Day Two Wrap and an Auction First — GeoDomain Expo

A look back at Friday’s GeoDomain activities and a unique twist on today’s auction.

Friday kicked off the first official full day of activities at the 2009 GeoDomain Expo in San Diego.

The day opened with a brief address from San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders. Associated Cities president Dan Pulcrano then provided a State of the Industry speech. Next, a panel of GeoDomain owners discussed how they’ve developed their sites. They provided some good tips on getting marketing buzz. For example, Scottsdale.com did a trade with a taxi firm to show ads for Scottsdale.com in return for advertising on its site.

The next session was regarding daily newspapers and their extinction. The panel included a number of former TV and newspaper reporters who have moved to the online media world.

During lunch, Topix CEO Chris Tolles discussed his firm’s approach to local news. He also discussed the firm’s $1M purchase of the Topix.com domain name.

Following lunch I was on a panel with Elliot Silver and Sean Stafford that covered domain news and competition.

The next panel was a superb overview of directory software and data that can be used to develop geo domain names. It featured representatives of Acxiom, Fresh Media Broadcasting, eDirectory, MojoPages, and Databanq.

Following dinner, HotelPlanner sponsored a party in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter.

Today at 4 PM PDT the DomainConsultant auction will take place, with a unique twist. Weather permitting, this will be the first live domain name auction (to my knowledge) that will take place outdoors. The background for the auction will be Mission Bay. Of course, you don’t need to be outside in San Diego to participate. Online bidding has by now started at Aftermarket.com. By now over 1/3 of domains have bids.