|
DNJournal.com
Editor & Publisher Ron Jackson
fills the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
audience in on 2014 domain
aftermarket sales trends. In short,
the market has been booming this
year with the total $ volume of
sales reported thus far in 2014
running almost 20% ahead of
the same time frame last year. After
talk it was time for presentation of
the annual T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Awards to
those selected in industry wide
voting for excellence in their
respective categories. This year,
several took home trophies in two
categories. DNForum.com
owner Adam Dicker was one of
those. Adam won the highest
individual honor - Domainer of
the Year - and also took home
the Developer of the Year
award. 
Adam
Dicker (right) with one of the
two trophies he collected from
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founders
Rick Schwartz (center) and Howard
Neu (left) on Saturday morning
(Nov. 1, 2014).
|
|
Two
corporations also scored
double wins. Frank Schilling's
Uniregistry.com claimed
the Sponsor of the Year
Award while his DomainNameSales.com
platform won for Best
Overall Domain Solution.
Frank was unable to attend the
conference but Uniregistry's
Director of Registrar Sales, Sevan
Derderian, was on hand to
collect the hardware.
Also
hitting the Daily Double was
the new .CLUB
Registry that has
been, by many standards, the
most successful new GTLD
released to date. .CLUB won
the voting for Most
Promising New gTLD and for
Best Marketing of a New
gTLD. Things got even
better for them at
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. when they
announced a deal to sell
Coffee.club to Coffee.org's
Bill McClure for $100,000
(to be paid over 10
years). |
Uniregistry's
Sevan Derderian accepted
both the Sponsor of the
Year Award and the Best
Overall Domain Solution Award
(for sister company DomainNameSales.com). |
.CLUB
team leaders (left to right between
Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu) Jeff
Sass, Colin
Campbell and Michelle Van
Tilborg, accept their two
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Awards for
excellence. Sedo's
Dave Evanson won the Broker
of the Year Award, making this
the third consecutive year a Sedo
broker has taken that trophy home.
Dave also won it in 2012, then
Negar Hajikani did it in 2013
before Dave scored his repeat win
this year. 
Domain
Broker of the Year Award
winner Dave Evanson (3rd from
left) with
2013 winner and Sedo colleague
Negar Hajikhani at Saturday's
Award ceremonies. Another
major T.R.A.F.F.I.C. honor is
induction into the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Hall of Fame. Two individuals
are voted in each year. This year's
inductees are attorney John
Berryhill and DomainSherpa.com's
Michael Cyger, who also won this
year's Blogger of the Year Award.
Michael could not attend the
conference so his friend (and now a
fellow HOF member) Adam Dicker
accepted both awards for him. 
Above:
Seven current T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Hall
of Fame members were on stage
when this year's two inductees - John
Berryhill and Michael Cyger
- were announced. (left to right, after the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
cop model) are Howard Neu, Rick
Schwartz, Michael Berkens, Michael
Castello, Ron Jackson, Adam Dicker and
Chad Folkening. Adam Dicker
accepted the award for Michael Cyger
who could not attend. Below:
New Hall of Fame member John
Berryhill was at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
but had to fly out before Saturday's
award ceremony. This shot is from
Friday's Rick Schwartz Roast when
John aimed a hilarious series of
good-natured barbs at the guest of
honor. 
In
addition to the two voted into the
Hall this year, the
late great Ren Warmuz of Trellian.com
and Above.com
was installed
in a special memorial tribute
that follows his premature passing
thislast
October
after a long battle with cancer.
As part of the ceremony a great
music video produced during Ren's
days as a talented singer/musician
in the 1980s was also shown. Ren's
Above.com friends and colleagues Nancy
Bianchi and Victor Pitts were
on stage to represent Ren during the
tribute. 
Two
other special awards were handed out
Saturday morning. Richard Lau
(who could not attend) was named
winner of the Bandit Berkens
Goodwill Ambassador Award and Ilze
Kaulins-Plaskacz of ExcellentDomains.ca
received T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s first Women
in Domaining Award. 
Above:
Ilze Kaulins-Plaskacz accepts
the first T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Women in
Domaining Award. Right
after the awards ceremony, business
sessions resumed with a Domain
Name Broker Roundtable that
featured (on the dais, left to right
in the photo below) Alan Hack,
George Hong (Guta.com), Tessa
Holcomb (Igloo.com), Dave
Evanson (Sedo.com) and James
Wester (DomainGraffiti.com).
