Archive for: September, 2008

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: Agile development process used at OpenSRS

You don’t need to spend much time at OpenSRS before you hear the words iterative, sprint, or see a handful of people standing around in a huddle (scrum). That’s because we use the Agile software development model here at OpenSRS. In this video our Principal Engineer, Rick Yazwinski, talks about the basic methods of Agile, why OpenSRS made the transition from Waterfall to Agile methodology, and the positive impact it had on our resellers. Rick emphasizes the human and lightweight characteristics of Agile. He shares examples of how personal communication trumps overly documented specs and requirements. He also talks about some of the other best practices at OpenSRS, such as focusing on simplicity, and using hardware virtualization.

Are you involved in development or project management? What models or best practices have you found to be most effective?

This is part of a series of six videos called Inside OpenSRS that features some of the people who work to provide high-quality services for our resellers. Stay tuned as we share the other videos with you over the next few weeks.

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: How OpenSRS handles messaging abuse

Have you ever wondered how much spam is floating around the Internet? The number may surprise you. Garrick Lau certainly knows the answer as he and his team work every day to ensure email deliverability for our resellers.

Garrick is our Manager of Security and Compliance. A good amount of his team’s efforts are spent on messaging abuse such as spam. While controlling spam might be a relatively straight-forward task for corporations, it is a completely different world for ISPs and web hosting companies. In this video, Garrick explains some of the challenges our resellers face, and how OpenSRS handles messaging abuse.

Garrick explains why software is not enough, and that collaboration with other ISPs is critical to ensuring email deliverability. Tucows is a member of Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) and Garrick explains how this plays an important part in establishing best practices, standards, and staying ahead of abuse trends. Garrick wraps up with some future emerging trends such as moving to a behavioral and historical based (reputation) model to track down spammers, and ends with an interesting example of a regular user vs. a spammer profile.

Its a big and increasing complex world of messaging abuse and a challenge to stay one step ahead. If you’re going it alone, or outsourcing, we’d really like to hear from you. What trends are you experiencing? What are your most common messaging abuse complaints?

Meet Six of My Colleagues

Today, in partnership with the Web Host Industry Review, we released a series of videos featuring six of my colleagues called “Inside OpenSRS”. You’ll hear from people working in Reseller Support, Network Operations, Security and Compliance, Development, and Product Management.

For me, these videos have been a great introduction to some of the brilliant people we have working here, and I hope to bring you more from them and many others like them on the blog in the months to come.

Being humans first, geeks second and business people third is one of our brand promises for OpenSRS. The production and distribution of these videos is a first step in our strategy to help you to see what makes us tick and to show you that we are 100% committed to being “reseller-friendly”.

Watch the videos here

Helping Customers Successfully Manage Transfers out of GoDaddy

Scenario: You have a customer who wishes to transfer their domain name from GoDaddy to OpenSRS (into your Reseller account). Good news! But despite the best efforts of the customer, GoDaddy blocks the transfer and the customer ends up stuck at GoDaddy for another year.

It happens a lot and the reason is a simple one: GoDaddy institutes a 60-day lock on domains if the domain holder makes a change to the administrative email contact. GoDaddy claims to do this for the protection of its users, but the lock policy has the added benefit to GoDaddy of locking the domain down for two months.

So, if a user decides to move out of GoDaddy less than two months before the domain name in question expires, and then updates their administrative email information to ensure that they can receive and approve the transfer requests, they have inadvertently locked themselves into GoDaddy and will be forced to renew the domain with them (which puts another 60-day lock on the domain, by the way).

How to help customers get out of GoDaddy

Education is the key.

Explain the transfer process: Make sure you fully explain the transfer process. Explain that there will be emails sent to the email account of the listed administrative contact that require action for the transfer to succeed. Explain that they should remove the administrative lock before attempting to transfer the domain. Explain how the EPP code works, and perhaps even show the user where to find it in the GoDaddy interface. GoDaddy provides a guide to unlocking domains here.

Explain the GoDaddy lock policy: Be up front and ask the customer if that email contact is up to date. If not, explain to them what GoDaddy will do when they update it. Tell the customer that you are trying to make sure the transfer is successful and ensure that they are only changing that administrative contact if it is absolutely necessary (e.g. they don’t have access to that email account anymore).

What is ICANN Doing?

Tucows/OpenSRS is active in ICANN and we’re strongly in favour of domain name portability. We continue to work at the ICANN level to get this problem solved. ICANN has issued a statement on the practice of putting a lock in place on a WHOIS change saying clearly, “A registrant change to Whois information is not a valid reason to deny a transfer request.”

The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) is studying the issue and should be putting forward recommendations to ICANN shortly.

In the meantime, customer education is the key – make sure you’re doing everything you can to ensure domain name transfers in will be successful.

Take on GoDaddy – Now is the Time

GoDaddy is at it again. Raising prices that is.

For a lot of our Resellers, GoDaddy probably represents the single largest competitor in the domains and hosting area. These recent price increases announced by GoDaddy signal an opportunity for you. Now is the time to aggressively take on GoDaddy and do a little customer education and drive sales.

.NET and .ORG domain names now set domain buyers back $15.19 when they buy them from GoDaddy. Consider that the Registry cost on .NET is going up to $4.98, and .ORG is going up to $6.75 in a few months time, then contrast that with what Go Daddy is now charging. Do the math – take that registry fee, add the ICANN fee, then the OpenSRS Management Fee to see what your wholesale cost is. When I add that up, I get $8.18 for .NET domains and $9.95 for .ORG domains – considerably less than GoDaddy even when you add a healthy margin.

Still convinced that GoDaddy is a low-cost domain seller? Let’s look at .COM from GoDaddy. Yes, they will give you the first year for $1.99 (plus ICANN fee) or the first year of a transfer in for $6.99, but after that, a .COM renewal is $10.19 when you include the ICANN fee of 20 cents. Reality doesn’t match the perception.

That’s where you need to focus – on perception. The public has a perception about GoDaddy thanks to some incredibly expensive and thorough marketing. The goal of those Superbowl ads was to convince the public that GoDaddy had the cheapest domains. And it worked.

How to take on GoDaddy

Use a multi-pronged approach: address the price perception, focus on service, and provide an alternative.

1. The price perception. Be up-front about your pricing and show where you beat GoDaddy on price. Take advantage of our domain promotions to run promotions of your own. Consider that it might make sense to offer certain domains as a loss leader for other services if it makes sense. Get the word out – GoDaddy is not cheaper than everyone else.

2. Focus on service. Offer top-notch customer service and brag about it on your homepage. Customers look for more than price and service is one way you can win them over.

3. Provide an alternative. NASCAR and babes in bikinis might be appealing to some, but not everyone wants to be associated with a company like GoDaddy. Target the types of customers that would be offended, or put off by the GoDaddy style of marketing.

It can be easy to throw up your hands and throw in the towel when faced with a competitor like GoDaddy. But everyone loves an underdog. Be the independent coffee shop that opens up down the street from Starbucks, or the rookie ball player facing off against the veteran pitcher in a clutch situation.

GoDaddy has provided the opening with these recent price hikes. Take advantage and take back customers.

We’ll have more on this next week – specifically on making sure you are doing everything to help your new customers transfer out of GoDaddy.

Archive for: September, 2008

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: Agile development process used at OpenSRS

Inside OpenSRS Video Series: How OpenSRS handles messaging abuse

Meet Six of My Colleagues

Helping Customers Successfully Manage Transfers out of GoDaddy

Take on GoDaddy – Now is the Time

Become a Reseller

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