Farley Cahen and Steve Crean

Farley Cahen and Steve Crean 
01/03/2007  Monte Cahn 
 Monte welcomes Steve Crean. Steve is 36 and since 2002 has focused on running his own businesses online dealing with import/export. Since late 2005 he has been focused almost entirely on IDNs. He also brings on Farley Cahen. Farley is both Publisher of AVN Online Magazine and the Director of New Business Development for the AVN Media Network. He began his career with AVN as the Director of Internet Development nearly six years ago. Within two years, he transformed the AVN network of sites into the most visited Adult business to business news and information resources on the Internet. As Publisher of AVN Online Magazine, he grew the circulation to nearly 15,000 monthly BtoB Adult Online Professional subscribers making the magazine the most widely circulated and read Adult Online BtoB magazine in the world. 

[Commercials]

Monte:    Hey, folks. Welcome to Domain Masters. I’m Monte Cahn, your host, and we have another great show lined up. Today we’re going to talk about IDNs (International Domain Names, for those of you who don’t know what IDNs are), Internext, which is the adult webmaster conference that’s coming up in Las Vegas. We’re going to talk to Farley Cahan there and talk about the Internext domain auction that we’re doing as well. And cover a lot of other inssues as well. My first guest, who we’ll have on in a couple minutes after the break, is Steven Crean, and he owns several thousand IDN names (International Domain Names) and actually is part of a network of tens of thousands of international domain names and their popularity is growing quite a bit. For those of you that don’t know what international domain names are, uhm, they’re alpha-numeric codes that actually convert into a domain name in the language in which the domain name is presented on keyboards. So, for instance, there’s an alpha-numeric code for a Chinese word and it would show up in the proper format on a Chinese computer with Chinese characters, but to us, it looks like, uhm, a two-letter, plus a dash-dash and an alpha-numeric following with a dot come or a dot net or other extensions at the end. These are gaining in popularity because you communicate internationally with several people and people can establish international presence with these international domain names. They happen to get type in traffic and are becoming very valuable; just in the last three or four months, we’ve performed several domain sales and escrow deals equating to close to $250,000 in IDN sales and transactions, which is pretty significant. So they are something that’s coming on strong. So with that, I will take a short commercial break, we’ll pay some bills, and be back on with Steven Crean, and then with Farley Cahan from AVN and Internext. Stay tuned.

[Commercials]

Monte:    Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Domain Masters. Again, I’m Monte Cahn, your host and I am very happy to have Steven Crean onboard. Ah, Steven, today runs with a number of other IDN holders, International Domain Name holders. They run a forum dedicated to all the things about IDNs, called DNLocal.com. It’s a wealth of information, news and views, as well as a comprehensive toolbox for use with IDNs and its available to any one of the members or anyone can join the site and get a membership there. Steven, since 2002 has focused on running his own business and online dealings with import/export and since late 2005, he has been focusing almost entirely on the International domain name market. Steve, welcome to Domain Masters.

Steven:   Hi, Monte; nice to be on the show.

Monte:    And I’m reaching you all the way in Singapore – is that correct?

Steven:   Yes. That’s quite a long way from you guys.

Monte:    Yeah, but you sound great. [laughs]

Steven:   Oh, okay. That’s good.

Monte:    Good. So, why don’t you take us back a little bit and give us a little bit of background about how you got started in the Internet in general and then with domain names.

Steven:   Uhm, I got involved with domain names, I was actually looking for some help to build a website and I came across a [inaudible] forum and joined and then I discovered a totally [inaudible] of domainers and I thought, you know, I could probably get involved with this. And started buying regular domains and bought a number of those. And, while [inaudible] there wasn’t actually very much left, at least not for registration fee; [inaudible] I’ve been domaining for about 4 years.

Monte:    Yes? So, you’ve been doing it for about 4 years. Now, you used to own a lot of, uhm, dot com and dot net extensions as well?

Steven:   Ah, yes, ah, [inaudible] dot com and dot net. But I mainly let most of them go now and I focus mainly on IDNs, so my ASCII [?] dot com and dot net are very [inaudible]

Monte:    Now, give us a little bit of background about how you got really interested in IDNs over regular extension domain names and obviously, those in the listening audience probably aren’t as keen or educated about IDNs – so give us the scoop about why you feel international domain names are so valuable, where their future is and how you utilize them today.

Steven:   Uhm, well, basically, it’s a needing languages that are not based in English and the ASCII character set. It allows people to use their native languages to do business online, build their own websites, use their, ah, use URLs in their own language. And, you know, it just seems like a logical step to me to get involved with this. The majority of the people in the world don’t actually speak English, and when you consider that English is about 4th in the most popular language on Earth, ah, you know, Spanish is way above that and Hindi and Chinese are much more popular languages than English is, so it just seems that [inaudible] if you like, the IDNs would be something that people would want to be using.

Monte:    Okay. And so how are you currently utilizing IDNs from your standpoint. Are you still in investment mode or are you actually putting some of those IDNs to use and seeing a positive return and traffic from those domain names currently?

