Many people read playboy for the articles. Some go to party’s at the playboy mansion strictly for the food and networking. I can honestly say that Domainers do not fit either of those statements. The party this year was for one thing – just having fun. After a amazing group of seminars and great networking, it was time to enjoy the night. Many of us simply were there to enjoy the modern art, which turned out to be many young models that were only wearing painted bikinis.. I must say hanging out in the grotto was an interesting experience. For the short time I was there having a drink with a few friends, there was one young domainer who entered and left 3 times with 3 different girls. Sorry , cant give further details. My favorite line of the night was one I read from on facebook from another domainer. That domainer was at the bar near a conversation between another domainer and a young model. He was asked old he was. The domainer said 39, The model shot back ” Oh, I should introduce you to my mother.”
After the party was over many domainers headed to clubs or to parties at the Hotel (thanks Ammar). I read in Eliot Silver’s blog his story about going clubbing with Ron Jeremy and Justin Brescia of “The Hills”.
All in all amazing night and week.
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.