Emoji domains burst onto the scene over a year or so ago with a handful of domain investors, speculators, and hobbyists registering nearly 21,000 .WS emoji domains and a few hundred .TO emoji domains.

While the emoji domain craze has subsided with just under 1,500 .WS domains registered (best guess) and mostly single-character, the market for emoji domains has started the journey towards emoji marketing education and usage.

Per release statements from Apple and Windows, more than 70 new emoji are soon to hit devices worldwide in their latest software updates starting October 2018, spanning the next month or so.

It’s been one week since I boarded a plane from Orlando heading back to good ole’ Austin, Texas.

I thought I’d take a moment to share a few thoughts and interactions from my MERGE! 2018 experience.

As the 2nd Annual MERGE! comes to a conclusion in it’s final day, there were many sessions, keynotes and connections to be had and made from Day One, Day Two and Day Three.

Conferences like MERGE! tend to move at a lightening speed in person while it can be perceived as a long time when seeing the outlay of time on paper.

Nevertheless, the final day of MERGE! kicked off with a pasties breakfast bar and keynote from Stefan Pretty, CEO Subbly.co, entitled “Bootstrappers do it better”.

Although many points were about about bootstrapping, one of the key takeaways from Stefan’s presentation was how bootstrappers should constantly ask the following 4 questions at every twist and turn in their journey:

Day Two opened the doors to many more exhibitors as well as a CMS Summit Keynote from Robert Jacobi, Executive Vice President of Perfect Dashboard.

As with Day One of MERGE!, the day was filled with many sessions and networking opportunities.

It’s hard to believe a year has passed since MERGE! burst onto the scene in its inaugural debut.

Many attendees have converged to meet in Orlando, Florida this year at the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista – Disney Springs Area to pick up where we left off last year discussing an array of digital principles — Domains, Hosting, Digital Search, CMS, Cryptocurrency, IP, Blockchain, eCommerce and Security.

It’s now weeks before the 2nd Annual MERGE! Conference — a digital asset conference event gathering a number of different conferences under a single roof and with a common access pass.

As a new conference bursting onto the domain conference scene in its inaugural debut last year, I wasn’t sure what to expect although I had attended insightful events, DNHouston and DNSeattle, leading up to it.

Little did I realize, MERGE! was perfect “next” event and stepping stone to have attended. I encourage all to consider attending MERGE! this year — especially domain investors — based on the following 5 reasons: