Domainersphere War – A Possible Resolution
November 8, 2008 · Print This Article
An ugly war has broken out in the domainersphere between Mark Fulton and Owen Frager. Mark states that Owen’s GrandNames is a “Grand Waste“; Owen gives a “thumbs down” to Mark’s blog and his AQDN marketplace. I can’t begin to express how disturbed and sad I am that this war has erupted in our domainer family. Others agree with me.
I’d really like to see this war ended rather than escalated. Here’s what I think the parties should do:
1. Call an immediate ceasefire. Both Owen and Mark are probably very upset about the situation. To resolve matters, things need to calm down a bit. There needs to be some time and distance from the conflict so that both parties can attempt to resolve matter in an objective manner.
2. Realize that both of them are on the same team. Ultimately, the interests of Mark and Owen are the same. While they have different ideas about how to go about doing things, both of them care about domainers and both of them want to help domainers sell their domains. Both of them want to educate domainers through their blogs.
3. Look at things from a different perspective. After some time of quiet, there should be a dialog between Owen and Mark. In this dialog, the emphasis should be on finding common ground. If the approach is – “is Mark right or is Owen right” then things will never be resolved.
As an example, both of their blog posts make clear that they are concerned about ensuring that people don’t purchase “crap” domains. They could have a dialog about what the best ways to achieve this are.
Ultimately, I hope that Owen and Mark can work this out. I urge them both to take positive steps in that direction and end this very ugly war.
Written by admin · Filed Under Domaining
A Cherokee Grandfather was teaching about life. He began, “A fight is going on inside me… it is a terrible fight between two wolves.”
The story went on to show how one wolf represented fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. — The other wolf stood for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
He ended the story saying …. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”
The children thought about it for a minute and then one child asked the Grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old man replied, “The one you feed.”
sounds like they’re just promoting each others service… they’re both great marketers and fully realize that any publicity is GOOD for their business… I’m sure that there is actually collaboration going on under this guise of a conflict.
Everyone in this industry isnt always going to get on but you need to just put on a professional face and ignore each other.
As an industry that is still rather small we dont need in house fighting we need to build our realtionships and work hard to help each other grow there business taking domains to the front of the business world.
I enjoy reading both of there blogs and I would hate to see Microsoft going after Mark like what Owen has said on his blog.
Let hope they can agree to disagree and move for the sake of the industry.
Regards,
Robbie
Founder
RegFeeNames.com
You bloggers are too funny. Owen Frager should be called “bullshitter extraordinaire”. Just read his site’s tag line and the way each of his posts uses the all too lovely press-release, third person style… He uses his blog extensively to plug his iffy domains; just take a look at domaining.com and you will see dozzens of posts from him which are pretty much all ads for his sales.
I took a look at AQDN.com after reading your comments here and what I found was a nice set of meaningful domains for sale at very attractive prices. Obviously Grandnames.com will have a hard time competing 😉
There is only one resolution to this…
A fight to the death medieval style!
Jeff,
It looks like this tussle is not going to end easily.
I hope they workout a truce soon otherwise they would both lose their regular readers.
Let’s see!
Most so called (self appointed) domainers or experts most always declined my offered names. A minority few went as far as saying my names were not good.
I now make $120k in annual sales to end users. Who cares what a so called domainer thinks?
And who cares about these little girls fighting over whose portfolio is shitty. grow up folks! It is time people in the business showed some maturity other than lowballing, sharking, and pumping up their own assets.
This beef remember me the hip hop beefs where 2 rappers start a war only to sell more records.
They’re just promoting each others service for sell more domains.
Waste of time.
I’d rather see a Roman style gladiatorial match… hey, I’m old school.
Honestly, DotSauce is no stranger to marketing and obviously knows how to throw a website together and Owen desperately needs to get of Blogger and Ning — I see a match made in heaven here waiting to happen… 😡 and make up!
let the market speak for itself.
I think this fight is bogus. What are they fighting for? Nothing? How surprising. Two major players in the industry are fighting. This is not a very good thing but very common in the world such like McDonalds vs Burger King. Then again, reading the first post my first though was a publicity stunt to gain attention to both parties. While this will work and is not a very smart move in the end for now its not a bad move.
I do however believe that the two that are fighting should resolve the issue and join in an alliance to rep domainers at ICANN events and to be the voice of domainers.
Why?
They both are looked up to as some of the most smartest Domainers around as well as have premium domains in there portfolio. They also have leverage in the industry. If Mark sent me an email wanting it one of my domains no matter the price. I would sell it to him, Just to say i had something Mark was interested in.
In the end, I dont think these guys are looking to resolve but tear a part of the domaining industry apart with it and cause chaos.
thanks
Randall
InsightDomain.com
Domainular.com