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At the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference in New York City last June, Michael, David and
Patrick extended the invitation for me to come to San Francisco this
fall to speak and meet their AC colleagues. Though it didn't start
out as a story assignment, as soon as I met the organization's other
leaders for the first time, I knew I had to write an article about
this group and their gathering because what they are doing now
may well be what many of you will be doing in the future.
That is building a full scale ecommerce site and/or media property
on a blue chip domain name.
Michael
Castello (left) and David Castello speaking at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
New York - June 2007
Associated Cities was started three years ago
by a group of leading .com city geo domain owners who felt
everyone who owned a domain in that category could benefit by working
together to share ideas and cross promoting each other's
properties. Since every city is unique no member was in direct
competition
with another. The concept clicked and with membership essentially a
no-brainer, new city .com owners are continually joining the family.
For our readers, I think the most important
thing to understand about AC members is that this a different group
of people, with a completely different focus than those who
own large domain portfolios and monetize their assets through
pay per click parking or domain sales. Most of our readers fall into
the latter category but over the past couple of years many in that
group - disenchanted with lower PPC revenue trends despite a huge
surge in online advertising - have started exploring the
development path that AC members took long ago. While developing
obviously entails much more work and there are no guarantees of success,
a single home run can produce more revenue than thousands of parked
domains combined.
| The first day at the Expo, November 15, was
devoted to meetings and seminars for Associated Cities
members only (the two-day public conference opened on the
16th). On the afternoon of the 15th I was at the podium to
give members a preview of the talk I would give the next day
and to conduct a question and answer session. To be sure my
perception of their interests was accurate I asked for a
show of hands to see how many in the crowd owned or was
interested in owning and monetizing a large portfolio of
domain names. Very few raised their hand. Most of the attendees
had concentrated their efforts on acquiring and operating a
relatively small number of key |
Seminar
at 2007 GeoDomain Expo |
| properties that they were developing into full
scale businesses. For them it was more about quality
(especially in terms of development potential) than
quantity. |
It was also interesting to see that most of the large portfolio
owners who were there were
familiar faces to me who were attending their first GeoDomain Expo -
people like Canadian partners Shaun Pilfold and Rob
Montgomery, who have had success monetizing large portfolios but
are now taking it to the next level and starting to build out some
of their key properties. Pilfold told me "You know a lot of us
who have large portfolios have been talking for years about doing
something with the best domains we have. I finally got tired of
talking about it and decided to start doing it. I'm learning a
lot of new things from this group."
| At the end of the members only day, Associated
Cities Chairman Dan Pulcrano, whose SanFrancisco.com
site served as the show host, treated attendees to a trolley
ride through the streets of San Francisco and a tour of his
company's offices. Pulcrano owns a phenomenal group of major
U.S. city domains, including LosAngeles.com, Philadelphia.com,
Dallas.com and others. All together he holds 20 of
the 30 largest American city .com domains.
My wife and I had dinner with Pulcrano and Mauricio
Mejia (who arranged the Expo's evening social events)
later that night and it was a pleasure to learn about Dan's
background and beliefs as well as some of the things we have
in common (both of us had started our first publications
before we reached high school). Pulcrano has spent almost
all of his adult life as a publisher and journalist (in
addition to his online properties he operates a number of
popular print weeklies in California) and is devoted
to building great media outlets on his city domains. It is
going to be a lot of fun watching him develop one of the
world's great new media networks in the years ahead. |
Dan
Pulcrano
AssociatedCities Chairman |
It was also a treat to meet and listen to so many of the other
giants in the geo domain space, including Skip Hoagland (Atlanta.com,
MyrtleBeach.com and BuenosAires.com as well as
non-geo monsters like Fishing.com and Hunting.com), Sean
Miller (NewYorkCity.com), Josh Metnick (Chicago.com)
and Barry Hodge (Richmond.com) as well as up and
coming stars like Jessica Bookstaff (PigeonForge.com
and Durango.com) and Fred Mercaldo (Scottsdale.com).
There are valuable lessons to be learned from all of them and as
interest in developing grows among our readers, I expect to be
writing more about people like this in the months and years
ahead.
| If this is a direction you are
interested in going, I think you could jump start your plans
by attending future AC events. Since this was my first trip
to the GeoDomain Expo I concentrated primarily on meeting
the people involved in this space which often meant spending
time chatting |
|
Truman
Hedding, VP of Internet
Marketing for Boulevards New Media
speaking at the 2007 GeoDomain Expo |
in the halls while some of the seminars were
going on. However I did attend enough of the educational
sessions to see the high value they offer anyone who wants
to develop a business on their domain name (whether it be in
the geo space or some other category). The seminars centered
on development issues such as building content, attracting
advertisers, the best SEO techniques and
incorporating new technologies to improve your site.
