IDN Event Recap

The first IDN Event was held last night in New York City, and the turnout was impressive. Around 40 domain investors attended the sushi dinner organized by Gary and Aaron, two prominent IDN investors and the duo behind  IDNTools.com and related websites.

Obviously, the networking aspect was one of the most important elements of the Event. Attendees came from as far as Israel, the UK, and Hong Kong, to as close as Manhattan, and there were a number of people from various cities throughout the US. It was a good mix of people, and I felt completely comfortable, despite not owning any IDN domain names yet.

I appreciated the fact that the Event was partly treated as an educational opportunity. Although I would guesstimate that 85% of the crowd was made up of people already investing in IDN domain names, there was time devoted to teaching attendees about IDNs and how they are used. The fact that it was educational and not a sales pitch made it all the more interesting to me.

Edmon Chung, the CEO of .Asia prepared an interesting presentation as did Patrick Carleton of Wyvern, LLC. Personally, I felt that the candid remarks of IDN investors Andrew Snow and Moshe Schneider (who recently bought Москва.com (Moscow in Russian Cyrillic)  for $216,000 were the most interesting. When you’re able to hear directly from people who have spent 7 figures in US dollars on a particular investment, it’s generally a good source of information.

I really believe IDN domain names are going to become more mainstream domain investments in the next couple of years. I have been doing my research and due diligence, and there some domain names in the coordinating Snapnames IDN auction that I am following. The auction ends on November 3 at 3:15pm EST.

I appreciate the effort that went into making this a success, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn into an annual occurrence. Congrats to IDN Tools on this achievement.