Today in DN Journal’s Lowdown: Sedo begins a month-long auction binge on Thursday, the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ccTLDs conference coming up June 1-4 in Amsterdam releases an updated schedule and the .PRO registry signs up to sponsor next month’s ICANN Meeting in Sydney, Australia.

The AfternicDLS has expanded its reach thanks to a new registrar partner, Directnic.com, NameJet will auction off 15 premium .me domains next month and, if you are good with words, a new contest at PremiumDomains.com could earn you $1,000.

While we believe that employment matters should be dealt with internally rather than in a public discourse, we feel compelled to address the misstatements by Jay Westerdal that were quoted today on various public forums.

A search of court records shows that Thought Convergence filed suit against Jay Westerdal, his father and other parties on May 1.

The price tag on the #1 domain on DN Journal’s new weekly sales chart is the lowest we have seen for a chart topper in quite some time. Though the high end was missing in action, the low to mid range of the market (favored by small to medium sized businesses) continued along on its merry way.

Jay Westerdal, who sold his company, Name Intelligence, LLC (which included DomainTools.com and the Domain Roundtable conference), has been dismissed by the buyers, Thought Convergence (operators of TrafficZ.com and Aftermarket.com).

Dr. Kevin Ham’s Reinvent Technology is making a bold move toward becoming a major player in the convergence of TV and the Internet. In a bid to become a global leader in interactive media, Reinvent has just appointed the man who launched Oprah Winfrey’s TV talk show to a newly created Executive Senior VP position.

The 15th show in the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference series was staged April 27-30 in the Silicon Valley. Co-Founders Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu had a tough act to follow because their 2006 show in the same location helped launch a boom in the domain business. Here’s what went down in the valley this time.

In any case, it looks like 2009 will at least be “The Year of New Domain Monetization Initiatives.” The flood of alternatives to domain parking continued today with word that Strata Services has acquired PPX, a technology platform that allows domains owners to use multiple monetization methods on every domain.

Ron Sheridan is back in the saddle again. Less than 3 months after the legendary director of business development left his post at DomainSponsor, Sheridan has joined Octane360, a new L.A. based company that believes its platform will revolutionize the domain monetization business.