DOMAINfest draws a large crowd.
DOMAINfest’s Power Networking day in New York City attracted more than 200 people for the all-day event.
The morning started with Oversee.net CEO Jeff Kupietzky delivering a strong talk on five myths of the domain name industry, which you can read here.
Next, Naresh Rekhi of comScore gave an overview of trends in internet usage that are applicable to domainers, especially as they choose which domains to build out. Rekhi was followed by a fireside chat with David Mason of AOL’s content platform.
Then there was a networking session where attendees networked with experts in four areas: local search, legal, affiliate marketing, and online advertising trends.
The auction was a bit slow on sales, but when added to the Tshirts.com sale the number will end up being respectable. It appears that a deal may be in the works on another one of the big dollar domains in the auction, so I hesitate to report an auction total yet. There were a lot of excellent but expensive domains, so I suspect there will be a lot of post-auction dealing with big buyers.
Tonight there will be a closing dinner and party at the hotel.
A few take-aways from this conference:
-Moniker has proven that its Power Networking days are a strong draw, with over 200 attendees for a one day conference.
-Taking place in a large city and with a low admission cost, the conference attracted a lot of first-time attendees. Many of them are web developers who are interested in domains. I also met a building contractor who has discovered the power of keyword domains.
-A lot of media came for the auction, including a cameraman for CNN.
Jay Lohmann says
I REALLY hope the main stream media reports on this auction. I just had a twitter conversation with 35-year old SEO-type who still thinks the domain industry nothing but squatters. He should know better being so close to the industry, but I still wish main street knew more about us. Was talking with GoDaddy yesterday trying to get them to point their marketing guns at pushing Geo-niche or Product domain names in their advertising, vs. just “Get ‘your’ or ‘a’ domain here. They should be say ‘get ‘your “geo-niche” “service” or “product” domain here.
Jay Lohmann
LeadGenerationDirectories.com
WQ says
I don’t think it was slow on sales at all. This is one of the biggest auctions in like 2 years…as far as how much it brought in.
Andrew Allemann says
@ WQ – during the auction itself it was under $600k. They’ll end up closing a lot more, but I wouldn’t call it big.
M. Menius says
@Jay – “… who still thinks the domain industry nothing but squatters.”
These individuals are 1. truly ignorant & unable to analyze anything accurately on their own, or 2. blatantly dishonest, envious.
Deke says
I agree with M. Menius.
Thy folks that make these comments are folks that could never make it in the real business world.
So many developers are the dumbest folks I know when speaking of the Net. Why the heck is that?
Bo says
Dot com bust: XXX.com, Alcohol.com among unsold names at DomainFest New York
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/08/19/2010-08-19_dot_com_bust_xxxcom_alcoholcom_among_unsold_names_at_domainfest_new_york.html
Sunny says
My first pic in a newspaper is from the back with the word XXX in headlines.
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/08/19/2010-08-19_dot_com_bust_xxxcom_alcoholcom_among_unsold_names_at_domainfest_new_york.html
Jay Lohmann says
I’m so tired of the use sensationalism to sell newspapers. Or, maybe in this case, they just have no idea what they are talking about.
XXX.com didnt sell because it was priced to high and the business model of selling ‘Free’ products or services just isnt attractive to most businessmen/women. Plus, that industry is so far beyond branding and SEO its not even funny. It’s all affiliate relationships and building massive inbound links for them.
Alcohol.com didnt sell because rubbing alcohol is cheap as dirt and you can buy it at every convenience store on every corner. If you’re looking for drinking alcohol, you’re typing specific terms like beer, wine, whiskey, vodka.
It wasn’t a dotcom bust, it was just a case of over-priced inventory. Maybe the strategy is to introduce it at a high price, then sell post auction at a ‘discount’. Most were great names that I’m sure we’ll see again.
WQ says
Well, it was a big number until they adjusted what *really* sold. Always something shady going on.