There were a several comments on our blog posts on .XYZ over the last few days raising the issue of whether Frank Schilling owns .XYZ domain names in his portfolio, with several commentators citing the fact the he does not even own the domain FrankSchilling.xyz (that domain name was registered yesterday to a company in the Cayman’s).
So I gave Mr Schilling a call last night to see how many .XYZ domain names he personally owned.
The answer was just over 40,000 domain names.
Frank went on to tell me those domain names that were registered months ago, not under the current $.01 promotion.
Frank did not get the domain names for free but paid the then current registration price for them.
Frank went on to tell me that most of the 40,000 .XYZ domain names he owns are numeric domains.
Now you know.
Sounds like frontrunning to me. Load up numerics then create a market by giving them away for “free”. Artificial demand.
Now I get why he is commenting on how this is such a good deal. Just a conversion play, much like when he said .com would no longer be the cream of the crop…
Flavor of the week, nobody cares what he says anymore anyways he is much to conflicted.
I feel bad for newbies who look up to these types.
How To Succeed at Domaining
1. Get face time on conference podiums.
2. Win dubious awards
3. Gather enough awards and podium time and get your license to sell cool aid to newbies and celebrity chasers.
4. Tell those who don’t drink the cool aid how stupid they are for not seeing the vision and path to success that you are freely offering up because you are so kind!
5. Laugh all the way to the bank at the fools you conned.
Frank is one of the nicest guys in the business and he doesn’t need to con anybody. If you don’t think new GTLD domains are a good investment then don’t invest in them. I don’t think anyone knows very well at this point what the domain market will look like in five, ten or twenty years.
In any case I think it’s cowardly to criticize someone anonymously.
Being a nice guy, and a good business man are two different things.
Everyone said Adam Dicker was a nice guy
Everyone loved Nelson Brady too.
Everybody loves Raymond!
@Trevor,
Uniregistry wants market share. Unlimited penny registrations for .XYZ were bound to get lots of publicity. It seems, Uniregistry arranged to get in on the action a day ahead of everybody else. And Frank Schilling would naturally want to plaster comments all over the blog coverage so that domainers associate the .XYZ penny giveaways with Uniregistry and go through his company – even though numerous registrars are offering the same deal.
That’s all rational. It’s ethical too. There’s no reason that I can think of to castigate Frank Schilling, whom I know to be a friendly honest guy. Sometimes wrong. Focused on his own projects’ success. But that’s true of everybody.
Granted, there’s plenty to laugh at, since Frank Schilling is urging everybody else to buy thousands of .XYZ domains while he didn’t consider his own name in .XYZ worth a penny. But that’s not hypocrisy. It’s just an embarrassing oversight in a cheesy but well intentioned sales pitch.
“I feel bad for newbies who look up to these types.”
Frank Schilling is no impostor. There’s no reason to look up to anybody purely because of money. But he did succeed as a businessman – as far as I can tell, never having cheated anybody – which deserves at least some respect. To be sure, Frank Schilling’s advice and opinions will reflect his own business interests. No surprise there. That doesn’t make him dishonest; it doesn’t even mean that he’s wrong, since he’ll often be right. But Frank Schilling’s position within the domain industry – owning registries, a registrar, a parking company, and a market place – is so utterly different from that of any ordinary domainer that he may as well be from another planet. Domainers are his target customers. It’s wrong to expect the guy selling to us to be a neutral mentor.
Many domainers seem to have a weird child-parent complex with Frank Schilling. First they idolize, then they excoriate. Why? We use cell phones, but we don’t think of the phone company CEO as a father figure. Frank Schilling is just a guy who runs some businesses that want our business. No more Oedipal dramas, please.
@Joseph Peterson
Your comments are very detailed and comprehensive. I also like how you strive to remain honest, objective and unbiased. Great work.
Thanks, Chris.
By the way, using .XYZ for your own personal-name blog isn’t a bad idea. Some people might go with .ME or .BIO or .NET. That’s just it, though; it’s a personal choice.
The main point is that there are always going to be cases where multiple individuals share the same name. They can’t all have their own name in .COM. Some of us will have to pick a different TLD. With a startup brand, we can always find some other name on the left of the dot. But our given name forces us to acknowledge that there is value in having more TLD options.
