My T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West 2014 Experience

Follow

( 15 Followers )

X

Follow

E-mail :

Follow Unfollow

I really had a great time at T.R.A.F.F.I.C West, it was my first time going to a domain conference and it is obvious to see the benefits of going to these functions and meeting people face to face, I might have ruined my rockstar reputation though because I cut my hair, wore a suit, put on expensive cologne, and was on my best behavior, I didn’t chuck any TV’s out of the hotel window, mainly because I couldn’t get the damn flatscreen off the wall, anyway here is my T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West experience:

Most of the hotel casinos on the Vegas Strip are over the top and the Bellagio is no exception, it is really first class, it was a barrage of bellage. I got there Wednesday afternoon and registration was at the pool cabanas, since nobody recognized me I had to reintroduce myself and immediately I started getting asked how the Google Car trip was, lol, I had no idea what anybody was talking about and said they must have the wrong information, then they told me they read it on DomainGang.com and it all made sense, DomainGang had posted a spoof saying that I was driving from New Mexico to Vegas in the new Google Car that drives itself, it was funny.

Me driving to Vegas in the Google Smart Car. Photo Courtesy of DomainGang.com.

I met Howard and Barbara Neu for the first time, Howard has helped me with numerous domain issues but I had never met him face to face, they along with their son Ray were everywhere working every minute and aspect of the show, it was obvious they are the organization behind it all and it was very organized, they do a great job and they are the nicest people, they made my family and I feel so welcome.

We were going to register and then go eat but 5 minutes after we registered a huge pile of gourmet pizzas and drinks arrived and that was the first of many great meals and drinks provided at the show, I mean serious gourmet food, no dominos pizza here, it was great, even the coffee was good, I was impressed, usually the coffee sucks at conferences, it’s like the coffee they serve at my NA meetings, it might be worse than the drugs (just kidding kids), but not here, even the coffee was great.

After pizza at the pool and meeting Rick, Mike Berkens (Mike didn’t recognize me, he thought I was there to serve him papers), Mark Daniels, Roy Messer, and some other successful folks we cleaned up and dressed up for the 5:30 Opening Night Cocktail Party. Again I was very impressed, really great food and drinks, no buckets of KFC here like at that MLM convention in Wichita, this was lamb and halibut and excellent sauteed mushrooms and cheeses and savory sauces and you get the point, it was really good food, I know I paid end user prices for this and the good coffee but I expect nothing less than end user pricing from Rick, and it was worth every bitcoin.

Anyway this is the Party that has “opened the doors to many deals and long lasting friendships” so I was determined to open some doors and make some friends, unfortunately I don’t get out much so I was uncomfortable with the thought of meeting people and making friends offline, in person, outside of Facebook, it’s been so long I wasn’t even sure if people did that anymore, I had actually forgotten how to send a friend request in person, and I kept poking people in inappropriate places and asking if they would like me, it was awkward for a while but I finally started getting the hang of face to face again.

It was a really great Party sponsored by the nice folks at .vegas, one taste of the gourmet food and I had to go talk to and thank the .vegas folks for the great dinner and find out what their vision and plans were for the .vegas extension, I also tried to bribe them to get Las.Vegas but they said they couldn’t do it even if they wanted to because the word Las is on the NGO/IGO reserved list like the word Eco, too bad.

I was really impressed with the .vegas reps, I think geo TLDs will do really well and .vegas might be one of the best, I predict success for this extension and sunrise started recently so I will be watching how things go, I am sure things will go well. Besides that they have a great city and a great extension they are sharp and aggressive so I am sure their efforts will pay off, I wish them all the best and I thank them for the great dinner. Hopefully they won’t premium price themselves out of the market, Michael Berkens posted that they want $35k for cool.vegas, that is unreasonable imo.

I then went to talk to the folks from .club, same thing I wanted to hear their vision and plans, it was hard to miss .club at the conference, they and their signs and banners were everywhere, I really liked the .club reps also, Felix Waltenberger, Colin Campbell, and Jeff Sass, nice guys and I appreciate their aggressiveness, I hadn’t registered any .club domains yet because everything I really wanted got swooped up before I could get to them, but I do like the extension and wish I had got some that were on my list, I think names like health.club, country.club, fan.club, car.club, etc. are great domains. They also had the extra benefit of having the most registrations in a new gTLD at the time, congrats on that.

