If you were to count the number of professional domain owners who have domain portfolio actually worth more than $100,000 - it would be a relatively small list.  If you were to count them again but allowed the domain owners themselves to value their portfolios the list would be endless.

The same would be true if you compared the number of blogs, news rolls, forums, conferences and service competitors in the domain industry.  How many are necessary, represent true value, and are still relevant?  My answer may surprise you.  I think they are all worthwhile within a wide spectrum of value.  Even the most ignorant blog or forum poster gives us all a new perspective on a wide variety of problems and solutions.  Perspective viewing the domain industry through these different lenses helps us identify opportunities, predict market behaviors, and risks.  We may also potentially avoid areas where "common knowledge" is all too close to group thinking.  So everyone's opinion, although it may be wrong, is also valid and potentially valuable to someone else.

 When contemplating the ongoing production of a blog, I've thought about the very reasonable question, "Why another blog?" The answer is simply because I may have a different perspective than others and that my opinion (even if wrong) may spawn another level of thought for those who read it.  It also allows me a forum to organize my thoughts in a more structured environment with a world of feedback.  As James Surowiecki the author of The Wisdom of Crowds states "Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations" and in our case - the professional domain industry.

Some may say that a blog is not "a more structured environment", but it is my intent to actually try to achieve just that.  One of the most structured environments I know of is the world of book publishing.  A professor I once had told be emphatically that books were outdated by the time they were printed - that academic articles were far more recent. You may argue that blogs and the internet are the epiphany of real time thought.  I won't dispute that point, but what I would say is that real time publishing lacks discipline.  Blogs are often the musings of people who offer opinions without doing good research before writing.

Books require discipline because they have a formula process that works.  Authors cannot get away with slash and dash writing.  There are editors, peer reviews, referencing, fact checking, acknowledgment, glossaries, indexes, and author biographies. Good books are well researched and follow known guidelines. 

Each article will start the same way - extensive research.  The work that doesn't make it on to the page is just as important as the published work itself.  A thorough review of other blogs, forums, websites, and books will be the basis for each article.  Before an opinion is formed the wisdom of those previous works will be accessed and will be frequently quoted through each domain article.

Article Structure

• Title and Description - will be clear and concise with a summary view of what the article contains in 50 words or less.

• Topical Paragraphs - each paragraph will have a purpose and will capture the idea represented with concise language.

• Relevant Images - only images that are contextually relevant will be used within the articles.

• Frequent References - will be made of other authors previous work that will be properly referenced.

• Unjustified Quotations - will not be included unless prefaced by clarification that it is an opinion rather than fact.

• Standardized Categories and Index - are assigned whenever possible.

• Glossary and Index Terms - will be cross referenced.

• Footnotes - will reference all relevant facts and author quotations.

• Peer Review - articles will be circulated for supporting, opposing, and differential opinions.

Work to be done before this website can become active.

Creating this website will be quite a process with a wide array of other activities that will need to be completed before this website can become active.

• Author References 

• Category Standardization

• Article Road Map

• First Month of Articles

• Quotations Directory

• Glossary

• Functional Upgrades

• Graphical Upgrades

The work for this website is being performed at times when it personally comes available.  I expect that due to existing commitments it will not be ready for public release before 15 July 2009. Any internet professional can have a blog up and running in a day - it takes time to do it right. I'm not quite ready to embarrass myself.

If you would like to be involved in this project please contact me via the form.