Go Daddy founder to give keynote presentation at DOMAINfest.
I didn’t see this coming, but it’s brilliant: Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons will keynote February’s DOMAINfest Global conference in Santa Monica.
DOMAINfest is run by Oversee.net, which owns Moniker. Go Daddy is certainly its #1 competitor for domain registration. Go Daddy is the biggest domain name registrar and manages perhaps 20 times as many domains as Moniker. But DOMAINfest is an industry conference, and Oversee.net has done a good job making it not just about them. Numerous competitors sponsor the event. This helps solidify that.
I believe this is the first time Parsons has attended a domain name industry event since Domain Roundtable over 5 years ago. Having Parsons at the event will do a few things:
-Bring more mainstream attention to the conference; Go Daddy is the company in the industry that gets the most mainstream press.
-Ensure that more Go Daddy employees attend. They’re hit or miss at conferences (Bob has said he’s not a fan of tradeshows). Surely he’ll bring an entourage. (Hopefully he sticks around for the Playboy Mansion party. It seems right up his alley.)
-Help solidify that it’s an industry conference; not just an Oversee conference.
This is frankly one of the first keynotes in a while that I’m interested in seeing. Parsons is not a one-hit-wonder. He sold off his last business to Intuit, and now has created a business worth over $1B.
Brash and egotistical? Sure. But show me someone with his success who isn’t.
I’ve only talked to Parsons twice, and both were related to the same thing: Standard Tactics. You might imagine they were uncomfortable conversations, but they really weren’t. The first was shortly after I published my story on Standard Tactics, and the second was on his live radio show. I came away impressed. I’m sure he would have rather me not expose Standard Tactics, but he made some changes immediately afterward. For example, my story had pointed out that Go Daddy was effectively bidding against its customers by raising the starting bids for high traffic expired domains. He said he hadn’t looked at it that way before and would change it immediately. Then on his radio show he announced he was shutting down Standard Tactics’ operation. He even brought a bit of humor — albeit with spin — to the situation.
Bottom line: Parsons is the most successful person in the domain name industry. This was a smart move by Oversee.net, a smart move by Go Daddy, and a keynote everyone should attend.
DennyCCC says
Parsons? No thanks – I’d rather hear Don King speak again. I’m not kidding.
traffic king says
Finally a domain conference with a speaker who knows something about domains. Rick Schwartz has never brought anyone even remotely familiar with domain names to his shows. Unbelievable really but with Rick nothing is unbelievable. You are right Persons is themes successful man in the business a true domain king.
Mooki says
Agree great choice. Parsons is the man. I heard that Schwartz and Neu were going to invite their mentor to speak at the next TRAFFIC conference however unfortunately Bernie Madoff is not currently available to do public speaking engagements.
Francois says
Andrew, you should do as TheDomains.com and no longer let anonymous people comment and more when it’s for this kind of comments, this probably refrain others to participate.
Bob Parsons is for sure a great choice.
Francois says
Oops!
Francois from Domaining.com
Mooki says
Francois you should mind your own business. Your time would be better spent trying to improve the quality of your own website. Your latest escrow site is an absolute joke and it looks like one too
Mooki
Bashkim says
I am really happy to hear that DrParson ( not a real doctor) is going to talk about domain business. If anyone knows this business inside out is Mr Parsons. Many congratulations to Dr Parsons.
Joe says
Bob is a real web entrepreneur. I’m sure we all would have something to learn from him.
The Domaining World At A Glance says
maybe, he will say something about the rumored (but now deleted) GoDaddy company sale
Dave Zan says
Frank Schilling? Well, not on running a successful registrar anyway. 🙂
Stock Watch says
That’s excellent news. Good thing it’s in Feb, I will actually be able to attend DomainFest this year. Too bad I missed Tony’s keynote last year, but I’m looking forward to Bob’s.
Wargy says
I think it is great that Oversee got biker Bob todo the keynote.
A next step to industry conference indeed.
I guess it willbe a very intresting keynote.
Steve M says
Excellent decisions on both parties part.
A resultant 30+% boost in DF attendance wouldn’t surprise.
Francois says
Mooki, how can you treat of joke a service that has still not be launched?
It’s what I said, Andrew should make some filtering…
ViperD says
Francois,
Your broken English makes me laugh…OL. 🙂
Jothan says
He’s a great speaker, as he showed at the 2005 Domain Roundtable Conference (glad you liked it, Andrew).
http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover052605roundtable-daily.htm
RegisterNuke.com says
It’s good to see Mr. Parsons doing a conference, it is rare and he will definitely bring more “enthusiasm and life” to DOMAINfest.
I wonder if he’ll bring his infamous female entourage along with him. That would be the icing on the cake.