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註冊日期: 2006-05-05
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不錯 米农们的圣经!!

香米原创编译《Masters of their Domains 域名大师》米农们的圣经

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香米原创编译《Masters of their Domains 域名大师》米农们的圣经

香米的话:此文原作为英文版http://money.cnn.com/magazines/busi...64591/index.htm,为我们揭示了域名大师们神奇的域名投资一面,堪称米农们的圣经,尤其是其中以1.64亿美元卖出其10万多个域名投资组合的叶云的故事,引人入胜。由于在网上我尚未找到中文版本,特此不遗余力编译出来,与大家分享)

《Masters of their Domains 域名大师》

By Paul Sloan,December 1,2005,(Business 2.0)

作者:保罗·斯隆,发表于2005年12月1日的《Business 2.0》杂志,原创编译者:香米,首发于其博客网站www.xiangmi.cn(网上可随意转载,但请尊重劳动成果,注明转载出处,谢谢!如有新闻媒体需发表此译文请联系xiangmicn@126.com)

舍弃那些在公寓大楼和商业区上的投资吧,投资在网络上的房地产——“域名”可以带来更多的回报。网络上那些高明的投机者是怎样从他们对网址的投资组合中赚到数百万美元?

10月下旬,一个宜人的夜晚,数百名参加聚会的人,大多数穿着红色或蓝色夏威夷衬衣,包下了位于佛罗里达州的德尔雷海滩的德鲁克斯夜总会。这是个值得炫耀的地方——户外舷板、两个酒吧、床式毛绒沙发遍布,开着大巴士和加长悍马车到达的人群。许多人向着一个抽着雪茄、穿着篮球靴的人走去,就象是1999 年时那样。

他们称自己为域名投资者,靠买卖域名和大量的网络流量为生,并赚了大笔现金。他们云集在德尔雷海滩是为了参加一个名为“网络流量”的商业展会,据称今年的这一届有300 名付费出席者,比2004年第一届举办时的两倍还多。

会议的组织者瑞克·施瓦兹非常高兴,而此时他并不是在玩动作射击游戏抽奖,或者舞池中穿着比基尼泳装的女孩正在脱去她们的上衣。52岁的施瓦兹在10 年前开始致力于收购域名。像许多早期玩家一样,他倾向于购买一个金钱聚集的行业的域名,那就是色情行业。他抢购的域名包括Ass.com、Makeout.com、Porno.com,还有其他一些。这是一个快速致富之路: 那些成人站点而不是主流站点在慷慨地为网络流量付费。

今天,施瓦兹拥有大约5000 个域名,不到三分之一是“成人”类型的。 他是这个产业最大的促进者,向任何人愿意聆听的人宣扬着域名的力量,并把域名投资者集合起来,其中有金融家以及来自于像Google、Yahoo网站那样的出资者。他左腕上戴着价值65000美元的劳力士手表,右腕上戴着价值 $32,000 钻石手镯。令人震惊的是,他只是个从社区学院的退学生,却在博卡拉顿市的滨水区住宅里过着皇室般的生活。

“我不喜欢工作”,施瓦兹大声叫喊着,似乎试图使听力范围内的每个人信服,如果他们去工作,他们就是傻瓜。“我认为世界上的任何一个傻瓜都可以投入时间去为他们自己工作。 我只有一台笔记本电脑,没有员工,没有产品——什么都没有! 这就是魔术。”他所说的这个魔术给他带来了每年两百万美元的收入。

或许您认为在网络公司不景气的时候,域名抢注者会消失。然而,目前网络广告发展很快,支付每次点击的广告模式也取得成功,使得过去的90 年代与它们相比,看起来发展相当缓慢。那时,购买一个域名完全靠投机,如抢购Whatever.com,然后舒服地等待一些愿意为网络营销付出任何费用的大公司,提供给你足够过一辈子的钱来购买。

