The 2008 GeoDomain Expo officially gets underway this evening at 6pm (local time) with a welcoming cocktail party at the W Hotel - City Center in Chicago. Though that is the first event on the published agenda there was already a lot going on in the Windy City when we 

TrafficZ treated early arrivals to a Lake Michigan 
dinner cruise aboard the Odyssey II Wednesday.

arrived yesterday afternoon. The first person we bumped into when we arrived at the hotel was Jessica Bookstaff (PigeonForge.com), who chairs the board of directors of Associated Cities, the geodomain owners association that stages the Expo. 

The board met Wednesday afternoon then joined a group of about three dozen people invited on a spectacular Lake Michigan dinner cruise aboard the Odyssey II that was hosted by Expo sponsor TrafficZ.com. The get-together also served to celebrate TrafficZ's acquisition of Name Intelligence this spring.

In the photo below you see one of the three tables filled with TrafficZ guests as the Odyssey cruises past the Chicago skyline just after sunset last night. TrafficZ COO Ammar Kubba is sitting at the front left and local domainer Anthos Chrysanthou is at the front right.

Soon after night fell, the ship served as the ultimate vantage point for watching a spectacular lakefront fireworks show launched from Chicago's famous Navy Pier. We snapped the shot below from the Odyssey deck.

This afternoon there will be a series of private seminars at the W Hotel for Associated Cities members only (one of the benefits of joining the trailblazing group whose members cross promote each other's developed websites). The cocktail party for all Expo registrants follows at 6, then the first full day of the conference gets underway Friday morning. We will have a daily Lowdown post from the show in this column.

In other domain conference news, the organizers of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show just announced that starting with their New York conference Sept. 23-26, they will be the first to offer multiple live domain auctions staged by multiple auction houses. In the past Moniker.com (who will stage a live auction at the GeoDomain Expo Saturday) has handled all of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auctions. Details on the additional auction service providers and their events at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. New York are to be released soon.
(Posted July 10, 2008) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
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