The Targeted Traffic Conference in Hollywood Florida last week was a great success for the domain industry. Great networking, great new topics at the sessions and amazing domain auction results.

DomainEditorial coverage:

• Madison Avenue visits Domain Investors
  
• Are click fraud numbers being exaggerated by the traditional media?
• Internet Commerce Association launches
• DomainersClub launches
• Fabulous releases Document on the structure of Domain Aftermarket
• AfterNIC launches German Website

Coverage by other publications:

• John Chow: How much is a domain worth?
• Damox’s Internet Advertising Blog: Results of Domain Name Auction
• Auction Results (by Richard Lau of DomainManager.com)
• CNN Web Domain Hell.com hath no takers
• Miami Herald: Internet real estate is hot property at South Florida Auction
• Sun Sentinel: Cameras.com worth $1.5 million at auction
• DomainNameWire: How valuable are your domain names?
• DomainNameWire: Pay-per-click and domain parking
• DomainNameWire: Internet traffic association
• DomainNameWire: Deal or no deal?
• DomainInformer: Moniker Launches MarketPlace Pro Domain Transaction Platform
• DomainInformer: Moniker Auctions HELL.com But Purgatory Proves Too Pricey Today
• DomainInformer: Super-Premium Domain Name PUNT.COM to be Auctioned at the Moniker TRAFFIC EAST Domain Auction; Winner to be Gifted PUNT.MOBI
• DNJournal: How Domain History was made at the Westin Diplomat

In a session at last week’s Targeted Traffic Conference in Hollywood Florida Madison Avenue visited the Domain Investors.
The main result of this discussion between the domain industry and Madison Avenue was that both sides need to educate each other further. Big businesses are taught day in/out to create brands, not generics. They will have to learn that generic terms can work as a seal of approval for their business, bringing them the web traffic of an entire business category. Also the domain industry will have to learn how to better show the value of domains - for example by providing more examples similar to the success of hotels.com.

As you certainly noticed, a lot of traditional media has recently been focusing on click fraud. Is it as big of an issue as it is made out to be, compared to traditional advertising? Unfortunately Eytan Elbaz of Google will not answer this question with statistics, but he lets us know that Google has the problem under control.

Here are some notes based on the Click Fraud Session at the Targeted Traffic Conference in Hollywood, Florida last week.

How does traditional media provide viewer/reader metrics?

Traditional media does not really provide verifiable metrics for their viewer numbers and circulation statistics. While TV statistics are becoming more precise with the help of digital cable and bi-directional networks, circulation metrics for papers are still very much basic estimates.

Newspaper circulation is measured with the help of two main numbers: Paid and free circulation. How reliable are those numbers?

Let’s take a look at an example provided by lawyer John Berryhill: Some years ago, hotels started giving us “free” newspapers in the morning, that most of us do not read. These papers are included in the newspaper’s circulation numbers, which are used in order to calculate the advertising rates.

Since those papers in the hotels were originally free, they had to be included in the “free” circulation numbers, which of course meant less value to the advertiser than a “paid” copy.

So the hotels and paper publishers decided to include the free paper in your room price, and allow you to get a credit if you return the paper to the hotel front desk. It now was a paid copy, which could be counted towards the “paid” circulation numbers - even though the value is more likely to be comparable to the value of a “free” copy.

The traditional print media is running out of advertisers. Thus it is of course in their best interest to discredit their biggest opponent, online advertising. Could this possibly be the main explanation for the frequent coverage of the “click fraud” issues in print media?

Some advantages of Internet advertising vs. traditional media advertising

• you can tell which context the ad was viewed in (you cannot tell if the reader read a certain page of a newspaper)
• “circulation” numbers are more reliable
• conversation rates from ads can be tracked
• smart pricing for advertising, i.e. depending on conversion rates

An issue that might affect publisher payouts was brought up by Rick [of OffShoring.com]: ‘Shaving’ by advertisers, meaning the manipulation of conversion rates. Since the online advertising systems rely on the advertiser to track the ‘action/conversion’ (by adding some tracking code to their “sale complete” page), they are in a position to manipulate the number of closed sales.

Another comment brought up by Joe [of CentralNIC] was that additional transparency, (i.e. publishing click fraud numbers), could be used to counteract the perception that clickfraud is a big issue.

For those of you not attending traffic, you can see the bids of the live auction here courtesy of Richard Lau of DomainManager.com.

Someone apparently thought that this was a good time to deface DNJournal and NamePros. The administrators of the forums are working on assessing the damage. Be careful though when visiting the sites, it appears that at least on DNForum there’s some ActiveX code.

The Internet Traffic Association I have written about previoulsy has now officially been launched as the Internet Commerce Association. Some of the founding members are Name Administration Inc., Internet REIT Rick Schwartz, Howard Neu and Sedo.

Lawyer and Lobbyist and Phil Corwin will be representing the group in Washington DC. While speaking he pointed to the proposed contractual changes for the ICANN/Registry contracts which would allow tiered pricing.

[Internet Commerce Association]

Just in case you have not noticed, I am at the Traffic Conference here in Hollywood Florida this week and well do my best to cover some of the conference with some posts. If you are here as well, try to find me and say hi.

At yesterday’s cocktail reception I noticed several people wearing DomainersClub polo shirts.  I had been planning on asking one of them what this was all about, but never got around to it, when finally someone from the group (who turned out to be someone I knew before from a Forum) asked me to post a little introduction about them on this blog. So what is it all about, you ask?

From their site:

• Being part of the most exclusive club for domainers
• Maximum parking payouts
• Networking events at the world’s most beautiful places
• Worldwide business contacts
• Consulting in founding companies around the world
• Consulting in lawsuits

James M Woods former head of domains at Tucows has been named as Chief Architect at DomainsBot and at the same time will be switching his roll at his other start up Names@Work to take on the roll of Chief Architect there as well. I will be meeting with him next week to see what he’s up to - one of his latest projects is DictaBrain - a solution that let’s you call in a blogpost. James just told me that he’s recently learned to juggle in hopes that this helps him manage all these responsibilities! Maybe I should be doing something similar and brush up on my juggling skills.

Thank you to Skenzo for taking us to the Guns’n'Roses concert in Sunshine Florida.

[Thanks Peter]