现在收入的涓涓溪流汇成大河。一个单个单词的好域名,如Candy.com(糖果网),Cellphones.com(手机网),Athletesfoot.com(香港脚网),每天能带来上百美元的收入。有时候,它的域名所有者几乎不用动一个手指。例如Schwartz提供中介服务,把他拥有的网络流量引向许多小公司的其中一个,而Google和Yahoo网站这些巨人使之成为可能。中介就象召集者一样,做所有粗重的活,设计站点,在搜索引擎广告网络为最佳的支付链接添加标识。许多其它的域名投资大师删去了中介,创建他们自己的网页,直接为Google和Yahoo网站工作。

秘诀是什么?你必须懂得如何引导直接键入的访问,或者象华尔街术语所说的——“直航”访问。也许看起来很奇怪,即使是在强有力的搜索引擎时代,还是有成千上万的网络冲浪者根本不使用搜索引擎。相反,他们在浏览器地址栏里键入他们想要查寻找的。 想买糖果?键入Candy.com,一个被施瓦兹在2002 年5月花了108000美元买来的域名,在其网页上会出现大量与糖果相关的产品链接。点击其中一个广告,广告业主就会支付给Google网站,而Google网站则会支付其中一部分给施瓦兹和运营Candy.com的公司。有些时候,Candy.com会每天给施瓦兹带来300美元的利润,仅用了一年半的时间该站点就赢回了投资。

没人确切地知道,有多少网络流量来自“直航”访问, 而Google和Yahoo网站运营商并不会谈论它们。但私底下,在“网络流量”会议的一次深夜聚会上,一位Yahoo网站人士估计“直航”访问能占到15%的搜索量。总部设在西雅图的Marchex公司,其发展战略主要基于“直航”访问,他们估计“直航”访问几乎占到全球有偿搜索市场的10%的份额, 预计今年会达到9亿美元,而2009 年将会达到23亿美元。

那就是为什么一些域名能够获得6至7 位数的标识价格和吸引到有着大量资金的玩家。私募资金管理人斯图亚特·拉宾减少了对域名投资者每周两至三次的一些检查。2004 年11月, Marchex公司花了1.64亿美元以获得一个域名投资者的投资组合。甚至一些风险投资公司也在购置筹码。年初,总部设在波士顿的Highland投资公司花了8000万美元购买了50万个域名,许多人都知道这笔交易。Highland投资公司负责人理查德·德·西尔瓦不愿意证实上述价格,他说,“这些域名都是赢利机器。”

域名投资者有他们的英雄,其中最神奇的一个是住大不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华市的中国人,他叫叶云。当他卖了超过10万个域名的投资组合给Marchex公司时,推动了整个域名投资市场的繁荣。 叶云的域名投资组合每年给他带来了超过2千万的收入和19 00万的赢利。根据SEC文件中提供的数字,Marchex公司支付了8.6 倍于叶云每年收入等价的金额。

“他是我们的神”,当域名投资者迈克尔·巴利亚那克斯在德尔雷海滩聚会上听见叶的名字时说。每个域名投资者都知道叶,但只有少数人曾经遇见过他。29岁的域名投资者凯塞·索兹说,“我的律师碰巧是他的律师,但那是我能和他最接近的关系。”

叶云是位程序员高手。在90 年代晚期和21世纪早期,他用自己开发的软件获得了大批域名,建立了他的域名帝国。他成为了一位域名大师,并因抢注和购买那些被人们放弃或忘记支付每年注册费的域名而出名。当时的域名注册系统是秘密运行的, 域名投资者得设法推测什么域名会在时候到期。在黑夜里,叶云会像指挥官一样,坐在一堆电脑前,火速下单,发送请求购买域名。

