DOMAINfest Notes for Day 2 and 3
Bill Sweetman (pictured at left with Squishycow, who Bill says handles all our bidding at auctions) checked in again today with some news and notes from DOMAINfest. Last night’s SnapNames auction was fun to watch but for those that weren’t able to check in either in person or online, the sale of bookmarks.com was the big news. The name went to buyer Lonnie Borck of netRocket.com for $310,000. NetRocket offers online bookmarking and tagging, so bookmarks.com is a natural fit. DomainNews.com has a rundown of the results of the first and also the second day of the live auction.
In addition to the auction, Bill attended a number of sessions over the last few days and provided some notes to summarize what was presented:
Domain Names and the Law
John Berryhill cautioned domain owners to be wary of vaguely worded purchase inquiries that don’t explicitly offer to buy the domain; they could be lawyers representing trademark holders who are trolling with a different agenda (e.g. gathering info for a future legal claim against the domain owner).
Berryhill says, “The best trademark search tool is Google,” as opposed to relying on official trademark databases.
Domainers Town Hall with Frank Schilling
This session provided an opportunity to collect knowledge from one the most famous domainers in the world. Here are some quotes from Frank Schilling (pictured at right):
- “Domain names ARE the Internet.”
- “Focus on the niche that you like” — when asked what domain names he recommends domainers buy.
- “$100 bills are raining out of the sky…gather a big hat and keep quiet…” — on how the first domainers viewed the early secretive days of domaining (just a few years ago).
- “There’s no shelf life on domain names…domains are like Cognac” — on domain names as assets.
- “Owners of even just ten domains will be the media companies of the future.”
When asked, Frank said he owns about 370,000 domain names which are managed as a business by a small team of five, including himself and his wife.
Understanding the Big Picture
Monty Cahn from Moniker provided some insights into the overall strength of the domain industry. Cahn says 70% of Internet users are using direct navigation (typing a domain into browser address window) to get to a site. He also predicts that aftermarket domain name sales will be a $1 billion business in 2010. And also by 2010, Cahn estimates that 240 million domain names will have been registered. For reference, that’s about double the amount that are registered today.
With that, DOMAINfest is a wrap.