I think they will be successful because they have a nice extension and they are aggressive, they are working it, I have to appreciate that they are doing the best job of marketing their new G, no resting on your laurels at .club. I promised them I would register a .club when I could find something available that I like, I am still searching, the good thing is when I find one it will only cost me $13.75 at Dynadot, that is reasonable pricing and they don’t have any premium pricing to contend with so I like that also, I thought of getting 100InDa.club when I saw somebody had registered 50InDa.club, I thought it was twice as good, but I decided not to, I will find something eventually.

I looked for anybody from Donuts or the .xyz registry but they were nowhere to be found unfortunately, so I went in search of domainers I wanted to meet, I met Adam Dicker and introduced him to my family, I was there with my parents and my wife and daughter, I enjoyed talking with Adam, what a successful domain investor and a really nice person, then I found Michael Cyger, the DomainSherpa, I was really looking forward to meeting Michael and he did not disappoint, he is one of the nicest most sincere people I have ever met, I am honored to call him my friend, I also introduced him to my family and they were very impressed too, Michael is just a great, down to earth, very intelligent, articulate person, I really enjoyed hanging out with him.

I met Phil Corwin from ICA (Internet Commerce Association), what a great, hardworking guy, we had a really good conversation about the state of the industry and one of my biggest takeaways from the show was the importance of the ICA, c’mon people lets all get on board here, at the moment it is pricey to become a member but they are rethinking their strategy and I expect some changes to come soon, money is obviously crucial for the organization to survive but I think numbers are important also so hopefully they will come up with a solution that can get them the dollars they need but also get more domain owners involved in the organization. I will be watching and posting more about ICA. They have also recruited Michael Castello so it will be interesting to see what he brings to the table.

Overall it was a great Opening Party and I had a really great time and met some very interesting people, I made some great new friends and business associates.

The next morning was the Power Brunch at 9:00am, if brunch is at 9am when do these people eat breakfast, 4:30am? Anyway besides the obvious that the food and coffee was excellent it was a great brunch, Oscar Goodman, mob lawyer and ex Vegas mayor spoke and signed copies of his book “Being Oscar: From Mob Lawyer to Mayor of Las Vegas – Only in America”, this guy is something else, very entertaining, I could have listened to him speak all day, he had the whole crowd in stitches.

Then the seminars started, first up was Duane Forrester from Bing, his theme was “Slaying the Google Giant” – don’t tell Google I said this but I would love to see them get slayed, Bing is my homepage and my preferred search engine, I enjoyed listening to Duane speak.

Next up was a presentation by Neil Sackmary from GetItFido.com, Neil is very enthusiastic, you can tell this guys brain is working overtime, I get overly excited sometimes and talk to fast and too much but Neil has me beat, he is all over the map, I honestly had a hard time keeping up with him but just because I wasn’t always sure what he was talking about it was obvious he did. Neil is very successful in Las Vegas, he is a certified gemologist at Nevada Coin & Jewelry (NVCoin.com) and if you watch the local television you will see him starring in his own commercials about 50 times a day, he is not a domainer, but he has had great success using the internet to boost his business.

I spent time talking with Neil and his wife Sheila, I really liked them, my wife and I hung out with Sheila at the closing party and we had a great time, Neil and I also talked about a potential collaboration using one of my domain names for a project he and Eric Lyon from NamePros were kicking around, either way I will be doing something with Neil at some point. I enjoyed talking with Eric Lyon also and I love he showed up looking like a true to life biker, and I love the comics Eric.

Eric Lyon, Sheila, Neil and Me. Photo courtesy of Barbara Dillman Neu.

Next up was the new gTLD shootout, rep’s from .wiki, .vegas, .global, .club, and uniregistry all gave pitches on their new extensions, obviously my big take away from it was that weed.wiki is already a successful website, I should have thought of that, I like weed lol. All of them had good, reasonable pitches, no grand illusions that .global or .club would be replacing .com any time soon or anything crazy like that, just a good civilized discussion unlike on many domain blogs lol.

