If I hear/see the word “halvarez” one more time, someone’s gonna get hurt. Seriously, enough is enough: “Pictures of halvarez”/”What did halvarez have for dinner yesterday?”/”Why did he choose this username, why not alvarezh?”… don’t we all have something better to do?
What bugs me the most is seeing people who have never even used SnapNames go all crazy, they’re literally investing hours upon hours of their time by posting on forums like there’s no tomorrow.
But Aren’t You Wasting Time by Blogging about This?
Well no, my goal as far as DomainingTips.com is concerned is generating as much traffic as possible. How do I do that? By providing value and in this case, I’m providing value by explaining that most people are just wasting time instead of doing what they should be doing… making bank.
Look, if SnapNames.com owes you a significant amount of money then yes, it makes sense to try your best in order to obtain as much from them as possible. But even if that’s the case, going crazy won’t solve anything. Be rational and make informed decisions, don’t let emotions get the best of you because that makes you WEAK. Period.
But… but… the “Industry” Is Hurting… the HORROR!
Seriously? I’ve mentioned this again but feel the need to repeat myself: do you honestly think that this is the only situation when something shady happened? I can guarantee that there isn’t even ONE company out there without skeletons in its closet.
A lot of people who should know better are getting all emotional and everything when the situation is as simple as it gets: a SnapNames VP did lots of shady stuff and now the company is trying to cover its ass. WOW… “UNBELIEVABLE”!
Did you think that it’s all sunshine and butterflies? Well it isn’t, it never was and it never will be. No matter what “industry” we’re talking about, there will always be people who want to make a quick buck (or a quick million… whatever) by doing something shady. I’ll go even further and say that this incident simply makes it clear that:
People Need to Stop Living in Fantasy Land!
I read a post (I have nothing against Rick and as I’ve mentioned when I’ve referred to Alan’s article: I’m criticizing the post, not the person who wrote it) the other day about how the domaining industry is all about trust and how that trust has been broken… come on Rick, seriously?
The domaining industry is all about trust and all of a sudden this incident is the most important thing working against its credibility? Are we talking about the same industry? The industry where lots of people made serious bank by registering TM domains? The industry where a lot of people make money by hand regging domains related to terrible tragedies? The industry where most people would tell an end user (or a fellow domainer) absolutely anything in order to secure a sale? Again, seriously?
I don’t know about you but as far as I’m concerned, things such as the ones mentioned above have done and will continue to do a lot more damage than the fact that a VP was up to no good. Please, let’s stop lying to ourselves. People lie, people deceive and this industry does NOT represent an exception. It sucks, I know, but that’s just the way things stand.
Go Make Some Money… NOW!
Lots of companies have been scamming people for a long time and I seriously doubt that things will change. Will someone try to scam you at one point or another? Yep. Will someone eventually manage to scam you? Probably, who knows.
Does this mean that you’re better off giving up? NOPE! Just do your thing, making lots of money is definitely possible despite all of the things which seem to work against you. This much is certain: constantly considering yourself a victim will get you nowhere!
But hey, if you desperately want to live in denial and think that (for example) NameJet or someone from NameJet would NEVER try to do something shady because they’ve sent you a shiny email after the SnapNames incident, be my guest 🙂
November 8th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
If I had a dollar for every time someone wanted to pull a fast one on me, I’d be writing this comment from a nice little island. If anything scamsters motivate me to make more money. I agree that people have to stop the mindless complaining, it’s just stupid with so many opportunities right next to us.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I agree with you on most of the points but it is much easier to right this rant when you haven’t been scammed out of $50,000 plus, like a few of the other bloggers. New rule, if you lost more than 10K you can write about it. Others, let it go. I lost $300 so I’m done
November 8th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Write not right, where’s my editor?
November 8th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
@Shane: I’ve been scammed and stabbed in the back by people I used to talk to on a daily basis and it will probably happen again at one point or another (nobody’s perfect, thinking that I’m experienced enough to always be able to avoid dealing with people who are up to no good would be a huge sign of weakness IMO). People have tried to screw me over more times than I’d care to remember and that’s actually exactly why I’ve decided to be so vocal about this attitude: victimizing yourself won’t get you anywhere, it just won’t.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
@Shane: typos = a serious offense! The Internet police WILL hear about this 😉
November 8th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Weird. I’m taken to a blank page after I try to comment but the comment gets published. WTF!? Looks like I’ve won the “spend the next few minutes trying to figure out what happened” prize…
November 8th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Upgrading to WordPress 2.8.5 solved the problem 🙂
November 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I think everyone has a different story about Halvarez, all in which are interesting to hear, but there definitely comes a point where there are too many stories about one person. He’s getting too much attention at this point 🙂
November 9th, 2009 at 2:24 am
I agree that it’s more a distraction than something useful to constantly complain about these things in public especially. The news was brought to light and now everyone knows, this should have been enough and not a news frenzy.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Andrei,
Great post … starting to like your articles for the honest opinion but don’t worry – I will soon read one and publicly criticize the hell out of you .. oops, I mean the article lol.
Way too many people are afraid to call someone out and just hop on the cheerleading wagon in this industry. Have no idea about your background (think you said this blog was a month old) but we need fresh material like this instead of re-hashing and over anaylzing the same stuff day in and day out.
Some of the greatest blogs imo like Julia MacKenzie’s provide more than just conversation – they provoke thought. That is exactly what reading is about … not about conspiracy theories which is what 90$ of this halverez shit is all about.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:16 am
I Agree Andrei, I’m so sick and tired of that name. We gotta move on
November 9th, 2009 at 6:48 am
maybe you can´t believe but the recent days were the most productive i had on bidding and buying domain names. not on SnapNames but for other reasons (particularly the money that i want to invest) not due any lck of trust on them. i will come back to SN very soon and as seller i regularly place them in there.
Thanks for your article or posting. Now we need to bid more and more.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:41 am
What did Halverez have for dinner?
Is there a tweet on him yet?
November 16th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Making money is not an easy task. It needs patience, tricky mind, focus, right moment and lots
November 27th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Thanks again, Aidan Klassen @ L