Steven:   Uhm, we get a lot of  . . . we park a lot of our domains and developing has been quite a slow progress. It’s quite slow at the moment. But, uhm, it’s, I’m still in investment mode, basically. If I see a nice domain, I would try to pick it up. But, ah, picking up nice names for the registration fee, as I said, is getting quite difficult and I think that the secondary market would be a good way forward if you’re actually looking to get into this market right now.

Monte:    Right, right. So, how many domain names do you currently own in your portfolio?

Steven:   Uhm, I have around 2,000 names, in a variety of languages. I have a lot in Chinese and Japanese and Russian, but I have about 20 languages that are represented in my portfolio, currently.

Monte:    And, obviously, with the boom of the Chinese online market, uhm, I guess you would think that’s a pretty valuable investment at this time?

Steven:   Uhm, it’s something that’s slowly but surely the Internet awareness in China has been growing in leaps and bounds, recently in the last year, last few years. And people there are becoming much more aware of the engine that . . . and they do want to have a presence on the Internet. And IDNs and Chinese domain names will basically give them a great opportunity to get on there and go about their business.

Monte:    So, uhm, talk a little bit about this whole network of folks that are also on the same bandwagon that you are in this forum, and why its so valuable for those that are listening to come on board?

Steven:   Uhm, well, I think because we [inaudible] decided that we needed to make more people aware of IDNs and we decided that a forum was probably the best opportunity to do that, to share the information that we have and to generate and raise awareness of IDNs in general.

Monte:    And, uhm, uhm, what are some of the success stories of some of the members of the forum on what some people are doing with the sites? Like, uhm, are there some, uhm, really active websites that are earning revenue and money and selling products and services, or providing information?

Steven:   Uhm, a lot of IDNs are currently parked at the moment and a lot of them are in various stages of development. And we’re still in quite early days in regards to development, so, ah, there’s nothing that’s concrete that we could show you right now. But we’ve had several successful sales and development is ongoing. And if you come over and check out the forum then I’m sure you’ll see some pretty big sales in the very near future.

Monte:    Great, great. So, as I mentioned in my opening of the show, we’re starting to see a lot more IDN names go in our escrow process, and also in our domain name sales process. So there’s a lot of people starting to see the value of those IDN names. Uhm, what are some of the main languages that are now the most popular and why do you think they’re popular?

Steven:   Uhm, Japanese is quite popular with a lot of people, I think because Japan has a very strong economy. Ah, Chinese is another popular language that is quite heavily invested in. And a lot of Chinese names are actually owned by Chinese people, which we think is a very good thing because it spreads out the number of domains that are actually not owned by foreigners or people not native to the country.

Monte:    And, okay, so, ah, how many different languages are now available in IDNs? It’s over 300, correct?

Steven:   Ah, there’s probably more than 300 actually, but a lot of minor languages are represented. All the big languages are there. Any language that you can think of, basically you can register an IDN in that.

Monte:    And, what, uhm . . . obviously, what we talked about earlier, its more palatable for those who live outside the United States or outside of an English speaking countries, to see their domain names in common character sets that match the language that they speak. So that’s why its more popular, I guess; correct?

Steven:   Well, uhm, for example, if you’re living in Saudi Arabia and you want to search for health insurance, uhm, are you going to search for it in English or in Arabic? would be a good way to put it.

Monte:    Right, right. So, of you’re going to do HealthInsurance.com, or you know, would you search for it in your native language or would you do it in English? Yeah, that’s a good example, right.

Steven:   Exactly.

Monte:    And so obviously, in those countries, its more realistic to show it in the language in which they’re typing it into the computer.

Steven:   Yes, that’s right. It’s just a logical . . . it’s more logical for people who [inaudible] to English to search the ‘net in their own language, basically.

Monte:    And, where have you found . . . ? ‘Cause not all registrars offer IDN names. Where are you finding . . . what are some of the registrars that offer IDN names and make it available to the community?

Steven:   Ahm, well, you guys, Moniker.com, recently started offering registrations for dot com and dot net. There’s a few other registrars; there isn’t that many at the moment. But I think registrars are starting to realize that the sooner they get IDN-ready, the better for them. DomainSite[?] is another registrar that is IDN compatible, uhm, and [inaudible] and a few others.

Monte:    And are you . . . you know, what are some of the strategies that you’re seeing some of your counterparts starting to do with the IDNs? Are they building up portfolios like you are? And, how are people monetizing them right now?

Steven:   Ah, there’s really only one company that most of us are using and that’s Name[inaudible].com. For Chinese, IDNs there’s Dopa.com but ah, because of the firewall in China, there’s some problems with monetizing Chinese domains from outside China and Dopa.com being based inside China can monetize our Chinese domains.

Monte:    And, ah, what name [inaudible] are you doing to accommodate those IDN names, for example? Are they putting up IDN related pages? So they’re converting with the IDN names and then displaying what PPC ads that convert and know exactly what the language is first?

Steven:   Uhm, well, if you have some Japanese IDNs with Name[inaudible] it will [inaudible] served with Japanese ads. NameDriver[?] has been very forward thinking and it works quite closely with a lot of us and they ask our opinions and they constantly want to upgrade and keep in touch with us and they’re the main company that we’re [inaudible] for Pay-Per-Click.

