As somebody who deals with many up-and-comers in the domaining biz, I get asked every now and then which conferences are the best ones to attend in order to get on the fast track. My immediate response is… Well, there aren’t too many absolutely GREAT ones to begin with nowadays unfortunately.

I am talking about ones that are absolutely MUST-ATTEND’  type of deal… So my recommendation always is… If you can attend at least a few of the different ones out there nowadays and there really is no shortage of them, small and big, the combined knowledge and everything you take away from the various experiences should be “OK” and get you rolling in the right direction.

It’s highly unlikely you will become a millionaire the next week, month, etc… But you will be better educated than what you previously were. So you have that to take away… Maybe you will even make a new friend or find a nice business partner when you strike that perfect match. Surprise surprise! You never know.

Now I personally never attended any of the big TRAFFIC or Domainfest conferences and don’t plan to because I simply do not need to be there. I’ve made most of my industry connections with insiders and such way early on in my domaining career in 2004/2005 so I am pretty much set for life…. I was there very early on, just as domainers were starting to build something together and a lot of the good stuff happened behind the scenes. Never public.

So I got news for ya… None of these conferences will ever magically transform your business, no matter what they promise you or what you heard from others. They will just highlight some of the various strategies to go about buying, selling or monetizing domains and give you the tools to be able to participate just like the next guy. It is up-to you to take that information and run with it.

Most of the recent domain conferences have been generating lots of buzz with all of the after-parties and other bullshiting around. Now, I like a good party just as you all do but I think most of these should be focused a lot more on introducing some new ideas, and not the same ol’ presentations about new parking features or other so called experts just theorizing about this and that when it comes to development / search engine optimization.

I say go with low expectations to these conferences because the better days of the domain industry conference era are over, for quite some time now, for anybody who is still in denial… Unless some more engaging formats, top notch interesting speakers and other innovative stuff is introduced…. Sooner than later, they will all become just one big joke.

Now when I was involved heavily in the adult biz, and generating 10 million+ visitors via 1000s of porn sites on any given month I would get invited to private parties and get-togethers by the biggest adult affiliate programs out there. They offered to fly me and my partners in, pay all expenses, just so that they can present their new sites and explain what they are working on… They tried really hard to win over our biz and get us to send them more and more traffic.

All they wanted was a few hours of our time and went to great length’s to work something out. I only went to a few of these back in 2007, but the inner-circle was really really smell. I recall seeing the same faces over and over again, and we’re not taking about hundreds or dozens of people. Less than I can count on my fingers actually.

It’s really a small world at the end of the day and the biggest players get the red carpet treatment while the rest are… Well, you get the boring usual stuff month’s late, introduced to the biggest opportunities when it’s already old news. But that’s just how life is, it’s not fair. It never was and never will be. Up-to you to determine where you end up when all said and done… Gotta bust that ass and work hard in order to climb the latter.

There are just as many conferences in the adult biz, as there is in the domain biz… Both industries are huge and worth billions of dollars annually… But the real action always happens behind the scenes. What goes on in the public and open-to-all conferences is just the usual mixing around, catching up and socializing with some standard programming to call it a conference.

I’ve been invited to speak at various domain conferences, marketing conferences and adult expo’s… I’ve been given free tickets to many of these by the dozens as well… But really, I have nothing to do there, unless I was to go and party hardy. But really… I’ll rather do something more productive down here at the office or just take a few days to travel with the GF at the end of the day.

You know… Everybody’s needs are different and none of us are a like. It’s hard to put on a good show and satisfy hundreds of people… There are people on so many different levels. I think the best way to move forward is to do more casual and intimate little get-togethers every here and there where the focus is to collectively brainstorm some ideas and then to follow up by teaming up with like-minded people and to actually get work done.

Team-work goes a long way and unfortunately the domain industry is one that has failed at creating teams and opportunities for groups en masse… There is so many egos and different personalities. It’s fun and all, sure, but business could be a lot better if people were a little more open minded and looking to seriously get involved with joint ventures and collectively take on the problems that exist, eliminating them one by one… “Because together, yes we can”

It’s too bad nobody gives a shit though. I certainly don’t. I have my own businesses to worry about… So, who will? And when? Lets just hope it’s not too late whenever that does happen, if it even happens!