For the last few months me and my wife Agnes have been working pretty hard to make upcoming MeetDomainers the biggest and the best so far. Now is your turn!

In just a few days, one hundred specialists from Poland and abroad will meet to talk about domain names and alternative investments. There will be sessions dedicated to domains, wine, green energy and startups. Three-hour negotiation workshop is also a part of the event, as well as live domain auction. Check out our agenda!

After the conference, we invite you for a night in Opera Club sponsored by ZeroPark. Enjoy the evening with excellent food and drinks. Network and have fun!

Registration for MeetDomainers

Daniel Dryzek

People in Europe (and in other parts of the world, too!) would generally prefer ccTLDs (.pl, .de, .co.uk, .fr etc.) than .com TLD. There are differences between countries and Spanish or French keyword in .com could be worth more than the same keyword in .es (for Spain) or .fr (for France). But in most cases .pl, .de, .se etc. names will be more valuable than .com domains (written in Polish, German or Swedish).

On a global scale .com is king, especially English names + .com. But “locally” (country by country) people prefer ccTLDs. And that local trend will continue.

Do you agree or not? Please comment!

Number of domains registered in Poland:

.pl  1,412,646

.com.pl 339,916

.eu 210,507

.com 195,244

.waw.pl 51,995

.net 45,962

.info 41,882

.net.pl 35,104

.org 25,135

.org.pl 24,113

.info.pl 21,108

.biz.pl 11,971

.edu.pl 10,995

Daniel Dryzek

1 .de (Germany) 14,367,909
2 .uk (United Kingdom) 9,317,393
3 .nl (Netherlands) 4,412,505
4 .eu (European Union) 3,392,796
5 .cn (China) 3,379,441 (February 28th, 2011)
6 .ru (Russian Federation) 3,274,063
7 .ar (Argentina) Source: Zooknic, January 2011
8 .br (Brazil) 2,452,527
9 .it (Italy) 2,163,460
10 .pl (Poland) 2,084,330

Happy Easter Everyone!

Daniel Dryzek

Source: DomainReport.ca

Daniel Dryzek

It is always quite awkward for me to hear from almost every domainer that .eu is dead and that this TLD is without future. Well, maybe but maybe not. If you look at the latest Sedo‘s Domain Market Study, you will see that .eu is second most popular ccTLD on Sedo’s marketplace. The .de extensions remains the most popular ccTLD at Sedo with 49% of total sales but .eu and .co.uk account for 15% each.

.eu domains are not too expensive and overpriced – that’s why end users buy them and that’s why this TLD is getting more and more popular in the Internet.

I have never been to much enthusiastic about .eu names and I was always trying to find pros and cons of this new TLD. Time goes by and I see more and more pros everyday. Liquidity is one of the advantage that many TLDs don’t have.

Please be aware that I posses quite substantial amount of .eu domains in my portfolio, mainly in Polish language but also some in English and German – my favorite ones: money.eu and geld.eu.

Daniel Dryzek

I am excited to invite you to our first MeetDomainers UK event that will be held in Hilton Manchester Deansgate Hotel on August 27-28th, 2010. We are teaming up with NameDrive, one of the biggest parking companies, to bring you a two-day show in Manchester exploring trends, technologies and opportunities in the UK and International markets.

Earlybird rates start at just 150 GBP with spouse / partner discounts available. Not only is the most affordable domain conference, it will also be one of the best! Hurry up – earlybird rates expire on June 30th.

MeetDomainers has been developed with you, the domainer, in mind. Panels are geared towards domainers’ needs and interests, covering current topics such as domain development, SEO, affiliate networks and Internet business. Check our preliminary agenda for MeetDomainers in Manchester.

Panellists for MeetDomainers UK include Lesley Cowley, CEO, Nominet. A must see panel, Lesley will provide attendees with an insight into the UK domain industry as well as answering questions from attendees. We are also proud to announce the latest addition to the show. Bryan Lip, Expedia Inc. Expedia’s family of businesses include expedia.com, hotels.com, Venere, Hotwire, TripAdvisor and Egencia, generating more then $21.8B in revenues in 2009, most of which was online. Bryan works in the Expedia Affiliate Network business, which is responsible for distributing Expedia’s contracted travel products (air, hotel, car, packages, activities, insurance and cruise).

Register now for MeetDomainers 2010 in the UK!

I would also like to invite you to  the one and only domain conference in Poland! This is our third meeting and this time it will be held on August 19-21st, 2010 in Sofitel Grand Sopot Hotel – right at the beach!

