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.nxt Conference offers help understanding impacts and opportunities in ICANN’s New TLDs

You’ve probably heard about New TLDs (top-level domains) – the single biggest expansion of the domain name system ever. With New TLDs, anyone will be able to apply for their own top-level domain extension – the part after the dot. It’s expected that the Internet namespace will grow from just 21 gTLDs (plus 250 or so ccTLDs) to hundreds or even thousands of TLDs in the next few years.

That change provides immense potential. The possibilities are nearly endless, from .africa to .zulu and everything in between. The introduction these new domain extensions will obviously have a big impact on the Internet, and on resellers like you.

.nxt conference

To help make sense of it all, the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Internet Society (SF-Bay ISOC) is hosting the .nxt Conference in San Francisco, CA on February 9-10, 2011.

The conference will feature domain industry experts from around the world with a focus on understanding the potential impacts of the upcoming expansion of the domain name space.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed .nxt Conference General Manager Kieren McCarthy for their radio show “Spark” this month and he did a fabulous job explaining it all. You can listen to the full audio interview at the CBC’s Spark website.

OpenSRS is a silver sponsor of .nxt Conference and we’ll be there to make sure that resellers like you have a voice in what’s happening and also to help you identify and understand what impact New TLDs will have on your business. It’s clear that the introduction of New TLDs presents some great opportunities as well. For that reason, it’s critical for anyone in the Internet space to follow what’s happening with New TLDs.

On the Agenda

The conference itself will feature discussions on Internet policy, implementation, business models and marketing as it pertains to NewgTLDs.

Rod Beckstrom, ICANN CEO and President will deliver the keynote to kick off the event on Wednesday, February 9, 2011.
Elliot Noss, Tucows President and CEO, will participate in a panel discussion on Thursday, February 10, 2011. Adam Eisner, OpenSRS’ Director of Domain Services, will be on stage on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 9, 2011, to talk about how applicants for New TLDs can work with Registrars like OpenSRS/Tucows to get up and running.

The full agenda can be found here.

Registration is open to all interested people and the conference fee of $495 is quite a bargain when you consider the opportunities and take a look at the list of speakers and panelists already confirmed.

There’s much more information about the conference at the .nxt conference website.

Get Your Site Mobilized & Win!

We’re giving away 100 absolutely free one-year subscriptions to the new OpenSRS goMobi service!

The first 100 OpenSRS Resellers to create their own goMobi site through OpenSRS and tell us about it will be credited a full year of goMobi service – that’s a $30 value.

All the details can be found here.

And remember that your first month of goMobi is already free, so it won’t cost you anything to create your goMobi site and keep it for the first month even if you aren’t one of the first 100 Resellers to submit your site.

Use Your New goMobi Site as a Great Sales Tool

Once you have your goMobi site up and running, make sure you show it off! That’s really the very best way to demonstrate the value of the goMobi service. We know that once your customers see your goMobi site, and learn how inexpensive and easy it is to setup a goMobi site, they’ll want one of their own.

Make sure you’re ready: grab the marketing resources that we provide (in six languages) and you’ll be all set to explain goMobi to them. There’s videos, HTML templates, email copy and PDF sell sheets available for download.

Marketing goMobi Webinar

If you want even more help getting started selling goMobi, then plan to attend our Marketing goMobi webinar on January 27, 2011. We’ll have two sessions – 9:00 A.M. EST and 2:00 P.M. EST – to accommodate resellers around the world. Go here for more information and times in your timezone, and to sign up.

Extra Bonus!

While goMobi doesn’t require a .MOBI domain name, we have noticed that a lot of people are opting to use a .MOBI name to host their goMobi site and this new .MOBI domain promo gives you a great way to offer a bundle deal to your customers:

From now until the end of March, .MOBI domains are available at a registry cost of just $2.99. Full details on the cost break down and the terms of the promotion, along with the signup form are available here.

goMobi v1.2 Now Available – More Languages, New Features, Branding Suppression

dotMobi has updated the goMobi mobile website publishing service to version 1.2. In this release you’ll find some new localization and translation options, along with a new event calendar feature and the ability to remove the goMobi branding at the bottom of the goMobi website (something a few people had requested).

We’ve put together a page that takes you through the new stuff, and shows you how to enable it on a goMobi site if you want to check it out.

Try it out for Free!

Remember that goMobi subscriptions are free for the first month–if you haven’t yet given goMobi a try, then take some time over the next couple of weeks to see what it’s all about. You can view a short screencast showing how to get your own goMobi site up and running for free.

Marketing Resources in More Languages!

And for those resellers looking for marketing materials in languages other than English, we now also have a full range of materials and resources available in Spanish, French, German and Brazilian Portuguese. All are available in the goMobi section of the OpenSRS Marketing Resource section of the Resource Center.

EPP .IT Registrations Coming to OpenSRS in January

In late January 2011, we will be transitioning .IT domain registration services in OpenSRS to the Extensible Provisioning Platform (EPP) that the .IT Registry provides. Once that transition is complete, .IT domain registrations will be fully automated in OpenSRS and completed in real-time. No more manual processing or signed documentation will be required.

As a result of the switch to EPP, there will be some changes to how you register and manage names in the Reseller Web Interface, and also via the API. We’ll have more information about any required changes to existing API implementations early in the new year.

In the meantime, there are no changes required and .IT registrations and management will continue to work as expected.

Meet the Resellers: Heart Internet

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.