The two-day public Expo got underway Friday morning (Nov.
16) with Dan Pulcrano's State of the Industry
update on developments in the geo domain world and Moniker
CEO Monte Cahn's preview of Saturday's first ever
live geo domain auction. A trio of morning seminars followed
featuring these timely topics; Building a GeoDomain
from Scratch (featuring panelists Michael
Castello, Jessica Bookstaff, Sean Miller
and Fred Mercaldo) , Cracking the Content Code (presented
by Brad Shapiro, Truman Hedding and Thomas
Rask), and Advertising Sales & GeoDomain
Monetization (a one-man tour de force from David
Castello). |
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My keynote address
came during the luncheon that followed and a fair amount of
my time was spent confessing my envy of the geo domain
owners in the room (and the reasons why I think they are in
such a great position). I can't think of a better platform
for building a great media property than a definitive city
geo domain. I can see a not too distant future where well- |
|
Ron
Jackson speaking at the GeoDomain Expo |
developed city domains will be more important
and valuable than any of that city's newspapers, radio
stations or TV stations. Everything the traditional outlets
offer - print, audio and video - can be delivered through
the domain and it can be delivered globally at a tiny
fraction of the distribution cost incurred by old line media
operations whose circulation is limited to a small local
area. Holding the exact city name also gives the
domain registrant ownership of that city's "brand"
on the Internet and a never ending flow of search engine
independent traffic from around the world. It's a platform
that in the long run simply can't be beat.
After my talk, the Internet Commerce Association's
Legal Counsel and Washington D.C. lobbyist Phil
Corwin |
| took the stage to fill the geo domain owners in on the ICA's efforts to
fend off increasing attacks on the rights of domain
registrants. The ICA began just over a year ago and after
some initial growing pains appears to be gaining solid
traction through new memberships now as more and more domain
owners have come to realize that there is an organized
effort underway in Washington and within ICANN to get
laws and current UDRP procedures changed in a way
that would be extremely harmful to current domain
registrants. That is a separate story in itself and I will
talk more about it in our November newsletter that will be
going out before the end of the month. |
The afternoon session Friday included five more seminars and a
structured speed networking event. I spent those hours sampling the
panel discussions, visiting some of the company booths in the
exhibit area and talking with friends old and new. The seminar
titles will give you a sense of the broad range of development
issues that were addressed including Mapping Out SEO
Strategies, Positioning GeoDomains for Local Search,
Making the Most of Third Party Booking Engines, Incorporating
New Technologies and Innovation and PPC Parking &
GeoDomains.
eXtreme
Networking session at the 2007 GeoDomain Expo
Brad Spirrison, President of eXtreme Networking and
Midwest
Business Inc., oversaw the popular speed networking
event. The hour was set up to insure that each participant met 10
other people in their area of interest. This kind of session has
become a staple of just about every domain conference and for many
it is the highlight of the week.
The busy opening day continued well after the sun went down with
the first annual Geo Awards dinner, followed by TrafficZ's
official GeoDomain Expo Party at the Roe night club. I
had the honor of handing out awards in five categories at the
Awards dinner. PigeonForge.com
won as the best resort destination site and Jessica Bookstaff
accepted that award, Fred Mercaldo's Scottsdale.com
was named the top small-medium sized geo site, Richmond.com
was recognized for having the best local content (Barry Hodge
accepted the honor), Sean Miller's NewYorkCity.com
won for best overall U.S. site and BuenosAires.com
for best international site (Skip Hoagland accepted for his BuenosAires.com
team). The winners were chosen by their peer members from Associated
Cities and no one was allowed to vote for their own
site.
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Winners
of 1st Annual Geo Awards
At Right: Jessica Bookstaff,
PigeonForge.com
2nd row left: Fred Mercaldo,
Scottsdale.com
2nd row right: Barry Hodge,
Richmond.com
3rd row left: Sean Miller,
NewYorkCity.com
3rd row right: Skip Hoagland,
BuenosAires.com |
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After dinner the action switched to the Roe Night Club,
conveniently located just across the street from the conference
hotel. I thought this venue was an excellent choice because the
comfortable lounging areas and relatively low noise level made it
possible for networking conversations to go on around the club
without losing the party atmosphere people enjoy at night (see
photos below).
|
Ammar Kubba,
COO of the
party host - TrafficZ.com
and
Jen Sale, Partner Manager at the Domain
Distribution Network |
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(L
to R): Jessica Bookstaff, Jonathan Boswell (LeaseThis.com)
and Patrick Carleton at Roe |
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Roe
DJ spun the hits
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Eric
Litman (WashingtonVC Managing
Partner) and the firm's Regional
Manager Lori Anne Wardi |
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(Left
to right): Natalie Lambert, David Castello, Ron
Jackson and Diana Jackson |
The final day Saturday featured three morning seminars and
Moniker's latest live domain auction in the afternoon. Jothan
Frakes of DomainSponsor.com and Sedo.com CSO Matt
Bentley discussed the merits of .coms vs. other extensions in
the opening educational session. While membership in Associated
Cities is limited to .com owners, Bentley pointed out reasons why it
made sense to consider adding some other versions of your base
domain name - especially major country codes that provide an
advantage in local search engines as well as improved localization
of your marketing and additional type in traffic.