他的高超技术很快就显现出来。一位印第安纳波利斯州的域名投资者乍得·富尔克宁注册的域名,在那些年间因此被搅乱秩序,有时错过了续费的最后期限。他注意,叶云以闪电般速度抢注了他拥有的到期域名。在叶云抢购了他的100个到期域名后,富尔克宁决定需要与叶谈谈。“我要把叶云吃穷、睡晕、喝倒,”他说。发给叶云的电子邮件没有回复,打过去的电话也没有人接。到了2001 年底,富尔克宁去到圣约瑟市附近旅行,来到一个在叶云注册域名信息上面登记的地址。“我打算走到他的前门,敲敲门,并且说,‘叶云,我必须见到你,’”现在已经有了7000 个域名的富尔克宁说。然而,地址把他带到了一个信箱前。富尔克宁在叶云的信箱上贴了张便条,叫叶云回复他。 过了两、三天后,叶云给富尔克宁发了封电子邮件,但两人还是没有见面。两年后,富尔克宁的一些相识熟人在洛杉矶市的酒巴搞了次聚会,叶云也参加了。“我谈了许多,然后他离开了,” 富尔克宁回忆道。直到第二天富尔克宁才知道和他喝酒的是另外一个叶云,真正的叶云在电子邮件中向他证实了这一点。 (叶云的律师约翰·巴雷希尔说叶云不会与新闻媒体接触,并且他补充道,“我不回答任何关于叶云的问题。”)

Forget condos and strip malls. Domain names, the real estate of the Web, have been delivering far greater returns. How some of the savviest speculators on the Net are making millions from their URL portfolios.

On a balmy night in late October, hundreds of partiers, most sporting red or blue Hawaiian shirts, pack the Delux nightclub in Delray Beach, Fla. It's a swank place--outdoor decks, two bars, plush, bed-size sofas scattered throughout--and the crowd arrives in chartered buses and stretch Hummers. Many head straight for the guy rolling cigars and toss back shots as if it were 1999. Which, to them, it might as well be.

They call themselves domainers. They make their living buying and selling domain names and turning their Web traffic into cash--lots of it. They have gathered in Delray Beach for a trade show called Traffic that this year boasts 300 paying attendees, more than twice the number that came for the first show, in '04.

The man behind the conference, Rick Schwartz, couldn't be happier--and he isn't even around when midnight strikes and bikini-clad women take to the dance floor to raffle off prizes and peel off their tops. Schwartz, 52, began buying up domain names 10 years ago. Like many early players, he gravitated to where the money was: porn. He snapped up names like Ass.com, Makeout.com, and Porno.com, to name a few. It was a quick path to riches: Adult sites were paying handsomely for the traffic; mainstream sites were not--at least not yet.

Today, Schwartz owns about 5,000 names, with less than a third falling into the "adult" category. He's the industry's biggest promoter, preaching the power of domains to anyone who will listen and bringing domainers together with moneymen and execs from the likes of Google and Yahoo. He sports a $65,000 Rolex on his left wrist, a $32,000 diamond bracelet on his right, and is astounded that he--a community college dropout--is living like a king in a waterfront house in Boca Raton.

"I don't like to work," Schwartz says, almost yelling as if to convince everyone within earshot that they're fools if they do. "I figure any moron in the world can generate work for themselves and tie up their time. I have one laptop, no employees, and no product whatsoever--none! This is magic." Magic, he claims, that's earning him $2 million a year.

And you thought the domain grabbers vanished with the dotcom bust. The boom in Internet advertising and the success of the pay-per-click ad model are making the go-go '90s look sluggish. Back then, buying a domain name was pure speculation: Snap up Whatever.com and sit back until some big company with a get-on-the-Internet-at-any-cost mentality offers you a set-for-life payday to buy it.

Now it's all about the income stream. A single good domain name--Candy.com, Cellphones.com, Athletesfoot.com--can bring in hundreds of dollars a day, in some cases while the owner hardly lifts a finger. Schwartz, for instance, directs his traffic to one of the many small companies that serve as go-betweens with Google and Yahoo, the two giants that make this all possible. The middlemen, known as aggregators, do all the heavy lifting, designing the sites and tapping into one or the other of the search engines' advertising networks to add the best-paying links. Many other big domainers cut out the middlemen, creating their own webpages and working directly with Google or Yahoo.

