news Results and Analysis of 2016 Domain Industry Awards at THE Domain Conference

[Addison]

The 2016 domain industry awards were announced today at The Domain Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

These are the 2016 winners:

• Developer of the Year: Michael Cyger
• Blogger of the Year: Elliot Silver
• Registry of the Year: .CLUB
• Registrar of the Year: GoDaddy
• Broker of the Year: Dave Evanson, SEDO
• Domain Investor of the Year: Michael Berkens
• Domain Company of the Year: SEDO
• Goodwill Ambassador, 2016: Ron Jackson
• 2016 Hall of Fame Inductees:
  • Nat Cohen
  • Gary Chernoff

Analysis:

These awards are run by incompetent outsiders who have no grasp on the domain industry, and sorry to say, the voters are just as clueless: they vote for whoever they've heard of, with no grasp on whether they qualify or should be awarded.

Developer of the Year is the most laughable award every year.

• Who won it in previous years? Adam Dicker. The guy who uses out-of-the-box Wordpress templates and articles from other websites to fill in the empty space.
• Who was nominated this year? Elliot Silver, who had to publicly denounce his nomination because he admittedly is not a developer.
• Who wins it this year? Michael Cyger, a guy who doesn't know the first thing about development. Don't get me wrong, Michael Cyger is a brilliant businessman and publisher, but he is not a developer by any means. He will tell you that.
• Who should have won? Michael of NameBio or Paul of NamePros. You know, real *bleeping* developers.

Registrar of the year is GoDaddy? I must be in a bad dream. This award obviously belongs to Uniregistry, Dynadot, or NameSilo. I'll save my breath on this one because it's self explanatory. If you don't know, search GoDaddy and read. They're the worst registrar and always have been. Their low prices are/were the only reason anyone uses/used them.

Broker of the year is Dave Evanson? For those of you who are clueless because you only read the sales charts and voted for him based on that, Dave is a terrible broker. The only reason he closes big sales is because they're handed to him on a silver platter by Sedo. Have you ever actually tried contacting Dave? If you're not a famous industry personality, he will not respond to your calls or emails, despite you having (or your clients having) tens-to-hundreds of thousands to invest in domains. He deserves no award.

Domain Company of the Year? Sedo, the company that hasn't evolved, innovated, or done a single impressive thing in ten years. Do you know what they've done in recent years?

• Become more greedy.
• Increase their commission.
• Refuse to fix the millions of bugs that are reported to them.
• Continue to employ incompetent brokers like Dave Evanson.

I could go on, but out of respect for the other winners, I will stop here.

What a joke.

@Domain Shane, please pursue your idea for how these awards should be run. We must stop this madness.

 

[HeyNow]

Haha! Ron Jackson, Goodwill Ambassador, 2016. Haha!

 

[HeyNow]

Kinda makes one wonder what "Goodwill Ambassador" truly means. Goodwill Ambassador to who?

http://www.dnjournal.com/columns/cover030605.htm (This article is after the Satan's Playground shenanigans, but no mention of it.) That's "goodwill" to someone, right?

Here, read this (scroll down to the second piece of crap about Adam Dicker): http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2011/dailyposts/20110725.htm This was from 2011, well after the publicized Dicker shenanigans at Godaddy: https://www.wired.com/2008/06/godaddy-vp-caug/ That sounds like "goodwill" to me!

Here, have a look at this: http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2014/january.htm "Now, let me introduce you to our experts:" Again, lots of "goodwill."

How about this little diddy: "The day began with talks from Two Leaders of the Domain Industry on the Future & Developing a Business - those being two guys very well qualified to address those topics - DNF owner Adam Dicker (left) and ... " That's from this article: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2015/dailyposts/20150930.htm Ironically, this article can be found in "The Lowdown" section at dnjournal.com. How appropriate!

Here, this one is from August 2014, heralding Dicker's DNFcollege.com: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2014/dailyposts/20140815.htm

How about this dnjournal article about Kevin Ham: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/10-16-08-2.htm

Hey, look what other articles I found elsewhere bout Kevin Ham:

http://www.dmueller.com/2009/01/12/domain-names-domains/kevin-ham-amazoncm-and-ebay/

http://www.businessinsider.com/2009...m-our-affiliate-network-in-november-ebay-amzn


Ron Jackson, a true "Goodwill Ambassador," right? Yuck!

