Brands: Photoshop this, GoDaddy that, add some WordPress

Those that were proactive to attend NamesCon in Las Vegas, were immersed in the new era of brands.

The domain conference’s discussion agenda was about 65% focused on gTLDs, a natural choice for most companies involved in the domain industry these days.

As Frank Schilling said, riding the wave is the intelligent choice at this point; fighting the concept of 1,000’s of new TLDs is impossible and futile.

What intrigued me was the type and amount of brand immersion that a certain group of participants displayed.

No, we are not talking about the domainers or the exhibitors, but about the associates – groups of young women – that assisted with providing a fun atmosphere to the NamesCon events.

These young ladies, aged between 21 and 23 years old, displayed a great amount of interest in how the domain industry functions and operates. Some illustrated their knowledge of existing brands, such as Adobe Photoshop and when they referenced domains they gave them a collective “GoDaddy” reference.

Surely, a smart move that the biggest registrar in the world has dropped the “.com” part from its infomercials, as anything will be possible in this new Internet era.

Striking a conversation with these young ladies was particularly joyful; the subjects ranged from their current education and plans to how they perceive their future as employees or business owners. Some played awesome ping pong, others allowed me to explore my interaction with hula-hoops, just like my dad did in the early 1950’s.

When one of them expressed the intention to grow her career in marketing at PR firms in New York, I took her to the RightSide/eNom/Name.com stand, where we had a conversation with the knowledgeable ladies that staffed the booth.

The end result: a new customer to Name.com, a registrar that is known for its friendly support, where the young professional registered her domain and will be using WordPress to create and manage content about herself.

Brands are TLD-agnostic; we are at a pivoting stage that encourages experimentation and choice, a far cry from the early days of the commercial Internet: .com meant commercial, .net was reserved for network operations and .org was the holy grail of non-profit organizations.

NamesCon provided numerous such examples of human interaction and straightforward sales, over products and services that will greatly expand in the new era of brands.