Hard Rock drops room rates for TRAFFIC attendees

After an intense round of negotiating, we’ve gotten the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to drop the room rates for our attendees down to only $99 per night. The cut off date for getting that rate is January 11th.

Even if you have already booked your room, they will lower your rate. If you have already booked your room, drop me an email and I will personally make sure you aren’t over charged.

Hopefully this will help those who may have planned at staying at a lesser hotel.

One Challenge Accepted. Domains.com <— That’s right. Domains.com

It’s hard to imagine a name that could fit our industry better than Domains.com. I’m sure we’ve all reached out to the current owners at least once inquiring about it.

Today, I’m proud to announce that I’ve just secured the brokerage agreement on our own category killer, domains.com.  This is in response to my challenge post put up just before the big holiday.

This will not be a cheap name and the business does not come with it. I will be putting together marketing materials and personally attempting to sell this name for all of us to see.

If you or your company has an interest in it the best you can do at this time is submit me a proposal. You should know that the seller is willing to finance, accept equity proposals or talk specifically cash. All proposals will be taken seriously.

We won’t be in a hurry to sell this name but we do want to cut a deal in the first half of 2010 if we can find the right buyer.

It’s ranked in second position on Google for the keyword “domains”. This is not an easy keyword to get.

Please only submit your interest level if you are sizable enough to get within reach. While I can’t say any numbers at this time, I think you know what I mean by that.

Give me a huge name to sell for you. I am looking for a challenge.

Give me a huge name, a $100,000 to $10,000,000 name to sell for you at TRAFFIC Las Vegas. I am looking for a challenge.

I’ve told my staff that if I devoted my time to it I could get any name sold. Challenge me! Submit your incredible category killer domain name to me personally and let me take on the cause.

Challenge me so I can show them why I have the big office.

Please don’t post the name here. Submit the name through my contact form or through the submission form on TRAFFIC’s website.

Happy Holidays - First 20 replies get half price T.R.A.F.F.I.C. tickets

Please note that the first 10 went so fast that I have modified this post to be the first 20 so more people would get a chance. 10 tickets sold at half priced in only hours so most didn’t even get a chance to see the post.

On behalf of my entire team and associated companies, I would like to wish all of you a sincere happy holidays.

2009 has been a tough year for many so if you are still around, relax and enjoy the time with your friends and family.

As a token of our appreciation, we would like to offer the first 20 people who reply to this thread a ticket to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas at half the price.

So, if you were planning on coming anyway but haven’t purchased your ticket yet, here’s your chance to get one now and save a little cash for presents.

The current price is $1795 per ticket so half price comes to just $897.50. Just post a reply here and we’ll contact you directly.

Cheers…

Meet Investor Jon Waterman - Test Track Angel

By now, most of you should know about our Test Track at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. shows. It’s an event where entrepreneurs submit real businesses to a panel of real investors. This isn’t just a “pitch” and what follows aren’t only opinions. These are real deals that are being cut, on stage, for all to see.

Today I’ll start profiling some of the investors that will be on stage and looking for the next deal. Please keep in mind that we are still accepting applications for both investors and entrepreneurs so if you want to be part of Test Track, please contact us.

Jon Waterman is the CEO of Findology Interactive Media, Inc

Mr. Waterman started Findology in 2001 after founding and serving as CEO of Way Internet, a domain name and traffic brokering company between 1998 -2001. Under his direction, Findology developed products and services that positioned the Company as an innovative and integral part of the evolution of online marketing. In 2007, Mr. Waterman negotiated the sale of Findology to the Photon Group, Inc (PGA.AX), a public company out of Sydney Australia.

Since founding Findology, Mr. Waterman has invested in many start-up Internet companies and is currently the owner of Investing.com and controls a large domain portfolio. He was recently featured in the LA Business Journal as one of the top 20 entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, and has been featured in many online marketing publications and has presented at many industry trade shows.

Findology is now part of the Photon Group. Perhaps you have heard of them.

You could own Pointcast.com, on the cheap - Old school internet guys will appreciate this one

Certain events in 1990s drew me into the Internet business. One that is most memorable to me is Pointcast. In fact, I collect paraphanelia from defunct .com companies, especially the high-profile ones that went bust. In this picture I’m holding an unopened copy of Pointcast and in my left hand, Pointcast I-Server, their intranet platform for corporate networks (Windows NT edition).

