Oversee Should Have Secured The Domain Webfest.com Before Changing The Name Of Its Conference

2013 January 24
by Michael Berkens

When Oversee.net announced a few months ago it was changing its name from Domainfest to Webfest you would have thought they would have at least secured the right to use the domain Webfest.com

Afterall, Oversee.net is in the domain business and even though they have switched gears by broadening the old Domainfest into Webfest it doesn’t change the fact that Oversee is a major player in the domain business and that most of their revenue was and is still generated in the domain business

Although the formal name of the DomainFest was DomainFest Global and WebFest is Webfest Global, Oversee.net does own the domain name DomainFest.com but it doesn’t own the domain name WebFest.com

The domain name Webfest.com is owned by Scott Day.

You would have thought that Oversee before making the decision to change the name of their conference to WebFest would have acquired or at  leased the domain name from Scott so a conference held by a domaining company would at least be in control have the matching domain.

Its equivalent to Google running a conference on search and if you did a Google search for the conference not finding it on the first result page.

8 Responses leave one →
  1. 2013 January 24
    Andrew Allemann permalink

    I don’t think it’s a big deal. They know Scott Day isn’t going to unload the domain for $5k to a competitor or anything like that.

    And remember, we’re talking about a company that doesn’t own the .com of its company name.

  2. 2013 January 24
    jose permalink

    my theory is that most domainers believe in the value of their domains in regards to selling them, but if they had to buy themselves they would pay no more than 10% of the value they try to sell. same for companies that aren’t true
    “domaining” companies like registrars and companies that sell software or services for use in the domaining business.

  3. 2013 January 24

    Webfest Global referred to as WebFest
    TargetedTraffic referred to as Traffic
    TheDomains referred to as Berkens Blog
    DomainBoardroom referred to as the Boardroom

    Many of us don’t own the name we are known by yet we get found. Not a biggie in my book.

  4. 2013 January 24

    Andrew

    Who knows maybe they reached out to Scott who quoted them $500K or maybe they didn’t reach out to Scott at all who might have let them use it to redirect to their site for the “good of the industry”

  5. 2013 January 24

    MB
    “for the “good of the industry”. Bully for you… you get it. A domain co not owning their name is like a pope who doesn’t believe in prayer. Not very good or smart biz IMO. I could give great examples of where the leaders in whatever you call this (an industry? perhaps) or whatever else. Here is the latest…
    Today there was high level talks of an association. Associations have acronyms. Did the group reserve theirs? No! How do I know that?
    Leaders that lead by example would go a long way to helping this industry or whatever you call it to move forward IMO. Sadly I’ve not seen across the board leadership in the 17 years I’ve been associated with domain names.

  6. 2013 January 24

    MB, This youtubve video says it all and BTW this guy is who I would have paid to go see speak at WebFestGlobal.com.

    A MUST WAtch for All serious domain investors and industry participants. Will change your thoughts and your live … Guaranteed

    Herm Edwards… “You Play To Win The Game” speech. Short Sweet Pure Gold!!!

    http://bit.ly/XzbZ2u

  7. 2013 January 24

    Hi MHB,

    No surprise here. Oversee overlooks the strategic value of the .COM Foundation completely. They just don’t seem to know whats best for them in the scheme of things. They seem clueless of the fact that by not owning the .COM extension for their foundational business to rest on they are excluding themselves from the Main Stream. They as I have said before need a good Marketing Strategist to set them straight on the situation ,that is only hurting their their image and traffic exposure.

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

  8. 2013 January 24

    I don’t think they will remain in business long enough to make the most of it.

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