A few months back we announced that we acquired the German registrar EPAG. The reason for the acquisition was that we wanted to significantly bolster our lineup of country-code top-level domains. Today’s release is the first round of new ccTLDs that we’ll add as a result.

In total, there are over 100 new ccTLDs in the first round (including both second and third level domains). From a geographic perspective, we’ve now offer ccTLDs for nearly 80 countries.

Some of the more popular new extensions:

• Poland: .pl
• New Zealand: .nz
• Isle of Man: .im
• South Africa: .za
• Malaysia: .my
• Peru: .pe
• Tonga: .to
• Israel: .il
• Korea: .kr

Full List with Pricing

You can view the full list of the TLDs we offer along with pricing here. We’ve organized things by continent to make it easier to display them all.

If you don’t see a country that you were hoping would be on the list, sit tight — we’re still working on integrating everything that EPAG offers into OpenSRS and we’ll have even more ccTLDs to add to the list in 2012.

More Information

ccTLDs sometimes have residency and other requirements. To help you out with that, we’ve created a handy TLD Reference Chart that gives you all that information in a single document. We’ll be updating it as we add more ccTLDs or as requirements change.

These new ccTLDs are available in the Domain Manager of OpenSRS Control Panel, as well as via the Reseller Web Interface (RWI). By default, searches won’t include the laundry list of all the new ccTLDs, but you can enable those that are of interest to you in the settings area of the RWI. Check out the FAQ for help with doing that.

Documentation including the API docs has been updated to get you started and we’ve started compiling a list of frequently asked questions that we will continue to update as we get feedback from resellers.

To celebrate the launch, we’re also offering a .PRO launch promotion providing substantial savings off the usual registration fee. From now until February 15, 2012, .PRO domains will be available with a registry cost of $1.99/domain year for new registrations (the regular registry cost is $7.34/year). Resellers do need to sign up to take advantage of this promotion. Sign up here.

Remember that because .PRO is a gTLD, it’s priced using our ‘cost-plus’ pricing model so you’ll need to add your OpenSRS Management fee and the ICANN fee to determine the full cost for .PRO domains.

What is .PRO?

.PRO is an exclusive top-level domain reserved for use exclusively by licensed business and service professionals and entities internationally. All applicants meeting the following qualifications may register a .PRO domain name:

• Provides professional services
• Admitted to or licensed by a government certification body or jurisdictional licensing entity recognized by a governmental body that regularly verifies the accuracy of its data
• In good standing with the licensing authority

You should be aware that registrants of .PRO domains may be asked to provide information related to their professional eligibility.

Documentation and Marketing Help

OpenSRS offers second-level .PRO domains. They can be provisioned and managed through the Domain Manager in OpenSRS Control Panel and via the OpenSRS API. Consult the documentation for more information.

Look at our .PRO information page for more details including a marketing kit containing the .PRO logo and some banner ads for your use in marketing .PRO domains to your customers.

For any resellers who submitted pre-orders, you should see any successful orders in your account shortly. For those with Sunrise orders outstanding, you’ll see the first wave of successful applications in your account as well.

ICM Registry, which operates the .XXX domain says it will be a few more weeks before some remaining valid Sunrise applications are processed.

Marketing Resources

Our .XXX information page contains marketing help, advice on how to position .XXX domains and some additional information about how .XXX and the Sponsored Community works.

Congratulations to ICM Registry on a very successful launch.

Here’s a run-down of the most significant changes that came with this release:

New Features:

• New design templates to provide more options to style goMobi sites.
• Seven new icon sets to choose from.
• Integrated shopping cart feature in the Products section including payment integration with PayPal and Google Checkout.
• YouTube video embedding.
• Reviews/Testimonials integration with social networks like Yelp.
• Custom form feature to allow for the collection of customer feedback or questionnaires.
• Redirection code generator built in to the Site Builder.

Enhancements:

• Enhanced QR code flyer creator.
• Improvements to the site templates including additional site colour options.
• A new ‘Click to Call’ icon has been added to the site header.
• Google Maps now displayed for all locations with improved directions feature on supported devices.
• Better WYSIWYG editor including the ability to insert images, links and easily customize text
• Additional time-zone support.

More Information

We’ve updated the goMobi marketing page with more information on the features and benefits of goMobi. If you are already selling goMobi, be sure to let your users know about this exciting update to the service. We also have a complete rundown of the updates and new features in PDF format with screenshots and more. Click here to download.

For those not yet offering goMobi mobile websites, this update makes an already powerful and feature-rich tool even better. At just $2.50/month goMobi is a very affordable way to get customers started on the mobile web.

On December 6th at 16:00 UTC the .XXX registry opens up registrations to anyone, just like any other domain extension. That said, there are a couple of things to note regarding .XXX domains. Because this is a sponsored TLD, there are some additional requirements to fulfill to get what the registry calls a resolving domain.

• If your customers aren’t part of the Sponsored Community (that is those who provide adult services, or provide services to the adult services community), then they may wish to do a defensive registration. If they have an existing business or personal domain that they don’t want associated with .XXX, then they can register the .XXX version of the domain themselves and get an non-resolving domain.
• For those in the Sponsored Community, registrations must be validated by the registry before they will resolve and point to a website. That’s a fairly easy process which is handled by the registry after the domain is registered. Basically the registrant certifies that they are a provider of adult services and gains membership into the Sponsored Community. That results in a .XXX domain that resolves to whatever website specified in the DNS.

Pricing

.XXX domains are priced at $80.18 through OpenSRS. That cost includes an $0.18 fee payable to ICANN for every registration.