They had a desk top application that you would install which, they claimed, could have information pushed to it. It was widely popular. I had it and would want tech news streamed to me all day long. The year I was into it was 1995. Without Pointcast I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did as fast as I did. I followed all the latest press releases from AOL, Microsoft, Netspace and the rest.

Now the guy that started Pointcast probably wasn’t the best businessman in the world. He turned down Rupert Murdoch’s $450 million offer for it in 1997. Later on they planned a 250 million dollar IPO, only to withdraw that.

After a long serious of unfortunate events it ended up selling for only 7 million dollars.

More crazy mergers and aquisitions went by and it eventually was owned by AOL for a while before my client ended up with possession of the name and the trademark.

You can buy Pointcast.com and the trademark, right now for $38,000. With its 15 year old backlinks, I think it is a safe bet. Who knows, perhaps you could build a new application and send out a release that Pointcast is back! I am sure it would get picked up by all the major news outlets.

If you have an interest in the name, please contact me directly.

Latonas.com beta auction - WhyPark.com charity auction, is live

Latonas.com is live, in beta format at least. I’ve posted the full press release below but before that I want to leave you with a few thoughts.

1. This is not the full version of the site. The brokerage department is not live, for one thing. This is also only a beta site. There may be problems.

2. More than anything, I hope you guys can see where we are going with this. We have gone out of our way to showcase your domains like the valuable assets that they are. We have thrown out of the window the way other online domain selling websites have done things to date.

3. We do not want to come across as a technology company, even though I have five full-time programmers working on this and I intend for this to be an ongoing, never-ending development project that will improve, improve and improve.

4. What we want to be is nothing less than the Christies or Sotheby’s of intellectual property. Your names deserve a classy representative and this is what we are trying to accomplish. For instance, I have three full-time artists working on this. We are doing custom graphic images for each and every name.

5. We believe in WhyPark.com’s mission. We want to help them raise money for charities and we are not making anything off this auction. They in turn are helping us raise an audience that will beta test our product.

6. I may take this site back down after the charity auction. If you want to see what it is about, sign up now and look around.

Lastly, I just want to say again that this is an ongoing project. I’m very committed to the domain industry and increasing the values overall. All of us at the upcoming Latona’s Domain Brokerage and Auction House, appreciate you and everything you are working for and are here to help. Don’t hold any comments back. We have the infrastructure to quickly adapt and make changes to our system until we have what all of us need, a platform to extract the maximum value out of your precious domains.

P.S. For those competitors out there analyzing this post, not to worry. I’m much more likely to tackle other intellectual property industries than compete with your parking and other programs. Let’s work together. My door is open to new ideas.

Full press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rick Latona Auctions starts charity auction on behalf of WhyPark.com - Registration and Bidding now open on beta platform.

Atlanta, Georgia USA - December 7, 2009 - Rick Latona Auctions has been working on a proprietary auction platform in collaboration with its sister companies. This week only, it’ll be open to preview and beta test at www.latonas.com. Once the auction is complete the system will be locked back down.

The WhyPark.com charity auction is a real auction with people bidding for real domains and spending real money” stated Rick Latona, CEO of Rick Latona Auctions, “however, it is a beta test of the software and website. The full version with many more features will be released in early January, well ahead of our Main Event at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas. This is only a sneak preview of what we have been working on”.

The WhyPark/Latona’s auction has already started and it ends on Friday at 3:00pm EST at www.Latonas.com.  Rick Latona Auctions would like to invite you to take a look at the system, register for the auction, bid, and give comments on the your experience. Don’t bid unless you want the name, however! This is a live auction.

“We have our team standing by to make improvements,” said David Clements, President of Rick Latona Auctions.  “We see this as a valuable opportunity to wind up with a platform that is custom suited to our industry, and we really would like to get honest feedback from participants of this first auction.”

Registration and bidding for the auction will be at www.latonas.com all week.  This is where you will go to view the catalog and register and bid in the auction.

