SK

Domain names, entrepreneurship, investing

[Matt Paulson @MediaKing]

Buy the .com. Go into a little debt if you have to. The right domain name is one of the few cheap things early on that you'll never regret paying up for, and one of the most expensive things to fix later.

[SK @scrsteven]

@adamamcbride John Carreyrou’s NYT article notes that Satoshi used Anonymousspeech L.L.C. (a Tokyo company that offered anonymous email and web hosting services) both to register the https://t.co/EFzNuX1tTq domain name and to create two untraceable email accounts. So I think it's a dead end.

[SK @scrsteven]

@DInvesting @afternic Even more frustrating is the nameservers are kept at whatever the buyer was using instead of resetting them to what they were before the sale. LTO cancellations are commonly rebought immediately and Afternic's nameserver commission penalty comes into play.

[SK @scrsteven]

@TonyNames Hope these all turn into sales tomorrow. Unusual for sure.

[Domain Shane | Winterline @cultra]

Today marks a major milestone personally and something I have wanted to achieve for over a decade. I am incredibly excited to officially announce the launch of Winterline (https://t.co/bSuDAtdxpX), a new asset management company I've founded with my long-time friend and business partner, Sean Markey. Don't let Sean’s quiet nature fool you, he is one of the best in the industry when it comes to expanding a brand's online footprint and reach.

Between the two of us, we have spent decades in the trenches of the digital economy. Many of you have followed me here for a decade plus, so you know I have been in the domain space for nearly 20 years. I've owned and run businesses ranging from 50 employees to 2. Sean has spent the last decade plus working with major SEO firms and his private SEO group to master the art of high-level asset acquisition.

What is Winterline?

While Winterline is officially a brokerage, I like to think we are much more expansive than that. We specialize in the high-impact assets, both on and off-market, that actually drive modern business growth. We help individuals and companies navigate the buying and selling of:

Premium Domains: The foundation of your business and marketing.

Content & Traffic: Websites, SEO-focused properties, and high-value backlinks.

Audience Platforms: Newsletters and established social media accounts.

Modern Tech: Custom GPTs and emerging digital tools.

A significant portion of our work is handled with strict confidentiality. Whether it is a private acquisition or a strategic divestment, we understand the need for discretion at the highest levels.

Sean will be leveraging his deep industry relationships to lead our SEO and digital asset division. I will be focused on scaling our domain brokerage and building our capital investment arm. Our investment strategy is broad, ranging from individual premium domains to large-scale corporate investments.

Ready to buy or looking to sell? You know where to find us. We’re also open to collaborating with other brokers, if you have inventory that fits our buyers' needs, let’s get it in front of them.

[Braden @BradenPollock]

Just today, two people have told me that because of AI we won’t need domain names anymore. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Here was my reply:

This is a common misconception. Where do you think all the information comes from?
LLM’s access and collect all that information from the Internet. The Internet is made up of websites. All those websites are hosted on domains.
Not to mention that we still need domains to advertise businesses off-line. TV, Netflix, billboards, bus benches, radio, print, etc isn’t going anywhere.
And we’ve not even talked about email. There is nothing on the horizon that will replace email. All email is based on domains.

[SK @scrsteven]

@namecheapceo123 @DInvesting @spaceship Did more people abandon their carts after seeing the new fee at checkout compared to before? That is the only metric that matters, not number of sales right after the https://t.co/8ySXACAYjb superbowl commercial.

[DataCube @datacubecom]

It's rather annoying that @GoDaddy insists on charging a $0.90 fee for outgoing ACH payments.

They are collecting commissions between 15% - 30% depending on sales path, boost, landers, etc.

It could be a sale for $500 or $500,000. They are deducting that 90 cents.

[SK @scrsteven]

@DotWeekly @DInvesting @GoDaddy @jamesiles Are your names actually performing better somewhere else?

[SK @scrsteven]

Love the innovation. Most of these features felt inevitable and I'm glad someone's finally executing on them.

[Atom.com @atomHQ]

🚀 We’re launching AtomEdge.

A benefits program designed for domain investors as Atom prepares to open its public registrar.

Lower costs. More flexibility. Better tools.

This is what scaling should feel like.

🔗 https://t.co/NdJ9Xx0eb4

[SK @scrsteven]

@AlexejKirillov @cultra Incentive- more domains under management means higher company market cap.

[SK @scrsteven]

@MichaelCyger I upgraded from #5 to curved #2 several years ago

[SK @scrsteven]

@PaulENicks @GoDaddy @ICADomains Thanks for your numerous contributions to the domain space. Wishing you well!

[SK @scrsteven]

@MichaelCyger @Namecheap @TonyNames

[SK @scrsteven]

@DomainKing I agree it's ridiculous that was happening with great frequency at another major domain auction house until they changed things to prevent such abuse.

[SK @scrsteven]

Yet another example of the gains you can achieve by upgrading to the .com

[Noah Tran @_nghiatran]

@damonchen it's one of the best investments, proxyman's revenue has grown 40% than the old .io domain

[SK @scrsteven]

Let's say a name was rapidly bid up from $10 to $10,000 as soon as it was listed, by one person using 2 accounts. They win with account #1 but don't pay. Then their account #2 gets to buy it for $10 in your scenario. That's not fair to other auction watchers who would have been willing to pay $8000. Re-auction is the best solution imo.

[SK @scrsteven]

This. Yes.

[Tony @TonyNames]

@Aladey Afternic should do away with the Lander Penalty ASAP

[SK @scrsteven]

@swethayenugula @afternic Congrats! 🧠🧠🧠

[dharmesh @dharmesh]

An incidental impact of vibe coding and agentic coding:

Website domains are becoming more valuable.

The *reason* is that it is now easier (and cheaper) to build *something* of value on a domain than it was before.

Case in point: I own 500+ domains. Almost all of them had some idea behind them at the time but very few of them were something I could get around to building something on. Just not enough hours in the day.

Now that creating software is easier, I find myself going back to some of the domains in my portfolio and seeing if I can launch something on it.

A recent example is: MetaPrompt .com (which is a simple AI app that helps you improve the prompt you use with ChatGPT).