Earlybird rates start at just 179 EUR. Parties, lunches, beverages, food, drinks, entertainment at the beach and live domain auction included!

Attending MeetDomainers Poland you will learn:

Looks like we have a new player on the Pan-European domain auction market.

You need to be a certified member to bid on the auction and first you need to open an account too. Auction ends on 17 June 2010 at approximately 5pm CET.

All of the names have some bids, the minimum now is 20 EUR and most popular 3-letter .eu are now: hhz.eu 81 EUR, gze.eu 73 EUR and fzf.eu 66 EUR – not that much..

I am really happy to see some initiative from NameDrive in domain auctions field. Domaining (especially ccTLDs) needs new marketplaces to boost business and make it more live and vibrant. Good luck NDX Market and I am looking forward to new auctions coming soon! Maybe the first Central and Eastern European domain auction..?

Daniel Dryzek

So who is coming to

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If you are coming to TRAFFIC Milan you may be interested in attending an informal meeting on Monday to catch up and enjoy Italian food together with other TRAFFIC attendees. We will meet in the restaurant DA PUCCINI at 7 pm local time. Meals and drinks will be paid by each attendee individually. If you would like to attend please email me, so I can forward your email to meeting organizers who can book enough space for all.

You should also check out T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Main Auction inventory as well as .EU exclusive inventory. You will find there some real gems like: Meetings.co.uk, Erotica.com, Italy.net, Houses.co.uk, Thick.com, BabyFood.com, Carnivals.com, ER.com, Cheesecake.com, FR.net, Credito.com, Tijuana.mx, Football.eu or Hell.com.

I will be speaking on Thursday, April 29th in a session dedicated to .pl (Poland), .ru (Russia) and Eastern European markets so please feel free to post your questions in comments regarding Polish domain market – I will prepare more complex and accurate answers for you!

I hope to see many of You in Milan! Remember – domain conferences are about three most important things: people, people and people..

Daniel Dryzek

DomainSponsor

It seems that DomainSponsor has taken it serious when it comes to European domain market and ccTLDs monetization.

Here is my interview with Joerg Schnermann – General Manager of DomainSponsor Europe about their expansion and plans for the future:

DD: How does DomainSponsor want to compete with well established European parking companies such as Sedo and NameDrive and how do you want to differentiate your offer?

JS: Sedo, NameDrive and other players all have their own strengths. DomainSponsor Europe brings a new competitive edge to the market. Our most important differentiation for publishers is maximum monetization. While this sounds ambitious, it is based on our strong technology platform which we’re continually improving. Unlike other companies, we invest heavily in optimization technology to maximize the return on publishers’ global domain assets. In addition, we have the best pro-active customer service in the market.

Just to add a little history, DomainSponsor pioneered the domain monetization industry back in 2002, well before Sedo and NameDrive appeared. So we consider ourselves to be extremely well established, with respect to monetizing traffic.

DomainSponsor recognizes that Europe is not just one market like US. It is very heterogeneous with more than a dozen different ccTLDs, languages, cultures, legal requirements, etc. We understand the differences. We will take a market by market approach, to best meet different user behavior and domainer requirements. We know that we have to customize solutions for our customers.

Hence our goal for the European marketplace is to listen to local domain investors, learn about unfulfilled needs and goals, and then build a better suite of monetization services than they have access to today. We have a big advantage in making this happen because we can build upon the technology, experience, and knowledge that has helped us become the leader in monetizing traffic. And since we are taking a fresh look at the European marketplace, we have the additional advantage of not being locked into a previous way of thinking. We can tailor our technology and service to what is happening in the industry today and what local domain investors see happening in the future.

The first step in our process is to establish a strong presence in Europe. Then, we’ll continue to build relationships and promote new developments, bringing the latest technology to each market.

DD: Are you going to localize your services for specific countries or leave is as it is now, with one website www.domainsponsor.com?

JD: The website, Domainsponsor.com, is actually the publisher interface where our account and reporting tools are found. All domain administration can be done by our publishers here.

For the immediate future the website will remain unchanged. Going forward, our plan is to localize or better geo-target the website as we grow our presence in Europe. We already have plans to allow users to select one of several languages when viewing either the front-end informational pages or back-end account management tools. Our goal is to make the website more informative and useful to prospective and current clients who may not be 100% comfortable with English. Initially, we will be offering languages from countries with the biggest market opportunities.

Right now our first priority is to improve existing monetization methods and test new ones, on a country-by-country basis. We’ll localize our services for specific countries. For example, we will be enhancing our optimization technology so that it continuously analyzes, identifies, and uses the behavioral, keyword, and landing page nuances that are unique to each country, and in so doing, produces the maximum monetization on a country by country basis.

