| By
Ron Jackson
After spending the first three years of
its life in the Seattle area, where its parent company Name
Intelligence, Inc. is based, the Domain Roundtable
conference pulled up stakes and hit the road for 2008. Show
organizers proved they could travel in style, settling into the
elegant Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco for
their April 18-21 run.
The show was sandwiched in between two other major conferences in
the City by the Bay, AdTech just before and Web 2.0 immediately
after Roundtable. The domain conference pulled some people from each
but that gain was offset by the dates conflicting with the Passover
holiday that kept some domainers of the Jewish faith at home or
resulted in them leaving early for seders
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The
fabulous Garden Court inside San Francisco's
Palace Hotel (site of 2008 Domain Roundtable)
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Attendees
chat at the opening night
cocktail party Friday (April 18) |
The event got underway
with a welcoming cocktail party Friday night (April 18) that gave
everyone a chance to mingle and take note of who was on hand. This
was the third major domain conference in four months so some of the
regular show goers probably felt like they’ve been seeing more of
their domain friends and colleagues than their own families lately.
I don’t think you will find anyone complaining about the frequent
opportunities to get together though – it’s rare to leave any
major conference without feeling much richer for having been there. Roundtable also drew a healthy sprinkling of new speakers and
registrants that kept things fresh.
Show director Susan Prosser and Name
Intelligence CEO Jay Westerdal deserve special credit for
programming a very informative and enjoyable series of seminars and
keynote sessions. A Roundtable staple, the CEO Roundtable,
kicked things off Saturday morning (April 19) with moderator Derek
Newman welcoming Ofer Ronin (Sendori.com), Jeremiah
Johnston (Sedo.com), Donny Simonton (Parked.com), Ed
Russell (NameDrive.com), Bill Mushkin (Name.com), Dan
Warner (Fabulous.com), Freddy Schiwek (EuroDNS.com) and Ammar
Kubba (TrafficZ.com) to the dais.
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Eight
leading domain industry executives gathered for the CEO Roundtable
session
By now you have probably heard the rumors that
TrafficZ's parent company, Thought Convergence, is buying Roundtable parent Name
Intelligence, Inc. I was given some inside information about this
rumored deal while in San Francisco, but those comments were made
off the record so I’m not at liberty to elaborate on it at this
time. As of this writing neither side has publicly confirmed or
denied a sale agreement has been reached but you can expect to hear some news
about this soon.
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Fabulous.com
COO Dan Warner |
There were interesting comments on a wide
variety of topics during the CEO session (for the record, some of
the participants fill CEO positions while others serve in other high
ranking executive roles). Fabulous.com’s COO Warner talked about
ways to create value at a time when PPC revenues are falling and the
general economy is in a widespread funk.
Using Glasgow.com
owner Tommy Butler as an example, Warner said Butler had accumulated
every other Glasgow related name he could get his hands on so he has
pretty well cornered the Internet market on all things related to
Glasgow. “Do you want to own the Internet?,” Warner asked?
“You can’t own all of it but you can own a slice of it
if you know how to go out there and create something that is
rare and valuable”
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Many of the following seminars would go into
specifics on how to do just that. Of course developing is hard
word and for those who do not have the stamina or temperament to
take it on alone, it is good to know that there are alternatives to
domain parking out there now. Several of those were discussed in the
next session Emerging Trends, Emerging Companies that
featured Ofer Ronin (Sendori),
Gary Kamikawa (Mpire), Geoff
Nuval (EVO Landing) and
Scott Fasser (Domain
Strategies). Michael Gilmour (Whizzbang’s
Blog and ParkLogic.com) served as the moderator.
Emerging
Trends panel (L to R): Ofer Ronin, Gary Kamikawa,
Geoff Nuval & Scott Fasser
Each of the companies represented is taking a
different approach toward domain monetization and/or
development. For example in Sendori’s system, your traffic can be
sent to a specific advertiser when that advertiser will pay more for
your visitors than can be earned from a traditional PPC page. That
eliminates some parking headaches such as the necessity to optimize
keywords or text on each landing page. Since the wide scope of this
article goes not allow us space to go into details on the various
offerings out there, I would encourage you to explore the sites of
each panel participant to see what they offer (each company name is
hot linked in the previous paragraph to make that easy for
you).
| Michael Gilmour stayed on the platform to moderate the next session Parking Analyzed that
featured an all-star five man panel. Ammar Kubba, Donny Simonton and
Dan Warner all returned and were joined by Ed Russell (NameDrive.com)
and Don Ham, (Reinvent and HitFarm.com).
Gilmour is probably
the top blogger on the subject of parking and since he led this
discussion I think the best way to give you a sense of what was
covered in this session is to direct you to what Michael
wrote about it on his blog right after the conference ended.
