Domainers Meet, the first domain name industry conference ever held in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, an alliance of Middle Eastern nations Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) concluded Sunday (April 24, 2016) at the Hotel Radisson Blu in Dubai. 

Conference organizers brought in an impressive array of industry speakers from around he world for the inaugural two-day event in the booming UAE metropolis that has become an important global business center. 

Above and below: ParkLogic.com Founder Michael Gilmour speaking at the debut edition of Domainers Meet Sunday (April 24). Gilmour, who flew in from Australia, was one of more than a dozen international industry leaders who traveled to Dubai to speak at an event designed to spur domain industry growth in the Middle East. (All photos in this article courtesy of Domainers Meet)

Gilmour posted a very positive review of Domainers Meet on his blog today, noting "Congratulations are in order to all of the organisers of Domainers Meet in Dubai. I know that a lot of business will be conducted as a result and there are plans in place already to run the conference again next year."

Above and below: Stage and audience scenes from one of the many panel discussions that highlighted Domainers Meet in Dubai Saturday and Sunday (April 23 & 24, 2016).

Above: Toronto, Canada based Internet and Domain Industry Consultant Solomon Amoako 
speaking Sunday (April 24, 2016) at Domainers Meet in Dubai 

Above: Speakers and members of the Domainers Meet management team got together for this "class photo" from the first edition of the new Dubai based conference that concluded Sunday 
(April 24, 2016).

We have a lot of international domain conference news for you today. The first major show ever held in the Middle East - Domainers Meet - will run this coming weekend at the Hotel Radisson Blu in Dubai. An impressive 

list of speakers from around the world will be on hand for the two-day event that opens Saturday morning. Tickets can be purchased online here. 

The significance of the event has caught the attention of media outlets in Dubai and throughout the UAE. Representatives from newspapers and TV stations turned out for a press conference that show organizers held late last week to introduce the debut event.

Above and below: Scenes from the Domainers Meet Press Conference in Dubai that set
the stage for this weekend's inaugural conference - the first event of its kind in the Middle East. 

Above: DomainersMeet Director of Business Development Anilkumar (at right) with Adam Wagner (Founder & CEO at GCCinternet) who will be one of the featured speakers this weekend.

Domain registrations in Australia's in Australia's popular .au country code have traditionally been restricted to second level extensions (like .com.au and .net.au) but the TLD's governing body, auDa, has decided the time has come to allow direct top level registrations (for example, yourname.au). 

Today's announcement said "the auDA Board decided to accept the recommendation of the 2015 Names Policy Panel to introduce direct registrations in .au. The Board agreed with the majority views expressed in the Panel’s final report, that the introduction of direct registrations would:

• make available domain names which are shorter, more appealing and more memorable

• give Australians more choice in deciding what domain name to register

• respond to market demand

• be more attractive to natural individuals than the current option, id.au

• strengthen the “.au brand” in a globally competitive market

• add value to all three main categories of users – registrars and resellers, registrants and ultimate users of the .au domain name system.

The Board also acknowledged the hard work and commitment shown by Panel Chair Derek Whitehead and all members of the Names Policy Panel over a 10-month policy review process.  

Verisign has released their latest quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief covering the 4th quarter of 2015. The operator of the .com and .net registries reported that the year ended with approximately 314 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of approximately 15 million domains over the previous quarter. That 5% jump is a very impressive gain for a single quarter. The big move up in 4Q boosted year over year gains by 9%  with 25.9 million domains added since the end of 2014. Well over half of the 2015 registrations were added in the closing quarter alone.

Verisign's flagship TLDs, .com and .net,  had a combined total of approximately 139.8 million domain names when the year ended (124 million in .com and 15.8 million in .net) - adding 12.2 million new domains in those two extensions in 2015 (a 9.5% rise year over year). The 12.2 million names added in 2015 also represents a major increase from the 8.2 million that were added in 2014.  

The latest brief also includes registration statistics for new gTLDs and ccTLDs (a category that grew 7.7% year over year), along with information in the top trending keywords . com and .net. For more information, copies of the Q4-2015 Domain Name Industry Brief, or to view past reports, visit VerisignInc.com/DNIB, where you can also find the Q4-2015 infographic.

In addition to warmer weather and blossoming  flowers Spring 2016 is bringing a bountiful bouquet of domain industry networking opportunities around the world. In the U.S. alone three big city domain meetups will be held over the next 30 days. We will also see two important full scale multi-day international conferences between now and the end of next month.

It all gets started Friday evening (April 15) when one of the most active local/regional domain groups in the world - Southern California Domainers - will hold their latest meetup in Santa Monica, California. It

Internet spring image from Bigstock

will get underway at 6:30pm at the .XYZ Registry offices at 2800 Olympic Boulevard. RSVP at the link above if you want to attend the free event that always draws a diverse crowd of interesting and  influential people.

Domain industry veterans and regular DNJournal readers are familiar with the remarkable story of Warren Royal and Bobbleheads.com that we told in detail in our December 2008 Cover Story. For those of you who haven't heard what has become a somewhat legendary success story - Warren, who had been dabbling in the domain investment/development field, decided to buy the domain Bobbleheads.com when he got a chance to pick it up for $30,000. He didn't know anything about the bobblehead business but he did like the popular figurines and figured 30K was a pretty good deal for a domain the defined the entire category. 

