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Sedo
CEO Tim Schumacher
welcoming guests to Key West |
As the cocktail party got underway
Sedo CEO and Co-Founder Tim Schumacher
welcomed the company's guests to Key West.
Schumacher told attendees that he was optimistic
about the direction the domain business is headed
now, a sentiment he said he didn't hold a year ago
when the general economy entered a historic
financial crisis.
Schumacher
also took the opportunity to express the company's
support for The Water School, a charity
project strongly supported by a domain industry
group headed by Gregg McNair (International
Director of Strata
PPX Services) that we told you about in July.
McNair helmed a group of 18 industry leaders who
just returned from Kenya where they got a
first hand look at The Water School's efforts to
eliminate waterborne diseases in Africa.
Sedo's support came in the form of a much
appreciated $4,500 check that Schumacher
personally presented to McNair at the end of his
brief talk.
Next up
was a
lavish buffet dinner on the beach
with a stunning Key West sunset serving as the
backdrop. |
Above:
Guests check out the buffet at the SedoPro Partners Forum
opening night dinner.
Below: Attendees dined at tables that were set up directly
on the beach.
After dinner
attendees heard comments from an interesting keynote panel
that featured (left
to right in the photo below)
Sedo Director of Sales Kathy Nielsen, Hotels.com
founder Bob Diener (now the Executive Administrator
of GetARoom.com) and Sedo Senior Broker Tessa
Holcomb.
| Diener
accepted a five-year non-compete clause as
part of the contract agreement when his
company sold Hotel.com and Hotels.com
in late 2003. Once that expired he decided
to re-enter the travel business and called
on Sedo to help him secure a memorable
domain name. Holcomb brokered Diener's
eventual purchase of GetARoom.com for
$30,000.
Diener
presented an end user's perspective on the
importance of a good domain name, noting
"If a name stands out in the
marketplace, it costs you a lot less
to market." Diener went on to say that
he had also purchased additional travel
related keyword domains to drive more
traffic to GetARoom.com.
After
the keynote session, people stayed on the
beach chatting until almost midnight when
the hotel staff had to pack up the portable
lights that had been set up on the sand. |
Sedo
Senior Broker Tessa Holcomb |
|
After breakfast the next morning (Thursday,
October 8), the
conference resumed with a pair of presentations from Sedo
Co-Founders and executives. In the opener, Co-Founders Ulrich
Essman and Ulrich Priesner detailed Sedo's
One-Stop Shop Product Solutions.
Sedo
Co-Founders Ulrich Essman (left) and Ulrich Priesner
conducting the opening
seminar at the SedoPro Partners Forum in Key West,
Florida Thursday,
Oct. 8.
This
session gave attendees a closer look at
Sedo's Domain Monetization and Aftermarket services. Essman
and Priesner described Sedo's "One Stop Shop"
strategy as the first fully integrated suite of online
services spanning domain buying, monetization and selling.
Guests were also given tips on how to best optimize the
domains they have parked on the SedoPro platform and details
on new selling tools that offer suggested prices and auto
categorization of names put up for sale. Another highlight was
a review of the recently launched SedoMLS
fixed price sales platform that utilizes partner registrars to
increase exposure for domain listings.
Next
up was a session titled Sedo: The Future &
You, conducted by Sedo CEO & Co-Founder Tim
Schumacher (at
left in the photo below)
and Sedo's COO & General Counsel Jeremiah Johnston (at
right).
Schumacher, who was also recently named CEO of
Sedo's parent company, the AdLink
Group, talked about how his new role there will
allow him to oversee the group's strategy focusing on the
domain industry and performance marketing. He said this will
build synergies between Sedo and its sister companies and also
leverage the group's reach with advertisers.
Johnston talked about his plans to continue
championing the value of domains for business and marketing as
well as working to protect the rights of domain owners.
Johnston is frequently quoted in mainstream news articles
about the domain industry and also serves as President of the Internet
Commerce Association.
Part
of the audience at the Thursday morning (Oct. 8) business
sessions.
After
the two morning business presentations, everyone hit the
beach for a waterfront luncheon on another beautiful day in
Key West.
Scene
from Thursday's luncheon on the beach (Oct. 8, 2009)
After lunch Thursday attendees could choose
from a variety of fun in the sun activities including
Waverunner rides, snorkeling, biking or just sunning by the
pool or napping in a hammock.
The
more adventurous guests climbed aboard Waverunners Thursday
afternoon.
Others
headed for the Casa Marina's inviting pool area.
The
oceanside hammocks were also hard to resist as Neustar's
Ken Hansen proves here.
Business would remain on the back burner
Thursday evening as well. It started with guests walking
together to one
of Key West's most popular restaurants - The Strip House -
where they were treated to a gourmet dinner on the
waterfront deck.
Eric
Sundberg (left) and Sedo Co-Founder Ulrich
Priesner chat
during the Thursday night dinner at The Strip House
restaurant in Key West.
After
dinner, everyone headed back to the Casa Marina Resort for a 1920's
themed gala complete with flapper girls and a great live
band performing in the hotel's ballroom.
Above:
Flapper girls set the stage for the 1920's Themed Gala
Thursday night
Below:
Domainers hit the dance floor
Anticipating that it would be be a late night
for everyone, Sedo let their guests sleep in Friday morning
(Oct. 9) and that helped just about everyone make it to the
final business session of the conference that got underway at
10:30am.
That 90-minute panel discussion on The
DNA of TLDs was moderated by Sedo's COO & General
Counsel Jeremiah Johnston and featured (left
to right in the photo below) Andrew Allemann (DomainNameWire.com),
Ron Jackson (DNJournal.com), Jeremiah Johnston, Lance
Wolak (.Org registry) and Ken Hansen (.Biz
registry).
| The wide ranging discussion touched on a
number of areas, including valuations and prospects
for the various TLDs. Panelists also expressed
opinions on ICANN's plan to roll out an
unlimited number of new gTLDs starting next
year and that topic also dominated the audience
question and answer session that followed.
Hansen, who is the Development Director at Neustar
(operator of the .biz and .us
registries) expressed support for the ICANN plan. .Org's
Wolak said his registry had no position one way or the
other, but noted that he felt the widely used .org
extension would continue to thrive in any case.
Allemann and I both expressed serious reservations
about the wisdom of flooding the market with an
unlimited number new TLDs at once (we have each
written about this topic on our respective sites in
the past and I'm sure we will continue to do so in the
future, so there is no need to take this conference
review article off topic by delving deeper into that
subject here). |
Antony
Van Couvering (Minds+Machines)
in the audience for the closing business
session Friday morning - October 9. |
After the closing session, the curtain came
down on the SedoPro Partners Forum with a farewell buffet
luncheon on the beach.
Guests
sample delicacies at the beachfront buffet luncheon
that closed the 2009 SedoPro Partner Forum Friday
October 9.
The 2009 SedoPro Partner Forum drew high
praise from attendees. Sedo's North American Marketing
Team Supervisor Heather DelCarpini and Marketing
Associate Tiffany Cuddihy took care of all of the
details, large and small, that went into making this year's
gathering something special. It will be back to Europe 2010
and the Sedo staff is already fielding suggestions for where
the next Partner Forum should be held. |
