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By: James Koole on February 26th, 2009
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: OpenSRS Storefront
Comments: 2

This afternoon, we rolled out the latest version of OpenSRS Storefront. Since we introduced Storefront late last year, we’ve been working hard to make it better for both our Resellers and for your customers. Many of the improvements come as a result of feedback provided to us by our Resellers. This lastest update focused on usability for the end-user interface.

The changes come in three areas:

1. An improved search experience: Storefront searches across a few dozen gTLDs and ccTLDs every time a user does a search. The lookup times for those searches can vary depending on the response times for each Registry. In some cases, those searches were taking too long so we redeigned the way search works to make things feel faster. Now, when a user performs a search, we return results for gTLDs immediately, and then start filling in the ccTLDs as the search results return. That means searches feel much faster for the end users.
2. A better Domain Manager: For users with a bunch of domains in their profile, the Domain Manager was a bit unwieldy. We set out to reorganize the navigation for the Domain Manager and at the same time, we rolled out a bunch of improvements that make managing domains easier. End users can do things like bulk changes to WHOIS records, bulk renewals, and other changes across multiple domains at the same time.
3. An easy way to auto-renew: We’ve added the ability for end-users to set domains and services to auto-renew. They can choose to set domains to auto-renew at the time of purchase, and later they can toggle auto renewal on or off for single domains, or multiple domains thanks to the new bulk tools.

If you want to take the new search experience for a spin, you can do so at our Storefront demo site. Keep in mind that this site is live and if you follow the purchase process through to the end, you’ve bought the domain name for real.

Drop us a line in the comments to let us know what you think.

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By: OpenSRS Team on February 25th, 2009
Posted in: Partners and Resellers
Tags: Meet the Resellers
Comments: 0

UK-based hosting provider Heart Internet, OpenSRS reseller since 2004, relies on OpenSRS to provide backend solutions for domain name registrations, SSL certificates and new services like goMobi that will help the company maintain the impressive growth rate that places it at the top of the heap in the UK.

Co-founders Jonathan Brealey and Tim Beresford started heart Internet in 2004. The pair, who had already created two successful businesses in Webfusion and 123-Reg, created Heart Internet to address what they perceived to be shortcomings in existing hosting provider offerings.

Jonathan Brealey, Co-founder, Heart Internet

“It was in a period where any hosting provision was really technical and quite poor and we saw an opportunity to make it easier,” says Jonathan Brealey, co-founder and Director at Heart Internet. To address the need, Heart Internet built a custom hosting control panel at a time when few other companies offered them. Heart combined the easy-to-use panels with hosting packages aimed at resellers.

“That’s an approach that’s still central to our business – making things easier,” says Brealey. From the start, Heart Internet looked to resellers as a way to extend its reach and also as a way to stay lean and focused on further developing its products and services.

“We get to deal with customers who are savvy and understand what they are doing,” explains Brealey. “Thanks to our resellers, we service a large number of websites, but we don’t have a lot of contact with customers because we have our customers who are reselling handling that relationship.”

Wide Range of Reseller Customers

Brealey says they have a good mix of resellers, including full-service agency customers that Heart Internet continues to help expand and develop important customer relationships. “We tell them that if they are selling someone a web site for a few thousand Pounds, then you definitely have inroads to sell hosting, domains and SSL to them as well.”

And for Heart Internet’s smaller resellers, generally one-to-three man shops doing web-design and development, Brealey says offering new solutions like goMobi makes a lot of sense. “We’re reaching out and explaining how to offer services to existing customers like goMobi as a £10 add-on.”

Why OpenSRS?

Heart Internet chose OpenSRS because they were looking for a service provider with a technical background. With innovation comes the need for partners who can provide backend services that keep pace.

Brealey says OpenSRS has always been a good fit. “You guys are technical and that’s how we like it,” he says. “Our developers like your API and the flexibility it offers us in terms of automating our services and keeping costs down.”

It’s a relationship that’s worked well for both companies as Heart Internet continues to bring its unique mix of innovation and simple-to-use, but powerful services to its customers.

Still Growing Fast

The company’s strategy continues to pay dividends. In 2009, Heart Internet found itself second on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 fastest growing technology companies list and was recognized as the fastest growing Internet company in the UK. In 2010, they again made the Fast 50 list, demonstrating the incredible growth opportunities that continue to exist in the Internet and hosting space in the UK.