After another great meal, a lunch sponsored by Uniregistry, Neil got up for a short 15 minutes and talked more about being an end user and developing advertiser relationships rather than depending on Google for traffic, he has had great success doing this with his Gold business. I like people that are exciting, enthusiastic, passionate about what they do, and successful, and Neil is all of those things.

Then it was my turn to get up on a panel with Michael Gilmour, Micheal Castello and Braden Pollack for the “gTLD From Hype to Handicapping” discussion moderated by Michael Cyger, one thing I have never been is shy or nervous up on stage, I was the front man in a band for years and I actually love getting up in front of people and showing off and acting like the class clown, but it had been a awhile so I was a tad nervous at first, but Micahel Cyger makes everybody feel so comfortable and welcome that all nervousness dissipated immediately, there was actually no serious gTLD bashing, all of us on the panel agreed they are here and here to stay.

The Handicapping New gTLDs panel, left to right: Michael Gilmour, Me, Michael Castello, Braden Pollock, and moderator Micheal Cyger. Photo Courtesy of DNJournal.com.

I mostly went over my new G investment philosophy which everybody that reads my blog knows already, I also had to make a few jokes because I am a closet comedian, I know comedy wasn’t the point of the discussion but nothing wrong with a little humor, and some of the new G hype is funny. Somebody from .club (remember I do like the .club guys and extension even though I haven’t registered any), anyway the night before I told one of the .club reps I had automotive.repair and he said it seemed too long and hard to spell, I commented that he probably didn’t think automotiverepair.club was too long and hard to spell though, I also mentioned that I have lots of readers at my blog that take my new G investing advice, unfortunately they couldn’t afford to be there…

Where are my shades when I really need them. Photo Courtesy of DNJournal.com.

Next up was the Domain Sherpa Show live from Las Vegas, I love the Sherpa Show, I watch it religiously every week, the panel consisted of the regulars Rick Schwartz, Adam Dicker, and Mike Berkens, Page Howe was awol so Jothan Frakes sat in, and he did a great job, but the big bomb that was dropped at the Sherpa Show was Rick Schwartz announced that he had actually registered about 500 new G’s in the previous 48 hours, I was floored, I considered running up to my room and reporting the Breaking News but I figured Berkens would beat me to it anyway so I had a stiff drink instead, oddly TheDomains.com didn’t report it for 2 days, I told Michael Cyger I should really go post this Breaking News, Rick getting 500 new G’s was huge news, but I didn’t, I left the big Breaking News for TheDomains.com, they do it best, and I also thought maybe it was a joke just to see who would post the rumors first, but it was no joke.

Next up was “King Com Part 1: How to take a domain to business in 60 minutes with Adam Dicker” and moderated by the now world famous Michael Cyger, this was interesting, as you all probably know Adam Dicker has NicheWebsites.com and they actually develop domains into websites, something I always procrastinate about, but Adam Dicker actually does this and he is extremely successful, the message was stop selling your good domains and start creating and selling developed websites and businesses, I actually took notes at this one and I am talking with Adam about developing some of my domains.

This was the last seminar of the day but it wasn’t over, at 9:00pm Neil and GetIfFido.com sponsored a Rock Concert, I am serious this was like a real Rock Concert minus the big crowds, the band Otherwise played and they were LOUD. I used to be in a band and we were very loud, we were sponsored so we had all the greatest free loud gear you could imagine, and we could never turn down, no matter how many times we would get asked to tone it down we would just get louder and louder, it was unavoidable, the cops actually showed up at quite a few of our bar and nightclub gigs with sound meters telling us we were louder than the legal limit and threatening to shut down the clubs, so I can relate to playing really loud music.

When they said the band was going to play the first set acoustic so it would be quiet and us domainers could talk and make big million dollar deals without getting too distracted I thought that is cool, I pictured like a Nirvana unplugged type of jam, but that is not what happened, sure the guitar players played acoustic guitars for the first set but they were still plugged in, even acoustic guitars can make lots of noise when they are hooked up to huge amps, and the drummer and bass player and everybody else didn’t get the quiet memo apparently so the acoustic set was LOUD, nothing was unplugged, all amps were set to 11, and they rocked.

