The Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA), the governing body that maintains the dotCA domain registry held its annual general meeting and Symposium in Toronto this week.
CIRA’s President, Byron Holland described the relentless change on the Internet, year after year and the impossibility to predict that change. CIRA operates in a 100% uptime environment and has to be able to adapt and work in that kind of environment. A lot of changes have happened with the Registry over the past ten years and Byron committed his team will continue to make changes to improve the professionalism and operations of the Registry to ensure CIRA can adapt to the future needs of the Internet for Canadians.
In addition to panellist John Demco sharing a brief history about the Canadian Internet and history of DNS from its original author, Paul Vixie, keynotes were delivered by marketing and branding experts, Terry O’Reilly and Mitch Joel,
Mitch and Terry delivered some great insight about the changing landscape of Internet marketing:
Terry talked about the importance of telling your story and the value of Canadian companies embracing a dotCA domain name. There’s a reason travellers sew the Canadian flag on their backpacks– people like dealing with Canadians. The same can be true for businesses operating online in Canada.
Mitch, author of the best-selling book, Six Pixels of Separation delivered on his promise of some crazy statistics which showed that clicks to banner ads have dropped more than 50% in the past year and grandparents than high school students are on Facebook.
The event was webcast and we’ll share the link once the archives are online. To learn more visit the CIRA Annual Report 2010 home page.
On a related note, the CIRA Board of Director election is also underway, so if you’re a dotCA member, we encourage you to review the candidates and participate in a process that can help shape the future of the dotCA.