As a much appreciated concession to those who were up late, the final day's schedule on Wednesday (Jan. 23) didn't begin until 10:15am when Internet Commerce Association Legal Counsel and Washington lobbyist Phil Corwin and the ICA's Executive Director Michael Collins provided an update on the domain industry's trade organization. I write frequently about the ICA (and serve on the association's Board of Directors) because I believe the group is filling a critical role that has to be filled if the rights and assets of domain owners are to be protected from those who would like to take them away. I won't belabor the point again here as I have already talked about it several times elsewhere on the site this week. 

ICA Executive Director Michael Collins 
and Legal Counsel Phil Corwin (right) seek support for the industry's non-profit trade association at DOMAINfest Global 

Instead, let me just encourage you to go to the ICA website to learn more or check out our latest newsletter for some of my personal comments about the group.  If you make your living in this industry I urge you to check it out, get involved and take an active role in helping yourself and other domain owners protect their futures. 

Corwin noted during his talk that if just half the people in the room joined the ICA it would raise $120,000 - enough to fund a full-time PR agency to work on behalf of the industry to counter the falsehoods and mischaracterizations that are commonly spread by those who have their eyes on your assets. With additional resources we could do things like establish a legal defense fund to help domain owners who are targeted in reverse highjacking attempts or to fund key cases that would establish important precedents. This industry is growing up and great times are ahead of us if we pull together and protect the business we have collectively built over the past ten-plus years. 

One more line was added to that slide before Battelle closed. It said "He who provides the best experience will win in the long term." For the many people in this business shifting their focus to development, hearing Battelle alone was well worth the cost of the trip to Hollywood.

The Wednesday luncheon was a delightful change of pace with a humorous Domainer Worst Practices program hosted by moderator Jothan Frakes and the cohorts (left to right in the photo below);  attorney Mike Rodenbaugh (Yahoo!'s former Sr. Legal Director), attorney Brett Fausett and Google's former Domain Channel head - now independent filmmaker - Eytan Elbaz. 

Borrowing from David Letterman they counted down the Top Ten Worst Domainer Practices with some hilarious emails and examples of each. Unfortunately space won't allow us to bring you all of the extra material that made a lot of these come  to life but for the record the Worst Ten were:

10. Manage Your Domains With Dozens of Different Registrars

9. "Cybersquishing" = Cybersquatting + Phishing

8. Passing on A Good Opportunity 

7. People Skills...Get Them and Use Them (an example was an email exchange in which the owner of a reg fee quality domain wrote "We were offered $9 million for this domain by a multi-billion dollar corporation. We rejected it. How much more than $10 million are you willing to offer us?"

6. (one of my favorites): Watch the business news for new product launches, register corresponding domain names, offer them back to poor foresight corporations for big bucks, Wonder why sued!

5. Don't write copy? Use RSS feeds so you don't have to create your own content. Suck down and repurpose them, nobody will mind...right?

4. Build traffic to your sites by adding links in comments and trackbacks all over the internet.

3. Brand your company with a .net (this entry was partly used as a self-deprecatory joke on show host Oversee.net who has defied conventional wisdom and done pretty darn well with a .net)

2. Appraisals "on crack" (I think everyone is familiar with this one)

and....drum roll please....

1. Don't Drink and register (another one that needs no explanation!)

After lunch the week's round of seminars ended with a single session with everyone together in the grand ballroom. The closing topic, Understanding the Big Picture, provided an excellent industry overview and thus a fitting conclusion to the week's educational program.

(Photo above) Your humble servant moderating that closing seminar. I couldn't help but smile when I looked at my panelists. With Rob Hall (CEO, Momentous Corp.), Monte Cahn (CEO, Moniker.com), David Liu (Managing Director of investment banker Jefferies Group) and Paul Sloan (Fortune Magazine Senior Writer) (seen left to right in the photo below) I knew my job was going to be easy. Any one of these guys could talk for an hour and keep people interested.

(Two photos above courtesy of www.InTouchStudios.com)

Sloan (at far right above) has written two of the most influential mainstream magazine articles ever penned about this business, both for Business 2.0 magazine - Masters of Their Domains in 2005 and The Man Who Owns the Internet (about Kevin Ham) in 2007. Sloan said he knew he was onto to something from the huge volume of email he got in response to those articles. He said it was amazing that some of the smartest people in the business world - venture capitalists and Wall Street veterans - had completely missed the domain opportunity. However he added that they are quickly trying to make up for lost time now. Still, as Sloan noted, many of the best assets remain in the hands of private individuals who saw the opportunity years ago and acted on it - making the domain business a great story about underdogs who beat the odds.

David Liu confirmed what Sloan said about the increase in interest in this space among venture capitalists and larger firms looking to get a piece of the pie by buying existing companies outright. Though the general economy is looking shaky, Liu predicted there is still lots of growth ahead for the domain industry and as a result we will see more and more mergers and acquisitions.

Hall said that ICANN will approve dozens and possibly hundreds of new TLDs, starting as soon as late this year. There is a lot of debate about how adding so many new extensions will affect existing TLDs. Hall said he thinks such a large introduction of new extensions would educate people to the fact that there are many options available and boost adoption of alternatives to the dominant .com extension. 

I thought one of Hall's most interesting and insightful comments was about the amount of misinformation being spread around the domain business. He said you have to remember that people posting on blogs, in forums and on other web platforms are your competitors. He said he has personally seen people post statements online about how bad certain TLDS are at the same time they are quietly buying those same TLDs up themselves. Hall is in a position to know that because he can see who is placing orders with his company's registrars and drop catching service. Moral of the story - don't believe everything you read (unless it is in DN Journal of course!)

DOMAINfest roving reporter Jim Grace (right) interviewing Howard Hoffman

Rebel.com's Marie Prentice (left) and Kindha Gorman flex their muscles 
while an obviously impressed Jason Lavigne looks on

At 4PM Wednesday it was time for day 2 of the SnapNames Live auction - another 3-hour extravaganza and one that, thanks to a stronger domain inventory than the icebreaker Tuesday, produced $2.3 million in sales, running the two-day total to a very respectable $3.1 million. Not bad for the first time out of the box...and that wasn't the end of it. A 10-day silent auction was also conducted in conjunction with the show and when it ended Jan. 31 another $916, 583 was in the till, pushing the final DOMAINfest auction gross a hair over $4 million. You can review all of the individual auction sales here. 

Packed ballroom for the SnapNames Live domain auction

...and so the curtain came down on a great show that produced some real innovations that pushed the industry conference experience up several notches. Unless you are part of the Oversee team I'm sure there is no way you could imagine how much work went into preparing for this event and pulling it off without a hitch. I'm sure Lawrence Ng and all of his crew members are proud of what they accomplished and they certainly should be - when it came time to perform you all truly shined. Thanks for being such great hosts and providing such a memorable week in Tinseltown!

*****

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