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Above:
A shot of the WDC conference hall
at Wuzhen's Waterside Resort,
taken shortly before attendees began
filing in for the first day of
business this morning.
(Photo from Anand Vora)
Below:
Mr. Jason Lin, the Founder of
conference host Yumi.com,
kicked things off at 9:15am with a welcoming
address to World Domain Conference
attendees.
(Photo from Deepak Daftari)
Above
& below: The day's first of
four panel discussions, covering
the latest global domain name developments
and trends, got underway at 9:30am
with six industry experts on the dais.
They included pioneering domain
investor and Founder of Uniregistry.com
Frank Schilling who is seen seated
on the side video screens above (photo
from Yumi.com) and standing at the
podium below left (photo from Anand
Vora).
Above:
During a coffee break that
followed the opening panel discussion,
WDC participants, including
speakers, sponsors and attendees, got
together for this group portait.
(Photo from George Hong)
Below:
The morning session closed with nine
more international experts taking the
stage to discuss New gTLDs. The
panelists included two who traveled
from the U.S. - Anand Vora,
Business Development Director at Donuts
Inc. (the largest operator of new
gTLDs) and Michele Van Tilborg,
VP of Business Development at the .CLUB
Registry. China has been the most
receptive global market to new gTLDs.
Above:
A two-and-a-half hour lunch break
started at noon. George Hong of
Guta.com (center) who has bases in
both the U.S. and China,
took advantage of some of his break
time to catch up with two of the many
Western visitors at WDC, GoDaddy
Aftermarket Director Paul Nicks
(left) and NameJet.com General
Manager Jonathan Tenenbaum
(right).
Below:
The afternoon session got underway at
2:3pm with another distinguished panel
of nine experts discussing Registrar
and Domain Aftermarket Developments.
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Above:
After a mid-afternoon coffee
break, the day's final
panel discussion got
underway at 4pm with many
familiar faces from the global
domain investment community
among the eight experts on
hand to discuss Investment
Strategies. The panelists
included, at far right, the
CEO of host Yumi.com, Mr.
Yongdong
Xie.
At
right: veteran domain investor
Thunayan K. AL-Ghamin
of Future Media Architects
(left) and broker George
Hong from Guta.com
were also among the experts
featured on the closing
panel.
After
the business day was done
attendees were treated to an evening
banquet and theme party
(both now concluded as it is
12 hours later in Wuzhen than
it is in the U.S. Eastern time
zone where we are
based).
Everyone
will be back for another busy
day that gets |
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underway
Friday morning at 9:30am
(Wuzhen time). We will have
photos and highlights from the
day's events for you again in
this column. |
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