Panelists offered advice on the best
ways to get your listed domain names
sold. 
|
|
Simon
Cousins from TLD
Registry
helping Demystify the
Chinese Domain Market |
In
the next session, three
China experts spoke to
help Demystify the Chinese
Domain Market. George Hong of
Guta.com
returned from his
appearance on the previous
Domain Brokers panel to join
Simon Cousins from the TLD
Registry and Jeremy
Marx from BeyondTheDot.com.
George
was kind enough to give us a
link to his slide deck for
this session that has a lot of
information on the booming
Chinese market that you will
find interesting. You can
access that .pdf
file here.
During
my session on domain sales
trends at the start of the day
I noted that the top seven ccTLD
sales in the first quarter of
this year were all Chinese
.cn domains. |
TLD
Registry, a new gTLD registry
operation that administers the
Chinese language extensions meaning
"online" and
"website" has also gotten
off to a fast start as Mr. Cousins
detailed.
In
the final business session of
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2014 it was time
to "Meet the Chiefs"
a long standing show ending session
that brings leaders or top
representatives from multiple
companies together to discuss a
variety of industry issues.
This
year's Meet the Chiefs panel
featured (L to R) Bill McClure
(Coffee.org), Dave Evanson
(Sedo.com), Victor Pitts (Above.com),
Gregg McNair (Igloo.com and
others), John Ferber (DomainHoldings.com
and others) and Michael Castello
(Castello Cities Internet Network).
|
|
A
Fontainebleau Hotel staff
member loads up the
dessert tables for
Saturday night's party. |
With
business now done, it was time
to relax and do some casual
networking among friends old
and new at a Saturday night Dessert
Party at the Fontainebleau
Hotel. Two huge tables laden
with an irresistible range of
delightful desserts attracted
guests like moths to a flame.
No one got burnt but their
waistlines may have suffered
some damage! Those desserts
were like potato chips - you
couldn't eat just one!
After
this party, those who could
stay awake after ingesting so
much sugar headed up to Gregg
McNair's suite where the
gregarious Aussie entertained
into the week hours of the
night.
Below:
Guests at the dessert party
included (L to R) Victoria
Castello, her son Michael
Castello, Natalie
Lambert's mother Arefa,
Uniregistry's Natalie
Lambert & Luis
Petzhold. |
Donuts.co's
Daniel Schindler and Andee
Hill (EscrowHill.com) at the Dessert
Party. Are
you starting to get the impression
that there is a lot of
good food at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conferences? If that wasn't proven
yet again Saturday night it was
Sunday morning (Nov. 2) when show
attendees gathered for final time
before scattering to their homes
around the globe. They were treated
to T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s traditional Farewell
Breakfast, an event that
encourages guests to fuel up for
their trip home and spend a couple
of hours table hopping around the
room to say their goodbyes until
next time. 
Above:
Adam Dicker and Diana
Jackson at Sunday's T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Farewell Breakfast. Below:
People made a point to seek out
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Hostess with the
Mostess Barbara Neu to thank
her for making their show experience
the best it could possibly be. Braden
Pollock was one of the first in
line for a hug. 
Before
the conference, T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Co-Founder Rick Schwartz announced
this was the last show he would be a
part of. Over the past decade
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. has helped launched
countless careers, companies and
deals. Not knowing when I would see
him again as he heads into
"retirement" I made sure
to personally thank him for helping
create and grow our industry - and
also get a picture with the King to
mark the end of a remarkable decade. 
Rick
Schwartz and DNJournal.com's
Ron Jackson at Sunday's
Farewell Breakfast. I
also would have gotten a photo with
Rick's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder Howard
Neu who will now carry the ball
forward but he was busy photo
bombing other shots! You can see
what I mean in the photo below
(anyone named Howard put your hand
up!). This started out as a shot of
Larry Fischer, Braden Pollock
and Tracy Fogarty (all
seated) when others among the last
to leave started spontaneously
filling in the gaps behind them! If
three's a crowd - then 16 is
an even better crowd! 
And
so another T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show is in
the books, but we have more to come.
We'll be doing a full show review
pulling the whole week together along
with many great as yet unpublished
photos that will give you more
insight into a very enjoyable and
rewarding week on Miami Beach. |
