My two pence: Conferences are a good face to face networking opportunity, especially in an industry thats very "online" like ours, where most of our interactions are through a screen exchanging 1s and 0s.
Would I go to DomainX... if others I want to meet/network with are going, then yes. We go to most of the UK/EU RIPE/UNOF events, just for the networking - and the pub sessions...
There are few guys on here for example I'd love to meet. Charging for a conference thats just starting out, and has yet to show "value"... not entirely convinced myself, but thats not a criticism, you need to set a bar, and you need to start somewhere.
All depends on the value offered / perceived by the individual.
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GTLD: A good idea in principle... the execution has been a joke, far too many new Gs being spun up. Only time will tell if they'll last. We've seen a lot of registries rationalising and extensions changing hands already, and its not even been //that long//. Come on... .horse... why does the internet need .horse?!
The only place we've seen an opportunity to make money in the new Gs has been spanning the dot (perhaps thats just my/our failing and lack of creativity). But all of us know how hard it is to get the consciousness of society to adapt (.uk adoption - dropping the .co).
Nominet are //relatively// sensible, they know the adoption path for dropping the .co is a long long long way off, hence the massive RoR period for pre .uk registrants. Its going to be //funny// to watch the chaos post the RoR end date.
There is one upside to the new Gs, end users start using them... then they decide they actually want the .com... and we have an end user with budget.
Lets not even get started on the whole registry reserved nonsense... pyramid/scam/scheme for registries to make monies anyone...
@Edwin is right... seeing through the B.S at lightning speed... perhaps a very British thing.
H