Not everyone attends a domain conference.
Not everyone attends a domain conference, and while the overall consensus is that industry events offer plenty of networking opportunities, there are several reasons against attending one.
In the coming months and years, the success of a domain conference will be determined by the ever-changing synergies in the Internet namespace.
Here are 10 reasons why domain investors don’t attend domain conferences:
- Domain conferences charge an arm and a leg to attend. When an event is expensive to attend, those willing and able to foot the bill are the top 5% of the industry.
- The agenda of the domain conference is not planned or revealed until the final few weeks; yet ticket discounts expire a long time prior to that.
- Keynote speakers are outsiders to the industry, with no knowledge or influence over the matters related to domaining.
- The domain conferences create a polarized environment that might exclude new trends and products; the brightest minds thus stay off.
- Conferences are too short; for the time and money involved, a conference lasting three days including your flight out day is far too short.
- The time and location chosen is far away from key financial and development centers where one can travel directly and without much hassle.
- Promotion of these domain conferences is underwhelming and overpromising; there is little balance between quality and quantity.
- Most domain conferences do not tap the younger market with special promotions; affordability is not the same across all age groups of domainers.
- While there are plenty of women domainers, they are not encouraged to participate and actively contribute to the panels or activity groups.
- Lastly, domain conferences are often used as self-serving social gatherings, instead of being hubbubs of education for the progress of the domain industry.
That being said, the Virtual Web Fair 2014 is a new type of remote participation event; currently, more than 700 people have signed up to attend on July 24th.
This is very true:
“Keynote speakers are outsiders to the industry, with no knowledge or influence over the matters related to domaining.”
Well Said, but also every conference is in the middle of the week. Need to get a domain conference on the week end! I have off Saturday and Sunday. I am sure many others, are like me. We have jobs!
Hmmm…..couldn’t disagree more.
I’ve been to just about every domain conference there’s been and I’ve built a successful business from the relationships that I’ve formed over the years. I enjoy hearing from people outside of the domain industry that are in the online marketing space. They tend to bring a different perspective.
I’m not really sure how you can comment on why you don’t go to domain conferences when you openly admit that you haven’t been. LOL!
Michael – That’s because you belong to the 5% of serial goers. The bulk of Joe Domainers never sets foot to a domain conference, for one or more reasons listed above.