Thoughts on the TRAFFIC Conference

I’m flying home to Boston after the Traffic conference, and I want to share some thoughts about the last few days in Ft. Lauderdale. As usual, the conferences was productive for me, and I got my money’s worth from attending.

• At breakfast this morning, Howard Neu asked how many new Traffic attendees were in the audience, and it appeared to be quite a few. Vincent Jacques wrote a couple of articles about his experience as a first time attendee on Hybrid Domainer, and the articles are worth a read. If you’re thinking about attending for the first time and want to know if you’ll get your money’s worth, you should reach out to Vin. He’s approachable, and I bet he’ll give you an honest answer about what he liked and didn’t like.

• There were probably somewhere in the ballpark of 200 conference attendees. It seemed a bit smaller than previous years, but my guess is that is at least partially due to the fact that there was a conference in Las Vegas this past June.

• One of the primary reasons I attend each year is to meet with account managers and account representatives from companies whose services I use. Just about all of those companies I use were there, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with them about issues, especially when there is good news coming.

• I enjoy meeting people at the conferences. It was especially great to finally meet Gregg Ostrick. Gregg and I have spoken and emailed for a number of years, and I enjoyed meeting with him in person. He is interested in selling a chunk of his portfolio, and I could see him fielding big offers for it. He’s one guy who “gets” it and consistently buys and sells excellent domain names.

• It was nice of Frank Schilling to treat a large group of us to dinner on Sunday evening. My book of business with Internet Traffic and Domain Name Sales is relatively small, but Frank always treats his clients like old friends, even when there is a disagreement. To most, Frank is the face of his company, and I know that people appreciate the fact that they can reach out to him directly to discuss issues.

• If it were up to me, I’d probably eliminate the live auction. I am sure it makes some money, but it’s also probably a big expensive and time consuming (before, during, and after the conference. My guess is that won’t happen, but just my opinion.

• As I’ve said in the past, I really like the Ritz Carlton venue and location, although the conference is moving to Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel next year. With the new gTLDs on the horizon, bigger conferences are probably on the horizon.

• In ten years, I’d love to have a look back on some of the panel discussions about the new gTLD domain names. I believe they are going to change the business of domain investing, although I don’t yet know how. I am sure I will be able to watch a video of these panels in ten years for the low price of $1,995 🙂

• I really appreciated all of the feedback about my brand change to DomainInvesting.com. Although nearly all of the feedback online was positive, I appreciated that a couple people expressed concerns about the rebranding. It’s nice to hear positive things, but it’s helpful to hear constructive criticism, too.