 

[Domain Shane]

It's coming. Just have to find the right people to be on the panel that is part of the deciders. And I agree. Nothing more than a popularity contest rather than on merit. That being said, all the people that won are good people and while they may or may not deserve an award. They deserve respect for being good at what they do. The only one I don't like is dot club. Pure marketing hype like dot co

The 2016 domain industry awards were announced today at The Domain Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

These are the 2016 winners:

• Developer of the Year: Michael Cyger
• Blogger of the Year: Elliot Silver
• Registry of the Year: .CLUB
• Registrar of the Year: GoDaddy
• Broker of the Year: Dave Evanson, SEDO
• Domain Investor of the Year: Michael Berkens
• Domain Company of the Year: SEDO
• Goodwill Ambassador, 2016: Ron Jackson
• 2016 Hall of Fame Inductees:
  • Nat Cohen
  • Gary Chernoff

Analysis:

These awards are run by incompetent outsiders who have no grasp on the domain industry, and sorry to say, the voters are just as clueless: they vote for whoever they've heard of, with no grasp on whether they qualify or should be awarded.

Developer of the Year is the most laughable award every year.

• Who won it in previous years? Adam Dicker. The guy who uses out-of-the-box Wordpress templates and articles from other websites to fill in the empty space.
• Who was nominated this year? Elliot Silver, who had to publicly denounce his nomination because he admittedly is not a developer.
• Who wins it this year? Michael Cyger, a guy who doesn't know the first thing about development. Don't get me wrong, Michael Cyger is a brilliant businessman and publisher, but he is not a developer by any means. He will tell you that.
• Who should have won? Michael of NameBio or Paul of NamePros. You know, real *bleeping* developers.

Registrar of the year is GoDaddy? I must be in a bad dream. This award obviously belongs to Uniregistry, Dynadot, or NameSilo. I'll save my breath on this one because it's self explanatory. If you don't know, search GoDaddy and read. They're the worst registrar and always have been. Their low prices are/were the only reason anyone uses/used them.

Broker of the year is Dave Evanson? For those of you who are clueless because you only read the sales charts and voted for him based on that, Dave is a terrible broker. The only reason he closes big sales is because they're handed to him on a silver platter by Sedo. Have you ever actually tried contacting Dave? If you're not a famous industry personality, he will not respond to your calls or emails, despite you having (or your clients having) tens-to-hundreds of thousands to invest in domains. He deserves no award.

Domain Company of the Year? Sedo, the company that hasn't evolved, innovated, or done a single impressive thing in ten years. Do you know what they've done in recent years?

• Become more greedy.
• Increase their commission.
• Refuse to fix the millions of bugs that are reported to them.
• Continue to employ incompetent brokers like Dave Evanson.

I could go on, but out of respect for the other winners, I will stop here.

What a joke.

@Domain Shane, please pursue your idea for how these awards should be run. We must stop this madness.

 

[Addison]

It's coming. Just have to find the right people to be on the panel that is part of the deciders.

Superb!! I literally cannot wait!

nd I agree. Nothing more than a popularity contest rather than on merit. That being said, all the people that won are good people and while they may or may not deserve an award. They deserve respect for being good at what they do.

Agreed. I don't believe any of the winners this year are criminals--due respect to all of them.

 

[HeyNow]

--due respect to all of them.

Respect? For pulling the wool over our eyes? I think that happy-face emoticon would be best used elsewhere.

 

[Addison]

Respect?

We can still have respect for their accomplishments and contributions, even if we disagree with some of their actions (or their inaction).

 

[deez007]

Probably a pay for a winning spot.... promotional "awards" Conference. ...lol

 

[N-A]

It's coming. Just have to find the right people to be on the panel that is part of the deciders. And I agree. Nothing more than a popularity contest rather than on merit. That being said, all the people that won are good people and while they may or may not deserve an award. They deserve respect for being good at what they do. The only one I don't like is dot club. Pure marketing hype like dot co

"Panel"? You mean new boys' club?

 

[HeyNow]

We can still have respect for their accomplishments and contributions, even if we disagree with some of their actions (or their inaction).

Sorry. Anyone who bullshits me loses my respect, period.

 

[Domain Shane]

"Panel"? You mean new boys' club?

David,
Every time I post something you make comments like this. It's obvious you don't like me but just let me post something without criticism. I'm just not sure what you're looking for from me except a fight every time

 

[N-A]

David,
Every time I post something you make comments like this. It's obvious you don't like me but just let me post something without criticism. I'm just not sure what you're looking for from me except a fight every time

Not at all. It just seems like the "old" panel was clearly in it for themselves to inflate each other's ego at the golf club on the Sunday's.

You said new panel. I made a reference to it being the old boys' club by stating that it's really going to be the new boys' club.

Instead of panel, you need a rule book: a clear and concise set of rules that cannot be argued. It needs to be something that everyone outside of the deciding panel can look at and say, "hey, you know what, that person deserves that award because they're the clear and cut winner, no doubt."

