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A few weeks ago I received an email from Mike at Fabulous. He said that a team from Fabulous was coming down to Melbourne to meet with a number of domainers over dinner and was wondering if I'd like to come along. Of course I would!
 The day arrived and after fighting my way through the traffic for about 2 hours (there must have been an accident on the freeway) we arrived at the restaurant. The biggest problem with the journey was my new Golf R32 really wasn't made for going slow in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was a great night of good food, drink and conversation. Here are a few of the highlights.
The Dark Blue Sea (DBS) system for selling domains via registrars is going really well with additional registrars looking at coming onboard. This is great news for domainers as once the channel to market is firmly established then a lot of our portfolios will go up in value as we provide the necessary stock items (ie. domains) for the Dark Blue Sea DDN. This will provide an ongoing revenue stream for domainers to continue to invest into the market.
Richard (DBS CEO) and I sat down and discussed a number of other items most of which were off the record. A few interesting pieces of information that DBS is investigating is how to scale a fully developed website solution for domainers. I think that is a very ambitious goal that many companies have tried to crack over the years but if they can do it then I'll do more than "tip my hat" to them. A solution like this is something many of us can only dream about.
I couldn't help but bring up my previous article on NameMedia buying DBS (it was a little irresistible) and his view was that it wasn't going to happen. The main reason being that the two cultures of the organisations were entirely different from each other. Frank Schilling sited this as a potential blockage to the merger of the two companies and it looks like he was right. I still believe that it would make sense to bring the two companies together but often deals fail before they start due to differences of points of view.
We also talked about the TRAFFIC conference that will be held in Australia next year in November. The plans are already beginning to shape up and let me assure you that they are looking really good! For all of you wondering if you can survive the long plane journey and the subsequent jetlag, these momentary hassles are easily solved with a few Australian wonders, such as the Great Barrier Reef, lazing on a perfect beach or enjoying some of the sites of Sydney or Melbourne. The best part about it the travel will be all tax deductable because your coming to a conference in Australia, you've got to love that!
I also asked how Fab Plus was going. Peter and Andrew both said that Fabulous Plus is going well and they are even looking into making an API available as soon as they get through the backlog of work on the overworked development team's plate. I know that this will be good news to many domainers.
As well as talking with the guys from DBS it was also good to catch up with some of the other Australian domainers. Snoopy (one of the admins on DomainState - excellent forum), Mark and Dan (mad.biz), David (harrytribe.com) were only a few of the high quality domainers present. Good guys one and all.
Whenever a parking company puts on an even like this it's easy to be cynical and think that all they want is your domains and they are trying to buy it with a meal. What I've always found with the guys from DBS is that this is NOT the case. They are some of the most genuine, hard working, smart guys I know. They also like having a good time, are quick to laugh and have a raft of great stories that will keep you laughing all night long. It's always a pleasure doing business with people when you also enjoy their company.
I'm sure that there will be other events downunder in Melbourne so if you're in the neighbourhood come on and join us!
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