Ari Bayme of Modern Capital Group and Moniker's
Monte Cahn followed with a session on appraising and valuing domains
then DomainCapital.com
President Robert Alfano and Andrew Conru, who founded
the wildly popular FriendFinder Network in 1996, closed the seminar schedule
during a panel discussion on Raising Capital to
finance your development project.
DomainCapital
President Robert Alfano (L) and Andrew Conru,
Founder
of the FriendFinder Network, conducted a seminar on Raising
Capital
| After a break for lunch it was
time to close the show with Moniker's first live auction of
geo domain names. Moniker pioneered the live auction space
with their series of events at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conferences and are now expanding the concept by taking the
platform to more |
specialized trade shows like the GeoDomain
Expo. They are plowing new ground with each of these
narrowly focused auctions and each one presents a learning
curve that has to be navigated as they get to know the
nature of the bidders and what interests them in each
specific vertical. Those factors can vary dramatically from
event to event.
When the dust had cleared in San Francisco, 32 domains
had been sold for a total of just under $480,000 (an
average price of $14,232 per domain). Some, using
Moniker's more broadly based multi-million dollar
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auctions as a yardstick, deemed that a
disappointing number but Cahn said it was in line with his
expectations, pointing out that the
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Moniker.com
CEO Monte Cahn (left) and auctioneer
Joel Langbaum run the live domain auction
at the 2007 GeoDomain Expo |
total was higher than each of
the first three T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auctions. It's true that
Moniker is attempting to open new markets with these
specialty events and they will see varying results as they
get a handle on what plays best in each segment. The final
total for the GeoDomain Expo remains to be tallied because
an accompanying silent
auction is continuing through Wednesday,
November 28.
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My take on the auction was that this particular crowd is going to
be interested in only the very best geo domains - for example
a name like Perth.com, that did sell for $200,000.
Associated |
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Cities members hold some of the most valuable geo domain
real estate in the world - the exact names of well-known
cities. Few of them are interested in anything less because
their sole interest is in building one, or perhaps a
handful, of full blown businesses on true blue chip domains.
That is not to say that multiple word domains, like NewYorkMortgageRates.com
aren't decent domains that would be useful to the right buyer - just
that someone who owns NewYorkCity.com has little need to buy
up every domain that describes a product or service related
to their city. They already have the core name from which everything
can be sold. The more specific names can be useful in driving
traffic to the main site but there are an almost infinite number of
permutations, so most core .com city owners are not interested in
starting down that road. |
I would guess that buyers of multi-word geo
names and alternate extensions to .com will probably have to come
from a broader pool of potential customers than the highly
focused group at the GeoDomain Expo. If the second tier names are to
sell in quantity in conjunction with this event, I think it will be
necessary to woo off-site buyers who are interested in working these
smaller service or product specific niches within the geo space.
Scene
from the live auction at the 2007 GeoDomain Expo
I remain impressed with Moniker's tireless efforts to expand the
live auction format. They seem to be everywhere and they are taking
the risks necessary to learn what works and what doesn't in
untried markets so they can continue to build on their successful
franchise.
| After the auction those still on
hand scattered around the city for private dinners or got an
early start on the return trip home. One thing I would like
to see added to the schedule next time is an official
closing event (usually a celebratory cocktail party/casual
dinner at other conferences). This puts an exclamation mark
on a successful meeting by bringing everyone back together
for a final relationship-building social activity. It gives
everyone a chance to share |
| their view of the week's events and an
opportunity to set up future contacts with the people they
met. A great play gets a curtain call, a killer concert
demands an encore and a highly rewarding conference like the
GeoDomain Expo deserves no less.
For me, this show was a refreshing change of pace that
generated many new friendships and a wealth of ideas to
explore. I'm looking forward to doing it again and I can
tell you now that with the surge of interest in developing
real businesses on great domains, this show is sitting in a
sweet spot that is going to produce tremendous |
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| growth in the years ahead. I'm
told this year's conference doubled the size of last year's event
in Chicago and I would wager that is just the start.
Geo or no, if you are a domain developer you should give
the next GeoDomain Expo a go.
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