Fairwinds Partners is organizing and producing Beyond the Dot 2014, a conference focused on how the new gTLD domain names will affect end-users. The one-day conference will be held next week, on February 19, 2014, at the Newseum in Washington, DC. If you have an interest in the new domain names, this might be an event you will benefit from attending.

The primary reasons I think it will be interesting is because of the comprehensive agenda as well as the mix of announced speakers and guests. Topics of discussion include everything from operating a new domain extension to ICANN’s role to purchasing and using the new domain names. Several representatives from domain registries that will be operating new TLDs will be in attendance.

There are a number of distinguished speakers and panelists on the agenda that will each bring an interesting perspective to the event, including:

• Akram Atallah  President, Global Domains Division,  ICANN
• Mr. Sami Hassanyeh,  Chief Digital Officer, AARP, Inc.
• The Honorable Erika Mann,  Board of Directors, ICANN
• Mr. Jim Messina,  2012 Campaign Manager for President Obama
• The Honorable John Negroponte,  Former United States Deputy Secretary of State and Former Director of National Intelligence

If I lived closer to DC, I would probably attend the event, but I will not be there. The cost to attend Beyond the Dot is $495, and advance registration is required. I understand that discounts are offered to non profit organizations and members of the media. The event runs from 8am – 5pm. For more details or to register to attend, visit the Fairwinds Partners website.

Shortly after Aaron Strong commented that he bought the single letter x.Ventures domain name, I purchased three single letter new gTLD domain names: n.Ventures, n.Holdings, and g.Holdings. I later learned that a whole bunch of single letter new gTLD domain names were registered, perhaps even all of those that were available to purchase.

In light of this, I thought it would be appropriate to write a brief post mortem to reiterate why I made my purchases and my thoughts on buying new TLD domain names. There are several things I want people to understand about why I bought these three domain names and my plans for them.

For me, these purchases were purely speculative. Unlike my .com domain names, I do not believe an aftermarket has been established, and I have no idea when (or if) there will be a strong aftermarket for these domain names. I think there is upside potential, but I can afford to take risks.  As Sukhjin pointed out, single letter domain names aren’t guaranteed to sell profitably. I hope another company wants to buy them in the future, but who knows. There are going to be so many options, the profit potential is more limited than my exact match .coms.

I would not recommend that

Charles posted a comment earlier today in my article asking people what new gTLD domain names they registered, and it seems to jive with what many other domain investors have been saying when it comes to buying new domain names: “Save the money. GTLD stands for ‘Good To Lose Dinero.'” I find comments like these very ironic.

In my quest to buy good domain names, I often come across other domain investors. In addition, domain investors email me daily to see if I have an interest in buying their domain names. I would say that 99.5% of the time, the prices these people quote are batshit crazy. There’s nothing wrong with quoting a crazy asking price of course because the goal with domain investing is to make as much money as possible with your domain investments.

Why is it that these new gTLD domain names bring out such

As I reported earlier this week, I do not currently own any of the new domain names. I am involved in an auction for one new domain name (.Ventures), but I don’t know if I am going to bid competitively to win it. I am just not sure about whether it’s worth the price, but we’ll see what happens.

At the time of my writing this article, somewhere around 30% of the people who voted have already registered a domain name in one of the new extensions. Some of the people who replied via comment shared the domain name(s) that they purchased. If you are interested, I would like to invite you to share some of the new gTLD domain names that you purchased.

On a separate but related note, I can see the value in