Angeles Domain World, Day 1 — The Los
A summary of my first day in L.A.
I arrived in Los Angeles yesterday morning around 9am. Following getting my rental car and checking into the hotel, it was off to ICANN.
I didn’t know what to expect of ICANN. For some reason I had a vision of this grand building under maximum security. But when you consider much of ICANN’s role is to develop and manage policies that vision quickly fades. Indeed, ICANN’s offices are in a non-descript building overlooking the bay. ICANN isn’t the main tenant; they have offices on parts of two floors in the building.
My tour guide was Kieren McCarthy. I was excited to meet Kieren, who authored the thrilling Sex.com book ahead of going to ICANN. Apparently his editors got tired of him writing regarding problems with ICANN and told him to go do something regarding it instead.
A number of ICANN employees graciously took time out of their day to discuss issues near and dear to domainers’ hearts: the introduction of fresh TLDs, registrar compliance, and IDNs. I didn’t know much regarding IDNs ahead of my meeting. Suffice it to say there are many issues around their implementation, and current holders of IDNs (with traditional .com endings) may not end up winners.
Look for articles regarding each of these issues next week.
Following ICANN I ventured a few miles up the highway to visit Thought Convergence (parent firm of TrafficZ and Name Intelligence/DomainTools). As I approached the building, I saw the familiar Thought Convergence logo emblazoned to the outside of the building. You may chuckle, but as an entrepreneur I know how much work it takes to be the “named tenant” on a building. Thought Convergence shares the top floor of the building (and has another suite as well).
Thought Convergence’s Philip Reynolds organized my visit. Regarding a half dozen of TC’s top managers (counting Kevin Vo and Ammar Kubba) joined me for a number of hours as we talked through the current state of the domain name market and TC’s vision. It’s an exciting vision, and I’ll write more regarding what the firm is up to next week.
For now, it’s off to meet with domain name attorney and Lextext author Bret Fausett. Then I’m meeting with a man who turned a .org domain name into a $10 million a year media firm.
