With the DOMAINfest Global Conference running this week in Hollywood, California, we’re on the road again! We have some notes on that event as well as who was named keynote speaker for next month’s Domainer Mardi Gras in New Orleans and what is on tap for the first ever European T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Conference coming to Amsterdam in June.

Dr. Kevin Ham’s Reinvent Technology and the company’s domain parking service provider, HitFarm.com, are planning to open a new office in Dubai. Dr. Ham and Dr. Chris Hartnett, who serves on Reinvent’s Board of Directors, just returned from Dubai and Dr. Hartnett filled us in on their trip to the Middle East.

Michael Collins has resigned as Executive Director of the Internet Commerce Association in order to work on transitioning a retail business he owns from brick and mortar to the Internet. Collins delivered the news in an email to ICA members.

In the first major domain company acquisition of 2009, Ask Sponsored Listings (operators of Ask.com), a division of Barry Diller’s IAC internet empire, has acquired Sendori.com. Sendori operates an innovative exchange that pairs domain owners directly with advertisers who buy their direct navigation traffic.

The acquisition of a well-known domain industry company is about to be announced, DOMAINfest Global releases the final agenda for their conference which runs next week in Hollywood, California and the daughter of a well-known domainer is featured in an exclusive Huffington Post interview.

The new weekly domain sales report is out at DNJournal.com. Continuing a trend we saw develop in 2008, high end domain sales remain few and far between while small business end users dominate aftermarket activity with four-figure and low five-figure purchases. All reported sales were well under the $50,000 mark

The Kentucky Court of Appeals has overturned a local judge’s controversial order that 141 gambling related domain names be turned over to the state. The appeals court ruled that the lower court was wrong in claiming that the domains were “gambling devices” that are illegal under Kentucky law. Michael Berkens has been on top of this story from the start and has more details on his blog.

Parked.com introduced a new account management system today. In the past each client had just an account rep. In the new system every customer gets an entire Account Management Team with each team including an account manager, a domain optimizer and a “developer”.

DN Journal’s annual State of the Industry Cover Story has just been published. After 4 years of robust growth the domain business hit stormy weather in 2008. To make sense of what happened and get predictions on where we are headed in 2009 we called on 15 top industry leaders for our 5th annual report.