NamesCon

File:NamesCon Logo 2015.jpg
Dates:	January 11-14, 2015
Location:	Las Vegas, USA
Host:	Richard Lau / Jothan Frakes / Jodi Chamberlain
Venue:	Tropicana Las Vegas
Website:	NamesCon.vegas
Total Registrants:	Over 600
Registration:	Register Here

NamesCon, or the Domain Name Industry Conference, is a conference that brings together companies, representatives, and individuals in the Domain Name industry, especially Registries and Registrars. The first conference was held January 13-15, 2014 in Las Vegas.

Picture an ICANN meeting, minus politics, policy, and governance discussions. The who's who one might see at the ICANN meeting as a group of people having pure business and opportunity driven dialog about domain names and the domain name industry, including professional/aspiring domain developers, portfolio investors, private equity/venture capitalists, and brand marketing managers from top brands.

Organizers initially expected 400 attendees, but eventually registrations went over the 600 mark. It may have been the largest New gTLD conference to date.

NamesCon 2014

NamesCon 2014 was hosted by Richard Lau at Tropicana Las Vegas, and included sessions, panel discussion and presentations, as well as key note speeches and evening networking events. The sessions were categorized into one or more of 3 tracks: Registry, Registrar, and Registrant.

Session topics were on a wide range of Domain Name industry topics, with a focus on New gTLDs as ICANN's New gTLD Program begins delegation of dozens of new Domain Names. Topics include Brand Management, ccTLDs, Domain Hosting, DNS, IDNs, and more.

The panelists, speakers, and workshop leaders included Jason Hennessey, Frank Michlick, Jennie-Marie Larsen, Bill Sweetman, James Morfopoulos, Patrick Carleton, Adam Dicker, Jothan Frakes, Braden Pollock, Paul Nicks, Richard Lau, Antony Van Couvering, John Berryhill, Yancy Naughton, Chris Sheridan, Richard Merdinger and Dusty Trevino.

Keynote Speakers

The keynote speakers were:

• Matt Mullenweg of WordPress
• Frank Schilling, Managing Director of Uniregistry
• Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney.com
• Jennifer Wolfe, Entrepreneur
• Jodee Rich, CEO of PeopleBrowsr, dotCEO, dotBEST, and dotKRED
• Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Mayor of Las Vegas
• Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager at Bing

Sessions

Sessions included:

Tuesday, Jan 14, 2014

• Keynote by Jennifer Wolfe
• Special Welcome to Las Vegas by Mayor Carolyn Goodman
• Meet the New gTLDs, panel 1
• Navigating the Market: Experiences from recently launched TLDs for new TLDs
• Understanding Rights Protection Mechanisms in New TLDs & the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH)
• Doing Business in China: For New gTLDs
• Private Equity, VC, Wall Street and New gTLDs
• New TLDs + ‘Domainers’ : The Opportunities
• Registrar Reseller Platforms – You Can Sell New gTLDs
• The Things a Marketing / Brand Manager Needs to Know
• How to Become a Registrar from ICANN
• Parking vs. Megasites vs. Mini Sites Whitelabels For Your Domains
• Keynote by Frank Schilling

Wednesday, Jan 15, 2014

• Keynote by Jodee Rich
• Keynote by Jeremy Schoemaker
• Premium Domain Case Study: Soothe.com and Christmas.com
• Keynote by Matt Mullenweg - Q&A on WordPress
• Meet the industry Press
• Keeping it Sexy – How Registries can make themselves attractive to Registrars in the new TLD landscape.
• Real-World Legal Issues and Guidance for Domain Name Investors and Entrepreneurs
• SEO, Search, new TLDs, and Audience
• Applying for your TLD
• Keynote by Duane Forrester

Videos

ICANNWiki teamed up with Dyn and CircleID to produce a video blog during NamesCon 2014. Raymond King conducted interviews with various business leaders in the domain industry, including Jay Westerdal, John Matson, Daniel Ruzzini Mejia, and Chad Folkening. <videoflash>SptrDBY4TZE</videoflash> <videoflash>mm6Y4DQNKB0</videoflash> <videoflash>QI9MG-dXLTg</videoflash> <videoflash>cKwprzWY40A</videoflash>

Top-Level Domain