Parties file amended claims, with most allegations against TCI dropped.

Following a mediation between Jay Westerdal and Thought Convergence over the latter’s acquisition of Name Intelligence, both parties have submitted amended complaints/counterclaims.

The most notable difference in the amended filings is that Jay Westerdal has dropped most of the allegations he made against Thought Convergence (TCI) in his counterclaims. Gone are claims that TCI didn’t pay his salary, that TCI misrepresented the condition of its business, and that it participated in the “banned industry practice of arbitrage”, among other claims.

Instead, Westerdal’s brief amended counterclaim (pdf) basically alleges TCI failed to pay on time and didn’t properly set up an Equity Incentive Plan prior to execution of the acquisition agreement.

TCI’s second amended complaint (pdf) is similar in nature to its first amended complaint. It includes more detail on some of its initial allegations against Westerdal. For example, to back up its claim that Westerdal “used company assets as his own personal bank account, loaning himself money and giving himself raises without authorization”, TCI alleges that Westerdal said that this was to “bolster his application for a bank loan to purchase his primary residence”.

A second mediation date is scheduled for January 27.

ICANN hires new VP for policy, which insiders say is a good move.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has hired David Olive to take over the position of Vice President of Policy Development.

According to a number of insiders I’ve communicated with, and one very public blog post, this move is very welcome to both many inside and outside ICANN.

The focus seems to be less on what Olive brings to the table — he was hired over from Fujitsu, where he was General Manager and Chief Corporate Representative of Fujitsu’s D.C. Office — but more on the removal of the outgoing VP of Policy Denise Michel.

Michel is taking another position within ICANN, and apparently a few people are pleased to see her move on. Former ICANN staffer Kieren McCarthy posted a blog post over the weekend titled “The Internet is a better place – ICANN replaces policy head”. In his post, McCarthy writes:

Of the hundreds of people I have worked with, some of them very difficult, I have only truly disliked two. Not so much for their personalities but for the fact that they infected the whole work environment with destructive and negative behaviour. One was an incompetent bully of a news editor on a weekly PC magazine; the other was the head of policy at ICANN until yesterday.

So, Kieren, tell us how you really feel.

I could write a whole book about the malignant impact this one person had on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I could produce any number of hundreds of venomous emails. I could name the people that were forced out or fled this person’s malicious self-service. I could point to all the positive plans and ideas killed out of an overwhelming desire for control. Or highlight the various mechanisms used to bypass, undermine or infuriate people that did not conform to one individual’s personal agenda. All of it was unnecessary; all of it made the organisation weaker. But the glorious news is that it no longer matters.

Ouch. Comments on McCarthy’s blog seem to echo his sentiments.

I’ve never personally met Michel, but I’m excited to see some new blood entering ICANN.

Answering last week’s questions.

Last week I posed five questions that would be answered at the TRAFFIC conference in Las Vegas. We now have the answers:

1. Is Latona’s ready for primetime? Unfortunately not. Although I’m not sure why it didn’t work, I know there were internet connectivity issues with the hotel. It also appears that the web application got slammed with traffic and couldn’t handle the load. I’m sure Rick Latona will fill us in when he knows.

This was unfortunate. Latona did a good job driving attention to the auction, and the room was packed when the auction began. But I give him credit for making the call to postpone the auction.

2. What were the ten worst UDRPs of 2010? It hasn’t been posted online at UDRPWallofShame.com yet, so I’ll write about it when that’s live. I explained to the audience why I thought OpenDental.com was the worst. But really, I also believe Versa.com was equally deserving.

3. Will a focus on networking pay off? I’m not fully qualified to answer this question. Thanks to a flight booking error, along with bad weather, I arrived after the initial two networking sessions. But I talked to a couple people who gave the networking sessions high marks. The crowd definitely seemed to gel throughout the conference.

4. Will Rick Latona’s team rise to the challenge? Let me break it down a little.

My big complaint is that it rained more in Vegas the week of TRAFFIC than it usually does all year. I guess Rick forgot to call in a favor on that Seriously though, other than the airport backing up the rain went away by Thursday evening.

