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Marketing
Whiz Jeffrey Sass Saddles Up For Another Domain
industry Ride as CMO at the .ART Registry
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I
was happy to see a post
on my Facebook feed from Jeffrey Sass
Thursday evening letting his friends know that he
was returning to the domain business! As
most our readers know Jeff was the innovative
Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for the .CLUB
registry from the time it was founded to the time
it was sold last year to GoDaddy. After the
sale, Jeff stayed with .CLUB Chairman and
Founder Colin Campbell to serve as CMO in
another one of Colin's growing enterprises, Paw.com.
However, as has often been said, the domain
business is kind of like the Hotel California
- "You can check out
any time you like but you can never leave!" That
proved true again when the .ART
registry came calling and persuaded Sass to become
their new Chief Marketing Officer,
effectiive on New Year's Day. As an active
shareholder in Paw.com, Jeff will
also continue to provide advice to that enterprise
devoted to dog lovers. In his Facebook post Jeff
wrote, "To
all my friends in the Domain Industry, I am
delighted to say I'm back! On January 1st,
I will join the DotArt
team as CMO. I have missed you all and the
industry over the past year and look forward to
reconnecting on behalf of .ART. I am
excited to join Ulvi, Kurt, Alexey, Kate, and the
rest of the talented .ART team, and to support
artists and the Global art community with such
a meaningful and innovative top-level domain!
Wishing you all a very healthy, happy, and ARTful
New Year!" |
Jeffrey
Sass
Chief Marketing Officer
.Art Registry
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Sass,
who wrote the entertaining and inspiring book
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(Posted
December 29, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20221229.htm
*****
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For
all who are celebrating around the world, we wish you and yours a
wonderful Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and joyous holiday season with
many more to come. Year in and year out, for the past 20 years, your
friendship and support has been the best gift we could have ever hoped
for!
(Posted
December 25, 2022)
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Cloudfest
Announces Return to USA - Event Will Run
Concurrently With NamesCon Global in Austin Next
Spring
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The
cloud computing and
domain hosting industry's Cloudfest
conference, best known for its huge annual event
at Europa-Park in Germany, is
returning to the United States after a
7-year absence. Cloudfest
USA 2023 will run concurrently with
the NamesCon
Global conference at the Omni Hotel
in Austin, Texas May 31-June 3, 2023. Anyone
who has a ticket to NamesCon will be able to
attend any Cloudfest USA session and vice versa at
no extra charge. The symbiotic relationship
between the two shows is a |
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natural as they are
owned by
the same parent company. Registration
for Cloudfest USA opened today with 65% off Early
Bird tickets available until January 6, 2023.
Cloudfest
made a previous foray into the American market with
Stateside conferences in 2015 and 2016 when the
event was known as World Hosting Days (WHD).
We covered the inaugural WHD USA event at the
Seven Springs Mountain Resort in western Pennsylvania
in May 2015. Day 1 of that coverage is here
and closing day 2 is here.
WHD USA returned in 2016 with another May show that
was held in Phoenix, Arizona.
With the
domain and hosting businesses so closely connected,
it makes a lot of sense to bring Cloudfest USA back
and run it in tandem with NamesConGlobal, a
move that will made both events stronger. The
combination will be especially appealing to managed
service providers (MSPs), cloud service providers (CSPs),
registrars and website developers that usually
include both domain registration and hosting service
in their offerings. Bringing more people from those
sectors together in Austin should also give domain
sales a boost, including those offered in the
NamesCon Global auction.
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(Posted
December 22, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20221222.htm
*****
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Energetic
Head of NamesCon Helga Neumer Has Left the
Building - Departure Announced Today
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If
you've attended any NamesCon
conference since World Hosting Days (WHD)
purchased the domain industry's premier conference
from Richard Lau in 2016, you have
almost certainly crossed paths with Head of
NamesCon Helga Neumer. You may not have known
it because Helga spent most of her time behind the
scenes skillfully managing the endless array of
tasks that kept the show running like clockwork.
As busy as she was, she always had a smile for
attendees and went out of her way to make everyone
feel at home. Helga
is the ultimate pro and she always made my
job of covering NamesCon easier. That is why
I was sorry to get the email she sent to the
NamesCon community today letting us know this was
her last day with the big event, but I am
happy for others who will benefit from her efforts
in whatever she chooses to do in her next
adventure. |
Helga
Neumer
Head of NamesCon 2018-2022
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In
the email Helga wrote, "Today
is my last day with the NamesCon team. What a wild
ride! Thank you for making my experience with this
event so wonderful. I will miss
NamesCon—especially the friendly and welcoming
community that makes the domaining world so great.
I
won’t say “goodbye”, because it’s such a
small world—hopefully, I will see you around soon! The
future is exciting, and I hope we’ll still explore
it together one way or another. Meanwhile, please
stay in touch through LinkedIn and
my personal email. Merry
Christmas and a happy New Year!"
When
WHD (who also stages the massive annual Cloudfest
conference for the hosting industry) purchased
NamesCon, Helga was their Director of Marketing,
so she immediately took on those duties for NamesCon
too. In December 2018 she was elevated to Head of
NamesCon, the role she has filled so ably
through today.
Head
of NamesCon operations Helga Neumer and the Chairman
of the NamesCon Advisory Board, Soeren von Varchmin,
at the 2022 NamesCon Global conference in Austin,
Texas.
NamesCon
itself has now gone through three ownership
changes since
2016. In 2017 WHD (and their two conferences) were acquired
by GoDaddy as part of a bigger
deal in which GoDaddy bought WHD's parent
company, Host Europe Group. Then, in 2021, GoDaddy
sold the two shows to a newly formed enterprise
- their current owner, WHD Events GmbH.