Heart Internet plans to maintain that growth and momentum by continuing to innovate and by bringing new services and ideas to their resellers to offer to their customers. For example, Heart Internet recently rolled out an innovative service that looks up usernames on popular social media sites like Twitter and Foursquare at the same time as a domain search availability search. Touches like this are what keep them ahead of the competition.

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By: Don Ruiz on February 23rd, 2009
Posted in: Inside OpenSRS
Tags:
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Andrew Chasse (Technical Delivery Team Lead) and William Tang (Tech Support Representative)

When people think of OpenSRS or Tucows, they probably think of a bunch of techies, committed to making the Internet a better place. Well, we are definitely that; however, what people might not know is that we can also play a little football (that’s soccer to most people). In our inaugural indoor season, TFC (Tucows Football Club, named in honor of our beloved Toronto Football Club) finished a very respectable 6th place out of 13 teams…not too shabby. That is actually better than TFC Toronto did in their first 2 seasons; though it wouldn’t be fair to compare TFC Tucows to TFC Toronto…we are MUCH better than they are…or at least we like to think we are. We can also lay claim to the scoring champion: CY Paul, a friend we picked up to help fill out the roster, netted 12 goals in the 8 games he played.

We have great representation from throughout the organization, with players from management, technical support, account management, sales, and software development. Even our CEO, Elliot Noss, plays between the posts, sacrificing his body for the team. During the season we were lucky enough to have two co-workers (Marco Zuliani and Luigi Lagonigro) from Italy play a few games while in town. As you can imagine, they helped tremendously. As Elliot put it, “Having these guys play soccer here with us is like going to Italy to play hockey with them.” In addition to these spirited Italians, our roster also boasts players from parts of Asia, Central America, Africa, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and North America, giving us a very well-rounded team.

So we started last season by winning our very first game and tying our second. We quickly had our expectations leveled with two lopsided losses. But being the determined group that we are, we fought back the remainder of the season winning or tying all but the final regular season game, a heartbreaker loss.

Our second season is now underway and we got off to a shaky start by losing our very first game 3-0 to a team called ‘Not the Arsenal’. The team played well considering we were short-handed the entire game, with players sidelined by the flu and injuries. But we quickly rebounded in game two sending a message to our division by beating last season’s second place team, ’68er’s FC’, 4-0 thanks to an all-around team effort.

Game three was last week and we continued where we left off, beating ‘John Hancock’ 5-2. With the experience we gained in the first season we have high expectations for season two, hopefully winning the division. So far we are off to a pretty good start.

GO TFC GO!

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By: James Koole on February 18th, 2009
Posted in: Events
Tags: WebhostingDay 2009
Comments: 0

WebhostingDay, billed as the largest web hosting event in Europe, takes place March 18th – 20th, 2009 just outside of Cologne, Germany.

OpenSRS is a Gold Partner with WebhostingDay and we’ll have our staff on the ground in Germany for the event. If you are planning to attend WebhostingDay, make sure you drop by our booth and say hi. We’d love to chat with you about your business, and how we can better serve your needs.

In addition to being at the event, Marco Zuliani, EMEA Sales Director, OpenSRS/Tucows will be presenting “Domain Names and Web Hosting in 2009 and Beyond” at 16:45 on Wednesday, March 18th. Plan to attend and learn more about trends and upcoming opportunities for web hosts around domain names.

One thousand attendees from 40 countries are expected to attend this year, including 50 exhibitors. More than half of the attendees at last year’s show were at the CEO/CTO level, making WebhostingDay a great place to learn and network. But the organizers have also tried to ensure that WebhostingDay is also a conference where participants have fun.

The venue for WebhostingDay is best-described as “non-traditional.” The entire conference takes place at Phantasialand, a fantasy amusement/theme park in Bruhl, Germany. The park boasts a pair of theme hotels, and one of the best indoor roller coasters in Europe. Suffice to say, this won’t be your ordinary trade show experience.

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By: OpenSRS Team on February 13th, 2009
Posted in: Announcements
Tags: Holiday Hours
Comments: 0

We’ll be closed on Monday for Ontario’s Family Day holiday. We’re looking forward to spending some time with our families.

Here’s a list of departments along with any special holiday hours for Monday, February 16th, 2009:

Special thanks to Flickr user bobster1985 for making the above image available under a Creative Commons license.