Otherwise, you're just running around in circles and creating a new boys' club that instead of deciding on a written code, decides on their opinion (or the "popular vote").

For example, nothing can be clearer to win Developer of the Year than (as a side note, it'd take a developer such as @Paul Buonopane or someone else to add to a set of rules like this as my background is limiting, as well as other professionals in the other award areas):
1) At least 1 website should have been constructed;
2) it must (or must not be) with the WordPress CMS;
3) it has to contain at least 1 unique element (Javascript, CSS, etc.);
4) another rule; and
5) another rule.

Obviously, 1-5 would disqualify the current winner. The current process is a joke. And you are suggesting to just fix the people in charge when the system needs to be fixed.

There's my critical feedback to support what I said. I should've done that sooner as I thought it'd be apparent, but, it was vague and unclear.

And, I don't not like you. If I ever make it out to a conference that you're at, I'd be happy to drink a beer with you. My sediments are, that's the only way you could stand me (with a drink in you).

 

[JB Lions]

The 2016 domain industry awards were announced today at The Domain Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

These are the 2016 winners:

• Developer of the Year: Michael Cyger
• Blogger of the Year: Elliot Silver
• Registry of the Year: .CLUB
• Registrar of the Year: GoDaddy
• Broker of the Year: Dave Evanson, SEDO
• Domain Investor of the Year: Michael Berkens
• Domain Company of the Year: SEDO
• Goodwill Ambassador, 2016: Ron Jackson
• 2016 Hall of Fame Inductees:
  • Nat Cohen
  • Gary Chernoff

Analysis:

These awards are run by incompetent outsiders who have no grasp on the domain industry, and sorry to say, the voters are just as clueless: they vote for whoever they've heard of, with no grasp on whether they qualify or should be awarded.

Developer of the Year is the most laughable award every year.

• Who won it in previous years? Adam Dicker. The guy who uses out-of-the-box Wordpress templates and articles from other websites to fill in the empty space.
• Who was nominated this year? Elliot Silver, who had to publicly denounce his nomination because he admittedly is not a developer.
• Who wins it this year? Michael Cyger, a guy who doesn't know the first thing about development. Don't get me wrong, Michael Cyger is a brilliant businessman and publisher, but he is not a developer by any means. He will tell you that.
• Who should have won? Michael of NameBio or Paul of NamePros. You know, real *bleeping* developers.

Registrar of the year is GoDaddy? I must be in a bad dream. This award obviously belongs to Uniregistry, Dynadot, or NameSilo. I'll save my breath on this one because it's self explanatory. If you don't know, search GoDaddy and read. They're the worst registrar and always have been. Their low prices are/were the only reason anyone uses/used them.

Broker of the year is Dave Evanson? For those of you who are clueless because you only read the sales charts and voted for him based on that, Dave is a terrible broker. The only reason he closes big sales is because they're handed to him on a silver platter by Sedo. Have you ever actually tried contacting Dave? If you're not a famous industry personality, he will not respond to your calls or emails, despite you having (or your clients having) tens-to-hundreds of thousands to invest in domains. He deserves no award.

Domain Company of the Year? Sedo, the company that hasn't evolved, innovated, or done a single impressive thing in ten years. Do you know what they've done in recent years?

• Become more greedy.
• Increase their commission.
• Refuse to fix the millions of bugs that are reported to them.
• Continue to employ incompetent brokers like Dave Evanson.

I could go on, but out of respect for the other winners, I will stop here.

What a joke.

@Domain Shane, please pursue your idea for how these awards should be run. We must stop this madness.

These are always a popularity contest no matter where it comes from. I think people put too much into it. Who would be your winners for each one, let's take a look.

Registrar of the year is GoDaddy? I must be in a bad dream. This award obviously belongs to Uniregistry, Dynadot, or NameSilo. I'll save my breath on this one because it's self explanatory. If you don't know, search GoDaddy and read. They're the worst registrar and always have been. Their low prices are/were the only reason anyone uses/used them.

Maybe you should have searched? GoDaddy won hands down in a poll here. I believe we had almost 600 people voting, that carries more weight than just some random opinion from somebody. The ones you mentioned did come in 3rd, 4th and 5th place in the poll, so I'm sure people are happy with those as well.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/favorite-domain-registrar-poll.933122/

It's coming. Just have to find the right people to be on the panel that is part of the deciders.

Or, Namepros could just take my advice I gave years ago and do it themselves. Just like the Best Registrar Poll we had here, have a yearly Best Of or Favorite this and that. Namepros has enough members where it would get the most input and more legit results.