I was glad it was loud, I was already drinking at the free bar so the last thing I needed to do was try and make a big deal while under the influence, not that I haven’t done that before but the last time I did that I ended up with the domain balck-porn.com, seriously, I almost won Elliot’s worst domain ever contest with that one, fortunately I only came in second worst. Anyway the party was a blast and the band rocked.

Day 2 started with another great breakfast and “Two Minute Elevator Pitches”, I had to step out during this but I did make it back for the next thing which was DNJournal.com‘s “Ron Jackson Presents State of the Industry”, this is where I have to take a minute to talk about Ron, unfortunately I didn’t get to spend much time talking with Ron but that is because he was the busiest, hardest working person at the show, he is such an asset to this industry and I really appreciate him, he didn’t miss one minute of the show and he is working the whole time, taking pictures (like some of the pics on this post) and documenting every aspect, we really all owe Ron a huge thank you imo, so here is my huge thank you, THANK YOU RON.

Next up was “Keynote Howard Lefkowitz, Former President and CEO of Vegas.com, discusses domains and how to make a business”, this was actually my favorite seminar, I could have listened to this guy talk for the whole week, he was one of the best, most entertaining, informative, funny speakers I have ever seen, I am sure I can’t convey how smart and successful and good this guy was so I won’t even try but when they post the video of this seminar I will be watching it again.

Next was lunch and I skipped it and instead went and had a drink with Sheila, I got back in time for the next seminar “Are your domains Street Smart or Dumbed Down? The most dynamic panel we have ever had”, the panel was Neil Sackmary of GetItFido.com, Howard Lefkowitz of Vegas.com fame, and Tyson MacKay of .vegas. Whatever they said I remember I liked and was motivated by it but that is about all I remember lol, that’s what happens when you drink your lunch.

Next up was “How to take a domain to a business in 60 minutes: Part 2 with Michael Gilmour”, I do remember this one. Michal was on the new gTLD panel with me and we talked quite a few times and I really like Mike, I was glad I met him, his company is ParkLogic.com and he traveled all the way with his beautiful wife from the land down under to attend this show, that is a long trip.

He asked audience members what names they had that they wanted him to show how to make a business/site on the name, a few people suggested names like Michael Castello suggested his Smoothie.com, Michael Gilmour went with Claude Dauman’s name SocialMutants.com lol, he then did a video presentation example of how to create a site and business on the domain using Joomla and a spreadsheet to track all aspects of the site, I dabble in making websites and I will say he made it look alot easier than it is for me so I give myself 2 hours to build a business lol. It was interesting and informative and I will be joining SocialMutants.com when Claude makes a real website and I will also keep in touch with Michael Gilmour and do some business with him, I look forward to it.

Next up was the “Million Dollar Panel. Panelists who have each sold domains for $1 Million or more”, this is the panel I strive to be on someday, as I am sure we all do, it consisted of Michael Castello, Rick Schwartz, Roy Messer, Adam Dicker, and broker Tessa Holcomb from Igloo.com. I was all ears for this one, it was so interesting listening to how $1 million plus sales get negotiated. Embarrassingly I can’t remember the domain Tessa brokered but I do remember the others, sorry Tessa.

The domains they discussed were Rick’s sale of eBet.com for $1.35 million, Roy Messer’s sale of Vodka.com for $3 million, Michael Castello’s sale of Whisky.com for $3.1 million, and Adam Dicker’s sale of Elephant.com for $1.8 million. It’s hard for me not to notice that 3 out of 4 of these are related to drinking and gambling, I wrote a post last year called Saints and Sinners that pretty much documented domains related to sex, alcohol, and gambling have been some of the best sellers ever, they sell much better than religious domains:

“The ONLY religious related domain in the list of 500 is #118, Christian.com, that sold for $600,000, with a total of over 40 domains in the top 500 related to sex, gambling, and alcohol. Looks like the sinners are winners and the saints aints in domain sales…”

Anyway it was really interesting hearing how Rick can get a $1.1 million counter offer on eBet.com, a name he said he didn’t think he had got any other offers on in 10 years, and he can counter $1.5 million and keep a straight face for 2 months before they countered again with $1.35 million, the offer he accepted, like he said you have to have “balls of steel” to negotiate like this.

