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.

 

[JB Lions]

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.

The 600 voters wasn't based on some good old boy's only, so I don't even know what you're talking about with that one.

Nominations, then open voting in a poll is the most truthful you'll get.

And the way you want to do it, you've skipped this question:

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

 

[N-A]

The 600 voters wasn't based on some good old boy's only, so I don't even know what you're talking about with that one.

I understand that completely.

But, how did GoDaddy make the list? I can't argue that, because it's obvious that they would never not make the cut.

Look at the other awards involved. Look deeper, my friend. It's a joke. The good old boys' selected nominees and let voters decide. But, the nominees were selected based upon their opinion of the people, and not facts based upon the people that are freely to read.

Let's say Joe Blow was up for broker of the year. Who knows who he is? Would they tick the box to vote for him? No. But, had there been a clear bio stating that he brokered X domains with an average transaction of X and a highest brokered domain of X, don't you think numbers would be in favor of Joe Blow? You couldn't argue that Joe Blow couldn't be nominated with a system of rules at least.

 

[JB Lions]

I agree with you on that other stuff, it's why I always said it's just a popularity contest that most people don't care about. And again, most aren't going to go as deep as you want, like examing their financials and such.

But for some stuff like Favorite Registrar or Favorite Blogger, that works with the poll type of thing we did here. It's just opinions.

If we did a Favorite Domain Blogger and had 600 NP members vote, it would give a pretty clear picture to what blogs people like the best. Nothing more, not that serious. Have domains at whatever registrar you like best, read whatever blog you feel gives you the best value, fun, whatever.

Best Broker, I would have no idea, don't even care.

 

[N-A]

And again, most aren't going to go as deep as you want, like examing their financials and such.

Conferences run once a year. There's plenty of time to weed out the nominees in every category.

 

[N-A]

@JB Lions, quick question though. Do you know who was at the awards conference to accept upon GoDaddy's behalf? My bet is that it wouldn't have been any C-level officers or even VPs as they could care less about that award as well. Make it mean something, make them appear, and bring more light to domaining.

 

[johname]

The thing to remember about these industry awards is that any of these people can be nominated every year. Elliot Silver will be a great blogger in 2017, Ron Jackson will be a great face for domains next year too, and Godaddy will still be a top register. etc..

So there are forces at play like the obvious you cant have one dude or company win a category every year. (these are really friendship awards and not fighting awards)

The other is that there is small things that can make a winner's year stand out, which may not make sense at first. But then if you think long enough you can figure out Godaddy was spending their IPO money this year buying portfolios and other things, Colin fly around the world promoting his extension. Its nothing to get upset about.

 

[N-A]

Elliot Silver will be a great blogger in 2017,

Unless, let's say, a rule was established that a minimum of X posts had to be made per month. I'm sure at one point, bloggers would drop off with this, as they'd be forced to produce quality to keep readers.

Dunno, jmo

 

[JB Lions]

@JB Lions, quick question though. Do you know who was at the awards conference to accept upon GoDaddy's behalf? My bet is that it wouldn't have been any C-level officers or even VPs as they could care less about that award as well. Make it mean something, make them appear, and bring more light to domaining.

Have no idea, didn't even pay attention to the conference. It's good for some that won awards to use for marketing purposes*, bigger ones like GoDaddy, like you said, probably could care less. Don't think it affects them one bit.

*somebody wins Best Blogger, use it to help sell advertising on the site

 

[equity78]

I would say Sedo company of the year was the most egregious, not that I agreed with most of the picks.

But to be fair no matter who won any award there would be people saying that person should not have won that award.

The Namepros Awards are coming, an idea I pitched to Eric at the end of 2015, hopes to go live in 2017.

 

[N-A]

Have no idea, didn't even pay attention to the conference. It's good for some that won awards to use for marketing purposes, bigger ones like GoDaddy, like you said, probably could care less. Don't think it affects them one bit.

You don't think Ford wouldn't be honored with Motor Trend's Car of the Year?

If these conference jokes weren't such a joke, I'm sure GoDaddy would gladly send their CEO to accept Registrar of the Year, make a press release about it, include it in their annual reports, and more importantly, put it on display.

