Oversee.net president discusses state of the domain name industry; seeks transparency and cooperation.
Oversee.net president Jeff Kupietzky kicked off the first full day of DOMAINfest Global this morning with a parody of a Barack Obama speech (see video below). It was a light-hearted way to discuss the difficulties and opportunities the domain name industry faces. His underlying message was that we’re in tough times, but these tough times will breed opportunity. In order for the industry to succeed, domain companies must look outward and exhibit transparency.
Kupietzky said the domain parking and aftermarket business is shrinking. While valued at $1.2 billion in 2007, the business fell to $1.0 billion in 2008. Oversee predicts it will shrink further to $0.9 billion in 2009. Futhermore, Kupietzky predicts many of the companies in the space today will disappear during the downturn.
I sat down with Kupietzky this afternoon to understand more of his views on the domain market and Oversee.
Kupietzky said he understands that at times Oversee has made mistakes, but said the company is moving to a new era of transparency and predictability. He urges the industry to do the same. A prime example is traffic quality and working with Google to ensure value to advertisers. For years the domain industry has fought the issue of quality. But in the long run, the domain industry thrives when it delivers quality traffic. Working with Google and other ad partners is essential.
Oversee created DOMAINfest not because it wanted to be in the show business, but because it felt there were no opportunities for partners and domainers to come together in an open environment (without worrying about prohibitive costs, invitations, etc.) I admit it’s rather remarkable to see many of the company’s competitors exhibiting. Even more remarkable is that Google and Yahoo are both here and talking one-on-one with domainers in a structured networking session.
This years’ show will be slightly smaller than last year in terms of attendees, but there are more exhibitors. I estimate about 200 people attended yesterday’s “bootcamp” and there are 500 people at the show.
Stay tuned for further updates from Los Angeles. For photos, see Domain Name News’
Frank Michlick’s Flickr page
Johnny says
I did not realize the market was shrinking that much. You would think with even more domains being added every day that the market would be holding steady or slightly increasing at the least.
Transparency? I love it. Let’s see what they talking about besides working with Google to “cull” our domain lists. Will our payout go up if our domains are awesome? 🙂
EM @KING.NET says
Where have you been johnny? 🙂
EM @KING.NET says
Kidding aside, thanks for sharing the video to us.
Cheers.
jp says
I was wondering if anyone else noticed the discrepancies on the slide showing that even the the economy crahsed, domains are still going up in value.
They listed like 6 domain sales on the slide, 3 of which shows the domain being sold after last summer, but then 3 from before last summer, one that sold in like 2007.
How is a domain that sold for $x in 2006, but then sold again for $x++ in 2007 an indicator of how domains are still going up even though the economy is going down?
Am I missing something here?