Monte:    Right, right. So there must be quite a challenge for Pay-Per-Click as an option and then actually developing these IDNs into real sites and businesses. What are some of the challenges and opportunities that you see with development of these websites and these different languages?

Steven:   Ah, well, when developing a domain in a language you’re not fully experienced in can pose some problems. Having said that, there are plenty of members on our forum here are fluent in multiple languages, so the problems with development are not as daunting as it might seem. There’s also several freelancing sites where there are multilingual developers and people that can translate content for you. Ultimately, its quite similar to ASCII development. Good quality content and some HTML magic and you should be set to go.

Monte:    And, uhm, uhm, there are some sites that people can look at as examples that you’re aware of currently? Or do you have any that you own currently? Or,uhm, maybe I can post a couple in the forum so people can see what’s going on?

Steven:   Okay. Well, I have some in development and some of my colleagues also have some in development that  . . . most IDNs are in development or parked at the moment.

Monte:    Oh, most of yours are parked . . . some people are posting some examples, actually, right now so they can see what they look like.

Steven:   [inaudible]

Monte:    Uhm, what recommendations do you have for people just starting off in this space in terms of finding the right name IDN? Are you seeing . . .? As we just mentioned, Moniker, we just launched our IDN initiative and uhm, system. And we chose to just provide dot com and dot net, seeming that that would be the most popular. Are there people actually registering in other extensions as well?

Steven:   Ah, yes; in dot org and dot biz is also a relatively popular extension; but of course, dot com is the #1 and dot net would be #2. But some people are registering in extensions other than dot com and dot net.

Monte:    And, so what recommendations do you have for people that what to get into the space?

Steven:   Uhm, I would say the main thing that you would have to do is actually do your research. If you’re venturing into a language you’re not that familiar with, do a bit of research on it. Uhm, you don’t have to be a fluent Italian speaker to buy Italian IDNs, for example. But a little bit of familiarization with the language will go a long way. I would also say [inaudible], use of Spanish words [inaudible] and all the big search engines have a presence in the main countries around the world and in that country’s particular language. [inaudible] is common on these search engines, the words. You can use Google Trends for [inaudible] for key words that you know to be correct. For example, in Japan, Yahoo! would be the main search engine that many people would be using. So if you’re researching a name in Japanese, Yahoo! would be a good place to start. Ah, there’s a huge number of online translators out there, most of which are free. I would say probably use a few different ones, so you can get the same translations, possibly to English and then back again, to see if [inaudible]. Of course, there’s no substitute for human translation, which is, I think, is one of the views of forum is that we have so many members, such a wide range of languages and so many languages represented there. And people are willing to help out. Uhm, I don’t know . . . Chinese domains by [inaudible].com is a search engine in China. Ah, Russian would be [inaudible].com is the Russian search engine. Ah, I would say, domaining in general is not something you can walk into one and six months down the line you walk out with it [inaudible]. Domaining’s like anything else that requires a lot of work and research and some sweat, tears. [laughs]

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. Now, just talking about some of the larger countries and continents, you know, like China and India, where there’s multiple languages within a country – I guess that can get confusing too. So within China, I guess, there’s traditional Chinese and there’s Mandarin. How many different languages are there IDNs available in Chinese?

Steven:   Well, uhm, Chinese you would essentially register in either traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese. Ah, simplified Chinese would mainly be used in Mainland China. Ah, traditional Chinese would be used in Taiwan and then Hong Kong . . .

Monte:    Uh-huh?

Steven:   It’s not that you have to go looking for a multitude of dialects, for example, in regards to China.

Monte:    And, uh, I guess it’s the same for India, where there’s Hindi and multiple different sects – that’s probably even more confusing in India. Are you familiar with any of the India languages?

Steven:   Ahm, well, I focus mainly on Hindi; Hindi being quite a large language in India and I . . . there are other dialects that people have branched into but my skills in that department haven’t been very good, so I tend to leave them.

Monte:    Uhm, what about . . . besides China and India and some of the very heavily populated areas, what are some of the opportunities, what are some of the countries that are becoming, uhm, up and coming or areas where people should be looking?

Steven:   Ahm, I would say, Chinese and Japanese and Russian are probably the most heavily mined, if you like. If you’re looking for something, I would say there’s probably a lot of good domains in Thai, in Hindi and Arabic and possibly in Hebrew.

Monte:    Yeah; in Hebrew, as a matter of fact, I’m seeing its becoming really popular. We’re actually about to embark on a pretty large Hebrew IDN portfolio marketing and sales process in the, you know, seven figures and its getting a lot of interest, actually.

Steven:   Okay; yes, that’s all good. All good. Hebrew is one of the languages where I would say was probably a little neglected in the beginning. But people realized that Hebrew is actually a large language and some people have heavily invested in Hebrew.

Monte:    What about Russia?

Steven:   Ah, Russia is a very  . . . we have a lot of hope for the Russian market. Uhm, Russians in general seemed to be very ‘Net savvy and I think it’s just a matter of time before you see very large Russian sales coming up.