So I don't think I'm the only crazy one here that thinks these awards are a joke.

 

[N-A]

But to be fair no matter who won any award there would be people saying that person should not have won that award.

But there's no arguing with a set criteria for nominees. Some of which, wouldn't have made the list had there been guidelines. Hence, never have the chance to win.

Eg, what qualifies you in this current system to be nominated as Developer of the Year? Being buddy-buddy it seems.

 

[JB Lions]

The Namepros Awards are coming, an idea I pitched to Eric at the end of 2015, hopes to go live in 2017.

I've been making that suggestion for years, just one of the times - https://www.namepros.com/threads/suggestions-observations-june-edition.863061/#post-4893527

First time, somewhere back in this 2012 thread, maybe even earlier ones in threads that vanished - https://www.namepros.com/threads/co...-the-new-namepros.743639/page-12#post-4290169

Good it's finally happening.

So I don't think I'm the only crazy one here that thinks these awards are a joke.

No, I think most would agree. It's why I think the ones here, would be more legit. Here, you can possibly have some input on how it's setup so it's not a joke.

 

[equity78]

Have no idea, didn't even pay attention to the conference. It's good for some that won awards to use for marketing purposes*, bigger ones like GoDaddy, like you said, probably could care less. Don't think it affects them one bit.

*somebody wins Best Blogger, use it to help sell advertising on the site

It doesn't help sell advertising, the people who didn't win will also sell just as much if not more. Because like you say it's a popularity contest and The Domain Conference which I guess has some lineage to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. since they added to that Hall of Fame, probably doesn't care what we think here.

Look I had people who said I voted for you for Blogger of the year, you should have won, I said thank you. They then went to disparage Elliot who I stuck up for and blasted the conference. But everything is a popularity contest we elect people to public office, Rober Wuhl talked about it once, George Washington in battles was 3 and 6 but he became the first President, he said his wife argued with him and he said of course they are popularity contests. Arnold became Governor of California based on popularity, pretty sure he wasn't studying government with Joe Weider and Charles Atlas.

Domaining is filled with cliques, I talk to people to this day that still believe Namepros is a newbie wonderland, one guy said to me point blank "Those people are beneath me" There are other people who Namepros is their world, they don't know who Garry Chernoff, Mike Zapolin, Scott Day, Yun Ye, Vern Jurovich are. There are others that don't read anything except maybe one publication like DNJournal or The Domains or DomainNameWire. There are people who belong to private forums, people who will pay $1,000 for a name on NameJet but would not spend it here.

There is little universal agreement, and I don't know that criteria can be put forth except for maybe something like Developer, @Paul Buonopane and @Michael have skills that are at the top of the industry very few who are known commodities are in their league. But best registrar is open to lots of opinions. What I focus on writing, certainly is open to just preference, would it be breadth of content ? Longform writing, grammar, actually engaging with readers in comments and social media ?

At the end of the day people vote for who they like, people can try to make science out of it but I think that fails in the long run. It mostly comes down to people saying "I like what I like"

 

[JB Lions]

It doesn't help sell advertising

Of course it does. If you're looking to spend money, if you see a blog that won blog of the year, it's going to help. It's why some companies of all sizes post that kind of thing on their site. It helps sell advertising, prestige etc. marketing. Awards help sell stuff. We've all seen sites put up that stuff, why do you think that is?

 

[equity78]

But there's no arguing with a set criteria for nominees. Some of which, wouldn't have made the list had there been guidelines. Hence, never have the chance to win.

Eg, what qualifies you in this current system to be nominated as Developer of the Year? Being buddy-buddy it seems.

For developer sure, I cannot see that on any other category, What's the science or criteria for the Goodwill Award ?

 

[N-A]

For developer sure, I cannot see that on any other category, What's the science or criteria for the Goodwill Award ?

Charitable donations could be one...

 

[equity78]

Of course it does. If you're looking to spend money, if you see a blog that won blog of the year, it's going to help. It's why some companies of all sizes post that kind of thing on their site. It helps sell advertising, prestige etc. marketing. Awards help sell stuff. We've all seen sites put up that stuff, why do you think that is?