Throughout the ownership changes, NamesCon continued
to present consistently great conferences, including
innovative online editions created by necessity in
the middle of the global Covid 19 pandemic. The
entire NamesCon team deserves credit for that
constant presence and consistent quality, and
Helga's indispensable role will always stand out on
her resume. So, we will also decline to say goodbye,
instead saying thnk you Helga and we look
forward to saying hello again at the next
available opportunity!
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(Posted
December 21, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20221221.htm
*****
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Michael
Riedl Named CEO at CentralNic, James Iles Joins
Godaddy and Andrew Rosener Repeats as Escrow.com's
Top Broker
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A
new week begins
with some some familiar industry names in the news.
Today CentralNic announced
Michael Riedl has become their new CEO,
replacing Ben Crawford who has overseen a
tremendous growth spurt at the company since first
taking the role in 2009. In the 13 years since
then CentralNic's revenue has grown from $2
million to $700 million with a string
of acquisitions fueling the surge. Mr. Crawford is
also retiring from the Board. Michael
Riedl has served as CentralNic's Chief
Financial Officer since February of 2019.
Chairman Iain McDonald noted, "Michael
has brought a wealth of industry experience and
excellent strategic and leadership skills to
CentralNic, and I am delighted that he will be our
new chief executive officer. He has impressed the
board with the impact he has made over the last
four years, where he has brought clarity,
structure and focus, with the combination of
skills and experience to lead the business through
its next strategic phase." With
Michael's move up, Group Financial Director William Green will become
the new CFO. |
Michael
Riedl
CentralNic CEO
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James
Iles, GoDaddy
Domain Name Industry
Community Manager |
GoDaddy
has created a new Domain Name Industry Community
Manager position and selected prolific
writer James Iles to fill that role.
James has his own blog at JamesNames.com
and has also been a frequent contributor to NamePros,
MediaOptions, DomainSherpa and
DomainNameWire.
Iles explained
his reasons for accepting the GoDaddy offer
in a post
on his blog Friday (December 9).
In it he noted, "Domain investors
likely interact with GoDaddy every day.
Whether that is buying domains through
closeouts and auctions or managing domain
sales on Afternic. Despite this, domain
investors have had no specific point of
contact within GoDaddy to help with
issues, provide information and insight, or
give feedback to help improve products. My
role with GoDaddy will hopefully provide
a bridge between the company and the
domain industry."
For any GoDaddy
related questions, suggestions or
information you can email James at [email protected]. |
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Escrow.com
has announced their annual Master
of Domains list for 2022.
The honor roll recognizes the top ten
domain name brokers based on the total
dollar volume of transactions they closed on
the Escrow.com platform. At first glance,
when you see Andrew Rosener's name
and photo associated with the top
spot on the MOD list you might think
it is old news. That's because the MediaOptions
CEO was number 1 in 2021...also in 2020...and,
oh yes, 2019 too. Yes, he did it
again in 2022, making it four in a
row! The competition was not easy either as
you can see from the names on the complete
list. If this was a baseball team, every one
of them would be an all-star:
1. Andrew
Rosener
(Media Options) |
6. Ryan
McKegney
(DomainAgents.com) |
2. Todd
Reum
(Names.com) |
7. Hobi
Michalec
(Lumis
Group) |
3. Cameron
Gordon
& Josh
Bourne
(Digital DNA) |
8. Stephen
Miholovich
(Name Arena) |
4. Jeffrey
Gabriel
(Saw.com) |
9. Joe
Uddeme
(Name Experts) |
5. Mark
Daniel
(Domain Holdings) |
10. Brian
Harbin
(Grit Brokerage) |
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Andrew
Rosener
CEO, MediaOptions.com
(Parent company, DomainX) |
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(Posted
December 12, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20221212.htm
*****
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Verisign
Reports Total Domain Registrations Worldwide at
End of 3Q Down a Bit From 2Q But Up YOY
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Verisign
(the administrator of the .com and .net
TLDs) has released their latest quarterly Domain
Name Industry Brief (DNIB) covering
the 3rd quarter of 2022. The quarter ended
with 349.9 million domain name
registrations across all top-level domains
(TLDs) worldwide, a drop of 1.6 million domains
(-0.4%) from the end of 2Q-2022. However,
the year-over-year picture is much better.
Total registrations have gone up by 11.5
million (3.4%) from the same point a
year ago.
At
the end of 3Q-2022, .com registrations
stood at 160.9 million, down by 200,000
domains (-0.1%) from the end of the
previous quarter but up 2.3 million (+1.5%)
from from a year ago. |
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.Net remained
static at the end of 3Q-2022 with the same 13.2
million total the TLD had at the end of the
previous quarter. Year over year the .nets were down
slightly from the 13.5 million that were registered
at the end of 3Q-2021.
Country-code
TLD domain name registrations mirrored the
overall market, slipping quarter to quarter by
rising year over year. The ccTLDs finished 3Q-2022
with 132.4 million domains, down 1.7
million (-1.3%) from the previous quarter but
up a healthy 4.5% from the same point a
year ago after adding 5.7 million domain
since the end of 3Q-2021.
The
new gTLDs, with 27.3 million registrations
at the end of 3Q-2022, had the highest year over
year percentage increase, jumping 16.2%
from the same point in 2021. The new G's also
managed to eke out a small increase from the
previous quarter, adding 300,000 domains (+1.0%).
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(Posted
December 8, 2022) To refer
others to the post above
only (and not the full
Lowdown column) you can use this
URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2022/dailyposts/20221208.htm
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