Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

NamesCon publishes full agenda for debut Austin conference

Kevin Murphy, January 10, 2020, 12:08:24 (UTC), Domain Services

NamesCon Global is coming up at the end of the month, and yesterday the organizers published the final agenda for the three-or-four day event, including a keynote by GoDaddy’s new CEO.
Aman Bhutani, who took over the top job in September, will speak after lunch on day two of the conference, Thursday January 30, with an as-yet-untitled presentation. I imagine he was an easy booking, given that NamesCon has been owned by GoDaddy for the last few years.
Elsewhere on the agenda, there are plenty of sessions that look sufficiently interesting — covering topics such as data-driven market analysis, DNS abuse, and emerging technologies — that I kinda wish I was attending this year.
I’d be particularly interested in learning more about DNS over HTTPS and blockchain, two emerging “threats” to regular DNS that have sessions devoted to them during the conference.
It’s the first time NamesCon Global has been held outside of Las Vegas since the event debuted in 2003. It’s happening at the Omni Hotel in Austin, Texas, instead.
There’s a fair bit of doubling or tripling up in terms of speakers — some are sitting on multiple panels or keynotes spread over the three days of presentations — but that’s par for the course at NamesCon if memory serves.
Thursday evening sees the now-traditional domain auction, organized by NamesCon and RightOfTheDot. There are some pretty cool names up for sale this year, including add.com, laptop.com, shirts.com and offices.com.
If the auctioneer is anything like the ones hired in Vegas in previous years, you might want to bring along some ear protectors.
Finally, in terms of socializing, male attendees worried that the Friday night networking event is a “Ladies Only” affair can rest assured that Saturday is a day-long literal sausage fest, a seven-hour piss-up at the Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden.
NamesCon runs from January 29 to February 1. Tickets on the door are $999, but booking in advance online knocks the price to $699. Previous attendees are currently being offered an additional 30% discount on pre-booking too. Check your email.


If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.

Tagged: ,

Add Your Comment