Since I spend everyday focused on selling advertising I disagree, most people in this industry are not focused on that they know all the major bloggers. Neither Mike or I won though nominated, and no disrespect to Elliot but I will bet I have sold more advertising on TheDomains.com than DomainInvesting.com has in 2016.

 

[equity78]

Of course it does. If you're looking to spend money, if you see a blog that won blog of the year, it's going to help. It's why some companies of all sizes post that kind of thing on their site. It helps sell advertising, prestige etc. marketing. Awards help sell stuff. We've all seen sites put up that stuff, why do you think that is?

Yes you put it up it's nice to have but advertisers are not spending more, I will bet Andrew will have a successful sell rate even though he didn't win, same for Cyger, Shane, Morgan etc...

It's nice but it does not move the needle.

 

[JB Lions]

Since I spend everyday focused on selling advertising I disagree, most people in this industry are not focused on that they know all the major bloggers. Neither Mike or I won though nominated, and no disrespect to Elliot but I will bet I have sold more advertising on TheDomains.com than DomainInvesting.com has in 2016.

I didn't say anything about who is selling more, I didn't say you couldn't sell without it, I said it HELPS. Basic marketing.

 

[equity78]

I didn't say anything about who is selling more, I said it HELPS. Basic marketing.

I think it's nice JB in a bigger industry I would agree with you it can move the needle, this industry with it's size, everyone knows everyone. I think if a blogger that was not well know won out of the blue, based on criteria like @David Walker mentioned that might help them see a noticeable difference.

 

[JB Lions]

I think it's nice JB in a bigger industry I would agree with you it can move the needle, this industry with it's size, everyone knows everyone. I think if a blogger that was not well know won out of the blue, based on criteria like @David Walker mentioned that might help them see a noticeable difference.

Possibly.

I did find this from early 2013 -
Namepros Best Of 2012
https://www.namepros.com/threads/namepros-best-of-2012.783221/

It'll be fun.

 

[N-A]

I think it's nice JB in a bigger industry I would agree with you it can move the needle, this industry with it's size, everyone knows everyone. I think if a blogger that was not well know won out of the blue, based on criteria like @David Walker mentioned that might help them see a noticeable difference.

Why not set criteria for a good blogger then?

I'm not well versed at that, but it could possibly be:
1) number of email subscribers and/or social media count
2) social engagement on articles (avg shares/likes/comments, to include internal)
3) original content
4) word count, grammar, punctuation (though, not total disqualifiers)
5) number of unique series being blogged about (weekly sales, Chinese trends, etc.)

I think a list like that would ultimately help namePros craft a real awards system.

It can be done in every category as well. Then, no arguing. A committee tallies points, top 5 are selected candidates for poll involvement; or something like that...

 

[equity78]

Possibly.

I did find this from early 2013 -
Namepros Best Of 2012
https://www.namepros.com/threads/namepros-best-of-2012.783221/#post-4445874

It'll be fun.

I think so this is the biggest community in the industry and I plan to have some of what @David Walker was talking about, you can't nominate someone like me as a developer even if I roll out a cool little site that people like. The one thing I have spoken about is you will have to be a member in 2016 to vote in 2017, that way we don't have people signing up just to vote and try to stuff the vote.

It's time for Namepros to do it right and we can have some awards that will be forum specific as well as the bigger, broader awards.

 

[JB Lions]

The one thing I have spoken about is you will have to be a member in 2016 to vote in 2017, that way we don't have people signing up just to vote and try to stuff the vote.

Yep, mentioned that in the thread I linked to:

"You can set it up so companies don't rush all their employees to vote, min. post count or have to have registered in 2012 or prior or whatever."

Sign up date is one way. Post count is another. Then people behind the scenes can check some other (techy) stuff. I know Paul was checking some stuff in the Favorite Registrar thread.

 

[Addison]

David has the right idea, but it's not about setting rules or forcing the vote to go a certain way. It's about properly educating voters on each nominee and then letting them make their own decisions based on reality and facts. They still decide who wins, but they do so sufficiently informed.

Right now, they pick whichever name they recognize without a *bleeping* clue of their accomplishments or how they compare to everyone else in the category. THAT is the problem.