This past week Dan Kimball and I had the opportunity to travel to sunny Hollywood, FL, for the Targeted T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference. Upon arrival to Florida we were greeted with a warm welcome – about 85 degrees – and were very pleased with the hotel accommodations. Most rooms had a seaside view that was absolutely relaxing. For a bit, I felt like I was on vacation. The sound of the sea rushing upon the shore will do that to you.
Getting down to business, Rick Schwartz, the founder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C. was running a tight ship with the help of his staff the entire time. Dan and I were lucky enough to catch up with him for a few minutes the day before the conference. He introduced us to Howard Neu, who is responsible for organizing and being the front-man for a lot of the show’s seminars and introductions. Fantastic job, Rick and Howard!
That evening everyone enjoyed a “meet and greet” and packed the conference center’s lobby. There I was finally able to put a face to a name for a lot of people that I have corresponded with over email and phone. Dan and I even met a few dnZoom beta users which was very enjoyable. Working at ModernBill, I was always meeting current and former clients. This was great because I was able to obtain feedback to bring back to the rest of the ModernBill team. As dnZoom is just getting off the ground, this was the first time that I had the opportunity to meet someone in person who was actually using our product. This really solidified things for me in terms of the project we are working on; dnZoom is finally coming into a life of its own.
After the meet and greet party, Dan and I made our way down to the back patio party, where the chatter about domains coming from the attendees was all but drowning out the crashing of the waves against the shore. Just looking around at this moment made me realize with the presence of all of the industry powerhouses around, this was going to be a great conference.
On Wednesday, between meetings and introductions with colleagues, I attended the “Speed Networking” event, in which each person was assigned to a group for 15 minutes to introduce themselves and exchange business cards before making their way to the next group, allowing each person to meet most everyone in the room. The networking event was full of people from all different facets of the industry, from VC people, to registrars, to parking companies, to renowned domainers and others.
What really piqued my interest was that some big name financial backers were there offering their services so those without sufficient funding could get into the game. There were a number of these companies represented, and with the amount of interest from these organizations it’s certain that this will be an increasingly common way for high dollar names to be procured.
That night we got a great treat when Steve Forbes took the stage to speak. He touched on subjects from domains, to real estate, to gold, and then other investments. It’s good to see a high profile guy such as Forbes willing to lend his name to the domain industry. By keynoting this event, he very much legitimized the domain industry as a vehicle for investments. Let’s hope other high profile investors do so as well.
After dinner we headed down to the TrafficZ yacht party, where Ammar Kubba and the rest of the TrafficZ gang were friendly as always, taking time to stop and chat with all of their guests. At the end of the party they gave away a number of prizes, including an Xbox 360 and an iPhone. The hand-rolled cigars they handed out were also a nice touch. (Dan wanted to drive the yacht and is still upset that he didn’t get to. He said that next time he sees Ammar, he is going to commandeer whatever vehicle Ammar happens to be driving. Haha.)
On Thursday, we were lucky enough to meet up with a number of our partners and speak with a lot of the parking companies dnZoom does business with. We were also able to use this day to forge some new business contacts and catch up with some friends that we had not seen since Seattle and earlier, including the guys at NameDrive, DomainSponsor, Fabulous.com, and Sedo.
That evening we headed down to Nikki’s Marina on the inter-coastal waterway to join the DNForum.com guys for a meet-and-greet dinner. Adam Dicker and Huseyin Sami (Owner and VP of Biz Dev, respectively) were very hospitable and made sure to make their rounds in order to speak with everyone. The dinner was GREAT and I’m sure everyone left feeling extremely stuffed!
Friday, Dan and I had more meetings until lunch, when Ron Jackson from DNJournal.com took the stand to speak about the domain industry and domain sales of 2007. After lunch, we sat in on the first part of the live auction. Sadly, our flight home cut our time there short. However, before we took off, we saw some fierce competition for a few names right off the bat, one of which was sold in order to benefit the ICA. Checking back on the auction results, it looks like the auction was a huge success.
You’ll be able to find Dan at the ICANN event coming up shortly. We will post the rest of the dnZoom travel/conference schedule once we have more information.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the next show! If we have not met you yet, please stop us and say hi!
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Great writeup and nice work on DNZ, Sean!