DD: What kind of advantages can European domainers expect when DomainSponsor has its subsidiary in Europe?

JS: Having been a domainer myself for over three years, I know that domainers are very interested in a real alternative to existing players in Europe.

Everybody in our value chain will realize the advantages of more competition and more choice. With DomainSponsor expanding its presence in Europe, all domainers will benefit because tougher competition will spur innovation and help to accelerate the evolution of the parking industry. Oversee.net and DomainSponsor are strong proponents of our industry, helping to reshape its image and build recognition for the value it contributes.

Moreover, our presence in Europe underlines the growing importance of the European markets in the global domain industry. Despite the economic downturn of the last 12-18 months, we see tremendous and sustainable growth potential in domain monetization. We are very excited to be playing a larger role in the European domain industry.

DD: Why did you choose Prague for your second European show (the first one was in Amsterdam as far as I remember)?

Actually the very first DOMAINfest was held in Barcelona in 2006. One year later we held DOMAINfest Amsterdam.

This time we couldn’t think of a better place to hold a conference than Prague. To many, Prague is in the “heart” of Europe. It is an incredibly beautiful city. Prague has it all — a rich history, stunning architecture, wonderful people and great nightlife. In addition, the city is very “conference friendly”, which will provide a truly unforgettable experience for attendees. DOMAINfest Europe attendees will be able to enjoy all that Prague has to offer before, during, and after the event.

It is also important to note that while DOMAINfest Europe will include a Moniker live domain auction, its primary goal is to provide attendees with an opportunity to network with colleagues and industry experts not only from Europe, but from around the world. DOMAINfest conferences have always offered unbeatable networking opportunities. And we think Prague is the perfect setting for an event like DOMAINfest which is so heavily focused on helping attendees build lasting and beneficial relationships.

Also, by having the event in Prague, we wanted to acknowledge and make it easy for domain investors to attend from emerging/newer European markets, like Poland.

DD: Thank you!

Joerg Schnermann is General Manager, DomainSponsor Europe. Schnermann previously was Chief Operating Officer of KeywordDomains.com where he managed and expanded large portfolios of ccTLDs and monetized traffic through multiple channels. Prior to working in the domain business, he was a marketing manager with the Coatings Division of BASF AG, responsible for the development and launch of value-added services in eight European sales organizations. Schnermann also has a corporate banking background with Commerzbank AG. He received his B.A. in European Business from DCU in Dublin, Ireland as well as a “Diplom Betriebswirt” from the European School of Business in Reutlingen, Germany.

Daniel Dryzek

The truth is that in the European Union COM is usually the second or third domain name and ccTLDs are the kings of its markets. This is exactly the case in Poland, where I live and where are 1,7M .pl names registered. There are also 190,000 .eu names and only 170,000 .com domains. The same situation is in other markets such us .de (Germany), .co.uk (United Kingdom) etc. According to the lates VeriSign report there are 83M COM domains and 76M ccTLDs.

And don’t get me wrong – it is OK for me as I have less competition here in Europe and I can easily buy good ccTLDs cheap and develop ccTLD projects but it is always strange to see how ignorant some people are.

The same case is with IDNs. I mean IDN names not TLDs – just to give you an example: pożyczka.pl would be IDN for nonIDN version pozyczka.pl. The meaning for that domain is  ”loan”. And YES, people in Poland start using IDNs a lot and in 2-3 years they will get more popular than nonIDNs. How do I know that? I see my IDN names statistics. For some pair of parked names – IDNs are getting more UV and revenue than nonIDNs.

But I have good news for ccTLD investors – good times for us are coming :) DomainSponsor has recently announced opening its subsidiary in Europe, DomainFest is coming to Prague in October 6-7, 2010 and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference is coming back to Europe in 2010, this time to Milan (Italy) and Dublin (Ireland). In September 2009 we heard that Go Daddy expands further into Europe with new data center to ensure faster access for Go Daddy’s growing European customer base. More of such news will be announced this year – there is no doubt about it.

And world is bigger than only US and the EU. There are big markets in Asia, South America as well – great potential there for sure. According to Internet World Stats US has now ~ 220M Internet users, EU: 310M, Asia: 740M (China: 360M), Brazil: 70M. BBC prepared nice Internet map, where you can see Internet penetration and users in the years 1998-2008. There are 1,7 billion Internet users on our planet Earth.

BTW Check out Facing The Absurd blog written by one of the finest European domainers. You will find there things that you won’t read about anywhere else.

Daniel Dryzek