| company's policy not to
comment on the specifics of their operation (rev
shares, etc.) so that sparring did not have a
satisfactory conclusion for many.
While Google remains the key revenue provider
for those who depend on PPC, there clearly remains
some ambivalence among domain owners about the
relationship.
After a lunch break, the crowd returned to the
Grand Ballroom for Moniker's Premium Live Domain
Auction.
Scene
from Moniker's Premium Live Domain Auction Thursday
(Jan. 29)
When the dust had settled total sales
came in at a disappointing $665,000, however
given the uncertainties in the general economy, it
couldn't have been to big a surprise to see the sale
fall below the seven-figure levels we routinely saw in
the past. Just over 30% (62 of 200) of the domains offered were sold. Two nights earlier
60% of the domains offered in a no or low reserve auction found buyers, underscoring the fact that low to mid-priced domains now dominate the aftermarket while high ticket names are left on the shelf.
The top sales in the auction were Wife.com
($100,000), RodeoDrive.com ($60,000), FreeWireless.com
($50,000) and ConsumerElectronics.com ($45,000).
Michael Berkens has a complete list of the
names sold on his blog.
A silent online domain
auction run by Moniker and sister company SnapNames
ended a week after the live auction with over $480,000
in sales. Added to the $128,000 in sales from
their no/low reserve live auction at the show and the
take from the premium live auction, their total came
in at just over $1.27 million. Not
up to previous standards, but what in today's
financial world is up to previous standards?
After the auction there was a second
round of Structured Networking similar to the one I
described on Wednesday's schedule but with four new
groups of experts answering questions on four new
topics.
Anthos
Chrysanthou (Lease Domains, Inc.) welcomed Marchex's
Riccardo Soff (right)
to our corner during Structured Networking
Thursday (Jan. 29).
Anthos
Chrysanthou
(Lease Domains, Inc.) and I were in one corner to chat
about Buying & Selling Domains. Moniker's Monte
Cahn and Victor Pitts had been scheduled to
join us but they were busy tying up loose ends in the
live auction that ended just before the networking
session began.
Google's
Hal Bailey and Matt Parry were popular
attractions in a corner devoted to a Google Q &
A, while Yahoo's Dean Stackel, Wendi
Sturgis, Michael Brous and Hui Tam
hosted a Yahoo Q & A in another corner. The
fourth corner was occupied by attorneys Derek
Newman, John Berryhill, Paul Keating
and Will Delgado who answered Legal questions.
| With
that the curtain came down on the business
portion of the show, giving way to the main
social event of the week - the big show
closing blowout at the world famous Playboy
Mansion.
After
a quick change of clothes attendees began
boarding a fleet of nearly two dozen small
buses for the trip across town to the posh Holmby
Hills community where Hugh Hefner's
22,000 square-foot home is located on 5.3
manicured acres of some of the world's most
expensive real estate.
Oversee's
Ron Sheridan had dreamed of hosting the
ultimate party for domainers at the Mansion
and after two years of working toward that
goal it became a reality on this night. It
happened because Oversee threw their full
support behind a fundraising charity
auction to benefit Autism
Speaks and the party became a part
of that larger event. A number of domainers
stepped up to buy items that had been donated
to the charity sale.
Below
are some snapshots that we captured during
this unforgettable evening. |
Early
arrivals begin exploring Hugh
Hefner's
Playboy Mansion and 5-acre estate |
|
Diana
Jackson in front on the mansion. Hugh
Hefner's limo is parked at left. He
emerged from the Mansion soon after and
departed with two female friends.
Early
arrivals grabbed a seat inside the DomainSponsor
tent. 30 minutes
later it was packed wall to wall as you see in
the photo below
As
they always do, the Playboy bunnies
draw a crowd.
Inside
the famous grotto
A
friend gets a snapshot of Natalie Lambert
and David Castello in the Mansion's
Game Room
The
bunnies are nice but Diana and I (at
left) would rather see Frank
Schilling (second from
right) and Divyank
Turakhia (far right) any time. Divyank (the co-founder of Directi)
celebrated his 27th birthday at the
Mansion - I want to see how he tops that! |
The
party put the exclamation point on a fabulous
conference for DOMAINfest Global. I can't imagine how
much work the Oversee.net team had to put into pulling
off what they did over those three days in late
January. All of their preparation paid off because
when it came to time to deliver they did it with
military precision and professionalism - it was a real
credit to their company and to a huge gift to their
industry. Yes, people paid to attend - but to a man
and woman - everyone I talked to felt the value they
received for their money was returned many times over
- and that is the ultimate testament to a job well
done.
Postscript:
The section below covers a couple of extra days
that Diana and I spent in Los Angeles immediately
after DOMAINfest Global. While this section is not
about the show itself, it is directly related to my
overall goal in writing about our industry's major
conferences. That is to share my experience of what a
conference trip involves from start to finish
with the hope that you, if you have not attended a
conference in the past, will decide "I have to
go to one of those events!" I won't make a
penny if you make that decision, but I believe you
will benefit greatly from meeting your peers face
to face (and I in turn will benefit from meeting
you). Every show is a education and the priceless
networking opportunities will give you a much
better chance to succeed in this business.
