Event planner Jodi Chamberlain of 32Events.com is well-known in the domain world after many years of helping organize and stage major industry conferences around the world for NamesCon, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and Domaining Europe among others. While Jodi has organized events in many other fields as well, she is about to take her biggest leap into the mainstream business world to date with the launch of  iSugar.live. Her new platform will stream inspirational and informative presentations from business leaders and successful entrepreneurs directly to computer screens or mobile devices around the world - and they will be offered free of charge.

DomainSponsor had a large crew in Miami Thursday so the pioneering domain monetization company decided to put together a friendly  meetup with some of South Florida's many 

professional domain investors. Never ones to do anything halfway, the DS team rented a private suite at Marlins Park, home of the National League's Miami Marlins, where they and their guests caught last night's game between the Marlins and the Chicago Cubs. The guests got to go out on the field before the game and DomainSponsor even arranged to have the home team win 4-2 to make sure everyone went home happy! 

Above: A wide view of Marlins Park from the DomainSponsor suite at last night's Marlins-Cubs game.

Below: Some of the DomainSponsor crew members on the field before the game. Left to right are Ray Goodwin, Mike Morrison, Joe Higgins (crouching ready to pounce!), Henry Hsu, Mark Fliegelman, Brad Wilkinson and Kevin Diaz. (Both of these photos courtesy of Barbara Neu).

Above: Eddie and Barbara Sixto enjoying their pre-game visit to the playing field at the $515 million Marlins Park. They were accompanied by Victor Pitts who snapped this shot.

Below: Back upstairs in the DomainSponsor suite,  THE Domain Conference Co-Founders Barbara Neu and Howard Neu (in spiffy Marlins gear) with DomainSponsor/RookMedia's Joe Higgins. 

Above: DomainSponsor guest Stu Maloff captured this shot of the real star of game - the food and drink spread in the DS suite!

Below: The entire DS team in  the company's suite at Marlins Park. Standing left to right are: Ray Goodwin, Joe Higgins, Kevin Diaz, Simon Pupo, Robert Tucker, Henry Hsu, Mark Fliegelman and Brad Wilkinson with Mike Morrison kneeling at front.

As most of you know, DomainSponsor is the oldest domain monetization company in the business, having been started in 2002 by Oversee.net. In 2014 another monetization powerhouse, RookMedia, acquired DomainSponsor and they have retained the brand's legacy by continuing to operate DS as a distinct enterprise. 

If you have watched just about any live domain auction in recent years, odds are Wayne Wheat was the award winning auctioneer running the show. Whether the big sale was at NamesCon or DOMAINfest Global or T.R.A.F.F.I.C., the story was the same - the auction organizers wanted Wayne Wheat on the podium and his equally energetic wife, Katy Olsta Wheat, helping fire up the crowd as the lead spotter on the floor. 

While those of us in the domain industry think of Wayne as the guy who auctions off high dollar domains, our field is just one of many in which he has excelled, including real estate, automobiles, business liquidations, fine art, antiques and collectibles, etc. You name it and Wayne has sold it at high profile auctions all over the world. 

He's the kind of guy whose vast experience makes you say, "you know, you ought to write a book!" Well he has done just that and it was released on Amazon today - priced at a giveaway 99 cents this weekend only before moving to its normal $19.95 price. 

Wayne Wheat
Author, Bid & Grow Rich

Jeff Bennett is a very well-known figure in the domain industry after co-founding NameMedia, whom he also served as President and COO. The veteran entrepreneur went on to create several other companies, including his latest, Digital Properties LLC. Jeff describes the new venture as "a digital media company that will focus on a  network of verticals." Those currently include Local and Education with more to come.

I expect to be telling you more about the company as it continues to expand but for now, the most important bit of information I wanted to share with domains owners is that Digital Properties is looking to buy some top tier domains. Bennett told us, "we are in the market looking for high quality portfolios with names to develop and traffic to leverage."

If you have those kinds of domains and are interested you can contact Jeff via email at [email protected].  I know everyone thinks their portfolio is high quality, so that kind of invitation can produce a lot less wheat than 

Jeff Bennett
CEO, Digital Properties LLC

chaff.  Just keep in mind that Bennett knows the difference as well as anybody in the business, so sending lists of domains that are just average wouldn't be worth anyone's time. You can also write first for more specific guidance on the verticals and kinds of domains Digtial Propeties is currently seeking.

I'm back from an annual beach vacation, refreshed and ready for what is shaping up to be a very busy summer ahead, including two conference trips - BlogX/DomainX in New Delhi, India in August and THE Domain Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in September. 

I was also invited to go to the Global Domain Industry Summit in Hangzhou, China that ended June 6 and would have made the trip if the dates had not conflicted with the vacation reservations we had made before the show was announced. Several domain industry veterans from the U.S. and Canada did make the trip and said it was a very positive 

and impressive experience with some 1,000 attendees on hand (most coming from throughout mainland China). One of the North American guests was domain consultant Bill Sweetman from NameNinja.com who was kind enough to share some of his photos and notes from the show (where Bill was also among the featured speakers). 

