We reached out to Debra Domeyer the new Co-President and Chief Technology Officer of Oversee.net who took over a leadership roll once former CEO Jeff Kupietzky left at the end of August.

Special Thanks to Gregg McNair who was instrumental to introducing me to Debra and was very supportive of the interview.

We sent Debra and set of questions that appear below and left her answers as she wrote them unedited.

Q.  Debra can you start by giving me your background, your education, previous positions; anything you would like to share with the readers:

A.
“”As Co-President & Chief Technology Officer of Oversee, I have the advantage of relying on over 25 years of technology and management experience where I’ve been heavily involved in both strategic direction and technology innovation in addition to daily operations.  Prior to joining Oversee, I was the Chief Technology Officer at Internet Brands, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Pacific Gas & Electric Energy Services, and Vice President of Information Systems for the Times Mirror Company.  As an interesting twist in my career, I had the honor of serving in the White House during the Reagan Administration where I supervised the development of distributed applications and secure communications for the President’s trips worldwide. In 2001, I was named one of the top 25 CTOs by InfoWorld Magazine and listed in the Computer World Premier 100 IT leaders.  I have a B.A. from Loras College and a Master’s degree from George Washington University.

Several personal notes:

–        The love of my life are my twin 8-yr old daughters, Jacqueline and Nicole
–        I live in Malibu and relax by surfing and running
–        I grew up in the mid-west, in Iowa””

 

Q.   This year we have seen some changes in the monetization space, Frank Schilling’s Internet Traffic, Domainholdings and theparkingplace.com, just to name a few.  Also hit farm looks like they are rolling out something for next year. So what does Oversee have in the works for DOMAINsponsor.com and monetization solutions, not only for clients but also for its own large O&O portfolio
A.

“”The competitive landscape for us is no different than it is for our competitors.

Overall, competition is healthy because it benefits our customers.  Our goal is straightforward:  To help our customers optimize their return on investment.  We believe one strong opportunity is to diversify our revenue streams through opportunities  beyond just parking.

To this end, DomainSponsor began investing in an alternative monetization platform designed to generate strong RPMs for publishers.   This new platform offers advertisers a chance to bid on and acquire the highly desirable traffic on our network.  The beta version was launched under the name PrecisionTargetingEngine.com last February at DOMAINfest Global 2011.  We continue to invest in refining this platform and are greatly encouraged by early results.

In addition, we have been building out domains into vertical web businesses in the Travel, Consumer Finance, and Retail verticals.  As part of that effort,  we are investing in web services that provide core functionality in support of these build-outs.  We are enhancing our monetization options with our growing mobile traffic base and through these bid management and web service efforts  in our Vertical Market division.   Stay tuned for more on that.

Of course, we also continue to invest in our parking optimization technology because parking will always be an important part of the diverse set of alternative monetization options that we are developing for our publishers.”

Q.  What are you seeing from Google down the line in terms of parking? As a domainer  we see Google reporting each Quarter more clicks, higher prices per click and higher profits, yet domainer are receiving a small fraction of what they were getting just a few years ago. So the parking business looks healthy for the upstream provider yet our share has gone in the opposite direction.  Can you tell us what Oversee may be working on to reverse that trend?

A.

“”Based on ongoing conversations we have had with our large upstream ad providers, we firmly believe that they see the importance and relevancy of domain traffic to their advertisers.  And while we are certainly committed to working closely with these upstream ad providers to ensure the maximum monetization for our clients, we are also committed to exploring monetization options beyond parking in 2012 that improves the earnings for our clients.   Google will continue to be a partner and parking will be a major channel for upstream advertisers.  We are working hard to improve traffic quality and we continue to discuss additional monetization opportunities beyond parking.””

Q.  Unfortunately it seems over the last few years, Oversee seems to have gotten a less than stellar reputation among domainers, what are your plans to change that perception?

A.

“”Through action, results, and candor.

We are not sitting idle, we are taking risks, and we are evolving our business model to find the right formula for short-term and long-term success that leverages alternative monetization options beyond parking.  Throughout our evolution, one thing remains constant, and that is our goal of producing maximum monetization for our publishers.””

Q.   The is a rumor that Moniker.com and/or Snapnames.com have been or are up for sale.  What can you tell me about the sale of either or both of these companies?

A.

“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation on any of our business units.”

Q.

What is your vision for Oversee long term? 

A.

“”Our new vision is designed around a high-growth strategy.

We need to anticipate landscape changes, innovate, and evolve.  To this end, we recently defined a new vision for Oversee centered around us becoming a Global Performance Marketing Network that serves a broad set of publishers and advertisers.

Our parking business will be the critical foundational piece for making this vision come to life.

In addition, the expertise gained through our lead generation businesses will also contribute to this vision.  Advertisers will be attracted to our network based on traffic quality, quantity and selection capabilities, not to mention the analytical and campaign management tools to be offered.  Desktop and mobile publishers will be attracted to our network by the variety of traffic monetization options and high payouts, plus the web services we will be offering to help them acquire and monetize traffic in new ways.  And, we will be continuing to develop our channels with further focus on mobile, social, search, affiliate, and email.

Stay tuned for more news about this new Vision in 2012.””

Q. Do you have a different vision for Domainfest for this January and going forward that is different that we have seen in the past?   Does Oversee have plans to continue the conference past 2012 and/or are you planning on holding some other smaller Domainfest 1 or 2 day conferences in other  locations in 2012 and beyond?

A.

“”We continue to bring in new speakers with fresh ideas that help our industry evolve and move forward.

Last year, DOMAINfest Global attracted 702 attendees from 30 countries, not to mention a record-setting 38 sponsors and exhibitors.  We expect to meet or beat those numbers this year.

We expect to continue DOMAINfest.

We have a number of domain industry professionals as session panelists.

Perhaps most exciting is that DOMAINfest will offer numerous speakers and panelists from outside the domain industry who are highly respected experts in these topics.  These speakers will address a wide range of alternative monetization topic, with the goal of providing attendees with the online marketing skills they will need to generate alternative revenue streams and make their domains more valuable.

We are also delighted to have Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone as our keynoter and join us for our famous fireside chat.

Specific agenda topics include Global Online User Trends, Mobile and Local Opportunities, Affiliate Lead Generation Best Practices, Keyword Analysis Tips & Tools, Advanced PPC Best Practices, Landing Page Optimization Tips & Conversion Tools, SEO Insights for 2012, New TLDs, and Domain Valuation Techniques.””

Q.  Do you have any thoughts on the expansion of the domain name system by the introduction of new gTLD’s?  Specifically  How new gTLD’s may affect the Valuation of current domains; Is Oversee planning on applying for one or more new gTLD?

A.

“”The questions and perspectives revolving around new gTLDs are multiplying as we get closer to the opening of ICANN’s application process on January 12th.

That’s why we decided to kick-off our DOMAINfest Global conference with a workshop on this topic.

Attendees will benefit greatly from hearing a variety of expert perspectives on new gTLDs in this workshop, and will also have a chance to get their questions answered. It promises to be a very interesting and informative panel discussion followed by audience Q&A.””

Q.  Any closing comment that we didn’t cover?

A.

“”Yes, Scott Morrow, our Co-President and I will be hosting a media breakfast during the upcoming DOMAINfest Global conference.  I look forward to seeing you there.”

Thanks to Debra for taking the time to do the interview.

Domainfest 2012 will be held at the Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica January 31-February 2, 2012.

Early bird pricing of $1,199 ends on December 31, 2011 when the regular price of $1,299 kicks in.