Masters of Their Domains

On a balmy night in late October, hundreds of partiers, most sporting red or blue Hawaiian shirts, pack the Delux nightclub in Delray Beach, Fla. It’s a s**** place -- outdoor decks, two bars, plush, bed-size sofas scattered throughout -- and the crowd arrives in chartered buses and stretch Hummers. Many head straight for the guy rolling cigars and toss back shots as if it were 1999. Which, to them, it might as well be.

They call themselves domainers. They make their living buying and selling domain names and turning their Web traffic into cash -- lots of it. They have gathered in Delray Beach for a trade show called Traffic that this year boasts 300 paying attendees, more than twice the number that came for the first show, in ’04.