Of .Com Gala Celebrates Web Innovators — 25 Years
Gala celebrates big firms and players in the dot.com revolution.
Last night I had the honor of attending VeriSign’s “25 Years of .Com” gala at city hall in San Francisco. It was a fantastic event with a lot of the firms and people that made the internet what it is today in attendance.
Following cocktails, comedian Dana Carvey took to the stage to warm up the crowd.
“Welcome. How many people have a net worth over $10 million? Don’t think, just raise your hand,” joked Carvey. He then pointed to another audience member. “Are you worth a billion dollars? You look like you’re thirteen.”
Carvey then introduced Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who provided a list of 10 reasons we shouldn’t be celebrating 25 years of .com. One of his reasons: “I’m still waiting on my fresh Nigerian friend to send me that twenty-five thousand dollars.” (Note to self: never follow an emmy-award winning comedian on the stage and try to be funny.)
The gala included a video celebrating the “.com 25”, counting eBay, eTrade, and Craigslist (the latter of which is actually on a .org domain). VeriSign also welcomed the “Domain Pioneers” consisting of some of the biggest domain name registrars. Among those accepting the honor on behalf of their firms were Warren Adelman of Go Daddy, Elliot Noss of Tucows, Bhavin Turakhia of Directi, and Jeff Kupietzky of Oversee.net
But the most entertaining moment of the evening was Carvey’s improvised introduction of ICANN chairman Peter Dengate Thrush. I know the video below is of low quality (hey, I had a Flip in the back of the room), but you’ll get a kick out of it.
