.CA market slows with economy?

DomainReport.ca - I've been looking for a reason to post since Feb. 12, and unfortunately there hasn't been one! No new developments in .ca domains and no sales to report in almost a month. Today I logged in to add a .CA Godaddy banner to my blog page, so just a little housekeeping.

I'm thinking something should happen soon that will be newsworthy, but in the meantime it seems like the overall down economy is affecting the .ca market. From watching forum activity, many seem to be concentrating on renewing their good names and trying to sell a few to make a little income. There are good quality .ca domains to be had at decent prices at places like dnforum.com

Once the economy starts to show signs of improvement, I think the domain market will rebound well. Even now, it doesn't surprise me to see names like Forums.com sell for 399k, or Toys.com sell for 5.1 million, because people know the internet isn't going anywhere, and you need a good domain name to mark your presence online. Along with .com, country code domains are a good choice. Many businesses are behind in getting online, and need to do so to find another way to earn revenue and increase their market reach. Newspaper companies are filing for bankruptcy all around, and online advertising is still growing. These trends bode well for holding good quality domains.

So my advice is to hold on to your best names and weather the storm. Let your poor names expire if you have to. Sell a few names to renew others if you have to. But come out the other end with some quality remaining in your portfolio.

Since I have no .ca news to report, I'll leave you with some trends/ideas I've noted so far in 2009.

- Despite fewer .ca sales, other country code domains continue to sell well, especially .de and .co.uk - in fact, many .de are selling with dashes in them every week, which continues to surprise me.

- Micro blogging site Twitter.com seems to be making news everywhere. With only a few million users, there is still a chance to get a decent username, and there are ways you can use Twitter for business and personal reasons. If you haven't checked it out, I suggest you do so.

- Domains are still selling every week, just check DNjournal.com! The two big sales I noted above occurred within the last couple weeks, while the economy still hasn't hit bottom, so my read is that companies are positioning themselves with good domains for the future.

- You can get some good deals on domains. Search the domain forums and you'll see that the quality of domains for sale has improved, while prices are lower (in general). Maybe this is a chance to get some quality generics, some LLL, and other good quality names. I don't think the deals will be as good when the economy turns.

- Don't watch the news so much! Until things start to get better, find other things to do like sports or watch a movie, even better, start building some websites for your domains. The economy will correct in time, so you might as well do something enjoyable while you wait.