@Eric Lyon
Questions...
When you became a moderator were you blown away at all it takes to run the forum?
What unique skills did you bring to the NP team?
What do you personally predict about aftermarket domain sales over the rest of this year?
Thanks,
David
Great questions!
My first big management job was back in 1996, where I managed 240+ employees at strata telecom and telenet international in Las Vegas, nv. I wrote a little about that in a previous article. I would like to think the knowledge and experience I gained from it helped provide a foundation to start building off of with NamePros.
In 2009 when I joined NamePros I already had forum moderation/administration experience managing a few small forum projects of my own (long gone now) using platforms such as, but not limited to simple machines, VB, and numerous Joomla forum addons.
Managing a small design and brand management agency (since 2005) also gave me an advantage in the creative marketing, public relations, and customer support sectors.
In 2011 to 2013, my minimal hands on experience with basic html/css came in handy assisting with a few backend tweaks. Now days we have an outstanding tech Admin that handles all that. His skill sets surpass most code experts I've ever seen. Paul is a true asset to the team and keeps everything on the technical side running smoothly.
As for the domain aftermarket, no matter how much you read about ntlds being dead or veterans pushing for .com being the only logical option, ntlds are now part of the overall industry landscape and aren't going anywhere.
As we've learned throughout history, everything eventually changes. For our industry, the new change is a shift towards more keyword focused digital assets, giving people and businesses more options to brand on.
One might even draw the conclusion that the flood of ntlds was an aggressive attempt by icann and registries to put more power in the hands of the consumer so they weren't forced to pay 6 digits for a domain owned by a reseller.
There's a tug of war going on right now, but eventually (inevitably) ntlds will come out of all this as the new norm. There's a while to go still, but it will happen. If you frequent any of the ntld in the wild sighting posts on NamePros or 3rd party blogs, it's evident they are starting to go more mainstream.