Gilmour also had an interesting follow-up
post a few days later on the topic of “fear” in the
marketplace that Ed Russell brought up during this session when he
said that some people were panicking prematurely. Kubba noted that
with PPC revenue down industry wide, the top companies were working
on diversifying revenue streams through lead generation, leasing and
other methods.
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Moderator
Michael Gilmour |
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One of the newest innovations in the parking
space was unveiled at the luncheon that followed. It was sponsored
by NameMedia and their Senior VP Brian Carr used the
occasion to |
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NameMedia
VP Brian Carr announces the
launch of SmartNameShops |
introduce SmartNameShops, a new product for
clients of their high end PPC service, SmartName.com.
This platform merges ecommerce shopping functions with the
traditional parking page, opening up an entirely new revenue stream
for domains that are accepted into the program. You can see examples
of SmartName Shops at ToyCatalog.com
and NotebookPC.com.
This is a very interesting advance in the space and others will no
doubt scramble to match it or roll out new twists of their own. One
thing you have to love about this business is no one is ever
standing still. With recent declines in PPC revenue anything that
holds the promise of squeezing new revenue out of direct navigation
traffic will be warmly welcomed.
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After lunch, I strolled through
the exhibition hall to visit the various sponsor's booths. Fabulous.com
used some cool props to drew attention to their company and
the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Down Under conference they will be staging on Australia's
Gold Coast in November 2008.
Fabulous.com
COO Dan Warner tries to manage his menagerie at the
company's booth.
The afternoon session got underway
with Google’s Matt
Cutts providing one of the true show highlights as he
took the microphone for a 90-minute question and answer session that gave |
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attendees some invaluable insight into how Google ranks sites and what
site owners can do to gain better placement in the dominant
search engine (hint – unique and frequently updated
content is a solid #1, followed by incoming links from
reputable sites). Cutts is a very personable and engaging
speaker and no one knows the subject matter better than
him.
I’m sure legendary domainer Scott Day
was impressed when he asked Cutts to analyze a diamond retail
affiliate site he operates. Day thought he had everything optimized
the way it should be but still wasn’t getting as good a ranking as
he expected. Cutts brought up the site and within seconds spotted
several small things that could be changed to boost the site’s ranking.
Cutts suggested that people visit Google’s Webmaster
Central page that has links to a number of great tools
and guidelines that will help you get the most out of your site.
After his session I heard several people comment that just hearing
Cutts was worth what they paid to attend the entire week.
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Google's
Matt Cutts makes a point
during his well-received Q & A session. |
Matt’s appearance was the perfect lead-in to
the next seminar – SEO Experts & Best Practices,
a panel that included Vanessa Fox (Ignition Partners), Rand
Fishkin (SEOmoz), Dave Bascom (SEO.com), John Tompkins
(Trellian) and webmaster/SEO expert John Andrews delved
deeper the subject of Search Engine Optimization. Among the many
pieces of solid advice dispensed by this panel was that you find a
niche that doesn’t have too much competition. Rather than go head
to head with major companies with much deeper pockets than you have,
look for a category you are passionate about where you can become
the expert in your field.
SEO
Experts (L to R): John Andrews, Dave Bascomb, Rand
Fishkin,
Vanessa Fox and John Tompkins
That panel closed Saturday’s seminar session
and gave way to the first of two major evening events – the annual
Name Intelligence Awards Dinner. Winners were chosen in ten
categories through open balloting on the Roundtable website and
among the thousands of DomainTools members (or where applicable,
winners were based on industry statistics, such at the registrar net
gain award). The winners were:
Registrar with the
Largest Net Gain - GoDaddy
Best Registrar for Resellers - Enom
Outstanding Drop Catcher - NameJet
Outstanding Secondary Market - Sedo
Best Registrar - Moniker
Best Parking Company (tie): Sedo and Parked.com
Best Aftermarket - Afternic
Best Forum - DNForum.com
Best Industry Coverage - DNJournal.com
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Best Blog Community (3-way tie): SevenMile.com (Frank Schilling),
Elliot's Blog (Elliot Silver) and Domain Name News (Adam
Strong and FrankMichlick). |
After the Awards dinner everyone boarded
buses for Club 443 where TrafficZ hosted a fundraising
casino night party “Gamble for Good” to benefit Grassroots.org.
Attendees donated money for chips and at the end of the night those
with the highest winnings were given an array of prizes provided by
sponsors. The photos below will give you a glimpse into a very
entertaining evening that brought down the curtain on the Saturday
schedule at Roundtable.
Greg
Ricks (far right) dispenses advice at the blackjack table.
Michael
Castello, Clelia El Adl and David Castello on
a winning streak.
The
craps table draws a crowd
Enjoying the action (left to right): Greg McNair,
Charissa McCuen, Ammar Kubba and Danielle Hoon.
Coming
up on Page 2:
- Finger Pointing Begins
After a Lackluster Live Auction
- Former Sex.com Owner
Gary Kremen's keynote address
- Advertising and
Marketing Tips from the Experts
- Inside the After Show
Party
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