I received confirmation this evening that Associated Cities’ GeoDomain Expo will go on as scheduled in San Diego. The event will be held April 23-25, and the conference agenda should be posted in the coming days.

Josh Metnick, Director and largest shareholder of Associated Cities, has assured me that conference dates are an absolute, though “AC is experiencing some serious internal planning and corporate mission issues which we expect to have rectified by then.”

For more details about the conference, visit the Associated Cities website.  I am going to see what I can do to attend, as I was informed that San Diego is just a couple hours from Burbank.

As reported in DNW today based on survey results asking about the most popular domain conferences, “the biggest gainer this year was the GeoDomain Expo.”  Based on some initial feedback from acquaintances in the industry, attendance is expected to be strong.

Calling all SEO Experts!  One of my readers sent me a link to a neat SEO contest being held on Net Builders. The objective is to get a website ranked in the top three of Google’s organic SERPs for the targeted keywords, which will be announced on the site tomorrow (March 15).

Not only is this a good opportunity for a great SEO professional to win some prize money, it will also allow others to see what types of things go into getting a website highly ranked in Google. Additionally, it will presumably lead to new business for the winners.  It’s a cool idea all around.

The keywords that were selected were sulumits retsambew, which is “webmaster stimulus” spelled backwards.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today discussing how difficult economic conditions and a tough job market are forcing people to think about how they can make their own work. “Forced Entrepreneurship,” as it is referred to by Mark V. Cannice, (ED of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco), is where people figure out a way to make money from their own work.

One of the easiest ways for a person to do this is setting up a website and complementing it by using online social media venues like Twitter and Facebook. I’ve seen an uptick in domain offers, although they are mostly for brandable domain names owned by friends and colleagues.  I believe this is a sign that many forced entrepreneurs are looking to build their unique brand online, and when they find their idea domain name is already registered, they are trying to buy it in the aftermarket.

I personally don’t really care to invest in brandable domain names, as I liken them to lottery tickets, but I think there is growing interest. With the job situation poor for several months and getting worse, many people are going to give up on their job searches, and some will try to build a business on a dream they may have had for years. I think this is going to lead to more domain sales and registrations.