A pair of recent posts about .WS domains and their investment-worthiness, generated dozens of user comments at DomainInvesting.com.
The story started on Thursday, when domain investor, Braden Pollock, posted an op-ed article, titled “Why I Invested Six Figures in .WS Domain Names.”
It’s almost certain that the lack of a poster’s identification in the title, led many to believe it was Elliot Silver’s own testament on the subject; adding the words “Braden Pollock : ” before it, would have made things a bit more clear, in our opinion.
Much controversy over the coverage of a less-known ccTLD aiming at the Chinese market ensued, with an epic exchange of comments, some of which delivered low blows at a personal level.
On Friday, Elliot posted a separate, follow-up article about his own domain investment perspective on .WS domains, titled “Why I Am Not Investing in .WS Domains.”
Domain Investing articles on .WS investments, as seen on the Domaining.com feed.
In our opinion, the follow-up post was an attempt to clarify Elliot’s position; the lack of a “non shock” factor to its title led to the generation of considerably fewer comments.
We believe it was a smart move on Elliot’s part, as many initially believed his faithful investment in .com domains was somehow breached.
We dug through roughly 160 comments to come up with the “10 things we learned about .WS domain investments” from Elliot’s blog.
- Braden Pollock invests in .WS domains, having had a conversation with Alan Ezeir, co-owner of .WS. Braden’s interest was self-motivated and nobody pitched him to write a story about .WS.
- Braden Pollock invests in other gTLDs, and .Wine and .Lawyer domains in particular.
- Elliot Silver does not invest in .WS domains, has no immediate plans to do so, and he’s not familiar with the intricacies of the Chinese domain market.
- Giuseppe Graziano, Andrew Rosener, Shane Cultra, Alan Dunn and Morgan Linton have all invested in short .WS domains or plan to do so.
- Joseph Peterson, who often raises many valid points about the motives and driving force behind such deals, asked some very valid questions and received some unwarranted hatred in response.
- Many supporters of the .WS availability perceive dissenting opinions to be “negative comments,” and don’t appreciate others stepping onto their turf.
- Some domain investors consider emerging markets to be part of a “gambling” attitude towards domains, and do not consider it “investing.”
- Andrea Paladini, an Italian domain investor and financial analyst, is most definitely a male. Whoever thought otherwise got served with an etymological analysis of his masculine name. Andrea in Italy is like Andrew elsewhere.
- Someone made the analogy of the .WS market getting pitched, as a reminiscent of Adam Dicker’s promotional materials from the past.
- Andrew Rosener got ultra defensive over his role in promoting the opportunities existing in the .WS market, and delivered a lengthy statement against Joseph Peterson’s analysis. Update: That comment has now been edited out.
And there you have it, another day in domaining, where opportunities to make money interleave with the consumption of pop-corn during all this entertainment.
