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So what was TRAFFIC Silicon Valley like? Was it worth it? Did the time, effort and jetlag really justify the trip? The short answer for me was an emphatic “yes”. There was a huge amount of business conducted at TRAFFIC and I believe that this was largely due to the type of people that attended.
 In comparison to other domain conferences TRAFFIC is expensive to attend. I think that the price tag immediately filters out many of the less than serious domain owners and only those with a reasonably large stake in the industry end up attending. This resulted in about 180 people attending TRAFFIC which is probably the lowest attendance to a TRAFFIC conference to date. It also clearly demonstrated the fact that the domain industry has definitely been impacted by the global financial crisis.
A couple of hours after getting to the hotel on the Sunday I had my first meeting and since TRAFFIC is all about business the meetings just didn’t stop from that point onwards into the small hours of the morning. This was fine by me as it allowed me to capitalise on the fact that Australians wake up as the night goes onwards, although I heavy eyelids got the better of me around 4pm on a couple of days.
I had the privilege of taking part in the first session on the topic of “Google and Yahoo” and I think that it ended up providing some interesting insights for those that attended. I’m pretty simple about G&Y – just give them what they want, quality traffic that isn’t tainted by deliberately misleading keyword settings or fraudulent traffic. In turn, I think that G&Y could really assist the industry in the area of transparency of transactions.
At 2pm I was again on a session that was titled, “Will PPC survive?” My personal opinion is that PPC will survive and thrive into the future largely due to its scalable nature. I also believe that domain owners should consider launching a number of businesses on the back of good domains so that they can hedge their bets moving forward.
The official TRAFFIC party was an outstanding event and Skenzo really did a great job organising the event. I’ve come to the realisation that not only can Indian’s play cricket but they can party as well! I must admit it that I got a shock when I won a plasma screen in the raffle. Vishal at Skenzo has been incredibly helpful in organising a replacement plasma for me in Australia. It makes me wonder if they are this helpful for working out a solution to a plasma then how helpful would the Skenzo team be for doing business. Well done you guys for a great effort!
For me the next day was full of meetings but I did manage to attend the “Meeting of the Chiefs” session where Gregg McNair described the event as more of a gondola ride rather than a shoot-out. Trust another Australian to say it straight!
Both the auctions were run well although the one run by Moniker clearly made a lot more sales compared to Rick Latona’s. This is even if you took the large $1.4m sale of ad.com to Skenzo out of the equation. My guess is that Rick will be all fired up to ensure that the next auction he runs will be much more successful from a sales perspective.
For the first time I had a chance to really get to know some of the team at Moniker. They are a great bunch of people that like a good time and are also unbelievably focused on getting a business result for their customers. The conversation and constant flow of text messages (I really mean constant flow) all revolved around how to ensure that the Moniker auction was successful despite the economic crisis. This focus obviously paid off and they should be congratulated for their efforts – well done!
The Wednesday night finished with a party in the hotel bar sponsored by Parked and a friendly game of poker upstairs in one of the suites. Howard Neu ended up winning and it was great to see the look of satisfaction on his face as he scooped up the pot. Great stuff Howard!
Although I wanted to go to the domain party across the hallway I ended up crashing at about 1am because I had to be up the next morning at 5am to catch a flight. It was a great conference with lots of business being transacted. Congratulations are in order for Rick, Howard and their families for running such a great event. I look forward to seeing everyone again in New York or even Amsterdam in a few weeks time.
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