December, 2007 Archive

I've thought lots of times, as many of you have, "Man, I wish I had what Frank has." "Schilling built his phenomenal domain empire from scratch despite taking the field just five years ago, when almost everyone else thought the game was already over." Phenomenal. Why can't that be me (or you)? I think the biggest thing we lack is the desire to put in the work that Frank did, and Ron Jackson points that out early on ... Keep reading »

Some people will tell you it's a dog-eat-dog world. One thing you hear over and over about Frank, though, is how nice a guy he is -- including in Ron's article. Ron mentions in the very first paragraph that Frank "is universally regarded as one of the nicest people in this (or any other) business," and he mentions later how Frank called him out of the blue "just to introduce himself and let me know he liked the publication." ... Keep reading »

A corollary to yesterday's lesson about some elements always being out of your control is that not every disaster is a disaster -- as we learn from Frank: In September 2004 category 4 Hurricane Ivan slammed into the Cayman Islands. Schilling had gotten his family on the last evacuation flight off Grand Cayman before the storm hit. Though they were safe their home was destroyed along with everything in it. Their cars were also wrecked but the biggest loss was ... Keep reading »

So some GameTap folks snuck over yesterday at 3:12 ET to read my post, and now suddenly their title tags have been restored. Glad I could help ;)

Another thing that really stood out for me in the article was this: His timing couldn't have been better. The .com bubble had burst in 2000 and prices for good domains had become affordable again. Disillusioned owners were even letting high quality domains drop rather than pay renewal fees. Timing played a huge part in Frank's success, and there will probably be factors in your success, too, that are out of your control. So don't sweat those. Manage what you ... Keep reading »

In my life, opportunity has very rarely found me. Instead, I have had much better success when I'm actively seeking it out. I was reminded of that when I read Frank's quote about one of the turning points in his life: In 2000 Schilling happened to read an article in a small town newspaper that would end up changing his life dramatically. "I was visiting my parents who had moved several hundred miles away and read in the local ... Keep reading »

Well, to be more specific, the title tags are there but there's nothing in them. I thought it was just the homepage, but it appears to be every page on their site. Title tags are the single most important element of the page in terms of search engine performance, so they're really doing themselves a disservice. We used to have stuff like that happen all the time, though, so I understand. You don't notice the title tags very ... Keep reading »

I've never read about or met anyone successful who didn't receive significant help from other people along the way. I know I wouldn't be where I am right now without the people I've met and worked with over the years, and Frank's life is full of similar stories: his family, Vern Jurovich, Rick Schwartz, Russ Horowitz...the list goes on and on. Two relationships in particular stood out in the Domain Name Journal article for me, though. The first ... Keep reading »

O'Reilly Radar is the only non-online marketing, non-business blog that I subscribe to, and posts like today's "The Future of Cell Phone Headsets" are the reason why. I've yet to find another blog that gives me such outstanding, quality exposure to things that I never would have been exposed to otherwise, while not completely losing me in the process. I highly recommend it.

Many of you already know Frank Schilling -- the owner of one of the largest domain portfolios in the world. The portfolio is worth well into the nine figures, and annual revenue estimates have him generating around $20 million dollars every year. That's $1.7M every month. What most people didn't know until now, though, was that Frank didn't start in this business until 2002 -- long after many people felt like ... Keep reading »

I'm seeing reports around the web now that YouTube is completely down for everyone, but I haven't seen any word as to ...

Wanted to give a huge thanks to Deepak. After updating to WordPress 2.5 several days ago, I only today tried to upload an image for the first time. ...

Great post today by the new owner of Blogging Experiment on "What I Look For When Buying A Website." It's an outstanding look at all the elements of ...