Posts in: OpenSRS Services

.XXX Landrush Starts Today

Today the Landrush phase of the .XXX domain extension launch begins.

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.

Take Advantage of .ME’s Momentum

.ME is on a roll lately. More and more .ME domains are being registered and used around the Internet, including some very high profile and very visible sites.

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.

.XXX Sunrise Extended

logo for the .XXX domain extension Word has leaked out today that the Sunrise A/B phase of the launch of the .XXX domain extension has been unofficially extended beyond today’s original deadline.

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.

.XXX Launch Updates and Webinar Archive

If you missed our .XXX launch webinar last week, we have the archived version available now for on-demand viewing.

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.

.XXX Launches in September at OpenSRS

The new .XXX Sponsored Top-level Domain extension launches on September 7, 2011, and OpenSRS will be fully participating in the launch from Sunrise through General Availability and beyond.

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!