Archive for: September, 2010

OpenSRS in New York for Web 2.0 Expo

A bunch of us OpenSRS’ers are in the Big Apple this week for the New York edition of the Web 2.0 Expo.

We’re bringing the OpenSRS story to New York over the next couple of days. Drop by and say ‘hi’ if you are in the sponsor pavilion – we’re in booth 210. You can’t miss us – just look for the friendly Service Guy banners and smiling faces.

Learn about a proven revenue stream!

Drop by for a chat – we’d love to tell you about OpenSRS, how our approach to wholesale domain registrations, SSL certificates and hosted email is different, and how we can help your business with a proven revenue stream.

This is our first time sponsoring the NYC version of Web 2.0. We had a great time at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco in the spring, and met tons of great people and introduced a bunch of them to OpenSRS for the first time.

If your already a reseller, make sure you stop in as well – we’re always happy to meet our customers face-to-face and to find out how we’re doing and, of course, how you’re doing!

Refunds for misspelled domain names, because that’s how we roll.

As human beings, we all make mistakes, some are bigger than others. But when it comes to misspelling a domain name, should your end users be stuck with anything other than a perfect representation of their brand? At OpenSRS, we don’t think so. That’s why we have a five day window during which time a registered domain can be deleted, where the TLD Registry permits, for a nominal fee.

We know what it’s like to search for that perfect domain name. Countless lookups and various spellings. Heck, a typo in a domain name is bound to happen every once in a while. Or maybe your customer simply thinks of a better, more appropriate name after the registration process has been completed.

Spelling mistakes aside, there’s another big advantage to dealing with OpenSRS for domain registrations:

If your company is an online service provider say, a webhosting company for example, you’ve probably also felt the sting of some unscrupulous fraudster registering a website with your company and a domain name to go with it.

Sure you can cancel the website services with little cost to your company, but will your domain registrar be as unforgiving? Or do they have an ALL SALES ARE FINAL policy?

We understand that as a reseller, these things can happen We’re not going to hold you, or your customers to those mistakes for the sake of a few extra bucks in our pockets. Having a five day grace period during which time a new domain registration can be canceled is another advantage OpenSRS has over other registrars such as eNom.

Want to learn more about our reseller-friendly practices?

.AU Domains Now Available through OpenSRS

As of today, you can add .au domains to the ever-growing list of ccTLDs available through OpenSRS.

We thought about doing a typical blog post full of Australian references to things we think go on “Down Under” – like putting another shrimp on the barbie, Paul Hogan (aka Crocodile Dundee), lots of happy kangaroos and koala bears, a big can of Fosters and a warning about some common toad that can kill a grown man with it’s skin. But, of course, we didn’t want to risk offending our Australian friends.

As igloo-dwelling, beer drinking, Canadians protected by red-suited Mounties on horseback who say “eh” and apologize constantly, we’ll instead just point out that Australia is a large country with a well-connected population of about 22.5 million people.

With more than 8 million Australians online and a total of 1,676,068 .au domains registered (as of March 2010), you can see there is still plenty of opportunity.

There are a few things you should research before you start selling .au domains. Consult the documentation and domains policies page to ensure that you are up-to-speed on the various policies and regulations around who can buy which of the different extensions.

You should also visit our .au marketing page to learn more about the various .au second-level domains and other information to help you position and sell .au to your customers.

.au domains are $20USD for a two-year registration through OpenSRS and you’ll be enabled to sell them automatically in your Reseller Account. Those using OpenSRS Storefront are also able to sell .au domains as of today. If you use Storefront, .au has automatically been enabled at a selling price of $23USD for a two-year registration. Of course, you are free to enable or disable .au domains and set your own pricing.

G’day!

CIRA 2010 Symposium and AGM

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.

Byron Holland, Chris O'Neil, John Demco and Paul Vixie on stage

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 panelist John Demco sharing a brief history about the Canadian Internet and a 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 about telling your story and the value of Canadian companies embracing a dotCA domain name. There’s a reason travelers sew the Canadian flag on their backpack– 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.

Meet the Resellers: (mt) Media Temple

They are often considered to be a tough bunch to please, but OpenSRS Reseller (mt) Media Temple has built an extremely successful hosting business by catering to the specific needs of web designers and taking a customer-centric approach to everything they do.

Those often tough-to-please designers demand a hosting provider that they can trust to host their customers’ sites dependably and reliably. That meant Media Temple needed partners that they could count on to provide the same level of service.

They rely on OpenSRS to provide a worry-free solution to domain name registration and management that’s fully integrated into their advanced hosting platform.

Premium Hosting, Premium Service

Media Temple offers a premium level of hosting and customer service. The company, in turn, looks to its partners, including OpenSRS, to help them provide that higher level of technology and service.

Rather than competing for customers at the low-end of the hosting market, they instead pioneered innovative solutions like their (gs) Grid-Service along with being early providers of both virtual server technology and affordable dedicated hardware options.

“We made the decision to be a quality host – we’re in high-end data centers, and we use high-end hardware from HP,” says Alex Capehart, VP Business Development, (mt) Media Temple, who adds that, “sometimes the technology of what we do gets lost behind the marketing or branding.”

OpenSRS Reseller Since 2003

Media Temple has been an OpenSRS Reseller since it began offering domain names back in 2003. The company chose to outsource domain registration and management to OpenSRS so that they could focus their efforts on what they do best – providing superior hosting and customer support to their customers.

“You guys have done a great job for us,” says Capehart. “You’re always asking us, ‘What more can we do for you?’ whether it’s adding new TLDs or other services like SSL certificates. When it made sense for us to do it, we could count on you to be there for us.”

Media Temple also recognizes the importance of providing a single interface to manage domains and hosting. Their custom control panel allows customers to manage all aspects of their hosting packages, utilizing the OpenSRS API to completely integrate domain name management into their system.

Capehart says offering this kind of complete integration is key.“There’s no good reason to send customers to another provider for domains,” he says. “Keeping them within our own eco-system ensures that they are getting our awesome customer service and support and a consistent experience throughout the process.”

Committed to people

As part of the commitment to customer service, the company works to maintain its corporate culture, providing an enjoyable and challenging workplace, where employees are empowered to make the customer feel wanted and appreciated.

“The company was built on that and we haven’t seen anything that works better than having happy employees and happy customers,” says Capehart. “It doesn’t matter how big you are, as long as you maintain that high-touch approach, you’ll be successful.”

The company believes that a continued focus on people, combined with in-house development of its hosting infrastructure, along with key partnerships with companies like OpenSRS, will ensure future success in a competitive environment.