Registry Cost Increases for .BIZ and .ORG Domains coming April 1, 2011 plus 9 more |
- Registry Cost Increases for .BIZ and .ORG Domains coming April 1, 2011
- Contact Privacy Video Now Available for Download
- CIRA Now Accepting Entries for the .CA Impact Awards
- Meet the Reseller: ISOCNET
- .nxt Conference offers help understanding impacts and opportunities in ICANN’s New TLDs
- Tips for Selling and Packaging goMobi to Your Clients
- Get Your Site Mobilized & Win!
- Start the New Year By Telling Us What You Think!
- Happy Birthday Creative Commons!
- Holiday Hours: December 24, 2010 – January 3, 2011
| Registry Cost Increases for .BIZ and .ORG Domains coming April 1, 2011 Posted: 19 Jan 2011 05:12 AM PST It’s an unfortunate part of being a domain registrar that we have to let you know about price increases coming up as a result of announced increases by the registries which operate those domain extensions. Effective April 1, 2011 at 00:00:00 GMT, price increases for .BIZ and .ORG domains will go into effect at the registries. These costs are payable directly to the registry by OpenSRS for domain registrations and we really have no choice but to pass those costs along to resellers and, in turn, to consumers. Here’s the breakdown for each top-level domain (TLD) involved:  .BIZ (operated by Neustar) – view ICANN notice
 .ORG (operated by Public Interest Registry) – view ICANN notice
Our Cost-Plus Pricing Model for gTLDs Provides Cost CertaintyThanks to our Cost-Plus model for gTLDs, OpenSRS Resellers have complete visibility to our costs associated with domain names. It also means that, as with past registry cost increases, we aren’t going to use these registry price increases as an opportunity to raise our prices on these or other gTLDs by piling on increases for domains where our costs are not increasing. We strongly believe that our transparent pricing model gives you comfort in clearly understanding how we approach pricing, and provides you with confidence in terms of what you can expect around pricing in the future. | ||||||||||
| Contact Privacy Video Now Available for Download Posted: 18 Jan 2011 03:45 PM PST
But for domain name owners, there’s another easily preventable privacy pitfall out there that could cause just as much headache as a major social networking site leaking their personal data. There are thousands of home-based businesses launched every year where the owner fails to enable the Contact Privacy feature of his or her domain name, resulting in the publishing of their home address, phone number and email address the domain’s publicly searching WHOIS record. There’s even a chance these businesses could be your customers. It’s been our experience that Contact Privacy is not enabled because domain owners don’t realize that WHOIS records contain their personal information and viewable by the entire Internet. Have you talked with your customers about Contact Privacy?At OpenSRS, we know you’re busy with other things. Heck, domain names might even be the least of your worries. So we thought we’d make things easy on you and over the past few weeks, we put some effort into developing white label video, along with a one pager describing Contact Privacy. They’re ready to use ‘right out of the box’, but if you’d like to brand them, or otherwise customize, tweak, and tailor to your business, you’re welcome to do that too! To download or preview these resources now, visit our Contact Privacy page in the Marketing Resources section of the OpenSRS website. | ||||||||||
| CIRA Now Accepting Entries for the .CA Impact Awards Posted: 17 Jan 2011 12:34 PM PST The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has started taking submissions for the 2010 .CA Impact Awards. This program is part of CIRA’s ongoing commitment to invest in Canada's .CA community. Submissions will be accepted between January 6, 2011 and March 25, 2011. Winners will receive a cheque for $5,000 from CIRA. The .CA Impact Awards celebrate hose people who are using their .CA websites to make a positive difference in the lives of those around them. The impact can be social, cultural, political, technological or economic. .CA Impact Awards are available in four categories: E-Learning, Small Business, Not-for-Profit, and Web Technology. Tell your Customers about the .CA Impact AwardsCIRA intends to email all .CA registrants about the .CA Impact Awards on January 19, 2011. If you are a .CA reseller, help get the word out and share this news with your customers! Feel free to blog it, tweet it, post it on Facebook or create an email campaign. Who knows, maybe one of your customers will take home $5,000 from CIRA! | ||||||||||
| Posted: 13 Jan 2011 05:53 AM PST
A reseller since 2003, ISOCNET uses OpenSRS to complete its suite of Internet services, and to help turn domain registration and management from a headache for its clients into a value-added service and a great source of revenue for itself. Started as an ISP, Grew by Listening to its CustomersFounded in 1996, ISOCNET started out as a local ISP offering dialup Internet access to customers in the area. They leveraged that early success and began offering email anti-spam and anti-virus solutions as well. Those customers then started asking whether ISOCNET would be able to take care of all of their Internet needs and ISOCNET began offering a complete suite of Internet services like website development, hosting, e-commerce and collocation solutions. Turning Domains from Pain to Gain
