It’s the second day of June in the year of 2020, and the show we once knew life to be has been paused with no sign of ever returning to what once was.

We’re all experiencing life through lenses that are less than rose tinted, to say the least. In fact, today is considered Blackout Tuesday (more on that in a minute).

The world, especially the United States of America, finds itself in a critical hour of fighting not only a pandemic claiming nearly 380K lives and counting, but soberly recognizing and acknowledging yet another longstanding virus that has and is robbing a many lives and families — people of color, and specifically black people — in greater number than any pandemic known will ever: RACISM.

Now, before you click or turn your head the other way, please take a brief moment to hear me out.

A few months ago, I received an interesting email alert that contained a link to an article, Domain prices are unregulated and rising at an alarming rate, about how the days of enjoying reasonably priced domain names may be coming to an end.

Always intrigued by anything pertain to domain names in general, this article’s title got me to click hook, line, and sinker.

If you were to peruse the list of domains owned by today’s guest, then you would likely conclude this individual is well on their way to becoming a “living legend” domain developer, if not already there in some aspects.

Having met today’s guest, Peter Askew, at Rick’s Asheville Meetup, he’s not short on life or domaining experience nor height, likely being one of the tallest, if not the tallest, domain investors and developers in the industry.

Almost a full decade since the “new gTLDs”, now simply referred to as gTLDs, have made their dubious debut in promising to offer exponentially more domain options than that of saturated legacy domain extensions — so some think.

While many arguments have been made for and against the release of gTLDs, there have been just as many cases made for and against investing and developing the same domain extensions.

It’s been 2 years since I last attended NamesCon out in Las Vegas at the Tropicana.

Fast forward two years, and tick tock goes the clock as we count the weeks, days, and hours until NamesCon 2020 arrives here in my backyard, the growing metropolis of Austin, Texas.

There is a bit of everything under the sun here in Austin — the college boomtown known for TRAFFIC, LONGHORNS, tech, music, festivals, food, and sprawling fun for days that covers every square inch of Downtown Austin, from one block to the next.

Nevertheless, 1,000+ persons, not including locals, will descend upon Austin to connect and re-connect at the world’s biggest domain economic forum: NamesCon Global.

While there is much to anticipate and look forward to during this jam-packed 4 days of everything domains and more, below are a few sessions I’m keen to attend and learn from:

When a personal or business brand ceases to exist, whatever the case may be, one of the most overlooked items is the very domain name in which the brand developed its digital presence.

Investing in domain names for more than a decade now, I, as well as other domain investors, often find one person’s or business’ domain trash to be quite the domain treasure. Why?

Millions of users took to social media — specifically Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger — today to wish friends and family a Happy Thanksgiving and share Thanksgiving photos only to be met with a Thanksgiving Day outage.

Discovering both #Facebook and #Instagram hashtags trending like no tomorrow via Twitter — Twitter not missing a beat and likely capitalizing on such a colossal outage, I couldn’t help but think of the many personal and business brands that solely use Facebook and/or Instagram as their digital presence.