Monte:    Oh, you see . . . you know that there’s going to be a large Russian IDN sale coming up?

Steven:   Well, it’s a possibility. Let’s leave it like that.

Monte:    Oh, okay. Alright. Well, you got to share the love a little bit. What’s . . . somebody you know in the forum? Or is somebody . . . is it you? Or what’s going on?

Steven:   Well, we’ll let . . . you’ll be the first to know.

Monte:    Okay, great; I guess we’ll be doing the escrow then. [laughs]

Steven:   [laughs]

Monte:    Uhmm . . .

Steven:   Yeah, that sounds good. As long as you give us a discount.

Monte:    Yeah, sure. So, before we wrap up, perhaps you can give some, maybe, tips and tricks about what’s made you successful in this market or just in business in general. What we like to do on this show is always share something that you may know that no one else that is listening should know, would be happy to know. And so, is there anything that you’ve learned from your experience and from your travels and from this particular IDN and domain market that would be helpful to others, that’s not common knowledge or common practice? What are some of the things you can share with others to be very successful at what they do with their domains?

Steven:   Uhm, I would say, for IDNs, the only hurdles that you will face are those that you impose upon yourself. IDNs will basically become the domains of choice for the vast majority of people. And if you think about it, it just makes sense, because the majority of the people in the world don’t actually speak English and I take a little bit of open-mindedness with regards to languages other than English, or languages that you’re not fully conversant in. And that will actually take you a long way. Uhm, I would pretty much let how it was in the 90’s when the early pioneers, the man on the street, saw something that others didn’t, and people generally thought those guys were crazy and no could see any potential in buying words. But I think we’re actually in the same postion those guys were; the only difference being we’re doing it with IDNs.

Monte:    Right. Right, right. So it’s kind of like where the dot com market was back ten years ago, is a good comparison. People were just starting to jump on and seeing the opportunities and it’s a lot more niched, it’s a lot more focused because its different languages and they represent, obviously, a population – it’s kind of like local search, in a way. So it’s representing the population and a language of those people, so you can cater a lot to them.

Steven:   Exactly. And it will be a huge market in the coming months and years and we’re in it for the long haul, so . . . I would advise domainers to get into [inaudible] to it, grab some of those names.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely, grab some of those names. And then, what is the best way to become a member of the DNLocal.com Forum?

Steven:   Ah, just drop by and register and that’s it. That’s how it goes. And we’re actually having a live discussion right now on the forum, if you guys want to pop over and just join in the chat over there.

Monte:    Okay; great. Alright, well, Steve, we really appreciate you being online with us. We know its far away and especially the time that you’re committing. What time is it over there in Singapore right now? It should be about 7 o’clock in the morning, right?

Steven:   It’s about 8:30; not too bad.

Monte:    Oh, okay, great. Yeah, about 8:30 in the morning. Good.

Steven:   Well, it’s my pleasure to come on.

Monte:    Yes. It’s been a pleasure to have you on and again, Steve is part of a great International Domain Name forum, called DNLocal.com. He’s invited everybody to come on by and join up. If you want to get enducated and be more involved in IDNs, and find out how to use them and monetize them, I suggest that you give that forum a visit and I’m sure that Steve will be available for helping anyone out and some of the key things that we took away from here was that Baidu – is it pronounced Bay-do? Which is the top Chinese search engine.

Steven:   It’s pronounced By-do.

Monte:    By-do –BAIDU.com; that’s the top Chinese search site and you can actually find IDN searches through that site and Yahoo! is the king for search in Japan and Overture tool is available in many languages and you can actually create domain names in the International Domain Name language and register those domain names on Moniker.com, or any of those registrars that actually offer that. And it’s a great opportunity.

               So, Steve, we really appreciate having you online tonight and sharing your success with us. And we hope to have you on again very soon. So we’re going to take a short commercial break and be on with Farley, from AVM and talk about the upcoming Internext show and also the domain auction that’s coming up at the conference. Stay tuned.

[Commercials]

Monte:    Hello, welcome back to Domain Masters. And again, a special thanks to Steven Crean, from IDN . . . from DNLocal for talking about IDNs. Now we’re going to shift gears a little and talk about the upcoming Internext Conference in Las Vegas, which is an adult, ah, webmaster gathering, a networking event for the business owners of some of the adult sites and the adult industry. But also, it’s a significant place where a lot of businessmen and –women get together and talk about how to convert customers better and how to set new foundations for the industry. As everyone knows, the adult industry has very much set the foundation to online customer conversion for all of us and for all companies, whether you’re mainstream or adult. And they’ve been very successful at it. And so they’re great conferences to attend, because there’s a lot of forward thinking and a lot of forward thinkers at these gatherings. And one of those key events at the Internext Conference that we’re going to be holding is a domain auction. The next live domain auction, both the silent auction and a live auction, where we’re going to sell several million dollars worth of domain names, we hope, both mainstream and adult related. And it’s setting a new stage and a new format for these types of events. My guest tonight, representing AVM Online Magazine, he’s the director of business development for the whole AVM Media Network is Farley Cahan. And he began his career with AVM as director of Internet development nearly six years ago. He also is a domainer; owns lots of domain names and has been successful with his domain names. And actually attended some of the TRAFFIC auctions that we’ve held and became very interested in holding this event at Internext. Farley, welcome to Domain Masters.

