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By: OpenSRS Team on July 28th, 2008
Posted in: General
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Comments: 11

You’ve probably noticed a few changes around here. Starting today, the wholesale services side of Tucows will be called OpenSRS.

Don’t mistake this for a simple re-brand. Yes, we have a new logo, and a snazzy new website, but there’s a lot more to what we’re doing here than a fresh coat of paint and some new pictures on the wall.

Back in 1999 when Tucows first started selling domain names as one of the original ICANN accredited registrars, we wanted to bring Internet service providers something they hadn’t been accustomed to getting when it came to domain names: customer service. We launched back then with a real customer focus that extended throughout everything we did.

Ken Schafer, VP Marketing and Product Management, sat down and shared a couple of quick thoughts about why we’re going back to OpenSRS.

You’ll note our new logo pays tribute to 1999, a very important date in our history.

The logo also proudly proclaims that OpenSRS is “Reseller Friendly.” That is more than just a slogan, or a tag line – it’s a promise. Like the customer focused wholesale domain name business that launched in 1999 as OpenSRS, today we remain dedicated to providing the best possible experience for our resellers.

That means resellers can expect easily accessible customer support with knowledgeable people on the other end of the phone line. And it means products and services that are created and implemented with the specific needs of the reseller in mind. That Reseller Friendly attitude and approach extends throughout every aspect of our business.

We’re putting that Reseller Friendly promise prominently on display, right in our logo. We’re not only rebranding our wholesale Internet Services business as OpenSRS, but we’re re-dedicating ourselves to the approach that, with your help, made us so successful over the past nine years and will continue it into the future.

Today is just the beginning.

We’d love to hear your comments! And we’ve put together a Reseller FAQ that may answer some of the questions that you might have about this announcement.

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By: OpenSRS Team on July 23rd, 2008
Posted in: Events
Tags: HostingCon 2008
Comments: 1

Our team is heading to HostingCon in Chicago next week from July 28-30. We have some exciting news and a special treat to share with you this year. Be sure to drop by our booth (#626 – near the networking lounge) to chat with us, see what’s new, and claim your cool surprise!

If you’re planning to attend the conference, join Adam Eisner, our Domains Product Manager as he discusses “Making Your Business Consumer-Friendly.” Adam will guide you through new consumer trends in the web hosting space, strategies to help you stand out from the crowd, and discuss how to leverage new technologies to gain new customers and sell more services. Adam’s session is on Monday July 28, 2008 from 2:00pm – 2:45pm.

We hope to see you in Chicago! If you can’t make it to the show, check back here for conference highlights.

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By: OpenSRS Team on July 18th, 2008
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .ME
Comments: 0

The widely anticipated launch of the .ME domain on Thursday made waves across the Internet, and some of those waves were negative. Over here at Tucows, all systems were go, and resellers were able to register names without difficulty as soon as the Registry opened for business. All in all, it was a successful launch from our perspective.

No so for Go Daddy, they caught some heat on the tech-blog TechCrunch which broke the story that “many users [had] reported getting confirmations (and credit card charges) for their domains, only to receive the following cancellation notice about an hour later.”

And the social networking news blog Mashable picked up the story saying, “it appears GoDaddy is buckling under the pressure and is about to have an ugly mess on its hands.”

GoDaddy later responded to the Mashable blog post saying that the problems were as a result of “system issues in our communication with the registry.” GoDaddy will, of course, refund customers who had failed registrations.

Even today, a Twitter search reveals many unhappy GoDaddy customers who thought they had registered sweet .ME domains and have since been told otherwise.

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By: OpenSRS Team on July 17th, 2008
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: .ME
Comments: 0

At 1500 UTC today, the .ME Registry opens for business. You can check http://tinyurl.com/melaunch to find the time where you are. The .ME domain is the ccTLD assigned to Montenegro, a small country in Southeastern Europe. Like Tuvalu with their .TV domain, Montenegro is a small country that sees potential value in the .ME extension and is hoping for similar success. There are no residency or citizenship requirements for .ME domains.

As you would expect, OpenSRS is ready to go at launch. If you are a Tucows Domains Reseller, you’re all set to start selling.

According to the .ME Registry, including both sunrise and landrush, a total of more than 30,000 domains have already been registered. Auctions for names with more than one competing buyer are taking place now.

The Registry also set aside a list of premium names that will be auctioned off later in the year. The list includes names like love.me and buy.me among others. Lists of both the premium names that will be auctioned, and reserved names that won’t be allowed to be registered, are available at the Registry website.

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By: James Koole on July 8th, 2008
Posted in: Industry News
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A couple of news items of note this week demonstrate the continued growth in the domain name industry. First, .ES, the ccTLD for Spain, crossed the one million registrations mark recently. The Registry relaxed rules for ownership of .ES a couple of years back leading to a dramatic rise in the number of registrations. The .ES Registry operator has some stats that show the uptick in domain registrations.

Interestingly, .ES domains outsell .COM domains in Spain. This data comes from a report by Sedo (in Spanish).

Meanwhile, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Industry Brief, domain registrations continue to rise in the first quarter of 2008. The report shows a 26% increase year over year, and a 6% increase over Q4 2007. In total, Verisign reports over 162 million domains across all TLDs.

The report also shows impressive growth among ccTLDs. As a group, they showed 33% growth in the past year. Verisign atributes the growth to special promotions run by the various ccTLD registries, including .ES which has been offering free domains to Spanish youth.

That report can be found at Verisign’s website.

We’ve been ramping up our efforts around Registry promotions at Tucows lately. We’re trying to make sure that resellers are aware of any special pricing that has been offered to us (that we in turn pass on to our resellers). Check the current list and you’ll note that .MOBI has just been added with special promotional pricing beginning on July 8th, 2008.