NamesCon
 | |
| 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 |
Member of TheDNA 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.[1]
Summary
One could summarize the NamesCon experience as this: 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.
NamesCon is extremely reasonable and has a low cost of attendance, which combined with the rich schedule of sessions, compelling content, and networking opportunities are part of the attraction and popularity with attendees and sponsors.
NamesCon 2015
Because of the proximity on the calendar to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) (January 6-9, 2015) and Affiliate Summit West (January 18-20, 2015), NamesCon is expected to attract a large number of people who are in Las Vegas who are interested in domain names and learning about the opportunities that may exist within the new domain names being added to the Internet. CES attracts more than 160,000 people to Las Vegas, and a small percentage of those people are expected to have a keen interest in the new TLDs and domain names.
At the 2014 conference in January of 2014 the organizers initially expected 400 attendees, but eventually registrations went over the 600 mark. It may have been the largest New gTLD conference to date.[2]
There are more than 800 people expected for the 2015 NamesCon, which will certainly break any attendance records that might exist for conferences about domain names.
Speakers and Content
Jennifer Wolfe and Duane Forrester have confirmed that they will keynote at the 2015 NamesCon. There will be many major announcements about other participating keynote speakers at the 2015 NamesCon.
NamesCon 2015 will introduce a ramp-up day of content on 1/11 for people who may be new to domain names or the domain name industry, and the conference week will feature innovative content, deep-dive topics, and start-up contests that are focused around the innovation within a TLD. There will be sessions about IDN, Domain Investment, Domain Development, Registry Services, Marketing to the Registrar Channel, TLD CEO Roundtables, Legal and Rights Protections, Aftermarket Sessions, and many, many more topics.
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.[3]
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.[4]
The panelists, speakers, and workshop leaders included Matt Mullenweg, Merlin Kauffman, Kurt Pritz, Normand Fortier, Brad Lemire, Daniel Negari, Yannis Li, Lillian Zhang, Lauren Price, Dr. Paul Twomey, Bob Mountain, Alan Ezeir, Fred Krueger, Matt Overman, Ben Crawford, Mike Berkens, Zak Muscovitch, Mike Rodenbaugh, Marcel Trik, Chris Jensen, Andrew Rosener, Shaul Jolles, Paul Keating, Alex Lee, Ray King, Daniel Ruzzini-Mejia, Albert Angel, Dwayne Walker, Paul Nicks, Victor Pitts, Michele Neylon, Amanda Waltz, Ari Goldberger, Kelly Hardy, Aaron Grego, Andrew Allemann, Joe Uddeme, Mark Daniel, Jason Schaeffer, Stavros Anthony, Tim Chen, Bill Arent, Ruth Burr, Tim Cole, Richard Merdinger, Roland LaPlante, Edmon Chung, Statton Hammock, Robbie Birkner, Daliah Saper, Theo Develegas, Mike "Zappy" Zapolin, Jeffrey Gabriel, Lisa Box, Monica Kirchner, George Bundy, Solomon Amoako, Tom Scopazzi, Alan Sullivan, Ken Hansen, Braden Pollock, Derek Newman, Ron Jackson, Bill Doshier, Chris Sheridan, Daniel Schindler, Karen Bernstein, Jonathon Nevett, Kevin Murphy, Jennifer Standiford, John Matson, Colin Campbell, Ching Chiao, Michael Young, Dusty Trevino, Nigel Roberts, Michael Cyger, Anthony Beltran, Joe Alagna, Rob Rozicki, Yancy Naughton, Morgan Linton, Philip Corwin, Larry Fischer, David Weslow, Antony Van Couvering, Monte Cahn, Phil Buckingham, Jason Hennessey, Frank Michlick, Jennie-Marie Larsen, Bill Sweetman, James Morfopoulos, Patrick Carleton, Adam Dicker, and Richard Lau, Jothan Frakes.[5]
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[6]
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[7]
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>
References
- ↑ NamesCon.com Retrieved 11 Nov 2013
- ↑ NamesCon will be biggest New gTLD Show Yet, DomainIncite Retrieved 8 Jan 2013
- ↑ Session, NamesCon Retrieved 11 Nov 2013
- ↑ NamesCon, Eventbrite Retrieved 11 Nov 2013
- ↑ Speakers, NamesCon Retrieved 11 Nov 2013
- ↑ Keynotes - NamesCon Retrieved 8 Jan 2014
- ↑ Sessions, NamesCon Retrieved 8 Jan 2014