Photos and Highlights From the Closing Day (Saturday) at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas

The 2010 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas conference ended Saturday evening (Jan. 23) at the Hard Rock Hotel. The day wasn't scheduled to begin until 12 noon, but the start was moved up to 10am so the Latonas.com live domain auction that was interrupted by technical issues on Friday could be completed.

Saturday morning scene from the Latonas.com live domain auction that was completed 
after technical issues had forced it to shut down shortly after it had started Friday afternoon. 

The auction wound up producing a sales total of just over $456,000 with a South African ccTLD, Fly.co.za, emerging as the top individual sale at $65,000. Other notable sales included GoFish.com ($50,000), DietFood.com ($49,000), CatFood.com ($41,000), MotorcycleHelmets.com ($35,000) and MenSuits.com ($30,000). 

A pair of afternoon seminars followed, beginning with a session on how to optimize your domain portfolio for the best possible monetization results. The panel featured (left to right in the photo below) Jon Waterman (DomainGateway.com), Donny Simonton (Parked.com) Dan Warner (DomainAdvertising.com) and Richard Lau (DomainManager.com).

The panelists discussed the importance of selecting the right keywords for your PPC landing pages and the relative pros and cons of 2-click, 1-click and even zero-click landing pages. The latter involves sending people who land on your domain directly to a relevant advertiser rather than presenting them with a page on links (Waterman's DomainGateway.com utilizes this model which has also worked for companies like Sendori.com).

The second session was devoted to playing the drop market and featured panelists (left to right in the photo below) Rob Monster (Epik.com), Steve Brown (NameJet.com) and Kellie Peterson (Name.com).

The panelists discussed the attributes that make some dropping domains desirable and the services you can use to research and pursue the names worth going after. I'll have more details on all of the conference's business sessions in a comprehensive conference review article that we will be publishing soon.

The show's final event was the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Test Track, a session that gave operators of seven online businesses who are seeking investment capital a chance to pitch their proposals to a panel of investors. The investors group included (left to right in the photo below) Jon Waterman (DomainGateway), Gregg McNair (PPX International), Tony Morgan (an Atlanta based angel investor) and Rick Latona (Latonas.com).

John Deneen (BuyersGuide.com)
 impressed the panel of investors 
during T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Test Track.

While none of the business owners wound up securing an investment, it still might happen for BuyersGuide.com owner John Deneen who impressed the panel with his detailed presentation. Deneen is seeking $2 million in exchange for 40% of his company. Waterman asked to schedule a meeting with Deneen after the conference to learn more and see if they can come to an agreement. 

With their first U.S. show proving to be a crowd pleaser, Rick Latona and his team (who took over promotion of 5 of this year's 6 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conferences) now turn their attention to their next event in Milan, Italy April 27-29.

I will also be switching focus now to the DOMAINfest Global conference that runs Tuesday through Thursday (Jan. 26-28) at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California. You can read our show preview article here.  I will be traveling on to Los Angeles for the show tomorrow so there won't be a Monday Lowdown post. I hope to see you back here on Tuesday!