For any technical questions related to the auction software and to report bugs, please email bugs@latonas.com. For any questions about Rick Latona Auctions, please email David Clements at david@ricklatona.com.
About Rick Latona Auctions:
Rick Latona Auctions is an industry leader in the brokerage of domains and domain auctions.  This industry has exceeded 428,000,000 US Dollars in total sales1 representing over 54,000 individual domains sold since October 2003.  Auctions attract branding managers and executives looking to buy domains to increase their company’s market share against their competitors.  Registered bidders from a live audience and those watching the live online video and audio broadcast compete with one another buying domain names.  Rick Latona Auctions is proud to be the exclusive auction company for all six T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conferences in 2010.  Rick Latona Auctions also can assist you by acting as your domain name broker for a domain purchase or sale.  For additional information, please visit www.RickLatona.com/auctions.

For further information:
David Clements
Partner/ President
Rick Latona Auctions
+1.678.468.9228

1Source: Ron Jackson, DNJournal.com
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Who do you want to meet in the domain business? Let TRAFFIC arrange it for you

A couple of weeks ago, I sat with my team in the conference room and called most of our top customers, polling them on why they would choose one trade show over another.

The overwhelming majority chose networking opportunities as their number 1 reason. That’s great news because I can make a difference here.

For one thing, if you look at the schedule of events on T.R.A.F.F.I.C.’s website you’ll notice the first day of our Vegas show is front loaded with networking events.

Between networking event 1 and event 2 (speed networking) and our opening night cocktail party, we hope that most of you will know each other already over days 2 and 3 so  you have a chance to talk real business.

This also brings me to our new campaign. If you have someone you would like to meet, I will personally setup an introduction. Just take a moment to fill out the form in this banner. Note, I also have one of these banners running on dnforum.com (in the threads), elliotsblog.com and dnjournal.com (if it isn’t up yet it will be soon).

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Test Track now open for submissions - Entrepreneurs and Investors unite

Launched in October at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York, Test Track became an instant hit. Modeled after ABC’s hit television show Shark Tank, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Test Track is all about getting domainers and entrepreneurs in front of investors with deep pockets looking for the next big thing.

This is not a panel. This is the real deal, folks. In New York we ran with it and it was both entertaining and intellectually stimulating for all that attended. Most people told me they thought it was the best part of the show. In Las Vegas, Test Track will be twice as big with 10 times more money on the stage ready to fund a deal.

Some of us remember the first T.R.A.F.F.I.C. event in Delray Beach Florida in 2004. There was an auction at that show, if you could call it that. Rick and Howard had put a white board in the hallway. Everyone would just write down a domain they would auction off and others would walk by and write down what number they were willing to pay for it. I sold iFlorida.com that day.

Flash forward to 2009 and now domain auctions are an industry in itself with yours truly as a major player. I can certainly see Test Track moving in a similar direction. The event will continue to improve and attract bigger and bigger investors.

Speaking of bigger and bigger investors. That’s the thing you’ll notice the most different about Test Track in Las Vegas. I’m working hard on bringing in the serious money. I’ve already gotten commitments from two venture capital firms and three well known high-net-worth angel investors. It’s going to be big.

If you would like to be pitch your business at Test Track Las Vegas, please visit this link and fill out the form.

The core 4 - The greatest business lesson I’ve ever learned

*What terrible likeness*

You just can’t do it all. Lord knows I’ve tried. For years I would start businesses and think I could run every one of them. It simply isn’t possible to be a serial entrepreneur without building a great team to support you.

These days I won’t start anything without someone to run it. Cultivating my team is my main responsibility. That’s why so many of the people in my office get a piece of the action. I have to have them. It’s leverage. The more talent I have the better the organization performs. It’s really that basic.

I know it sounds cliché to say that the people are the most important asset but its the truth. After all, the company’s activities are performed by people. The better the people the better the company performs those activities.

So this is my shout out to the other 3 members of the core-4.

Toby Clements - The best domain broker the world has ever known.

David Clements - The fearless leader of our fast growing auction business.

Ryan Steel - The jack of all trades who has worn many hats in our organization and now heads up our consumer site division. You’ll hear more about that soon enough.

Cheers to you! I wouldn’t be here without you guys.