your business and how the will should be enforced in case something happens to you.

In conclusion I must say, that in most cases there is only once a chance to acquire for businesses that one domain name that it so generic and premium for them. Once cars.com, loans.com, homes.com get sold and developed, there is no way to buy these names anymore, because they turn from domain names to an operating businesses. In contrast, Canadian namespace is so immature, and so poorly developed that all the .com names that I mentioned above, are not even developed in .ca, they are simply parked. It might be a good chance for one of the law firms to buy WILLS.ca domain name, but seeing so many premium .ca domains left undeveloped, I think we are at the stage where Canadian companies still don’t understand the value of premium generic domains. I won’t be surprised to see WILLS.ca unsold.