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Part
of the opening day crowd at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Vancouver Tuesday (June 8). After
Latona's opening comments, the show's first
business session got underway with Neustar's
Ken Hansen and Steve Smith of WebNames
joining me in a panel discussion titled ccTLDs
are Taking Over the World - Is North America
Immune? The session, moderated by Rick
Silver, covered the prospects for
America's .US extension and Canada's .CA
as they try to gain recognition on a continent
where they have been overshadowed by .com. 
(L
to R in the photo above) Ron Jackson (DN
Journal), Ken Hansen (Neustar, operator
of the
.US registry) and Steve Smith
(registrar Webnames) discuss the prospects for .US
and .CA. With
conference activity to cover almost around the
clock, I won't have time to get into the
specifics of the business sessions until we
produce our comprehensive conference review
article a few days after the conference ends but
I can say that the overall consensus from this
seminar was that .US and .CA are both making
slow but steady progress as more businesses use
the extensions (in the case of .US, Maserati.us,
Shell.us, Transamerica.us, Hitachi.us,
BASF.us and Carrabas.us are just a
few examples) and search engines giving them
favorable positions in local search results. The
next session was a networking event that allowed
attendees to take the microphone and introduce
themselves or their businesses. That was
followed by the day's main event - T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Test Track. 
Representatives
from four new companies pitched their ideas to a
panel of
potential investors during the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Test Track session Tuesday.
Test
Track allows founders of new businesses that
are seeking capital to pitch their ideas to a
panel of potential investors (the panel for
the Vancouver conference included, left to right
in the photo above, Richard Lau
(DomainManager.com), Gregg McNair (PPX
International), Rick Latona (Latonas.com)
and Ammar Kubba (Thought Convergence). This
has become a popular feature as it also exposes
the audience to new solutions that are coming to
the marketplace as well as insight into the
process entrepreneurs go through in building
businesses and the kind of tough questions they
have to be able to answer when investors assess
the prospects for their new companies. After
Test Track, it was time for the show's
first big social event, a 5pm cocktail party in
the revolving lounge at the top of the
Renaissance Hotel - a perch that gave guests a
spectacular view of Vancouver as the circular
lounge slowly turned in a 360 degree rotation. 
A
scene from the Tuesday evening T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
Vacncouver cocktail party
in the revolving lounge atop the Renaissance
Hotel. A
highlight of the party came when PPX
Internatational's Executive Chairman Gregg
McNair (who was the subject of our October
2009 Cover Story) was surprised by a
birthday cake spirited into the gathering by PPX's
Tessa Holcomb and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. producer Jodi
Chamberlain. 
Popular
PPX International exec Gregg McNair (at
far right) got a birthday surprise
from his many industry friends at the opening
night cocktail party Tuesday evening. After
the cocktail party wound down around 7pm, the
night was still young so attendees scattered to
various private functions around town or at the
hotel. My wife Diana and I were honored to join a
group of 14 remarkable people at a dinner Richard
Lau hosted at the nearby Fairmont Hotel
to honor The
Water School, a ground breaking
charitable organization that has become near and
dear to the hearts of many domain investors,
including Lau and Gregg McNair who have been
instrumental in bringing the cause (providing
clean drinking water that is saving lives in
developing nations around the globe) to the
industry's attention. 
Richard
Lau (seated at the head of the table at the
center of the photo above)
hosted a dinner recognizing The Water School
at the Fairmont Hotel Tuesday night.
Special
guests at this dinner included Fraser Edwards,
who co-founded The Water School with Bob Dell,
and some amazing young people who Edwards said are
ready to step up and help carry on the
organization's life saving mission long after he
and Bob are gone (they include Sandra Getuba,
at far right in the photo above, as well as
James Morfopoulous and Brad Pierik who are seated to her
right).
Day
two of the conference will get underway at 11am
local time (2pm in the Eastern U.S.) today. The Castello
Brothers, Michael and David
(Castello Cities Internet Network) will be joined
by Victor Pitts (DomainIt.com) on the day's
opening panel discussion about the future of
domain names. That will be followed by a one-hour
session recognizing industry's contribution to The
Water School's work. The second half of the day
will be devoted to a fireside chat with John
Demco, the "Godfather" of the .CA
extension and a panel discussion about the
Canadian ccTLD. A .CA
premium domain auction (scheduled to
run from 4:00-6:00pm Pacific time) will wrap up
the Wednesday business day. I'll have day two
photos and highlights for you in my next post
Thursday morning.
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