And DomainSherpas is giving this guy a platform to spread his ngTLD bullshit.
Now .xyz is the name of the game.
Last week it was .game, what will it be next week? People will jump on this and lose it all.
The issue with .game is the worst of the worst cost $3xx.xx per year to register
The whole point of releasing new GTLD’s was consumers were upset .com were taken, or priced outside of the market.
Now for about $500-$2500 you can get a good .com to use for your business with the .com, but at $3xx per year, and oncoming renewals these people have just taken advantage of ICANN’s poor management, and consumers are suffering again.
What is that hobbyist guy who wants to create a gamer site, who maybe had his eye on gtld’s go to say when he goes to register FranksVideoBlog.Game, and gets a $399 checkout price?
This is actually great for .com values, as these guys are making them look like a even better investment.
I don’t think seasoned domainers really care what Frank does. He can afford to take big risks that will never pay off.
Those in the know only care what the smartest of the smart money is going. That is the Berkens.
no thanks.
.com only
Many investors don’t use Frank’s services, as he is using customer dollars to compete with them at per say namejet. He is using profits from services you buy from them, to bid you up, and make you pay more for domains.
For this reason many are going to a different route, something his company needs to address.
Exactly Mike is far smarter than Frank.
Someone should tell Emperor Schilling to put some clothes on. Domaining naked is not commendable.
Thanks for the support from those who chimed in here. I work hard in every level of this business .. as a registrant, as a registrar and as a registry. There is a good deal of professional jealousy out there when you are in people’s way everywhere and certainly some naked envy out there. I’m fine with that. FWIW i don’t need/want anything (financially) from anyone reading /trolling here. I’m a self made guy, with no debt and I don’t need a thing from (and have nothing to prove to) pretty much anyone. I do what I do for the love of the game. That can;t be frustrating when you’re competing against me in order to eat.
I can actually say (truthfully now) that “domainers” my colleagues and competitors on that piece of the business have brought me near ZERO of my financial success. The money comes from my O&O business, the sales machine we’ve built.. and to a lesser extent from the higher priced namespaces domainers don’t participate in.
I am happy to see new domainers come up tho and try to profit turning $5 into $500 (sometimes more). To that end, all the advice I give, I give altruistically – without mercantilist designs. My winnings in this business are based on my own risks and hard work. I have had no inside line on anything and had no more advantage than anyone else here. My XYZ purchase was made a while back when I saw that names were disappearing quickly to China and the numbers were getting exhausted. I paid for them and I will pay cash to renew them
The secret to y success is: I work weekends : )
If you try that – you will see it pays off. Good luck to everyone.
You should be a comedian. If domainers have done nothing for you please stop talking to us.
Thanks for sharing Frank. Frank is very hard working and pushes the envelope taking risks with his own money. He realizes the value of a larger market place. Frank doesn’t force himself on us but does make himself available – then we can take his input and accept it or reject it. Frank and Mike have different approaches and are both very real. I value both of their positions and then establish my own at my own risk.
What a bunch of jealous haters. You guys seem so archaic and afraid of change. Pretty pitiful.
Only thing pitiful is xyz fanboys and the only thing changing will be domainers bank balances going lower regging nonsense.
I wish all domainers should admire Frank’s enormous success through his talent and hard work.
Be nice to Frank Schilling…and not be jealous haters….
Very Nice!
I own just little over 30k .xyz names, and thanks to Frank’s Uniregistry (which offered them for 1 cent, with most other registrars at 2 cents or more). One of them has been my best deal ever, selling for USD 1800 some 30 days later (+ 18 Mio. %, or over 200 Million % return p.a.).
Kudos to Frank S. and Daniel N.!
Sven
So you bought 30K .xyz domains for $.01 or $300 and sold one for $1,800?
Just trying to understand what you are saying
Michael,
Yes – so overall it is x6, but looking at the one individual name it is sold at 180,000x the price (which is 18 Mio. percent)..
30 domains = 300k renewal fees per year. This portfolio would lose you 298k per year if you kept it.
Schilling and shilling…