Farley:    How are you, Monte; thanks for having me on.

Monte:    Great. Uhm, I’m sure I explained that a little bit accurately, but maybe you can talk a little bit more about the value of Internext and what it means not only to the adult industry, but also to the entire Internet and why that group of people getting together is important for everyone.

Farley:    Well, Internext has been the oldest ongoing and largest BtoB webmaster, adult webmaster show that’s been out there for a number of years. We do it twice a year: once in January in Vegas; once in August at the Diplomat Hotel in Miami. And why its important, really, is it’s really the convergence place. So much of everything that goes on in mainstream comes from adult. So much of the value of domains that we discussed comes from adult. Uhm, new technologies; new marketing; new affiliate programs; everything that is core and central to domainers, to webmasters in general, to programming, generally derives from adult. And this is the really one show, twice a year, that the top people in the industry gather. There’s a lot of other shows, Internationally even, but for the overall group, having our adult entertainment expo just a couple days before, and then the AVM awards a couple days before the Internext show, everybody in the industry is in one place. And there’s a lot of carry over from those guys. We’re actually doing a very large opening panel of luminaries (as we’re calling them) – people from the industry, including Steven Hirsch, who is the owner of Vivid and a number of other large people in the industry –they’re going to be on the panel to discuss where the industry’s been, where’s it at and where its going. And that really is germane to everybody that’s going to be there. Along with that are all the billing companies, all the content companies, all the biggest affiliate programs and webmasters of traffic. So, it is really the epicenter of the adult industry all in one place.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And, you know, a lot of people look at the . . . I had an attorney on a couple weeks ago as one of my guests, Mark Randazzi, and uhm, he is a . . . he represents a lot of the big companies, like BoDog and the Bang brothers and all those guys, and you know, this is, uhm, an area that a lot of people don’t like to talk about or admit has added value to their business. But in all honesty, I think it’s important to talk about, uhm, the adult industry, because as I mentioned before, it is the foundation of how customers are converted online today for any mainstream site, even, uhm, Amazon and eBay, use what the adult industry created, in terms of signing up accounts, checking credit authentification, uhm, the merchant account process, uhm, making sure that transactions are secure online; those types of things that actually add value to all of us that do business, whether you’re mainstream or adult.

Farley:    No doubt. You know, Commission Junction wouldn’t be as huge a network as they are if they didn’t take pages out of the adult playbook. From the beginning, I think that things are shifting. It’s really . . . we’re seeing some changes in the industry, in the online affiliate model. More and more, I think domaining is becoming the really interesting part of that because I think a lot of people are converting their dead sites that they really didn’t do a lot of business on to parked sites or they’re monetizing them by selling them, reselling them, trading. It’s really heating up again. And I think a lot of credit goes to Moniker, obviously, for kind of forwarding a lot of these, a lot of value of these domains from the TRAFFIC auctions, which are just incredibly dynamic and we’re hoping to have that same energy at our auction. As you all know, some of the biggest of big domains you could ever think of in the adult space are going to be up at auction, including Porn.com and Sex.net. So, uhm, we’re really looking towards it being a cornerstone event for Internext moving forward as well.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. And for those of you who remember, we sold Sex.net in May of 2006 for $450,000; the buyers of that particular domain have really done a great job monetizing that. It’s made them close to $30,000 in the last 3 months in just PPC revenue.

Farley:    Wow.

Monte:    And so the price is reset for that domain name. It’s going to be a seven figure domain name and it has a great chance at reselling again; and it’s a great value, especially given what happened with Sex.com and the $12 million to $14 million purchase it’s doing or it did almost a year ago today, and what’s that going to mean once that site’s back up and running as well.  So what some of the valuable, like, conference events that are happening at Internext, in case those that are listening want to attend Internext? How does one going about signing up and being  . . . taking part in the auction, uhm, attending events, learning about what adult webmasters are doing and how they can apply it to their mainstream business or their adult businesses, if they’re in the adult industry? What are some of the valuable conferences and panels that are being discussed?