ISOCNET turned to OpenSRS in 2003 to provide an integrated solution that offered the complete control they required. ISOCNET leveraged their partnership with OpenSRS to offer even more value to their customers and complete the service package their clients demanded. A Trusted PartnerThe payoff for their clients came in the form of peace of mind that their important domain assets were in good hands. For ISOCNET, the payoff was not just in the bottom line, but also in a client base that saw them as a trusted partner for all their Internet needs. Visit ISOCNET at www.isoc.net | ||||||||||
| .nxt Conference offers help understanding impacts and opportunities in ICANN’s New TLDs Posted: 12 Jan 2011 06:42 AM PST
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 conferenceTo 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 AgendaThe conference itself will feature discussions on Internet policy, implementation, business models and marketing as it pertains to NewgTLDs.
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. | ||||||||||
| Tips for Selling and Packaging goMobi to Your Clients Posted: 11 Jan 2011 07:41 AM PST
Many of the resellers we’ve spoken to agree that goMobi is a perfect complement to existing webhosting packages. Over the past couple of weeks, we had some fairly in depth discussions with interested resellers around how they might package and price the goMobi service. I wanted to share some of these learnings with you in this post. If you look around, you’ll find the retail pricing for goMobi in the range of $5 to $9 per month with some service providers offering a slight discount when paid for a year in advance. Using an average price of $7, with a cost of $2.50, OpenSRS resellers can expect to earn around $50 in profit per account. That doesn’t take into account any fees you might charge your client for setup. Some of the main consideration points our Resellers had about goMobi:
The answers our resellers came up with largely depended on the kind of business they run. If they’re an agency focused on web design, they might build the service differently than a webhost or Internet Service Provider. Each business has their own way of doing things, and we can’t pretend to have all the answers for you. But we do have some insight and high level ideas based on conversations and feedback from service providers in a similar position to you. Payment FrequencyWe bill you on a monthly basis for the goMobi service, but how you bill your clients for service is up to you. If you’re a webhost and already billing a client monthly for service, it might make sense to bill goMobi on a monthly basis as a line item on your client’s invoice. If goMobi will be part of a larger site design, say a complete corporate re-design that includes professional services, then charging upfront for 1 year probably makes sense and will have a negligible effect on the overall price. Offering Initial SetupThe goMobi service is extremely simple to setup, but some customers appreciate having their mobile site setup for them based on their existing corporate site. If you’re an agency already designing the client’s main site, then setting up the mobile version is probably a no brainer. Charging a fee for setting up the mobile site is a relatively easy option that can help increase revenue. Remember, if the client would prefer to set the service up themselves, this is always an option, but we’ve heard from several resellers that clients are asking them to take this work on, despite the easy setup tools. Discount for Term CommitmentWe’re seeing this from most service providers. A reasonable monthly fee per month, with a discount if the client pays in advance for a year. All of the service providers we surveyed offered a yearly discounted rate and a couple didn’t even offer a monthly option. Free TrialIt’s an easy foot in the door and an opportunity for the puppy dog close. Not much to say about this one, except that it seems to work with clients unsure about the benefits until they actually see their mobile site in service. And once they have it… they’re hooked! BundlingYou know the old saying: “You can’t compare apples to oranges”. One of the best ways to sell a service is to make it difficult for interested prospects to compare your service offering to that of your competitors. One of the ways to do this is by bundling. If you’re an webhosting company, bundling goMobi into your packages adds a differentiator to your existing package. A client comparing your service package will be forced to consider the merits of the entire package when looking at your competitor. Learn MoreWe have an upcoming webinar hosted by James and Le Quan that will focus on these ideas and others. If you’re interested in participating on January 27th, you can sign up for free here.