The secret? It has to do with what's known as type-in traffic, or, in Wall Street jargon, direct navigation. Though it may seem odd in the era of powerful search engines, it turns out that millions of Internet surfers don't use search at all. Instead, they type what they're looking for right into the top of their Web browser. Looking to buy candy? Type in Candy.com, a name Schwartz bought in May 2002 for $108,000. A page filled with links to candy-related products comes up. Click on one of the ads and the advertiser pays Google, which in turn sends a share to Schwartz and the company that runs Candy.com. Some days Candy.com makes Schwartz $300 in profits; the site paid for itself in a year and a half.

No one knows for sure how much Web traffic comes from type-ins, and Google and Yahoo execs won't discuss it. But privately, during one of the late-night parties at the Traffic conference, one Yahoo official estimates that type-ins could make up 15 percent of its search business. Marchex, a Seattle-based public startup whose strategy rests largely on type-in traffic, estimates that it accounts for nearly 10 percent of the global paid search market, which is projected to soar from $9 billion this year to $23 billion in 2009.

That's why some domain names are commanding six- and seven-figure price tags and attracting big-money players. Private money manager Stuart Rabin is cutting those sorts of checks to domainers two to three times a week. In November 2004, Marchex shelled out $164 million for a single domainer's portfolio. Even a few venture capital firms are now placing bets. Earlier this year, Boston-based Highland Capital paid $80 million to acquire BuyDomains, a company with 500,000 names, according to people familiar with the deal. Says Highland principal Richard de Silva, who wouldn't confirm the price, "These are profit machines."

Domainers have their heroes, and one of the most mysterious is a man named Yun Ye, a Chinese citizen living in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is credited with boosting the entire market when he sold his portfolio of more than 100,000 domains to Marchex. His names were bringing in more than $20 million a year in revenues--and $19 million in profits--when Marchex paid the equivalent of 8.6 times annual earnings, based on figures provided in SEC documents.

"He is our god," says domainer Michael Bahlitzanakis the moment he hears Ye's name uttered at a Delray Beach party. Every domainer knows of Ye, but few have ever met him. He's the domainers' Keyser Soze. "My attorney happens to be his attorney, but that's as close to him as I can get," says Bahlitzanakis, 29.

A onetime hotshot programmer, Ye used his software chops to build the bulk of his domain empire in the late '90s and early 2000s. He became a master at what's known as "catching," or buying up domains that were dropping because people gave up on them or forgot to pay the annual registration fee. At the time, the system was secretive, and domainers were trying to figure out what names were expiring and when. In the dark of night, Ye would sit before a bank of computers and, like a conductor, launch programs he wrote to shoot rapid-fire requests to purchase names.

His prowess quickly became clear. Chad Folkening, a domainer in Indianapolis, was disorganized in those years and sometimes missed renewal deadlines. He noticed that Ye was grabbing his expired names with lightning speed. After Ye had snapped up 100 of them, Folkening decided he needed to talk to Ye. "I was eating, sleeping, and drinking Yun Ye," he says. E-mail drew no response. Nor did phone calls. So in late 2001, Folkening traveled to an address near San Jose listed on Ye's domain registrations. "I figured I was going to walk up to his front door, knock, and say, 'Yun Ye, I just had to meet you,'" says Folkening, who now owns 7,000 names. Instead, the address led him to a Mail Boxes Etc. outlet. Folkening stuck Post-It notes on Ye's box asking him to call. Ye sent Folkening an e-mail a couple of days later, but the two never met up. Two years later, some acquaintances of Folkening's set up a get-together with Ye in a Los Angeles bar. "I did most of the talking, then he left," Folkening recalls. It wasn't until the next day that it dawned on Folkening that the man he'd had drinks with was probably an entirely different Yun Ye, which the real Ye confirmed to him in an e-mail. (Ye's attorney, John Barryhill, says Ye won't talk to the press, and he adds, "I don't answer questions about him.")

未完待续
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