The
ultimate payoff from any conference is meeting new
friends and seeing old ones again. Whenever
Diana and I go to a show we try to stay over an extra
day to visit people we know in the local area. In this
case we had to stay over two days
because, with the Super Bowl going on in our
hometown of Tampa that weekend, we could not
get a flight back home until game day Sunday (Feb. 1)
when all of those going to the game had already flown
in. Spending a couple of extra days in L.A. is not
exactly what you would call a fate worse than death
though!
|
Michael
Castello, President
Castello Cities Internet Network |
After
the farewell breakfast that DOMAINfest Global
hosted at the hotel Friday morning (Jan. 30),
we headed 45 minutes northwest of Hollywood to
Moor Park to see Michael
Castello and his wife Sheri.
They took us on a tour of their incredibly
picturesque community. After going to L.A.
dozens of times over the years, I don't know how
we managed to miss seeing this gorgeous area just over
the Ventura County line before.
After
that drive through the rolling countryside and
its lush horse farms, it
was on to a delightful lakeside Italian
restaurant for a leisurely two-hour lunch on a
picture perfect California day. That was truly
a welcome respite from my usual lunch routine
at home - typically five or ten minutes to
wolf down something from the microwave because
I'm up against another deadline!
We
capped a perfect day with a visit to the Reagan
Presidential Library in Simi Valley,
just minutes from Michael and Sheri's house in
Moor Park. I had no idea what a fabulous place
this mountaintop library/museum was. Among
other things it houses the actual Air Force
One airplane that was in use during
Preisdent Reagan's |
| years
in the White House. Walking through the
inside of the plane that served as the mobile
Oval Office was
a remarkable glimpse into history and into one
of the government's most closely guarded
assets.
(Left
to right): Ron Jackson, Diana
Jackson, Sheri Castello & Michael
Castello
in front of Air Force One at the
Reagan Presidential Library in Simi
Valley, California.
As
an added treat one of the world's four
existing original copies of the Magna Carta
was on display at the Library while we were
there (on loan from Great Britain). It
all made for the kind of special day that few of
us takes time to stop and enjoy as often as we
should. There is life beyond the computer
and it is good. Thanks to Michael and Sheri
for being such wonderful hosts.
|
Actor
Michael Chiklis |
On
our last day in L.A. Saturday (Jan.
31) we joined Thought Convergence
COO Ammar Kubba for lunch in Beverly
Hills. Every time I am with Ammar
in L.A. we seem to bump into a
celebrity. Last time it was Arnold
Schwarzenegger at the Polo
Lounge. This time while we were
waiting to be seated at an outdoor
Italian cafe one of my favorite
actors, Michael Chiklis, walked
in. Chiklis starred in The
Shield as Detective Vic
Mackey and also in the
Fantastic Four movie Rise of
the Silver Surfer in which he
played The Thing.
I
enjoyed a brief chat with Chiklis who was an
extremely pleasant guy, which made me
appreciate him even more. As it
happens we share the same birthday and
my friend Elliot Silver (ElliotsBlog.com)
will be interested to know that
Chiklis was born in Lowell,
Massachusetts (Elliot owns Lowell.com).
Note to Elliot: Hire Michael as your
spokesman! |
|
While
I was doting on the actor,
Chiklis semi-look-alike Ammar
Kubba was probably thinking, "what
am I, chopped liver!"
Fortunately, I don't think
Ammar really noticed because he had
not had much sleep all week
(thanks to all of the
domainers who had come to his
hometown for the conference
and kept him up just about all
night every night). At least I
had the courtesy to call him
out during daylight hours instead
of 3am (at least I thought
it was courteous until I
realized daylight hours are
when he sleeps!)
In the fall of 2007 I made
a special trip to L.A. to do a
Cover
Story on Ammar and
Kevin Vo who had made a
big splash with their popular
PPC company TrafficZ
(part of a Thought Convergence
family that has grown over
the past year to include
DomainTools.com and
Aftermarket.com). Since then I
have tried to make it a point
to see Ammar whenever I am in
Los Angeles because, in a
addition to being one of the
most gregarious and likeable
people in the business, he is
a very innovative thinker and
I am interested in knowing
what he and Kevin are working
on at any given time.
At the moment they are
digesting and leveraging the
acquisition of Name
Intelliigence (DomainTools)
that they made last spring and are
also planning to expand their
new Aftermarket.com sales
platform in the next quarter.
They are also going to try
some new approaches at
TrafficZ that they hope will
offset the industry-wide
decline in PPC revenue. No
specifics to announce yet but
we will keep an eye on them
(and Diana will keep
pressuring Ammar to settle
down and get married!)
On Saturday night we went
to see Valkyrie
at the Chinese Theater
back at the show hotel complex
in Hollywood. The next morning
it was finally time to head
back to the airport and make
the cross country trip back
home to Florida. |
Ammar
Kubba
in Beverly Hills |
|
It was an exceptional week, rewarding at
every level - both personally and
professionally. With another full year to plan
for their next show I can hardly wait to see
what DOMAINfest Global comes up with next. No
time to dwell on that now though. As I write
this the next event on the show calendar, the
debut edition of Domainer
Mardi Gras, is coming up less than
two weeks from now in New Orleans. The
Big Easy's world famous Mardi Gras celebration
will be going on at the same time - so this is
bound to be another unique experience. Hope to
see you there or at another conference down
the line in 2009!
***** |
|
Return
to Page 1 of This Story
-
Return to DN
Journal Home Page |
|