Above: Part of the capacity crowd that turned out for the 
Global Domain Industry Summit in Hangzhou, China June 3-6, 2016.

Below: Among the familiar faces in the crowd from the West was
Sedo's Chief Marketing Officer Christian Voss who was also a speaker.

Above: Another familiar face in the crowd - 
Public Interest Registry (.Org) Channel Manager for Asia Kevin Kopas who also spoke.

Above: A scene from the live domain auction at the Global Domain Industry Summit 
(auction results can be found here  - prices shown in middle column represent Chinese Yuan)

Below: Something we haven't seen at a live auction before - cheerleaders 
bearing cards promoting some of the premier names up for sale!

An international group of domain pros got together for dinner during show week. Above (top row L-R) are Anand Vora (Donuts) and Bill Sweetman (NameNinja), with (bottom row L-R)  
Jian (Jane) Zhang (DotAsia), Kevin Kopas (PIR) & Fernando Espana (Neustar).

Bill also gave us a link to a nicely produced video recap of the Global Domain Industry Summit. The clip, that runs just under 5 minutes, will give you a great inside look at conference week.

Another major show is coming up in China just three weeks from now. That will be the World Domain Conference that will be held in Wuzhen July 6-9, 2016.  I ran a preview of that event last month that you can check out here.

DomainX Events Founder Manmeet Pal Singh has just announced a new conference for bloggers - BlogX - that will make its debut on August 5, 2016 at the Shangri-Las's New Eros Hotel in New Delhi, India. Though BlogX will be a stand alone event, it will run the day before the 3rd annual DomainX conference gets underway at the same venue where it will run August 6-7. After covering and speaking at the 2015 DomainX conference in Bangalore I am looking forward to going back to India to participate in both BlogX and DomainX this summer.

Singh had previously announced a Taj Mahal trip for DomainX attendees would be held on August 5, but the Taj trip has now been moved to Saturday, August 6, making it the first thing on the show's opening day agenda. That will  provide a world class setting for casual networking that would be hard for any conference to match.

As for BlogX, being presented in associating with MicroHost.com,  that will be an event where bloggers and content managers can learn from and network with industry leaders in the blogging community. The speakers already announced include Kulwant Nagi (BloggingCage.com), Jitendra Vaswani (BloggersIdeas.com), Preet Sandhu (BuyBeforeReviews.com) and Ron Jackson (DNJourna.l.com). You can register for BLOGX here.

The 2016 Domaining Europe conference closed Tuesday evening (May 31) at the Grand Hotel Amrâth Kurhaus in The Hague, Netherlands. The 8th annual event staged by show founder Dietmar Stefitz drew a nice cross section of domain investors and high level company executives from around the globe. This was the first  time the event was held outside of Valencia, Spain (Stefitz's home town) and, as beautiful as Valencia is, the change of scenery apparently paid off as Dietmar said the turnout was DE's best to date. He told us he plans to continue taking the conference to new locations with places like Berlin, Germany among those he is considering for 2017.

Above: On the first business day of Domaining Europe 2016 Monday (May 30) - a day focused on .COM -  Verisign Senior VP Pat Kane delivered the keynote address. (This photo and all others on this page courtesy of Radix Registry who posted a public conference photo gallery here).

Below: Closing day Tuesday - billed as Not .Com day with the spotlight on new gTLDs - featured another compelling keynote address from Ingrid Baele, Vice President, Intellectual Property and Standards at global corporate giant Philips. When asked if Philips will re-brand immediately to their new .philips TLD, Stefitz said Ms. Baele answered "No, there are so many things to take into consideration , when re-branding such a huge multi-national. Packaging, divisions, 10,000s of  thousands of machines which have the brand philips.com engraved on them and specially the health care units that are still not very comfortable with the new GTLD's, because they are not yet implemented from all ISP's and this could cause problems."

Above: An audience view from one of the nine business sessions held at Domaining Europe Tuesday (May 31). You can review the ambitious full agenda for both show days here. 

Below: .CLUB's globe trotting CMO Jeff Sass filled the audience in on the latest news from one of the web's most visible new gTLDs (one that just celebrated its 2nd anniversary) in an entertaining talk Tuesday morning. Jeff is on the road almost continually spreading the .CLUB/New gTLD gospel.

Dietmar Stefitz told us the afternoon sessions featured Ramon Rautenstrauch, a panel discussion on new GTLDs and ccTLDs and also had a strong ICANN flavor thanks to appearances made by Jean Jaques Sahel, Stephane Van Gelder and ICANN  ombudsman Chris LaHatte. 

The day and conference closed with a live charity domain auction of new gTLDs put together by Undeveloped.nl that raised €4,120 for Inara.org. Undeveloped.nl is also conducting a separate premium domain auction online that will continue to June 14, 2016. In the photo above, Undeveloped.nl Founder Reza Sardeha (far right) is seen with Domaining Europe Founder Dietmar Stefitz and (at far left) masterful show moderator Braden Pollock.

With another successful Domaining Europe conference in the books the global show spotlight now swings to China where the 2016 Global Domain Industry Summit gets underway Friday (June 3) in Hangzhou.