 

[N-A]

Or, Namepros could just take my advice I gave years ago and do it themselves. Just like the Best Registrar Poll we had here, have a yearly Best Of or Favorite this and that. Namepros has enough members where it would get the most input and more legit results.

No. I still say a committee and guidelines work better. The popular vote can contribute to the selection of nominees, but I don't believe that everyone on namePros is qualified to make a decision as to who the winner is in certain categories. With rules, as previously mentioned, there is no way to contest the winner from anyone.

 

[JB Lions]

No. I still say a committee and guidelines work better. The popular vote can contribute to the selection of nominees, but I don't believe that everyone on namePros is qualified to make a decision as to who the winner is in certain categories. With rules, as previously mentioned, there is no way to contest the winner from anyone.

Now you're back to old boy's club. Look at Best Registrar Poll. About 600 voters, with varying experience, is how it should be done. Not just by some who consider themselves elite, qualified or Pro, we have people with that badge here that aren't even day to day domainers.

Who really decides who's qualified to vote? Old boy's club?

 

[Lite]

My vote,
Developer of the Year: Namebio
Blogger of the Year: DomainNameWire
Registrar of the Year: Uniregistry

 

[N-A]

Now you're back to old boy's club. Look at Best Registrar Poll. About 600 voters, with varying experience, is how it should be done. Not just by some who consider themselves elite, qualified or Pro, we have people with that badge here that aren't even day to day domainers.

Who really decides who's qualified to vote? Old boy's club?

Sure, with that category, the popular vote may suffice.

But ask yourself: Why was GoDaddy leading the vote on namePros? Could it be due to the fact that they've given many of these members domains for 1 dollar in the past? Is that the only leading cause? Or is it their UI? How does their UI compare to Uniregistry, that charges slightly more?

When you look at the larger picture of registrars, you're dropping plenty of business aspects that aren't applicable to domainers only. Remember, there are different categories of investors in the domain world, some of which may be tied to the registrar itself. Did anyone care to take a look at the 10-K's of Rightside, GoDaddy, etc. before making a decision? Who was more profitable? Why? What was their goodwill mission for the fiscal year, and what did they ultimately accomplish? With a panel and rules set in stone, there is no arguing who the best registrar was and why, because the criteria is set (and hopefully the only criteria set isn't because 1) it's pretty and 2) they give 99 cent domains on the regular).

You can create the new boys' club, but it won't function the same with a tried and true system backing it (much like gated communities, eh?).

Edit: I think a registrar winning based upon strict criteria that they have to meet would be much more appealing, and, they would be more proud to hold that award as well (other than telling the story that 600 people said we're the best [cause we gave away $1 domains], so we're the best). No, they can say they won it because they donated $1 million, built a new park, profitable over last year, increased customer service 10-fold, etc., etc.

 

[JB Lions]

Sure, with that category, the popular vote may suffice.

But ask yourself: Why was GoDaddy leading the vote on namePros? Could it be due to the fact that they've given many of these members domains for 1 dollar in the past? Is that the only leading cause? Or is it their UI? How does their UI compare to Uniregistry, that charges slightly more?.

People went into some of that in the comments. The fact is almost 600 people voted here and GoDaddy won. You're trying to set it up that it's not legit because some members might not be qualified, except it matches the 2016 Domain Industry Awards at THE Domain Conference as well. And again, as far as something like this, the only thing that matters is if you're happy with the registrar you're with.

But back to this question:

Who really decides who's qualified to vote? Old boy's club?

Self annoint? That's the Old Boy's Club or are you going to trust the people who aren't qualified to vote but let them vote who can vote?

 

[N-A]

People went into some of that in the comments. The fact is almost 600 people voted here and GoDaddy won. You're trying to set it up that it's not legit because some members might not be qualified, except it matches the 2016 Domain Industry Awards at THE Domain Conference as well. And again, as far as something like this, the only thing that matters is if you're happy with the registrar you're with.

There are by far more than 600 domain name investors. Thousands more. Maybe they'd have a differing opinion, and actually vote, if their vote counted and the nominees were based upon strict criteria (read my "Edit" above).

 

[JB Lions]

There are by far more than 600 domain name investors. Thousands more. Maybe they'd have a differing opinion, and actually vote, if their vote counted and the nominees were based upon strict criteria (read my "Edit" above).

Right, but where would you get more votes? How many voted for -
2016 Domain Industry Awards at THE Domain Conference

Then I'll go back to this, does it even matter? Maybe to the winners but if one blogger won the award over some other blogger, this has zero affect on my life. That's with every winner. It's what I said earlier, people put too much into it.

