DNCruise Update From Cozumel

The first three days of DNCruise have included great sessions, networking opportunities and an amazing day in Grand Cayman with Frank Schilling. Today I am enjoying a relaxing day in Cozumel, I am writing this post and enjoying a beer at a great little restaurant/Internet cafe right across the street from the San Miguel Church called Bob’s Cozumel.

Not sure of exact numbers but there are a quite a few return DNCruise attendees as well as many new faces and companies.  We boarded ship Monday and the extent of business the first evening was the opening cocktail party which was sponsored by Patrick’s ScienceFiction.com.  It was a great way to break the ice and re-connect with past DNCruisers and meet the new attendees.

Tuesday we got down to business and had several very informative sessions including a really interesting presentation by Vaughn Liley of ICM Registry (.XXX).  I feel the folks at .XXX have a well thought out strategy moving forward.  A couple things I think are important to mention: 1) I believe they are really setting the standard for new gTLD applicants by including features like filtering options and anti malware/spyware technology to each domain registration – something that will eventually give end users peace of mind when accessing .XXX sites.  2) The Sunrise A period opened up the other day (September 7th).  This is for current adult website operators AND domain name owners.  During this Sunrise period you can apply for word strings in .XXX that you operate websites on or own in other TLD’s.  This ‘grandfathering’ opportunity is huge for domainers with good adult domain names.  I’m not going to get too in depth but for much more info visit About.XXX.

Other sessions that took place Tuesday included presentations by Karen Bernstein on domain and trademark law, a panel including Gregg McNair and Michael Ward on the state of the domain industry and an awesome question and answer session with Ron Jackson.  I’ve also finally been able to connect with one of the sponsors of this blog Above.com.  Susan Lawrence and Nancy Bianchi have been so awesome answering a lot of questions that I had about the services Trellian offers which include not only the Above.com parking manager but selling targeted traffic through their direct navigation marketing platform.

Yesterday we spent the day in Grand Cayman, I would like to thank Frank Schilling so much for spending most of his day with DNCruise attendees!   Not only did we get a chance to personally meet and hear Frank speak about domaining but we also had a blast jet skiing, snorkeling and swimming with stingrays together.  It was an amazing day and it’s so true, he resides on one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Last night was game night and I am stoked to report I was the grand prize winner!  After our team won the Taboo and Mad Gabs game competitions, I defeated Michael Ward in the final game of Jenga to win an iPad2.    Big ups to all of the sponsors of DNCruise that have been providing drinks and prizes this week.  Game night 2 is on Friday and I have my eye on the XBOX 360 😉

Besides some great partying and immense networking opportunities that you can only experience if you are here in person, that about wraps up the happening on the first half of DNCruise.  Sorry no pics in this update but when I get back to the U.S. I will write a wrap up full of some great photos.