Survey Focus: Most Influential Person in Domains

Here’s a focus on a new question on the 3rd Annual Domain Name Wire survey.

Over 300 people have already completed the 3rd annual Domain Name Wire survey. If you haven’t done so yet, please take 3 minutes to complete the survey. You will be eligible to win a $100 credit at the domain registrar of your choice.

There are a few new questions on the domain survey this year, and I wanted to bring your attention to them. This post will cover the question “Which person has the most influence on the domain industry?”

Here are the options and a little bit about each person (in random order)

Bob Parsons – Parsons is founder of GoDaddy. Known for his brash leadership style and belief that “sex sells” (ala his Super Bowl commercials), Parsons isn’t afraid to speak his mind. He’s generally credited with putting domain registration into the hands of the masses and for driving down the cost of registration.

Rick Schwartz – Schwartz is one divisive character. He founded the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domain conferences, which have been rightfully credited with bringing a fragmented industry together. People love him or hate him. There’s a new (and rather humorous) parody blog about him. You know you’ve made it big when you’re parodied. He also isn’t scared of controversy. Did you know that he owned CNN-sucks.com while he negotiated the sale of iReport.com to the company? So says Whois. As a note, Schwartz is currently leading the polling for this question by a rather large margin.

Jay Westerdal – Westerdal is a successful entrepreneur who runs Name Intelligence. You probably know the company for its flagship product DomainTools. The company also runs the Domain Roundtable conferences.

Frank Schilling – He’s a hero to a lot of people in the domain industry, thanks in part to his mix of humbleness combined with offhand comments about how he makes $100 when he takes a breath. He bet it all earlier this decade and won. Until recently, he also blogged about 10 times a day at SevenMile.com.

Monte Cahn – The energetic leader of Moniker and its associated companies, Cahn is credited with bringing live domain auctions to the forefront and for creating a “domainers’ registrar”.

Sahar Sarid – from humble beginnings, Sarid studied the domain industry and founded Recall Media. He blogs frequently at Conceptualist.com.

Kevin Ham – billed as “The man who owns the internet” by Business 2.0, Ham owns a wealth of domain names and struck a deal with Cameroon to squat on domains when people mistype the extension .com as .cm.

Ron Jackson – Jackson is one of the most likable people in the industry. Getting to the domain game earlier this decade, he brought transparency to the industry with his DNJournal.com site. He’s known for never saying a bad thing about anyone and always helping people get started in the industry. Recently he has started getting involved with domain companies such as Bido. He’s quoted in just about every mainstream article about the domain industry.

Dan Warner – Warner is an analytical problem solver who runs Dark Blue Sea (parent company of Fabulous). He digs into the details of the domain industry to create new solutions such as the Domain Distribution Network.

Ron Sheridan – Go to any domain conference and you’ll see Sheridan talking up a storm. A long time figure in the industry, his main role is running DomainSponsor.

Mike “Zappy” Zapolin – Zapolin is Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Internet Real Estate Group, owner of such domains as Software.com and Chocolate.com. Coming from a finance background, he’s a deal man in the industry. His only regret is probably selling CreditCards.com for too little.

How they were selected
Any list of influential people in the domain industry is incomplete. I asked for initial feedback in an earlier article, which led to choosing these people. Survey participants also have the option of writing in a name.