The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Silicon Valley conference  closed last night in Santa Clara, California, a few hours after Skenzo/Directi Co-Founder Divyank Turakhia provided the high point of the week by purchasing Ad.com for $1.4 million in Moniker's live domain auction. The day had begun with a speed networking event that gave attendees the opportunity to make dozens of new contacts over the course of the one-hour session.

Speed networking session at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Silicon Valley Wednesday.

Next, in a conference first, Dr. Paul Mockapetris, the man who designed the domain name system, took the stage as a special guest speaker. Mockapetris recounted the fascinating history of how he was given the opportunity to play such a key role in Internet history while still a graduate student at the University of Southern California.

In one particularly amusing anecdote, Dr. Mockapetris recalled that the original idea was to use ccTLDS only. When some members of the small group charged with setting up the system kept pressing for gTLDs as well, those who had opposed it finally relented, saying ".com will never amount to anything anyhow." I'll have more on Dr. Mockapetris's talk in our comprehensive show review article that will be published late next week. 

A "Meeting of the Chiefs" seminar followed with a half-dozen industry leaders debating a wide range of topics. The panelists included Divyank Turakhia (Skenzo), Monte Cahn (Moniker), Rick Latona (RickLatona.com), Larry Fischer (DirectNavigation.com), domain attorney Ari Goldberger (ESQwire.com) and Gregg McNair (Strata Services).

Ron Jackson speaking Wednesday (Photo courtesy of Barbara Neu)

I spoke at lunch and for the first time released domain sales data for the first quarter of 2009. Total reported sales jumped 32% from the fourth quarter of 2008 (from $21.5 million to $28.3 million). I'll have an extensive breakdown of those numbers in our next free monthly newsletter that well be emailed to opt-in subscribers soon after a return to our home office in Florida this weekend. The afternoon was devoted to Moniker.com's live domain auction and it was one of the best in a long time with $2.1 million in sales being rung up in just over 3 hours. The blockbuster was the $1.4 million sale of Ad.com - a transaction that once completed will be the fourth biggest sale reported so far in 2009.

Below is a photo of auction winner Divyank Turakhia being congratulated just moments after his winning seven-figure bid (photo courtesy of Barbara Neu).

The curtain then came down on the show with an auction celebration dinner followed by Parked.com's conference After Party. We will have dozens of additional photos and details on from those (and all other) conference events in our upcoming show review article.