Farley:    First off, the event is Internext – I-N-T-E-R-N-E-X-T – E-X-P-O, Internext-Expo. If you go on there, you can register online or you can come to Mandalay Bay between the 15th and the 17th is where we’re holding the entire conference and the auction will be on the 17th; it’s our anchor event to the whole show. You can register in person or online. And some of the really unique things about the show as it pertains to education is that we run multiple tracks. Rather than most shows that you go to and there’s one seminar at 1:00 o’clock ‘til 2:00 o’clock, we have multiple things going on every day from seminars, workshops and actual classes where people can get involved. Some include: we have newbie orientation workshop, which is the first thing on Monday, at 3:00 o’clock. You can come, you can learn about the adult industry in a nutshell in two hours; get some really great resources, meet some really terrific people and be able to take that back with you as well and utilize some of that knowledge over the next two days at the conference.  Uhm, for some of the advanced people, there’s digital licensing for those people that have content and want to learn more about how to license. We have some of the top people, both in the industry and as well as in the legal side of things that will help you to either license your content out or to gain access to licensed content for your sites. Uhm, we have a number of legal panels, as a matter of fact, Monte. Ah, a couple of them. The legal basics, with Eric Bernstein, who is a very well noted attorney within the industry, is going to give us a primer, essentially, a two-hour primer, which will be a workshop from 1 to 3 on Monday, I’m sorry, on Tuesday, that will give you an overview of everything you need to know about operating and owning or dealing with anything having to deal with anything adult online. You also have a content workshop, for people who are interested, which is a fun workshop. We have one of the top content producers in the industry, a gentleman by the name of Orrin Cohen. He owns a company called Type Fit Productions. Very nice, very high quality content, beautifully shot, uses a lot of HD. He’s a younger guy so he really understands the need of people who are going to shoot and want to have their own unique content. We’ll go through how to shoot content; we’ll actually have girls there to shoot (which is the fun part). But also go through how to organize, catalog, categorize, meta-data, all your content, so that its really tight and usable, rather than just putting it in a folders and shooting it and keeping it on your hard drive or putting it on disk. That should be a really interesting workshop. I think, though, the first one, as I was saying, that industry luminaries on Monday is going to be just outstanding. It includes people like Greg Clayman, who started Video Secret, the largest online one-on-one dating chat site in the world; ah, Richard Cohen, who owns Hot Movies, one of the biggest video-on-demand companies in the world; ah, [inaudible] and run by Paul Fishbyne, the owner of AVM. I think that’s going to be interesting to get his take on where things have been, where they’re going. Plus a couple of other big people as well – Steven Hirsch, from Vivid; Mike Price from one of the largest affiliate programs in adult called SilverCash.com; and Greg Dumas, who is a domainer, started at Hustler, started the New Frontier 10.com networks and now, you know, works closely with you, Monte, with domaining as well as traffic optimization services. So, it’s really a great overview of luminaries in the industry and I think you’re going to find it to be very valuable for anybody that’s new in the business or a senior person.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. And we’re doing a domain session as well and the value of domain names and Rick Schwartz, the domain king, will be on that panel, I believe, with Greg Dumas and myself; I think I’m actually moderating that panel.

Farley:    Yep. Yep; I’ll leave for you to discuss that one but I think that one’s going to be terrific; I’m not going to miss that one.

Monte:    Yeah, yeah, definitely.  And, like you said, a lot of the folks in the industry who’ve been holding a bunch of domain names (and there’s a lot of portfolios held within the adult industry), uhm, ironically, as advanced as many are in the industry on converting traffic and bringing up fresh content sites and uhm, uhm, handling the online transaction issues and merchant account issues and opportunities, a lot of the domain names have been stagnated and not been in use. And so, now this industry’s getting very educated on monetizing unused domain names in various ways, and they are going to PPC and coming to Traffic Club (our PPC solution) or going to some of the other online adult advertsing networks to at least monetize that traffic while those domain names are sitting waiting to be developed. And that’s what’s really important is, whether you’re in mainstream or adult, is that you utilize your domain names in every way possible to increase the value of the domain names while they’re sitting idle and also while they’re being developed.

Farley:    Most definitely. And, you know, anybody that’s doing domaining, even on a small scale of having a couple, two or three key word domains, or have many thousands of domains, realizing that they have to find a way to monetize their domain. Because, if you register a domain name right now, say with, ah, GoDaddy, as an example, no matter what it is, they immediately put a parked page on that and they start reaping the rewards of any traffic that you’re bringing in. You, being the owner of that domain, may as well be the one reaping the benefit. And we’re seeing . . . I even have a friend who has over a thousand domains, he recently parked it at one place; he was trying to develop the original pages as link pages himself and he was just pulling out his hair, and he’s a part timer – he was making $5 - $10 a day, sending out traffic to other sites. Well, when he turned them over to a parked sponsor that I recommended to him, right away, he’s like, I’m making $150 a day; I never thought I could do that well with these domains. He’s really now much more involved with it and I’d like to see as my main job in the near future. And I think it can be. A lot of people that I’ve spoken to, just in the last six months, people at the TRAFFIC shows, a mutual friend of ours, Monte, they’re really focusing on how to optimize their domains to make them all valuable. I think its important now, because the domain marketplace is heating up. The more value you can create for your domains, in the future the more it’s going to be worth.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. Now, let’s talk about your domain, because you have a unique advantage because you’re part of AVM and participate in their business development but you learned that domains are a valuable asset as well. Well, talk about how you got exposed to domain names and why you started investing in them and a little bit about your portfolio.

