CPX Interactive's DOMAINfest Experience

The Internet is a constantly changing medium, and in late January, members of the domain industry gathered in Hollywood, CA to discuss how they can best anticipate, confront and conquer these changes. The venue was DOMAINfest 2009, a conference created in 2006 by DomainSponsor as a way to bring industry professionals together to learn, network, and develop business relationships. CPX Interactive was one of three Gold Sponsors for this year’s event, and hosted the opening party at Universal Studios. A section of the park was closed down to the public, and several rides were opened especially for attendees. CPX provided food and drinks, and everyone had a great time.

According to the DOMAINfest website, there are over 168 million domain names currently registered. This conference attracted “domainers” large and small, as well as marketing and advertising companies of every variety. Panel discussions covered topics such as: “Domaining 2.0—what does the next evolutionary phase of our industry look like?” “What Can We Expect from the Legal and Regulatory Environment?” and, “The Google Perspective: Winning over the Advertiser and Optimizing Site Performance through Analytics.” The Keynote Speaker was Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple. Wozniak spoke on initiating change in the Internet space, and maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit despite facing challenges.

For many, an invaluable aspect of the event was the networking opportunities it provided. In addition to “structured networking” periods after panel discussions, sponsors and exhibitors set up “pods” which provided a space for constant discussion. Yael Klein, Publisher Relations Representative at CPX Interactive, and Chris Brennan, Senior Sales Director of Publishing at CPX, attended the conference, and found that they spent most of their time in the pod meeting people and making new connections. Brennan emphasized the importance of forming new partnerships in an industry that has until now been an untapped resource. He feels that CPX is a valuable partner for domainers because we can offer domain by domain tracking statistics that no one else provides.

CPX Vice President of Publisher Acquisitions, Mike Zacharski, also attended the event, and echoed this sentiment; he sees a lot of growth potential for CPX in the domain space. Zacharski explained that CPX sponsored and attended this show in order to better understand the needs and sentiments of the domainers as well as evaluate how CPX can be a leader in developing new tools and bringing new ideas to the domain space. DOMAINfest provided these opportunities and more, and CPX Interactive is excited to continue work on releasing new products for the domain space in the near future.