He started off selling bobbleheads made by other companies on his new Bobbleheads.com website,  but once his interest was piqued, he sought out manufacturers who could produce his own line under the Royal Bobbles brand. To cut a long story short, he ran up an incredible string of successes over the years and grew Atlanta-based Bobbleheads.com/Royal Bobbles into one of the world's top producers of the adorable little dolls.

One big thing did change just this past week though. It turned out not all of his products were all that "little" anymore. In fact his company just produced the biggest bobblehead the world has ever seen - a more than 15-foot tall figure of a St. Bernard dog that was commissioned by a client - San Francisco based insurance company Applied Underwriters (a Berkshire Hathaway company) -  who uses a St. Bernard as their mascot. 

Warren Royal
Bobbleheads.com/Royal Bobbles Founder

Escrow.com announced the addition of a key new member to their management team today when Danny Raja was introduced as Vice President of Sales. Raja, who brings over 15 years of experience selling into Fortune 1000 and large companies globally,  will drive Escrow.com’s partnerships with leading online marketplaces and eCommerce sites. The company said, "This will allow partners globally to leverage the secure payments platform of the world’s leading online escrow provider to protect the transactions of their users and prevent fraud on their marketplaces."

Before joining Escrow.com, Raja, who will be based in San Francisco, was Regional Sales Director for Box. He has also served as a sales executive responsible for key strategic accounts at a number of leading Enterprise SaaS companies, including Yammer and Lithium Technologies. Prior to that he was a Senior Account Executive at Dow Jones.

Danny Raja
VP of Sales, Escrow.com

Domain drop catching powerhouses NameJet and SnapNames announced today that, effective immediately, they are combining backorders for pending delete domain names on both platforms into a common drop-catching and auction engine.

Together the two companies represent a large segment of domain registrars including Network 

Solutions, Enom, Register.com and Name.com (giving them access to expiring domains at those registrars). By combining resources they expect to see a substantial improvement in drop-catch efficacy across both platforms. Their press release on the partnership noted, "This will result in customers being able to acquire more of the domains they wish by placing a single backorder on either platform with a higher probability of success."

If more than one backorder is placed from either platform on a domain that is caught in the drop, it will move to a private auction where both NameJet and SnapNames bidders may participate. Minimum bid increments and proxy bid rules for pending delete names on NameJet have been modified to match those of SnapNames in order to provide a consistent customer experience. The integration will not affect NameJet’s exclusive registrar expiry or private lister inventory.

Earlier this week I told you about a unique new conference coming to Los Angeles this summer that will bring the domain, development and startup communities together. Now, just four days later, comes word of another new event,  Codemology -  also unique in its approach - that will be staged in Charlotte, North Carolina October 1-2, 2016.

Domain conferences have played an indispensable role in the phenomenal growth of the domain industry over the past 12 years. With the ongoing expansion of the Internet worldwide the importance of domain names in branding and helping drive traffic to online enterprises is finally being realized in the mainstream business community - especially the startup sector. 

Seeing an opportunity to accelerate and facilitate this powerful confluence of web-based entrepreneurs, two widely respected domain industry veterans, Jason Thompson and Dwayne Walker, have just  co-founded a new era conference called Domain Startup Summit that will debut July 30, 2016 in Santa Monica, California at the well-known Cross Campus startup center at the heart of Silicon Beach.

Walker is a long time top level industry executive. Dwayne's impressive resume includes a stint as a Senior VP at Oversee.net, the company that ran the popular Domainfest conferences in Los Angeles for many years. Thompson is a veteran IT Engineer/domain investor/entrepreneur who is also known for shepherding one of America's most active local domain meetup groups - Southern California Domainers. As a team the two co-founders have extensive experience across Internet technology, startups and domain branding that make them especially well suited to produce a Domain Startup Summit.

The duo describes the event as "an extremely unique conference which brings together investors, thought leaders, startups and the domain branding industry. The goal of Domain Startup Summit is to inspire, educate and connect startups, investors and the domain industry in a unique setting that will help attendees brand, develop, launch and grow new businesses."

"Attendees can expect an action packed day full of networking and informative speaker sessions. This original event is the first of its kind and will serve as a launching pad for building stronger bonds within the investment, startup and domain branding spaces."

Co-Founder Jason Thompson
Domain Startup Summit

Co-Founder Dwayne Walker
Domain Startup Summit

Walker said, "We’re extremely excited to bring together startups, investors and the domain branding industry. Domain Startup Summit will also feature a live Pitchfest where startups can receive funding and feedback for their emerging companies.  Startups can be considered for Domain Startup Summit Pitchfest by submitting their company profiles here."

Thompson added, "We’re looking to strengthen partnerships between the startup industry and domain branding industry. This is the exact vision we had when we decided to move forward with creating this event." 

With dozens of moving parts, putting together a conference of this magnitude is no easy task but based on their long track records of success in whatever they have tackled, the  Thompson-Walker team is one that can do the job and do it right, benefiting the entire industry in the process.