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The
first big event of day 2 at Domain Roundtable, the breakfast keynote address
from Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, will undoubtedly be viewed by
many as their personal show highlight.
Mr.
Cerf, who currently
serves as Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and as Chairman
of the Board at ICANN, has been called the Father of the
Internet, a term he detests as he prefers to talk about
contributions made by others and downplay his own role. He is an
living encyclopedia of internet knowledge and an exceptionally
engaging speaker who could easily have talked the entire day
without losing anyone's attention.
One of
the many interesting things Cerf said was that though he never
envisioned domain names having the commercial importance they do
today, he always felt that the internet itself needed to embrace
commercial enterprises in order to grow. In the early years of the
web many of his contemporaries did not want to see the web sullied
by commerciality of any kind.
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Internet
pioneer Vint Cerf
(Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.com
and Chairman of the Board at ICANN)
speaking at 2006 Domain Roundtable
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Cerf
addressed the controversional ICANN-Verisign .com agreement,
saying he voted for it as he didn’t think continued litigation
between the two parties would result in a better settlement than
the one ICANN finally signed off on.
Many
complain that ICANN does not keep a tight enough leash on
registrars that fail to abide by ICANN rules. Cerf admitted that
the organization has lacked the manpower and tools needed to
enforce compliance. He said ICANN currently has only one option of
disciplining registrars, which is to disaccredit them (sometimes
referred to as the "nuclear option"). He would
like to see more options, including a structure for levying fines
but does not expect changes anytime soon.
On
another topic, Cerf said that as search engines improve a smaller
percentage of people may use direct navigation (type ins) to reach
web sites. However he said that since the number of web users will
increase the actual number of direct navigators may go up.
| Cerf
went into the audience for a question and answer session after his
talk. When moderator Jothan Frakes asked him about a quote
(erroneously) attributed to Al Gore saying that Gore had invented
the internet, Cerf said, “everywhere I go, some a**hole
always brings
that up!”
The audience cracked up, including Frakes who said
Cerf is one of his heroes (and later mused on what an honor it was
to be called an a**hole by Vint Cerf). For the record, Cerf noted
that Gore never said that and in fact did have a major role in
development of the commercial web and should receive credit for
that rather than ridicule for something he never said.
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Jothan
Frakes (L) "honored" by Vint Cerf
during audience Q & A session |
After
Mr. Cerf’s speech it was decision time again. From the 9:45am
options I picked a seminar on Domain Registration and Renewal
Market Trends which brought back Mr. LaPlante from Afilias and
Michael Ward, Director or Marketing for the Public Interest
Registry (operators of the .org registry). Renewals, like
aftermarket sales, are an important barometer of overall market
health. Both renewals and new registrations have been booming for
more than a year now.
LaPlante
said that the .info registry’s free domain promotion has been
very successful as many registrants who originally got their names
at no cost are renewing them, leaving the registry a huge increase
in what are now paid registrations. LaPlante said the promotion
also increased both usage and recognition of .info. LaPlante also
noted that ccTLDs are enjoying a renewal rate of 75%-90% (depending
on the extension), which is considerably higher than the 65% rate
for .com/.net.
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Eric
Harrington
Founder/President, Moniker.com |
At
11am, with four more choices staring me in the face I went for a
well-attended session on The Domain Aftermarket featuring six well
known figures from that space.
Fabulous.com COO
Dan Warner illustrated the
current market boom by noting that his company’s sales have been
doubling every quarter!
Moniker’s Eric Harrington
said that the
entry into the market of companies like DomainCapital.com that
provide domain financing will have a huge impact. He said
“imagine the housing market without mortgage financing.”
Basically that is what we have had in the domain market but that
is now changing, opening the door for many potential new owners of
premium domains.
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Thursday’s
luncheon session featured the final keynote address from Internet
REIT President Marc Ostrofsky. Internet REIT is playing a major role in
the ongoing consolidation of major domain portfolios and currently
holds approximately 400,000 domains. Ostrofsky has a terrific
grasp of everything going on in this market and had many
interesting observations. While he believes firmly in domains he
said investors should always diversify and that can be
accomplished by selling some assets rather than keeping all of
your wealth in
one category.
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Marc
Ostrofsky
President, Internet REIT (iREIT.com) |
While
acknowledging that .com remains the gold standard, Ostrofsky said
today there might actually be a greater return on investment in
some other extensions. In particular he said he loves .info and
that many of those have a better chance of going from $100 to $200
than a .com has of going from $1,000 to $2,000. Ostrofsky is also
bullish on the Asia Pacific market, especially China. He predicts
that the next wave of millionaires will come from those who invest
there.
Ostrofsky
also called on the industry to come together to address risks that
face domain owners. He would especially like to see a movement
that will result in domains being classified as property, noting
that “as property, assets are much harder to take away.”
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After
Mr. Ostrofsky’s well received talk, it was back to the seminar
rooms. For the 2:30 breakout I sat in on Chris Ambler’s one man
session on The Domain Drop. With Ambler (the guy behind
Enom’s
Club Drop), one man is sufficient when the drop game is the
subject.
| Ambler gave a very detailed presentation on how the whole
drop process works and what leads to success for the drop catching
companies. He also noted that he expects the whole game to change
again soon, predicting approval of Verisign’s proposed Central
Listing Service (CLS). Every .com and .net domain that expires would be
auctioned off through the CLS (except those that current
registrars keep and auction off before the names enter the
traditional drop cycle). Under the CLS plan, Verisign (operators
of the .com/.net registry) would split the proceeds with the
registrar losing the dropping domain.
For
the 3:45pm sessions Thursday, the seminar choice was already made
for me as I was part of a panel on Tools for Following the Domain
Industry that included DNForum.com owner Adam
Dicker,
ICANNWiki.org operator Ray King (an original founder of
SnapNames.com) and Ali Farshchian of CircleID.com. I think the
best way to summarize that session is to just tell you to bookmark
each of the sites represented and you will never be out of the loop when it
comes to what is happening in the domain industry.
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Chris
Ambler
Enom's Club Drop |
After
our panel there was a single 5pm session on I-Names, InfoCards,
and I-Services that I had to miss in order to catch up on the
email that had gone unanswered since I arrived in Seattle the day
before the show. It was the only opening I had as I wanted to be
back on the floor for the Silent Auction that evening. At that
event, bidders sipped wine and enjoyed hors douvres while scanning
the bid sheets sponsored by Afternic, Moniker and Sedo. The
highlight of the evening was the $110,000 sale of Jail.com.
AutomotiveLoans.com was another winner at $18,000. The auction
brought the curtain down on a very interesting day two and left a
great deal of anticipation about the final events waiting for us
on closing day Friday.
Continue
to Page 3: .....And the Winner Is!
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