Originally posted by seeker
so basically, there is no hope for us?
I wouldn't say that, seek.
Since pool.com came into the picture with their new business model, it had already changed a lot of things. The auction model now makes prices closer and closer to end-user rates, especially with Pool's recent announcement of its changes to the auction - last man with the most money left standing wins.
Yes, the game gets tougher every month as dropcatching becomes something every man and his dog indulges in, unlike the past years where "insiders" had a field day.
And yes, the big players will attempt to secure thousands of slots to roll. But this isn't new by any measure, even on new namespace - I recall that when the .biz zone files were studied after its launch, BD had close to 5,000 .biz names or something spread across 2 company entities. And that's for an extension that not many serious .com speculators had any high hopes on.
Acquiring WLS slots NOW is not a rocket science strategy. It just requires a lot of research on the potential/chance that specific names WILL drop months before it even smells the deleteddomains.com radar screens.
Then grab them straight away like a dog on heat.
Right now, the best thing you can do is to start locking down on NRR for whatever is left. eNom you can wait and snipe at the end if the cost is reasonable since its an auction model. I did my locking in the first 2 hrs NRR launched 2 months ago, and I'm just a micro player.
You have 2 choices - (1) continue to moan that the end is neigh or (2) use the WLS as a great opportunity to finally outfox (not outpower) the big players. Speed and lots of homework is critical.