Survey: Rick Latona Most Influential in Domain Industry

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Results of survey for “most influential” person in domain industry.

Rick LatonaMirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the most influential of them all?

The answer is Rick Latona, according to the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey.

The question of who has the most influence on the domain name industry is always controversial. I received a number of comments this year about what this question means. Can influence be only good? Can it be a company? Really, it’s up to you to decide.

But in the end, the race for “most influential” wasn’t even close. 50 people wrote in Rick Latona, who is quickly building an empire of domain name services. (You can read more about Latona’s story in this DNJournal profile.)

Some of Latona’s more popular services include his domain sales newsletter. He’s also active in the live domain name auction business and is running five of this year’s TRAFFIC conferences. Latona isn’t shy about his ambitions, and is willing to cut his losses when necessary. This past year he shuttered his AEIOU minisite service.

Of course, Latona isn’t the only one getting press in this industry. Here are other top picks, including the number of write-in votes.

Rick Schwartz 33 (TRAFFIC co-founder)
Bob Parsons 22 (Go Daddy)
Frank Schilling 21 (Name Administration)
Ron Jackson 14 (DNJournal)
Rod Beckstrom 11 (ICANN)

See more survey results here.

Further Reading:

  1. Survey: Schwartz and Parsons Have Most Influence on Domain Name Industry
  2. Rick Latona Auctions Teams up With Domain Capital
  3. Survey Focus: Most Influential Person in Domains

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7 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by

Comments

  1. dfgdfg
    February 15th, 2010 | 10:24 am

    Imho most influential person in domain industry is whoever leads domain parking division at Google. None of the persons mentioned above influences even 1% of that.

  2. rob sequin
    February 15th, 2010 | 11:37 am

    Rick, congrats. You got my vote.

    Keep up the great work.

  3. Jim Holleran
    February 15th, 2010 | 12:06 pm

    They are all great choices but I have to say Ron Jackson #1.

    Thanks, Jim

  4. Belmassio
    February 15th, 2010 | 1:53 pm

    Rod Beckstrom b/c he can destroy us all with a wave of his corrupt ICANN wand !

  5. Daniel Dryzek
    February 15th, 2010 | 7:36 pm

    I voted for Rod Beckstrom, too..

  6. sgsdg
    February 16th, 2010 | 9:33 am

    Sorry, back in the real world the CEO of the largest domain registrar simply has to be the single most influential figure.

    Most of the others are just personalities – how much influence does Rick Schwartz have? Can he take decisions that affect millions of domain registrants? Even Rod Beckstrom cannot make unilateral decisions.

    Bizarre!

  7. Louise
    February 17th, 2010 | 6:42 pm

    Rick Latona represents the positive future of domains; the other (who I voted for) represents, I’m sorry to say, the bleak prospect.

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