I’m sorry for going dark the last few days. Since there were a number of blogs covering the basics, i.e. the seminars, the auction, etc., I thought I’d wait and recap some of the events and tell some of the interesting stories I heard the past few days.
First, Domainfest was everything I thought it would be and more. Oversee had a first class event and deserves to get recognized for a Tradeshow that represents the needs of the Domaining community. The seminars were targeted to the needs of the domainer. There were seminars on getting domains, SEO and SEM, and new monetization methods among others. The selection of speakers were first rate (not just because I was one). My favorite of the seminars was on SEO and SEM. You can’t do better than having both Danny Sullivan and Bruce Clay on the same panel. Their insight was extremely helpful to me. I plan to go to more of the SEO Tradeshows that they participate in.
The selection of Tony Hsieh was perfect. He told of his starting LinkExchange and selling it to Microsoft for $265,000,000. He detailed the process of building zappos.com into one of onlines largest shoe retailers and his philosophy on making employees part of a family unit.
If I had to highlight just one reason to go to the next Domainfest, it would be the networking. Yes other domain shows like Traffic offer excellent networking, however this show with approximately 1000 attendees trumped the recent Traffic shows where attendance has dropped substantially.
The rumor is that there will be another Domainfest this year in Europe, sometime in September or October.
Tomorrow I will write one of the most amusing stories I heard at Domainfest. I don’t think you’ll hear this story anywhere prior to my posting it on DirectNavigation.com.