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Domain
Conferences Unveil Attractive Agendas for January Shows
and Verisign Plays Scrooge Again With Another Price
Increase for .Com and .Net
The 2010 domain conference schedule
gets underway barely a month from now with two major
shows that will be staged back to back on the West
Coast. Both have pretty much finalized their conference
agendas and I am very much liking what I am seeing on
their schedules.
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T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Las Vegas will be up first, running
January 21-23 at the Hard Rock Hotel
& Casino. Rick Latona and his
team will handle the production of this show as
part of a new partnership arrangement with
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founders Rick Schwartz
and Howard Neu and Latona is definitely
putting his own stamp on the event. The
first thing you will notice when you look at the
show agenda is that no sessions
will start before 12 Noon. Each day begins
with a leisurely brunch that will open at 10:30am.
This
may seem like a small thing on the surface, but
it is a smart change given the show's
location. With all of the attractions to choose
from in Las Vegas, you can bet that registrants
are going to enjoy having some extra time
in |
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the
morning before they have to get up and get ready
for the business day. At past shows in Las
Vegas, the morning sessions were nearly empty so
the promoters are wise to have heeded that clear
message and rearranged the schedule to suit what
their attendees want. |
The
other thing registrants clearly wanted is more
networking opportunities, something the Latona team
heard loud and clear when they surveyed their clients a
couple of weeks ago. They responded by devoting more
time to networking events (especially on opening day) so
attendees will have ample opportunity to meet new people
and strengthen relationships with those they already
know.
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DOMAINfest
Global, which runs January 26-28
at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa
Monica, California is also bending over
backwards to make sure their attendees will
experience an event to remember. They stage this
show just once a year and a look
at what they have planned makes in
obvious that they used their entire 12 months of
prep time to put together a blockbuster
event. |
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The
detailed agenda released today revealed that Frank
Schilling, Ron
Sheridan and Adam Rioux (of Octane
360) will be the judges for the show's new Pitchfest
contest that aims to uncover new, innovative
products or services designed to enhance the
value of parked or developed domain names. |
The
four judges for a second new feature - Launchfest
- were also named with David Liu (Jefferies &
Company), Douglas McPherson (New Ventures Group
and Idealab), Richard Morgenstern (who has
thirty-five years of high level business, legal and
finance experience) and Eric Liaw (Technology
Crossover Ventures) filling those chairs. Launchfest
aims to reward the most innovative and viable plan for
building an online business around one of ten
undeveloped, premium domain names made available by Oversee.net
(the parent company of DOMAINfest Global). You
can check out today's press
release for more details on individual show
sessions and events. We will also be publishing our own
detailed conference previews within the next couple of
weeks.
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One
other late breaking news note before we leave
you today. Verisign has announced another
wholesale price increase for .com
and .net domain names that will take
effect on July 1, 2010. .Coms will jump
from $6.86 to $7.34 and .nets will
go up to $4.65. Keep in mind that these
are wholesale prices that registrars pay.
Registrars can charge the public anything they
want.
These
continual increases (at far above the rate of
inflation) can be traced back to a sweetheart no
bid contract that ICANN gave Verisign in
2006 despite widespread community opposition. |
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An
ongoing lawsuit
filed by CFIT also stemmed from that
discontent. Michael
Berkens aptly dubbed the latest
price hike a "Christmas present from
Verisign" in a blog
post about the increase today. |
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