Farley:    Well, I always did a little bit here and there and whatever kind of like excited me, different business models. I have a number of, like, download to own type domains, which do pretty well. But really what I saw the TRAFFIC show was a lot of people on speculation found that they can monetize their domain if it had good key words and was searchable, either to build it out or to park it and try to drive traffic to it. And what I found was, as I started doing more and more research and talking to a lot of people, which they’re all going to be there, getting ideas and listening to what they’ve done that’s successful, I started realizing that you don’t need Sex.com to actually monetize a domain name. There’s a lot of dot coms, dot nets, and other extensions which actually can be very profitable if worked. And what I personally discovered there’s a lot of seasonal domains that you can buy that you can actually make a good deal of money of on. I had, ah, EarlyInTheSpring, picked up five or seven different barbecue-related domains, which actually panned to be somewhat profitable from the last six to eight months. And, once you really get into it, you see that there’s, if you’re going to spend your five to ten dollars on a domain, that if you can make $50 over the course of the year, that’s a tremendous . . . I mean, minimally $50 in a lot of cases, that’s a tremendous return on your investment for just starting out, just getting to owning some domains and learning about which different programs that you can park or for that matter, try to build out. And mine are very heavily in the adult sector, but I also have forward thinking domains. There’s, you know, when I look at the paper, I get ideas and I look online for different news stories, when I check different top stories every day, I get ideas for different domains. And then I also do look ups as to what some of the key words are going for, relative to what the bid rates are on some of the keywords. And it’s just you have to work at, just like anything else. But if you follow along and you get on with some of the board and you see what some people are trying to get, you know, what multiples they’re trying to get, if you get a domain that does $50 a year, there’s people that will buy your domain at five and eight times right now, based on a year’s worth of history. So, you know, it’s not too bad to turn around a $10 domain into a couple hundred dollars if you do it over and over and over. And I think a lot of people are doing that.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And where do you see the future of, not only the domain name auctions within the Internext community, but also in general, as we continue to grow this industry. I mean, you’ve watched your own industry really evolve and go through many different changes and steps to move the whole industry forward, even with facing all kinds of adversity and hurdles and jumping through hoops and now it’s a lot stronger and the network’s tighter. And one thing I learned from attending the Internext and a lot of the . . . some of the adult conferences is that the core to the success in that business is all about relationships and trusting the folks that you work with. And it happens to be the same type of relationships I see becoming very successful in the domain name business. What are your thoughts around that?

Farley:    From a networking perspective, I think it’s extremely important. Just like in any business, knowing people who have been successful is the best way to become successful yourself and learning from them.  A lot of people can feel their way through the dark, but it takes a lot longer and the learning curve’s a lot greater. It’s . . . networking events are outstanding. I went to Targeted Traffic for the first time and just saw three-, four-hundred of the biggest, most qualified people. I just thought it was tremendous and got actually to pull Rick away and we sat and talked and he said, you know, I used to come to Internext; I loved the show. And, built Targeted Traffic shows off of the Internext format; networking, making the place where the right people, the most qualilfied people, can sit, meet, exchange ideas and do business. And that’s really the most important thing. You do all the business you want to try to do all day long over email, phone and IM, but when you really sit down in front of people, you hang out with them, you go to dinner, you go for drinks and you spend a couple focused days with these people, that’s really where you’re going to grow your businesses; in any industry. I used to be in the jewelry industry, Monte, and just to go to the shows in Vegas for three, four days, you get your best deals, you make your best relationships and you grow your business by knowing other good people in the industry. Just . . . it’s . . . you can’t do business without networking.

Monte:    Right, right.  Uhm . . .

Farley:    And the show itself is very conducive to that. And it starts where you walk into the middle of the show; and there’s bar and we serve brunch. And it just makes it real easy to sit down on couches throughout the whole areas and hang out. It’s not the big dumping like CES-style Expo. It’s cozy and comfortable . . .

Monte:    Yeah, yeah. Even the exhibitors make their booths very comfortable. It’s all couch and lounge-y, so you can sit and talk and do business and that’s what’s really cool about that show and it’s relaxed and you know, it’s all about relationships and building networks and not necessarily vending; it’s about consulting and getting to know who your customer and your partners are, uhm, which is really important, instead of going to a show where you’re just getting barked at all day and getting vended to. And we try to use that approach when we go to SES and WebMaster World and SES and the TRAFFIC conferences and Internext. I mean, as you know, we’re the only registrar that actually comes and participates in that conference, because we see it as a valuable community and I’ve learned a shitload of business opportunities from that event and from the people that we work with, because, ah, it’s such a tightly knit group. It takes a lot of time to break in to build the relationships and the trust with the folks that you’re trying to work with. And then once you, its very, very good for both sides and you have a long standing relationship that goes forever, you know; as long as you don’t do something to that.

Farley:    I can tell you some of my closest friends in the world are people that I met from this industry, because they are good people, they’re all people of the same, uhm, mindset, where we’re all in it together. We’re all trying to help each other and we’re all trying to do good business. And it is. It’s a relatively small community overall that has, you know, a global net worth into the billion and we find that camaraderie that everyone’s trying to do more business, get more traffic, help each other, guide and direct people, is, uhm, it’s a very easy type of business to become in personally and professionally.

