There are two groups of people in the domain industry – those who attended NamesCon this past week in Las Vegas, and those who did not attend for whatever reason.

Obviously those who attended the conference have formed their opinions about the value of attending because they experienced it first hand. Those who weren’t able to attend have to rely on a variety of industry reports from the conference, including one that I shared. Other reports I recommend reading including Ron Jackson’s analysis, Morgan Linton’s article, Donna Mahony’s recap, and Theo’s post. I assume Mike Berkens

In my opinion, the best part about attending a domain conference is having the opportunity to get together with friends and colleagues, and to meet with companies I do business with or want to get to know. With nearly 600 attendees, the inaugural NamesCon conference was packed, and I think it was a big success.

It’s pretty clear that the new gTLDs were a main focus at NamesCon. There were many new faces (to me) in the crowd, and it seemed that many were there specifically to discuss or learn about the new gTLDs. The three track agenda enabled attendees to pick and choose topics of interest to them. I found the topics to be interesting and fairly specific, which was important since there were so many panel sessions. I did not get the feeling that the new TLDs were being “shoved down our throats,” and that was appreciated.

The only keynote speech I

In late November, I posted a poll asking visitors if they had plans to attend NamesCon. At that point, I was on the fence about going due to other travels, but I made the trip and am glad to be here. 52% of responders said they were not going and 18% said they were undecided.

I understand there are now close to 600 attendees, which is probably one of the three most well attended domain name specific conferences. Kudos to Richard Lau, Jodi Chamberlain, and Jothan Frakes on organizing such a well attended event in less than three months!

I am curious to know if you decided to attend NamesCon. I assume this will be skewed a bit since many attendees probably won’t be reading domain blogs this evening or the morning, but it will be interesting to see how the percentages changed since the first time I asked.

If you’re here, say hello. Like many others (it seems), I am battling a cold right now, so don’t take offense to my non-handshake greetings.