This time last week my wife and I boarded a Southwest bird headed from Austin to Oakland in route to Santa Rosa, California.
Just like clockwork, I encountered a few domains arriving into Oakland and preparing to drive to Santa Rosa.
A few miles outside the airport, I discovered an interesting lease sign on the side of a building promoting its .com: CranbrookGroup.com. Hat tip to this company for cleverly using the building itself to promote leasing space.
Not too long after this sighting, I was amused to discover O.co plastered on highway signs as we passed Oracle Arena (Golden State Warriors) and the O.co Coliseum (Oakland Raiders and Athletics).
Talk about a blast from the past for one of the most documented and visible marketing gaffes in the last 10 years.
In short, Overstock quickly discovered massive traffic leakage to O.com, which they didn’t own at the time of their launching a mass marketing campaign promoting O.co.
As we neared Santa Rosa, I discovered a few brandable domains as well as a prominently advertised 3L .com domain.
It wasn’t long before we arrived at our destination: Flamingo Hotel. It’s been in existence since the early 1950’s, and was quite the experience, having recently updated and remodeled a large portion of its rooms.
The grounds were simply beautiful and well kept. I wish we would have had more time to take a dive in the heated pool, but the conference kept us quite busy with various activities.
All in all, this was a much needed trip for my wife and I (without our kiddos) to reconnect as we attended GoStrategic.org’s Transforum Conference.
If the name Transforum sounds familiar, it’s because we also attended the Transforum Conference held in Austin about a year or so ago.
While some of the same folks attended the Santa Rosa event, the content was a bit different this time: Our Identity and Kings and Priests in a Secular World.
Nevertheless, our trip and the conference were pleasurable experiences to say the least. We even got to sightsee a bit too.
In fact, Santa Rosa, ravaged by fires to historic records, was beautiful beyond measure. Although we didn’t see the hardest hit areas impacted by fires, we did see a few charred places, trees, and mountain sides in route towards Armstrong Forrest to discover Coastal Redwoods.
Talk about colossal in size, it was beyond amazing roaming around Armstrong Forrest and admiring God’s majestic beauty and creation. They tower like no other on bases that are a minimum of 4 feet wide, endlessly reaching into the sky.
Going and coming, we also discovered the origins of Korbel and Martinelli vineyards tucked away in the valleys of mountains.
And while we did indulge in visiting a few other places as well as met with friends for lunch to catch up as well as celebrate their one-year anniversary in marriage, I couldn’t help but to snag a few pics of domain sightings.
As with many things in life, all good things do come to an end, and so it was with this trip. And as we waited to board our plane back to Austin, I was awarded one more domain sighting that you can use to plan your next trip: IFlyOak.com.
Thanks and that’s all for now!
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
