The domain industry can be quite an insular experience, especially if you don’t connect with others, attend meetups and conferences, or participate in online forums and blogs.

Then, the complexities of domain buying, selling, leasing, and development increase exponentially when adding in language barriers, time zone, cultural and socioeconomic differences.

It’s one thing to be a domain hobbyist, domain investor, domain developer, domain broker, or domain consultant within one’s own backyard, per se.

However, today’s podcast guest truly understands what it means to be a global domain investor in one of the world’s fastest growing major economy, India.

It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone, and with it, a decade too.

The sky is the limit in 2020, and the future is quite bright for all aspects and persons in the domain industry.

While still in its infancy, “emoji marketing” is gaining steam as each day passes, and a growing number of personal and corporate brands are adding emoji to their marketing toolbox and strategy.

From Hubspot to Visme to Neil Patel to “The Emoji Experts”, all of the aforementioned personal and corporate brands see no end to emoji marketing, having published their own emoji marketing guides, predictions and case studies.

As millennials $200 billion buying power grows, not including Gen Z’s influential buying power of $153 billion arriving to the market, emoji marketing is poised to reach unprecedented proportions of revenue for personal and corporate brands.

Not only are tech-related companies making good use of emoji to reach and serve more companies, but longstanding industries, such as the jewelry industry, are rolling up their sleeves and establishing their brands using emoji too.

No sooner than a person is introduced to domain investing, affectionately known as “domaining” by domain investors as known as “domainers”, that they soon encounter the ramifications of legally transacting payment and agreement of domains.

Most new investors, a few old ones too, blindly play the payment roulette game when using PayPal or a non-secure payment method when transacting payment and agreement of domains.

Individuals soon come to find out they robbed themselves blind from receiving payment as well as losing their domain in the most horrific cases due to payment clawback, chargeback or disputed credit card payment by purchaser. 

While attending and participating at MERGE! this year, I had the privilege of meeting and moderating a panel — Secrets of Domain Leasing — that included Stevan Lieberman (opposite end of panel from myself), IP Attorney at Greenberg and Lieberman.

It’s been one week since I boarded a plane from Orlando heading back to good ole’ Austin, Texas.

I thought I’d take a moment to share a few thoughts and interactions from my MERGE! 2018 experience.

Of course, financing domain names is nothing new under the sun. Domain leasing and financing certainly happens each and every week, if not on a daily basis.

It’s not news to read about a person or company leveraging varying financing options to hopefully stake their claim to highly-valued virtual real estate.

The question I pose is whether or not financing of new gTLDs is likely the chasm that separates registries that fail and flop versus those that wildly succeed.