Monte:    Yeah, definitely. Well, before we wrap up, Farley, maybe you can give us, just from being in the business, whether its adult or domainer or whatever, maybe you can give me, uhm, two or three things that are really core to being successful on the online industry. I mean, you know all the key players in your industry, and you also know a lot that are in the mainstream industry and part of the traffic of . .  of  . . . you know, group. What are some things that not everyone might know about that could make their business very successful, knowing what you know about the industry that you’re in, that could be applied across the folks that are listening tonight; the two thousand folks that are going to download this radio show this week, that could really help them be more successful at what they do?

Farley:    Well, I think you touch on a few very important things. Getting out there, meeting people. Putting your hand out, even if you’re at the bar, introduce yourself, give them your card. Telling people what you do. Sharing ideas. That’s extremely important. Uhm, and you got to be at the shows to do that. That’s one of the things. Two, honesty – paramount. You always have to be honest. I always thought if you lied or told a story to one person, you’re lying to everybody. So, be extremely honest in your business and businesses practices. Uhm, let’s see. A third thing I would say, ah . . . Jeesh, Monte, you put me on the spot. The third most important thing, ah, two thousand people need to know to be successful? I think, just get started is one of the things. Don’t just stand on the sidelines and say, well, I don’t have two thousand domains; how am I ever going to break into this? Get started. Learn the business. Get engrossed in it. Uhm, because if you stand on the sidelines and go, well,  I’ll just wait for the next big thing to happen, you’re not going to ever succeed, I think. Because you have to have some level of failure to know what not to do the next time. So, get involved.

Monte:    Great, great. Well, Farley, we really appreciate your time tonight and your inside and we very much look forward to the upcoming Internext auction event. That is on January 17th and for everyone that’s interested, again, you can go and access the information about Internext at INternext-Expo.com, or go to AVM.com and hit the “Calendar of Events” or the “AVM Events.” You can learn a lot more about AVM as well. What are some of the things that AVM provides to the community that might be valuable to the folks that are listening?

Farley:    AVM is the oldest BtoB organization in the adult industry; almost 25 years this year. And, what we generally provide is comprehensive news and information, legal information that’s specific to running businesses in the adult industry. By going to AVM.com, and we’re soon to actually change the whole site, but going to AVM.com is the portal to access from webmasters, to novelty companies, to video production companies; all the information you’re going to need about the industry. It’s a good insider look inside the industry. And I think, uhm, I want to make sure that we thank Moniker for their participation in this upcoming show because you guys really have done a great job promoting it and we look forward to doing it, show after show and if anyone needs anything, feel free to email me personally, Farley (F-A-R-L-E-Y) @AVM.com; uhm, or find me at the show at the AVM booth.

Monte:    Great, great. Well, Farley, we look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks and we look forward to a successful auction and I’m pretty pumped about what the results are going to be. So we again thank you for your time and I will see you in two weeks.

Farley:    Thanks, Monte; appreciate it.

Monte:    Okay, take care.

Farley:    Take care, bye-bye.

Monte:    Alright, again, I want to thank both Steven Crean from DNLocal.com and Farley Cahan from AVM.com. We’re very excited about the upcoming events. Just some important notes and calendar events that you guys should know about. Again, the Internext auction is on the 17th of January. It will be broadcasted live here on WebMasterRadio.fm. Like all the others, it will be quite entertaining, given some of the domain names that will be presented. [laughs] Uhm, we will have, uhm, warnings, 18 year old and older warnings up for anybody that should not be exposed to some of the domain names. So that will be taken care of. We’ll be posting the premium auction list shortly, at the beginning of next week, on our Moniker Marketplace Pro System. You can get there by going to our home page, Moniker.com, and hitting the “Marketplace Pro” tab and going to the “Live Auction” tab. There’s nothing up there yet but there will be soon. And, we’re in the process of weeding down, you know, 30,000 submissions down to, ah, about 2,000 to 3,000 that will be available for folks to vote on for the upcoming Internext auction. There’ll be about 250 to 300 premium domain names offered at the live auction and about 2,000 names offered in the silent auction. And its guaranteed to be entertaining and also a successful event. So we look forward to that. Uhm, the conference actually starts, I think, on the 13th of, or the 14th of January. And again, you can get there by going to Internext-expo.com. Or AVM.com can get you there as well. Ah, the TRAFFIC conference, the TRAFFIC West conference, which is the next big mainstream auction and also a great conference where domainers are getting together, is going to be held on March 5th through the 8th, in Las Vegas. We are holding the next live domain auction there on the 7th, I believe. But anyone who’s interested in getting invited to that conference, you should go to TargetedTraffic.com and look at the agenda and fill out the application and, uhm, its an invite-only show at that event and it’s a very high profile, uhm, uhm, invitee show. And but its going to be a great show. It’s also in Las Vegas and we look forward to that event and there’ll be another live auction in June in New York and we’re going to be right down the street from Madison Avenue and going to hold the next live domain auction. So we have five live auctions scheduled for 2007; we’re very excited about it. Anyone interested in contacting me about the show, about the auctions, or us in general, you can contact me at Monte(M-O-N-T-E)@ Moniker.com or contact any of our sales group, who can help you get your names submitted for any of the events at sales@Moniker.com. With that, I will let everyone go. We’ll be on live next week with another great show, and I want every to be the master of their domains and I will see you next week. Take care.

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