Reviewing last week’s DOMAINfest conference.

For many years, DOMAINfest has attracted the largest crowd of all domain conferences. It only takes place once a year, and Oversee.net and DomainSponsor spend over a million dollars organizing it.

The event last week set an attendance record with some 650 attendees. I was literally running back and forth between meetings, all the while bumping into people in the halls that I hadn’t seen in a year.

As hectic as it was, there was plenty of room for quiet conversations about the state of the industry. Many of the top domainers that I usually communicate with via email were there, each providing their own view of where the domain industry is headed. Now that I’ve had some time to think about those conversations, you can look forward to some related posts this week. I also spent several hours with Demand Media on Wednesday, learning about the company’s business. You can look forward to an overview with my thoughts later this week.

The entertainment at DOMAINfest was also hard to beat. Oversee.net doesn’t skimp on parties. Even the rain that brought the “beach party” inside didn’t seem to faze people.

My hat’s off to the organizers, including Oversee.net’s excellent PR and marketing teams that kept in constant contact during the conference.

If you attended, please share your thoughts on the show.

iPad means more web users will circumvent web addresses to get information online.

It wasn’t a question of whether or not Apple would release a tablet computer this past week. It was only a question of the specs and name.

What we’re left with is a device called iPad that is basically a big iPod Touch. But it could be part of a larger trend that will wittle down at direct navigation traffic on domain names. In the iPad’s case, it’s applications that access the web. These applications don’t require typing in a URL. Instead, a tap on the home screen icon gets you to what you’re looking for.

A move to apps as opposed to URLs also throws web analytics into question. If someone accesses their bank account via the Bank of America app, that’s one less visitor to BankofAmerica.com. Should that count in its stats?

While at DOMAINfest this past week, one of the questions I asked a number of large domainers is if they’ve seen any decline in type-in traffic. Most said no, or very little. But there are certainly threats. In addition to apps, witness Google Chrome’s “one box”, which merges the URL bar with the search box.

I’m not sure what the biggest threat to type-in traffic is. But it is lurking.

Here’s how to block friends from seeing your crazy night at the Playboy Mansion.

That was quite a party Thursday night at the Playboy Mansion in L.A. Compared to last year, it was really off the hook.

So now that your hangover has worked its way off, you might find another hangover when you log on to Facebook and see yourself tagged in a bunch of photos. These might not be photos you want your friends and family to see. So what do you do?

There are a couple things. First, you can untag yourself in each photo. Just go to the photo, and click “remove tag” next to your name.

That’s a manual process that might take a while. But there’s also a way you can prevent your friends from seeing all pictures tagged of you, and it’s worth turning it on if you stayed at the party until closing.

When you log on to Facebook, click the settings link at the top. Then choose privacy, and you’ll see a page of what people can see in your profile. Scroll down to “photos and videos of me”, and change the drop down box to “only me”.

This won’t remove tags, but it will prevent friends from looking up photos of you.

Domain registrar shut down after not paying accreditation fees.

ICANN has sent a notice of termination to New Orleans-based domain name registrar DomainCannon, citing a number of infractions. The registrar apparently owes $186,598.39 in past due accreditation fees. Additionally, it’s web site is not available, and it has failed to escrow whois data, the letter states.

The termination notice from ICANN also notes that DomainCannon is in breach of VeriSign’s registry-registrar agreement.

According to registrar stats, DomainCannon has 11,729 registered domain names.

It is good to see ICANN cleaning up its registrars. But that’s a heck of a lot of past due fees — more than I recall seeing on any termination notice. You have to ask why it took so long to terminate the registrar.

Survey assesses most important aspects of domain name registrars.

When it comes to choosing a domain name registrar to manage your domain assets, what’s the most important factor?

It’s a question we’ve asked all five years of the Domain Name Wire Survey, and the results have been telling. Will it change this year?

The survey asks respondents to rank these factors when choosing a registrar:

-Security of domain names
-Price
-Value-added services such as web hosting and domain privacy
-Ease of transferring domains between accounts
-Account management tools
-Customer service
-What the registrar does with expired domains (e.g. auction off, warehouse, etc.)

Already, more people have completed this year’s survey than last year, and the survey doesn’t close until February 4. If you haven’t yet taken the survey, please do so now. Five respondents will win a copy of David Kesmodel’s “The Domain Game” book as a thank you.