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from around
the world kicked off with a full
slate of business sessions as
well as a busy evening of social
events.
Above:
NamesCon Global attendees
filled a ballroom at the Tropicana
Hotel for the official start of
the 2018 conference Sunday morning
at 11am.
Below:
NamesCon President Soeren von
Varchmin was on hand to welcome
the crowd and he invited a series of
special guests to the stage.
Above:
Soeren is also the President
of World Hosting Days (now
known as Cloudfest) who
bought the NamesCon conference from Richard
Lau and his partners last year.
He invited Richard to join him for
a champagne toast and to wish him
well with the Water Night
fundraiser for the Water
School that will be held
Monday night (an event that Richard
returned to oversee). Shortly after
this, Richard's NamesCon Co-Founder Jothan
Frakes joined them on stage and
he was also featured in the day's
final business session in his
current role as Executive Director
of the Domain Name Association
(more on that a bit further down).
Below:
NamesCon debuted a new feaure for
their opening day schedule - Tool
Talks - a series of 15-20 minute
presentations from various service
providers and industry experts that
ran continuously from Noon to 5pm.
The first one featured the founder
of popular registrar Dynadot,
Todd Han.
Above:
In the next Tool Talk Hexonet's
Tony Kim covered the Future
of Domain Search - ways
registrars can help
customers find relevant domain names
for their needs.
Below:
While the Tool Talks continued other
sessions were running in an adjacent
ballroom. In this one Alex
Melen from SmartSites
gave attendees tips on Developing
a Domain Name and Selling a Business.
Above:
In another special session after the
1pm lunch break Matt Holmes
from Handshakin gave the
audience advice on how to Use
Your Blog to Connect with Industry
Influencers.
Below:
Next we checked back in at the
.GLOBAL stage to see what was
happening on the Tool Talks track
and caught this presentation on
Selling Domains with Confidence
Anywhere in the World delivered
by Payoneer's
Director of Strategic Accounts Brandon
Abbey (left) and the company's
GM for B2B Services, Scott
Reynolds.
Above:
We stayed in the same room to
catch a talk from Morgan Linton
(BoldMetrics.com). Morgan gave his
Top 10 Tips
for Startups Trying to Raise Their
Seed Round.
Below:
We then headed across the hall to
catch what industry veterans Jonathan
Tenebaum (NameJet) and Monte
Cahn (RightOfTheDot.com) had to
say about Domain Auctions and
Brokerage: A Path to Monetizing Your
Domains. Jonathan and Monte (at
right) will run the big NamesCon
live domain auction
Tuesday afternoon.
Above:
At 3:40pm we returned to the Tool
Talks sessions for an announcement
from the .CLUB registry in
which they unveiled their new Names.Club.
Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Sass
detailed the program which makes
premium domains from multiple
new gTLD registries available with
no interest, five year
financing.
Below:
In the final main track session of
the day NamesCon Co-Founder
Jothan Frakes (who now runs the MERGE!
Conference in Florida with Ray
Neu) took the stage under a new
hat as Executive Director of the Domain
Name Association (a role
he accepted on an interim basis last
fall). Jothan provided details on
the benefits of membership and
participation in this important industry
organization.
Above:
With the business day over we made
the first of three stops on the
evening social schedule - a Happy
Hour in the .CLUB suite at
the Tropicana that was held to celebrate
their launch of Names.Club.
Among those on hand were (left to
right) Jose Vicente from
Spain, Abner Duarte from
Boston (originally from Brazil) and Deepak
Daftari from India. At the start
of the day NamesCon President Soeren
von Varchmin called Deepak to
the stage to present him with a
special Most Voluminous Moustache
Award. I think this photo
explains why Deepak was recognized
:-)
Above:
The next stop may have been the most
impressive one of the day. I went
over to NamesCon's annual Woman
in Domaining Dinner at the new Robert
Irvine Public House Restaurant
at the Tropicana to snap some
photos. I was stunned by the
record turnout of some 120 of
the leading ladies in our industry!
Below:
Lisa Box, Vice President
Strategic Alliances and Business
Development at WP Engine (2nd from
left) played a lead role in getting
this annual dinner started and it
his grown by leaps and bounds every
year since.
Above:
The Woman in Domaining Dinner grew
so large this year it overtook two
of the biggest sections of the Robert
Irvine Public House Restaurant.
Below:
This table was graced by (clockwise
from left to right) KW Boswell,
Kathy Nielsen, Judith
McGarry, Kina Merdinian,
Barbara Neu and Diana Jackson.
Above:
Immediately after the Woman in Domaining
Dinner all attendees got back
together for NamesCom's big
Opening Night Reception at the
Tropicana.
Below:
While a jazz trio filled the air
with music guests were able to spend
the next four hours networking
with fellow domain and Internet
enthusiasts from around the
world.
Above:
Another scene from the NamesCon
Global Opening Night Reception
that was sponsored by the .GLOBAL
Registry.
Below:
.GLOBAL CEO Rolf Larsen and VP
Jeanette Soderlund Sause
welcomed guests to the opening night
party and also handed out prizes in
random drawings.
After:
As you would expect from a
conference called NamesCon Global,
guests came from all over the world
including a large contingent from India.
While originally from India, DNProperty.com's
Suresh Raghavan, at far left,
has actually lived in the U.S.
(Detroit) for the past 20 years, so
he didn't have to travel quite as
far as his compatriots.
Below:
Of course, there was no shortage of
U.S. natives at the reception
either. Left to right below are
Barbara Neu and Diana Jackson
(both from Florida) and Tessa
Seelos Holcomb (BrandIT.com)
from California.
Above:
As I noted in a post
in our Lowdown section a few days
ago, good people are the big
attraction for me at NamesCon.
One of the old friends I enjoyed
catching up with at the opening
night reception was Philadelphia
based attorney/domain
investor/developer John Deneen
(left).
As
I write this Monday's business day 2
is still underway with a full
evening still ahead. I'll have all
of the Monday highlights for your in
my next post from Las Vegas.
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(Posted
January 29, 2018)
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