GeoDomain Expo Take Aways

I had the opportunity to take part in the GeoDomain Expo in San Diego late last week and continuing into the weekend.  Sponsored by an organization called Associated Cities, the event was a gathering of geo domainers, domain industry media, industry providers, ICANN representatives, and new people to the industry like me.

The first day of the event on Thursday was closed to only Associated Cities’ members; however, the blending of both members and industry players began at a luau function held that evening and continued through Friday and Saturday at an array of relevant seminars with expert panels and VIP keynote speakers.

As the event was very intimate with perhaps 200+ attendees, this gave me the opportunity to learn much about the geo domaining industry as well as meet personally with various of the panelists.

Here is a run down of my personal favorites:

Dailies: They’re gone, now what?

      Now with the disappearance of daily newspapers, who will rule the local space? Will it be geo domainers? The Panel included Ron Donoho of SanDiego.com, Ron Jackson of DNJournal, Kerry Murakami of the Seattle Post-Globe with moderator Dan Pulcrano of Boulevards New Media. The consensus was that with many talented journalists and photographers being laid off, why not take this opportunity to scoop them up to beef up your content?

      Future of GeoDomains and New TLDs

As a controversial topic for this .com centric organization, the future of GeoDomains and New TLDs was one of the best attended seminars with the Castello Brothers, David and Michael Castello of Cities Internet Network, Jothan Frakes of Minds + Machines, Phil Corwin of the Internet Commerce Association, and moderator, Tim Cole the Chief Registrar Liaison at ICANN. The continued topic heard throughout the event of “.com is king” or ".com is the golden standard" was prevalent with strong commentary from the Castello brothers as well as feedback from the audience.  Jothan Frakes and others from the audience, including .travel, were supportive of the controlled expansion of the Internet into category specific TLDs.

      News Makers and Buzz Generators

The attendees of the GeoDomain Expo had the opportunity to hear the latest updates from the blogosphere and domaining industry press with Elliot Silver of Elliot’s Blog, Sean Stafford of Modern Domainer Magazine, Andrew Alleman of Domain Name Wire with moderator Ron Jackson.  Many agreed that one's choice of headlines does affect a blogger’s success. Additionally, each blogger does have a voice, but writing something that an individual can understand without being a part of the domaining industry is crucial.

      As the highlight of most domaining events, the GeoDomain auction too had a premium name auction.  Aftermarket.com and DomainConsultant.com orchestrated the auction.  This was my first ever, outside auction, which showcased a well-rounded list of destination, keyword rich domain names across various extensions such as .biz, .info, .org, .com, .us, and .travel.  Although many were priced well below their value the auction, the opportunity slipped by many of the online and house bidders. Twenty-nine of the names sold for over a $101K total with the highest bid at $15K for SierraMadre.com.  However, all the names are still available until May 5th, but at more aggressive pricing.

In seems to be the season of domain auctions. I look forward to giving you an update on this extended auction as well as Rick Latona’s and Moniker’s later this week.

Newspapers Obsolete and Geo Domains to take over Media

As I am getting ready for the GeoDomain Expo, I wanted to chime in on some of the Geo Domain noise that is prefacing the event held in San Diego at the end of this month.

We have all heard the breaking news regarding major newspapers closing their doors. It is not just smaller publications, but some that you wouldn't think would fold like Seattle Post-Intelligencer run by Hearst and those mentioned in TIME the 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America. With this tough economy and various traditional forms of communication becoming obsolete, it is clear that owning a piece of virtual real estate is a wise investment. Are geo domains going to play a key role in transforming media? I think they will.

This question will be a key component of the discussions at the GeoDomain Expo. In conjunction with expert panels, it will be interesting to see if domainers will put their money where their months are. Coincidentally, there will be an auction run by Aftermarket.com. They are currently selecting a geo-centric portfolio to auction including .com, .org, and .info domain names. If you own geo specific names that are non-abbreviated, place names, or combination names within specific geo categories such as insurance, travel, jobs, real estate, you have until April 10th to submit.

However, with the changing Internet landscape, I think opening the auction to cctlds and the major geo draw of .travel into the portfolio mix would be wise. Currently, .com is still King, but as traditional media are starting to fall, so will the "old" way of searching for information. The trend is to further segment information as shown by the popular sites such as LinkedIn for professional contacts, specific groups in Facebook, TheLadders for executive level jobs, and the list continues. This is also certainly true when dealing with destinations. We are all witness to the importance of cctlds, language, and category specific extensions like .travel in this next chapter of the Internet.

This opinion is supported by others.

Check out this blog post from The Frager Factor pointing out the transition to extensions other than .com.

And this YouTube video provided by the government of Colombia:


Addressing this topic will be a panel on Saturday afternoon entitled, Future of GeoDomains and new TLDs. Panelists will include the Castello Brothers of Castello Cities Internet Network and members of the ICANN Business Constituency, Jothan Frakes of Minds + Machines and Phil Corwin, General Counsel for Internet Commerce Association with Tim Cole, Chief Registrar Liaison at ICANN.

I look forward to hearing their take on opening the world of geo domains to alternative extensions, cctlds, .travel and others.