What do you think? Do you have a unique perspective or experience to share? The ideas above are by no means an exhaustive list and as we learn more, we’ll be sure to pass them along. At the same time, if you’ve had success selling goMobi, I’d love to hear your story! | ||||||||||
| Get Your Site Mobilized & Win! Posted: 10 Jan 2011 06:37 AM PST 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.
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. | ||||||||||
| Start the New Year By Telling Us What You Think! Posted: 06 Jan 2011 09:08 AM PST
Last year we started asking our resellers to participate in our Reseller Satisfaction Survey. It’s a really quick survey that poses an important question: “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague.” Each quarter we were grateful to have several hundred resellers take part and tell us what they really think. Many of the survey results were positive and encouraging, some were neutral, and yes, some even had a bit of a sting to them. Those were the best ones, not because they stung, but because they offered an extremely valuable insight about how we’re doing with some of our reseller partners and an opportunity for us to make improvements to how we do things. If you’ve been participating in 2010, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to tell us what you think. It’s the only way we’ll get better. Since these surveys are anonymous, I also wanted to assure those who participate that although you don’t hear back from us, your feedback is making a real difference internally at OpenSRS. We’ve gained valuable insight and ideas about the control panel interfaces, documentation, technical support, storefront, and more. These surveys are compiled and then shared with the entire company. We’re gradually making improvements that tie directly to the feedback you’ve provided, so please continue to tell us what you think and I promise, we’ll continue to turn that feedback into action. Improvements can’t happen overnight, but they’re starting to happen already thanks to your input. So, if you’ve been a reseller of ours for more than three months, we just sent you an email with a link to the latest survey. We really want to know what you think about how we’re doing: the good, the bad, and the ugly. All of it. And the more, the better. Please participate, it only takes a minute and it helps us build you a better OpenSRS. | ||||||||||
| Happy Birthday Creative Commons! Posted: 19 Dec 2010 07:05 PM PST
At Tucows, we strongly believe that openness drives innovation. For those of you not familiar with the kind of work being done at Creative Commons, they are a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. They provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof. Thinking about licensing in a way that promotes discovery and sharing goes against the grain of some organizations, but not here at Tucows and OpenSRS. For most of us, the desire to share is almost instinctual– A default switch, set to on.
Our entire business has been built on leveraging open technologies wherever possible. This was true back in the early days as a shareware software mirror, and continues today as one of the world’s largest wholesale domain name registrars, under the OpenSRS brand.
It didn’t take long for donors to step up to the challenge. Just two days later, on Dec 17, Creative Commons, on the CC blog, Allison Domicone wrote they had reached $10,000 in donations. With Tucows contribution, this brought the total donation to $20,000. Here’s wishing a happy 10th birthday to Creative Commons and the awesome work being done by its staff! | ||||||||||
| Holiday Hours: December 24, 2010 – January 3, 2011 Posted: 17 Dec 2010 11:06 AM PST Happy Holidays from the OpenSRS team! Most of our offices will be closed from the afternoon of December 24, 2010 through to January 3, 2010. We’ll be back in the offices on January 4 ready to serve you in the new year. As always our dedicated team of Technical Support reps continues to be available 24/7 to assist you.
Here are the hours by department:
Please note that during this closure, there will be:
Happy Holidays to you, your colleagues and your families during this holiday season and the new year! |
Internet privacy is a big deal these days. Privacy breaches at various sites have exposed sensitive data like home addresses, phone numbers and email and more.
All the details can be found 
It’s that time again. The time when we ask you to tell us what you really think.
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