So what’s the big secret, we all already know that John Ferber is a millionaire from creating and then selling his Advertising.com business to Time Warner in 2004 for just shy of $500 million. You can read more about that story on ElliotsBlog.com. The secret here, or at least until Secret Millionaire airs tomorrow night, is that John is one of the nicest, down to earth, generous guys I know. You know what, I’m going to add brave to that list. His show was filmed in Los Angeles, California, an area called Skid Row. From what I’ve seen and read Skid Row is in a very run-down part of downtown Los Angeles with a large impoverished population and a high crime rate. In fact, Skid Row has one of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States.

Guessing based on previous Secret Millionaire shows John will be giving at least $100,000 of his own money to a few lucky charities or individuals.

John not only leaves the show with a big heart, but street cred!

John is having a special viewing party tomorrow night in South Florida. My wife and I both will be in attendance to support fellow domainer and friend John and his charity. If you can make it come, and even if you can’t, donate! John is only asking that attendees pledge $20 on MicroGiving.com, another site John founded and another way for him to give back. I know this will be very inspiring for many of us see and can’t wait to watch the show tomorrow. Awesome job John!!

Pictured above is John Ferber and girlfriend Jenna Wehner aboard last year’s DNCruise.

I almost forgot, John has been generous enough to lend out his South Florida mansion for next week’s Domainer Meetup. Visit SFDomainers.com for more information.

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Nearly one year ago, after being self-employed for over five years, I decided to take a position with domain name registrar Moniker as a premium broker. A lot of people questioned why I did this. Well, last January before DOMAINfest my friends Morgan Linton and Jason Thompson held their Southern California Domainers Meetup which I attended. One of the questions asked to the audience was what are your goals for this year. As my turn came I said, I want to sell a million dollar domain name and have my domain sales get on DNJournal.com. I said this without knowing how to get there, I just knew it was what I wanted. About two months later I was communicating with Monte Cahn, president of Moniker at the time, about something else. He mentioned they were looking for a broker and asked if I knew anyone. Right away I suggested a friend that already lived in South Florida and had been domaining for many years. I told my friend and they were not interested. The next day I emailed Monte and said, what about me? Throw my name into that hat and I sent over a makeshift resume because I hadn’t needed one in so many years. After several conversations and a couple interviews I got the job. I won’t bore you with job specifics, but since taking the position I have sold well over $3 million dollars in domain names including the million dollar sale I wanted.

To sum up that story, I went to Oversee for an education and walked away with a bachelors in domain brokerage.

Moniker and I part on good terms. Unfortunately there was no way to continue, beyond the fact that I strongly dislike working out of an office and working for a boss, I just have too many projects going on that need my full attention. I believe we have mutually gotten everything we possibly can from each other. The education I have received is priceless. Thank you to Oversee for the opportunity, more specifically Craig Snyder, Monte Cahn and the co-workers I worked with every day. Oversee have shown additional support in my ventures by sponsoring this very blog and again DNCruise which will be held later this year. Stay tuned because Monday we will announce the dates for our next cruise.

What’s next for me?

Towards the end of 2010 I purchased ScienceFiction.com for $175,000 with a couple partners. We even had some TechCrunch.com coverage right before Christmas. Since then we have developed a news website and are working every day to build our readership.

Beyond ScienceFiction.com I own several properties that are screaming out for development which I will begin working on after my family’s spring break vacation next week.

I do plan on blogging again, not every day, but maybe once per week or two. My goal is to provide meaningful posts, not just regurgitated news.

In addition to development projects in the works I will continue to broker premium domain names. In my three years of domaining I have been involved with over $3.5 million in domain transactions. If you have a domain name for sale above $50,000 and would like to hire me please reach out through my contact page for more information.

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I know this post is going to seem out of the blue considering I haven’t posted since Christmas, (thank you DomainGang.com for pointing that out), but that’s ok.  I absolutely had to show some support for my friend Mike Law over at NameTalent.com.  Mike recently announced that he would be hosting a new “never before done” domain conference that is to be held February 26th in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Skiing and hanging with other domainers?  Sounds like a perfect weekend retreat to me!

I first heard about his idea to have the Rocky Mountain Domain Conference while we were aboard DNCruise back in October.  I immediately told him to go for it.  If you remember, he won a free room and conference pass during one of the contests I held.  Mike made some great connections while networking and has been diligently planning since.

The fantastic lineup already includes Morgan Linton, Bill Muskin, Rick Waters, Sharon Hayes, Braden Pollock, Abdu Tarabichi, Adam Torkildson, trademark attorney Mimi Rupp and many others.

The conference sessions begin February 26th followed up with a day of skiing on February 27th. To see the full agenda and more information visit RMDC.co. If you want to attend then hurry because the conference is limited to 50 guests. Oh and did I mention it is ONLY $45.88 which includes the single day conference pass, lunch and a ticket to the evening cocktail party. It’s sure to be a great networking event!

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend because of an already scheduled sci-fi/comic event the same weekend

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I know it is late in the day, but I wanted to at least get out a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone in the domain community.

Picture below taken two weeks ago at the beach. I know, living in Florida is tough

Next week I will be posting a 2010 recap for Chef Patrick, DNCruise and set some 2011 goals. One of those goals is to get back to blogging on a regular basis. Stay tuned!

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Join Stu Maloff, Mike Ward and myself tomorrow night at 7pm est for a South Florida Domainer meetup located in Lighthouse Point, Florida. Come casual, no structured networking or speaking for this one. Just relax, enjoy the pizza and hang out fellow domainers.

Our sponsor for the evening is Moniker/Snapnames which will be providing pizza and soda for everyone.

To RSVP, get the address and see who else is coming click here. Please RSVP so we order enough food for all.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE pizza and hanging out with my like-minded friends so this will be fun. See you tomorrow night!

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