Scenes from the first day of ICANN 50 in London.
Close to 3,500 people registered for the ICANN 50 meeting in London this week, making it the biggest domain-name related event ever.
The surge in attendance has to do with a confluence of events, especially the U.S. government’s recent plans to eventually no longer be involved with the contract related to IANA functionality.
ICANN books meeting venues well in advance, so it wasn’t able to switch up venues to accommodate the crowd. That’s led to some crowded hallways and meeting rooms.
Here are some pictures from around the ICANN meeting on Monday.
The .Global booth.
.Global is holding a live domain name auction Tuesday afternoon (morning U.S. time) that I’ll attend. (Follow me on twitter @domainnamewire for live updates.)
Holding a live auction for a unreleased domain extension is a gutsy move. Fortunately, .Global has Monte Cahn involved to stir up some bidders.
Information, including how to bid online, is available at auction.dotglobal.info
Two heavily inked models help kick off .ink.
.Ink launched at 2pm local time Monday, as Ray King literally “pressed the launch button” at a launch event.
The company hired these two models to help promote the extension. I’ve got to say, these two models were very excited about .ink.
The extension is geared to more than just tattoo fans: printers, ink companies, PR…the list goes on. It’s an unusual extension in that it’s a niche name with multiple connotations.
High Level Government Meeting.
That was the official name of this marathon session running from 10:30-7:00. That’s HLGM for short, ’cause everything at ICANN has to have an acronym.
The meeting room was standing room only at first, but ICANN had an overflow viewing room.
Press Conference.
From left to right: Stephen Crocker, Fadi Chehadé, Jean-Jacques Sahel, Akram Atallah.
Acro says
Andrew, 4 pictures don’t do the title or the conference justice 😛 Add some more please.
Robert Grant says
All looks very dull apart from the hot blond at the global booth.
Rob says
“.GLOBAL. A BORDERLESS STRATEGY”
Yep. Using a hot blonde with tall bare legs usually breaks down all borders.
Still won’t buy a .global domain though.