 

[N-A]

Right, but where would you get more votes? How many voted for -
2016 Domain Industry Awards at THE Domain Conference

My problem isn't with the votes, nor specifically, with the registrar that won. They're a good registrar (I would have voted for Uniregistry myself, if I didn't believe this whole thing was a joke). But, I know for a fact that the popular vote (600 you say) was based upon them giving $1 domains, nothing more, nothing less. Had the criteria been set that GoDaddy had to actually do something to be nominated, such as respond to support tickets in a timely manner, resolve issues, etc -- something you'd expect from a registrar, they might night have been nominated (I highly doubt they wouldn't pass the nomination, but, hopefully you get my point -- it also allows for fair competition all around).

Mainly, my issue is with people like Adam Dicker and Michael Cyger winning developer of the year.

...cause the good old boys' club decided. Now, @Domain Shane just suggests creating a new panel of a new boys' club to decide. Why? What does that fix? Please tell me. Tell me why a guideline for selecting the nominees wouldn't work (as opposed to a committee's opinion, not based upon any facts, only), with the popular vote being secondary?

Neither Adam Dicker nor Michael Cyger would ever make it past the nomination process if there had been a rule book. Period.

Domain Company of the Year? Sedo? Really? Let's look at 10-Ks and financial statements of Donuts, Radix, M+M, GoDaddy, etc. How much was the EPS for publically traded companies? Etc. Etc. There is much more that makes a company the "Domain Company of the Year", and the criteria of that needs to be in writing.

Broker of the Year? How many domains brokered? Their value? Should it solely be based upon value or quantity brokered? Should both be taken into consideration? Does a broker that makes a company (Sedo) $1,000,000 in commission with a few sales and takes home a salary (possibly, I don't know) deserve that award over an every-day broker who constantly spins his wheels selling day-in-day-out, but only earns himself $100,000 a year?

Not this, "oh, here's a list, let's let 600 people vote and that's all she wrote."

Make a list of nominees based upon something so that the award isn't a joke.

 

[JB Lions]

My problem isn't with the votes, nor specifically, with the registrar that won. They're a good registrar (I would have voted for Uniregistry myself, if I didn't believe this whole thing was a joke). But, I know for a fact that the popular vote (600 you say) was based upon them giving $1 domains, nothing more, nothing less. Had the criteria been set that GoDaddy had to actually do something to be nominated, such as respond to support tickets in a timely manner, resolve issues, etc -- something you'd expect from a registrar, they might night have been nominated (I highly doubt they wouldn't pass the nomination, but, hopefully you get my point -- it also allows for fair competition all around).

You don't know that for a fact, your opinion doesn't trump 600 people who voted. There is nothing more fair than having open nominations and voting, with this category. Some of the negative stuff you posted simply isn't true for me. Support has been great for me, of course I have a VIP account and they've been very professional and fast anytime I needed something. And overall they cheapest for me. And the other reasons mentioned in that thread.

 

[N-A]

You don't know that for a fact, your opinion doesn't trump 600 people who voted. Some of the negative stuff you posted simply isn't true for me. Support has been great for me, of course I have a VIP account and they've been very professional and fast anytime I needed something. And overall they cheapest for me. And the other reasons mentioned in that thread.

You're basing this on your opinion only. Your vote would matter, and count, had the nominee been selected for the ballot with criteria that is publicly shared.

I'm not going to continue this with you further until you answer this as you apparently skipped this part and read what you wanted to read:

...cause the good old boys' club decided. Now, @Domain Shane just suggests creating a new panel of a new boys' club to decide. Why? What does that fix? Please tell me. Tell me why a guideline for selecting the nominees wouldn't work (as opposed to a committee's opinion, not based upon any facts, only), with the popular vote being secondary?

 

[JB Lions]

You're basing this on your opinion only. Your vote would matter, and count, had the nominee been selected for the ballot with criteria that is publicly shared.

I'm not going to continue this with you further until you answer this as you apparently skipped this part and read what you wanted to read:

You're basing this on just your own personal opinion on them, you don't decide.

As far as the rest of your post, people don't care enough to go that deep, 10k, financial statements etc. It's just not an important thing.

 

[N-A]

You're basing this on just your own personal opinion on them, you don't decide.

I'm basing this on a personal opinion shared by many (as you throw out the opinion of 600, can I not here?), as it was brought to light that Adam Dicker had previously won Developer of the Year on multiple occasions, but people still believed in the system that awards weren't a joke, when they always have. And it's because the system comprised of the good old boys' only.

Replacing them, not the system, doesn't fix the problem.

That's my opinion.