Very interesting report from Jensense.com, that I couldn't help but highlight before I hit the hay for the night. Appears that according to Versign in their Domain Name Industry Brief domain registrations have taken a historic high rate in the last several quarters and the third quarter marked the highest to date. To most this could not be big news, its progress and evitable that as more people come online the more people will want to set up shop. More business for SEO/SEM companies too on another angle.
It appears that renewal rates are part of the reason that registrations have continued to climb. The article indicates that programs like Google's Adsense has spured many recent registrations in surprising rates. PPC contextual advertising is becoming quite popular by the masses and contributing to extra revenue for many webmasters. PPC advertising in general as indicated by Jupiter research could reach 5.5 billion by 2009. I know several people that go to great lengths to secure domains for the sole purpose of putting Google adsense contextual ads on them, its their sole source of income. Last year that might have not been the case, but this year there is stopping them. I don't put adsense on all my sites, because I would make less money if I did, but for those with idle domains, content sites, and so many more, Adsense and its cousins are a no brainer that has helped change an industry.
Continue reading on Jensense about her thoughts on the release.