Every story was pretty much like this, how to turn down $200k and hold out for $1 million plus. Adam’s story about selling elephant.com for $1.8 million to the insurance company that owned elephant.co.uk was a great story, one great part of the story is he had purchased the name not too long before for about $35k if I remember correctly, ouch to that seller, another great part of the story was the insurance company tried to UDRP the domain and lost before they decided to buy it for $1.8 million, and it sounded like Adam would have sold it to them for less than $1.8m if they didn’t try the jicky UDRP corporate reverse highjacking bullshit. Incidentally Adam did not park the domain, he made a site about elephants, if he parked it more than likely it would have had ads from this elephant insurance company and he might have lost that UDRP.

Roy Messer actually flew to Russia and negotiated face to face with the billionaire that purchased Vodka.com for $3 million, another great story and it reminded me that it wasn’t so long ago that all deals were made face to face.

The last seminar was Rick Schwartz, Howard Neu, Michael Castello, Michael Gilmour, and ICA Legal Counsel Phil Corwin, they discussed the ICA and how to get more members and funding for this most important organization, Rick suggested numbers (members) are as important as money and possible ways to get more domain owners involved, at the moment it is pricey to become a member so many domain owners are not involved, the panel discussed possible solutions that will keep the organization properly funded but also get more domain owners like myself involved, it is a very important issue and I will be talking about it more.

Andee Hill of EscrowHill.com is also involved with ICA and she also made some suggestions, I talked with Andee for a while and I really like her, she is very sharp, she was with Escrow.com for years before going solo with her new EscrowHill.com escrow service, I will be using her escrow service.

After this Michael Cyger asked if I would like to join him and George Hong from Guta.com for dinner, I said I would love to but I had already planned a dinner with my family, so I suggested he and George join us for dinner, he agreed, we had a great dinner and a great time, we ate great Asian food at Noodles, my parents were going to pick up the tab for this one but Michael excused himself to use the restroom, this is what he said anyway, but he actually went and paid the bill, nobody was aware of this, when my parents asked the waitress for the bill she said it had already been paid, George argued with Michael that he had planned on paying but Michael was too quick and sneaky, like I said Michael is a really great guy, I also really enjoyed getting to know George. I told Michael had I known he was going to pay I would have ordered the $95 Abalone lol.

My parents Ed and Marge, Me, my wife Marianne, my daughter Lauren, my son in law Fred, Michael Cyger, and George Hong. Photo Courtesy of DomainSherpa.com.

After dinner we went to the Closing Party where they served the greatest desserts, more of that great coffee, and drinks. It was another fun time but also kind of sad things were coming to an end, my wife and I had a great time hanging out with Neil’s wife Sheila and I had a really great time talking with Frederick Schiwek from KeywordDomains.com, Frederick is another extremely sharp domain investor, his portfolio includes names such as Whiskey.com, Tricks.com, OnlineSchool.com, De.de, I was most impressed and am happy I met him and can call him a friend.

Before I wrap it up I want to give a shout out to some of the companies and people that were there since so many were not, besides those I have already mentioned there was NameJet, Above.com, Uniregistry and DNS, Escrow.com, EscrowHill.com, Igloo.com, Mark Daniels from DomainHoldings.com, Scott Alliy from Ketmo.com, MocanMedia.com, Francine from iDomain.com (love the name), Ari Goldberger from Esqwire.com, Neil Resnick of MediaOptions.com, and I know there were more of you, I apologize if I did not mention you here, drop me a line.

So all in all I had a really great, successful time and I met some really great people, I am already benefitting from the experience, it was my first show so I had nothing to compare it to but I know it did not have the attendance numbers that past shows have had, but that did not bother me, I still did not have enough time to meet and talk with everybody that was there, and I left wealthier and wiser than when I got there, I am looking forward to the next one. Thank you Rick and Barbara and Howard.

For more great information and pictures of the show see these articles at DNJournal.com:

Day 2 Photos & Highlights from the 2014 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West Conference in Las Vegas

Curtain Comes Down on T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West 2014: Photos & Highlights from the Last Two Days in Las Vegas