So, what have I been up to? I’m still developing our premium generic domain names. I just updated the site at BaseballJerseys.com. We have a good set of professional and college baseball jerseys available. I also created the website you see now at PoliticalScience.com. It’s just a starter site, but I have grand plans for this popular college major. Any suggestions for it?

I’ve spent a lot of time brainstorming the best way to develop my various names, and my mind keeps coming back to my geos. I really need to figure out a platform with which I can launch all of my geo names. I want to develop a consistent brand of sorts for my geo sites. Right now, my geo sites are a hodge-podge of different layouts and content. Look for this to change over the next year.

I was wondering if developing my geo names was increasing the earnings, so I pulled up some old stats to compare. For 3/4 of them, the earnings have increased with my development. So, that really encouraged me to charge forward with this. Maybe I should move the other 1/4 back…

The hotel lived up to or even exceeded my expectations. My standard room at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel was large and had a desk with a great view of the city. The location of the hotel was absolutely perfect – it is part of the Hollywood & Highlands center and adjacent to the Kodak Theatre and a mall with tons of restaurants and shops. I even went on a walk to the nearby Runyon Canyon Park and hiked up some of the mountains (well they technically were probably hills, but they seemed like mountains to a Floridian), and got a great view of the entire city all the way out to the coast. The exhibit hall was well-sized and had plenty of small couches and chairs to hang out around. The grand ballroom for the sessions was very long and narrow. The front 3 rows had tables and power outlets, but the rest of the room was filled with chairs. There were definitely not enough power outlets since noone outside the front 3 rows could plug in.

The sessions seemed pretty standard for domain conferences… well-known and accomplished speakers, but many just said the same types of things that you read on the blogs and forums. I did like the ‘fireside’ format with speakers sitting down and getting interviewed. The questions seemed well prepared, but I didn’t exactly go to Domainfest to learn a lot at the sessions; I went for the networking.

The people. I don’t know what the real count of attendees was- it seemed like about 400 to 500 people from my perspective. I heard from one exhibitor that there were really only 350 attendees (and that he was disappointed for paying so much to advertise for what was supposed to be an audience of 700), but I heard the 600 or 700 number from others. That part doesn’t really matter to me though. I met more straight up “domainers” at this conference than any other I had been to. Usually when I meet someone new and ask what they do at these events, about 2/3 of the people are parking company reps or exhibitors trying to get new business. However, I’d estimate that 1/2 of the people I met were actual domainers doing some of the same things I do- buy, sell, park, and develop. The parties were simply amazing. They made it really easy to connect with other attendees. I will definitely not forget those once in a lifetime opportunities.

I didn’t strike any big deals at the conference, but I laid the groundwork for some potential deals which I will pursue this week/month. Was this the show the best ever? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I am very glad I attended Domainfest and want to applaud the Oversee team for putting on such a great show.

Renaissance Hollywood Hotel

I was most excited about seeing the koala since I have always wanted to see one and I own Koalas.com and KoalaBears.com. I got a lot of pictures of the zoo’s one koala. Here’s it is:

Koala at the Miami Metrozoo

I also got to see the spider monkeys, african elephants, and marmosets. The spider monkeys were sitting out in the sun on a wooden structure, while the african elephants were just wandering around their area. The marmosets were hiding up in the top corner of their cage, so I couldn’t get a clear picture of them.

While I was down in Miami, I was also able to attend the BCS National Championship Football Game on January 8th. The Gators sure made me happy! About 3/4 of the people at the game were Gator fans. UF beat OU 24-14.

Then I transitioned to working on FreeBooks.com and added more sources to get free books, in addition to switching around the layout with the adsense banners. Hopefully this will bring in more revenue as well as help out the site’s users.

Finally I brainstormed ideas for College-Applications.com. I’m trying to figure out a plan for the site. I think users will want links to the actual applications on college websites, application tips, and possibly college scholarship information. If anyone has ideas for this site or any of the other ones I mentioned, let me know!