Adept Marketing Concepts » DOMAINfest

Guest post up on lalawag.com re Steve Wozniak DOMAINfest coverage

Jeff — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:44:42 +0000

Check out my coverage of the fireside chat with Steve Wozniak at DOMAINfest on lalawag.com.

Live Blogging Session 1: Domaining 2.0™ – What Does The Next Evolutionary Phase of Our Industry Look Like?

Jeff — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:46:42 +0000

After some great opening remarks by Peter Celeste the first session of DOMAINfest has started.

(Jeff Kupietzky, President Oversee.net)

Panel Details:

Moderator: Peter Celeste (Oversee.net)

Speakers:
Gregg McNair (Strata Services Limited)
Nico Zeifang (Zeifang.com)
Michael Berkens (Worldwide Media, Inc.)
Ofer Ronen (Sendori)
Steve Hisey (Oversee.net)

(Peter Celeste, Oversee.net)

This panel brings out some serious domain knowledge. From the beginning I’m feeling very reassured in this business. The general consensus was that even though we’re facing tough times we’ll be looking back at this period in 5 years and see it as a time full of great investment opportunity, much like the period immediately following the dot com bubble bust.

At the same time Nico Zeifang was adamant that he’s, “a very hesitant buyer right now,” noting that we’ve barely seen the tip of the iceberg and that there will be a lot better deals available in the recession motivated fire sales to come.

Live Blogging DOMAINfest – Boot Camp Session 1: Domain Industry Trends – What’s Your Action Plan?

Jeff — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:35:51 +0000

So my friend Ben Padnos talked me into coming out for DOMAINfest this week and here I sit at the first bootcamp session, Domain Industry Trends – What’s Your Action Plan?

Here are the panelists:

Moderator: Chris Welton (Oversee.net)
Speakers:
Andrew Allemann (DomainNameWire.com)
Michael Gilmour (WhizzBangsBlog.com)
Adam Strong (DomainNameNews.com)

Not surprisingly economic issues were at the top of the discussion with Chris noting that the domain industry is being forced adapt to a major drop in PPC revenue and traffic overall.

One of the major trends being covered is the shift from parking monetized by PPC advertisers to domain sales and portfolio trimming. One thing that is different about this jump in sales is the focus on domainer to end user sales, with those end users mostly being small businesses buying domains in the $1,000-$5,000 price range.

Another trend gaining traction is domain development. While a lot of the panelists suggest that this will quickly become a black hole I’d say that really depends on strategy and your underlying technology.

Michael Gilmour did make an interesting point saying that, “Developing a domain name is like building a business, if you have 10,000 domain names you’re really building 10,000 businesses.” I guess that’s true if you want to build 10,000 unique sites that are not interrelated at all. However, I believe when your goal is to dominate niches or emerging markets then the long term value in developing a large network of sites becomes much more evident.

On micro sites Andrew Allemann said that it’s definitely a first step. Not only do you get to see if you like the niche through building 4-5 pages of content and designing a site you’ll also be able to learn if there’s a demand for information on that topic.

Michael again points out that the time involved and the intricacies involved in scaling up to tracking and managing the network of sites quickly outweighs the potential for profit.

Andrew and Adam both agreed there is a huge potential market for companies to service owners of large domain portfolios. From tracking portfolios to micro site platforms (especially with the trend towards development) services will definitely be sold, whether or not these service bring ROI is yet to be seen.

Michael comes back pointing out the loss in CTR associated with building sites, noting the strategy of building a site out and getting enough traffic to offset that loss in CTR can be an exercise in futility.