Right now .XXX domains are only available through the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) and via the API and orders submitted will go into the pre-order queue. You’ll see the special form on the main page in the RWI (pictured here).

After 16:00 UTC on December 6th, you’ll be able to register .XXX domains like any other domain in the RWI. We’ll add .XXX registration and management to the Domain Manager in the OpenSRS Control Panel in the near future.

Landrush is a limited-time opportunity for those who didn’t qualify for Sunrise A, but want to secure a valued .XXX domain name and avoid the first come, first served risks associated with General Availability.

The Landrush period runs for 18 days, starting on November 8, 2011. During this time, only applicants who are members of the adult Sponsored Community can apply for .XXX domain names. Apart from being a member of the adult Sponsored Community, there are no trademark or pre-ownership rights requirements during this phase of the launch.

There is no first come, first served ranking during Landrush. Once Landrush ends, any .XXX domain names with a single applicant will be automatically allocated. Those .XXX domain names with more than one applicant will proceed to a closed mini-auction between the competing parties only.

For Members of the Sponsored Community

Landrush is designed specifically for members of the adult Sponsored Community who wish to secure premium .XXX domain names. It guarantees members the chance to purchase premium .XXX domain names or be involved in a closed auction to bid for .XXX domain names.

OpenSRS is fully supporting the Landrush phase, along with all other phases of the launch of the .XXX domain extension. We’ll begin accepting Landrush orders via the Reseller Web Interface or the OpenSRS API as soon as the registry opens.

More information about .XXX can be found on our .XXX Launch information page.

The launch continues with General Availability for .XXX on December 6, 2011.

There are now more than 550,000 .ME domains registered, and hundreds of .ME domains are found on the Alexa Top 100,000 Sites list. With stats like that, it’s clear that even the most casual of web surfers will run into a .ME domain in their travels around the net.

How .ME Domains are Being Used

The .ME domain extension is a TLD with some obvious and compelling use cases. Here’s just a few examples in different verticals:

• .ME for vanity shorteners: WordPress.com has WP.ME for blog posts, Time Magazine is using TI.ME, and Facebook is using FB.ME (and there are many more examples).
• Personal profile services: .ME is an obvious choice for a site that provides a personal landing page. You might have seen About.ME, and Flavors.ME which both offer customized personal homepages at .ME domains. Users of either service can also purchase their own .ME domain for an even more personalized experience.
• New web services: There are more .ME domains available than in other extensions, so .ME is getting a lot of love with new web services. You might have seen formspring.ME, join.ME, connect.ME and jetpack.ME among others.
• Blogs and personal websites: .ME has always been a great choice for a personal site. More and more high profile bloggers and celebrities are choosing .ME domains. Omis.ME, Zee.ME, thecranberries.me and dannybrown.ME are some great examples.

The long and short of it is this: if you aren’t offering .ME domains to your customers, then you aren’t providing them with a great option that will help them find their perfect domain name. Without that perfect domain name, they won’t be looking for additional services like hosting, SSL and email.

On Sale Now!

More information and marketing help to get you started is available here. And remember that we have a great $7.99 promotion on .ME domains that runs through the end of the year.

ICM Registry notified OpenSRS and other registrars of this extension earlier this week but asked that we not officially announce the extension. Instead, they suggested that we should simply continue to accept applications until the new closing date of Monday, October 31, 2011.

Now that some other registrars are announcing the extension, we do want to assure you that OpenSRS is also accepting Sunrise applications until Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 16:00 UTC.

While we’re on the subject of .XXX, the Landrush phase of the launch begins on November 8th, 2011. Landrush allows members of the Sponsored Community to apply to secure domains prior to the General Availability phase which happens in early December. More information is available on our .XXX launch Information page.

If you have any questions about the launch of .XXX, don’t hesitate to contact Reseller Support.

Patrick Donaldson, Registrar Liaison for ICM Registry and Adam Eisner, Director of OpenSRS Product Management, shared some good information to help you make the most of the launch of this new domain extension.

Win-Win-WIn

Patrick talked a bit about how .XXX is a win-win-win for everyone involved – the adult entertainment industry, consumers and those who want to avoid adult content online.

One of the key points that Patrick made was that regardless of what your customer base is like, there is an opportunity with the launch of .XXX to help them out. If you want to provide services like hosting or domain registration to those in adult industries, then you can help them acquire new .XXX registrations, or domains matching their existing .com domains. For those who don’t wish to be a part of the extension, then you can help them out with blocking registrations or simply registering the matching .XXX domain to the existing .COM or other extension.

There was also a lot of information from Adam about the different phases of the launch including what happens and who can register domains during Sunrise A and B, Landrush and General Availability.

View the archive here.

.XXX in Horizon Test Environment

In addition to the webinar, we can also tell you that .XXX is now available in our Horizon Test Environment for testing. That includes both the Reseller Web Interface, and the API. If you plan to participate in the launch, log in to the Horizon Test Environment RWI and see how things work.

We’ll continue to update our .XXX launch information page as required. Documentation for the RWI and API has already been updated and posted in advance of the launch.

There are a couple of different elements to the launch and depending on your customer base, you’ll want to take note of the different requirements in each phase.

We’ve put together a launch information page for .XXX where you can get all the information you need – key dates, policies and pricing. You’ll also find useful marketing tools including messaging and graphic elements like the .XXX logo.

Our aim is to help you make the most of the introduction of this new domain extension whether you want to help your customers protect their brand, or whether you want to provide .XXX domains to members of the adult community.

We’ll have more information about the launch of .XXX in the next few months. Stay tuned!