I personally got a lot out of the show from individual meetings, and enjoyed the parties. Attendance was light, mostly due to scheduling the conference immediately before DOMAINfest. But I’ve been to smaller domain conferences in the past, and I do my best to take advantage of the size. It’s much easier to network at small shows.

The auction snafu (see #1) put a damper on the conference’s momentum Friday, but within a couple hours most people had shrugged it off and were enjoying drinks at Gold in City Center.

I also commend Rick Silver for doing a good job leading sessions.

All-in-all I’d say a lot of effort was put into this conference, it had a lot of high points, was a lot of fun, and I suspect any kinks will be worked out quickly.

5. How will Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu handle sitting on the sidelines? I had a chance to briefly chat with both Rick and Howard. I suppose the biggest change was Howard, since he is usually charged with leading all of the sessions — a big undertaking. I chatted with Howard and his wife Barbara Friday evening at Gold, and they both seemed relaxed and were having a great time.

NameMedia launches SEO-friendly content system and upgrades domain name parking accounts.

Domain name parking company SmartName has launched a new content parking system, and has upgraded GoldKey and ActiveAudience accounts to take advantage of the new system.

The new content system enables domain owners to create content-filled web sites on their domain names with the click of a few buttons. The content web sites pull in external news and blog feeds and create a web site automatically with the goal of receiving search engine traffic.

The content system is monetized using search boxes and pay-per-click text ads. Users can also add their own banners and PPC ads, such as Google Adsense, and keep 100% of the revenue from those ads.

SmartName representatives demoed the system to me last week, and showed me a number of sites developed on the content system that have PageRank and have achieved high rankings in Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

The example below is fairly basic, but the system allows for extensive customization.

The red circles represent SmartName’s monetization, which is shared with domain owners. The blue circles represent areas where the domain owner can add their own ad code and keep all revenue. There is one additional customizable spot near the bottom of the page.

Using SmartName parent company NameMedia’s domain names, the content system has been shown to increase organic traffic 10x, increase page views per visitor 40%-75%, and boost revenue 10-25%.

SmartName has also enhanced its E-commerce platform (also known as SmartName Shops), which allows customers to create a pay-per-click store on their domain names. An example I created (again, with no customization at all) is EverythingDogs.com.

Which domains will perform well on SmartName’s content and e-commerce platforms? Here’s how I’d segment your domains:

-High type-in traffic, good click-through rate, not a product domain: use standard parking

-High type-in traffic, product domain: try e-commerce template. Revenue per click may be a little lower but CTR should increase.

-Low type-in traffic, non-product domain: use content system to get indexed in search engines and receive traffic

-Low type-in traffic, product domain: use e-commerce parking to get indexed

-Any domain that is ineligible for Yahoo ads: content or e-commerce

It used to be extremely difficult to get an account at SmartName. However, users of GoldKey and ActiveAudience have had their accounts upgraded to SmartName in recent months as NameMedia consolidates its parking brands.

If the content and e-commerce templates are not listed in a client’s account, they should contact their account manager for activation.

Scenes and highlights from day two of the Targeted Traffic conference in Las Vegas.

Yesterday was certainly an interesting one at the TRAFFIC Conference. The best moment of the conference was seeing how packed the auction room was for the start of the live auction. I haven’t seen that many buyers at a live auction in a long time. Unfortunately, we all know now that it took a turn for the worse as Latonas.com auction system was overburdened by traffic, bringing it to a halt. After about an hour of the auction, Rick Latona decided to postpone the auction until Saturday morning. The auction is now live at Proxibid.com/latona.

I had a cameo on the UDRP review panel in the afternoon, as five of us made the case for which UDRP was the worse decision of 2009. I chose OpenDental.com. You can read more about the 10 worst UDRPs of 2009 at UDRPWallofShame.com.

In the evening, attendees headed over to Gold at the new City Center for an evening of drinks.

One of my highlights at the conference has been meeting poker player Dutch Boyd. After hanging at Gold for a couple hours, Dutch convinced me and a couple others to lose a game of poker to him. We headed down to the poker room, where he showed off a couple of his chip tricks (not bad after downing several drinks).