Sysadmin Day: Use our fancy ‘certificate of awesomeness’ to show you care!

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Sysadmin Day: Use our fancy ‘certificate of awesomeness’ to show you care! Posted: 22 Jul 2010 01:41 PM PDT Sysadmins have a thankless job. They keep the file servers serving, the email servers delivering and the accounting servers counting. These heroes of the office network are often paged late at night to deal with a broken application server, spend countless hours writing (and troubleshooting) scripts that automate tasks, and sometimes get called on to restore a files from a backup that some noobie user accidentally deleted more than 3 months ago. When was the last time your own sysadmin received a pat on the back for a job well done? Where would you be without their countless hours of hard work? At OpenSRS, our sysadmins literally keep the Internet running. Without them, we’d be resolving DNS hostnames with Popsicle sticks (I’m not sure how that would work, but go with me on this.) Sysadmin Day 2010 is this July 31 (next week!). Since it’s a Saturday, we’re encouraging everybody to celebrate on Friday 30th instead. To help our resellers honour their hardworking admins, we thought we’d take a moment and give you some ideas around how you can show your appreciation, starting with our handy “Certificate of Sysadmin Awesomeness” that you can customize with your own words of appreciation! The certificate has been designed in MS Word (for PC) and Pages (for OS X). If for some strange reason, you don’t have a program that can open either of these formats, we also have a PDF version that can be filled in by hand. Download Certificate of Sysadmin Awesomeness (MS Word) Download Certificate of Sysadmin Awesomeness (Pages for OS X) Download Certificate of Sysadmin Awesomeness (PDF) Gift ideas that show your Sysadmin you really care If you’re feeling extra generous and would like to honour your hardworking sysadmin with something a little more special, Hong Kiat has a great post with a compilation of products that any sysadmin would salivate over. Below are a few pics of my favourite:

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Regularjoe.co

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Regularjoe.co Posted: 21 Jul 2010 11:02 AM PDT We are seeing something exciting today. In the first day of live .CO registrations, our live .CO registrations have already exceeded our pre-order registrations. And they have exceeded our regular daily volume of all other TLDs combined. If you check out the running count of .CO registrations at http://opportunity.co/pigsfly you will see that there are happy domain name buyers and sellers all around the world today. This is exciting because it means “regular end users” are now choosing .CO. The whole pre-order period proved what we might have already expected, that .CO domains would be hot among businesses that actively protect their brands, individuals that speculate on domains and individuals that just love domains. The registrations we are seeing now are primarily from end users that are registering one good domain name. Maybe they are improving on an existing .com. Maybe they are coming through the domain name registration process for the first time. But they are typing in a desired domain name, they are delighted to see that it is available, they are (most importantly) not concerned by the relative unfamiliarity of .CO and they are buying it. (By the way, I know the delight of discovering a good available domain name myself because I just registered regularjoe.co a few moments ago.) We are strongly encouraged and I know we will be strongly encouraging all of you to get on board and enjoy the ride.

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.CO General Availability Launch Update

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.CO General Availability Launch Update Posted: 20 Jul 2010 11:13 AM PDT At 18:00 UTC (2:PM EDT), the .CO registry began accepting domain name registrations from approved registrars. If you have queued .CO domain names, these orders are being sent to the registry as quickly as possible. Registrant details will use Tucows details temporarily The .CO registry permits a set number of active connections per registrar, so our development team has streamlined the process as much as possible to make the most efficient use of these connections in order to register as many names as possible, in the fastest possible manner. One of the ways we’re optimizing the queue and to maximize the number of successful General Availability orders, we will be attempting to secure the name first, and then, if we are successful, we’ll assign the proper contact information. The temporary contact will use Tucows contact information. DO NOT PANIC if you or your customers see Tucows listed as the registrant – be patient, and the proper information will be added to the record soon after. Resellers using Storefront If you’re a reseller using Storefront, .CO will be enabled shortly.  You will need to enable it and setup pricing first before your customers will have it as a registration option however. See the section on ‘Enabling or Disabling TLDs’ in the Storefront Reseller User Guide for more information. A reminder on pricing Wholesale pricing can be found on our Domain Service page, under pricing, but here’s a quick reminder about .CO pricing: 2nd level registrations (ie. example.co) are $25 per year, 3rd level registrations (ie. example.com.co) $13 per year. Status updates for .CO We maintain a System Status tool for all services we offer and the .CO registry has been added to the ccTLD section. You can access these status updates via web, email subscription and RSS. For any performance and availability related incidents we experience during the queued registration period, or afterward, this status page is your best resource for realtime information monitoring of all OpenSRS services. If you’re a Twitter user, you can also find our updates at: @OpenSRSStatus

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Our Reseller-Friendly Approach to Sub-Resellers

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Our Reseller-Friendly Approach to Sub-Resellers Posted: 13 Jul 2010 06:08 AM PDT Last month we talked about the OpenSRS approach to wholesale domain name pricing and why we feel it’s the most transparent and reseller-friendly model in the industry. We've taken the same approach with our Sub-resellers program. The OpenSRS Sub-resellers feature allows you to set up your own network of domain name resellers using our back-end. The popularity of Sub-resellers since its launch last year has confirmed for us just how valuable this can be. It has also reinforced how important it is to our resellers that they manage these relationships. We built the Sub-resellers functionality with input from our existing resellers, and took a different approach than our competitors by giving full control to our resellers. Here are a few of the features that we believe make ours the most reseller-friendly sub-reseller program in the industry: Flexible pricing editor. Unlike some other options out there, our Sub-resellers pricing editor provides you with complete control over pricing. Whether you decide to price a group of TLDs at $12.99, or want to make sure you earn $2 on every sale, the decision is yours. You pick the price your sub-reseller pays. We provide you with the ability to create as many different pricing plans as you like, and the tools to view and manage pricing for your sub-resellers. Branding options that put the spotlight on YOU. We’ve placed a great deal of importance on branding. The Sub-resellers feature provides the capability to fully brand the experience to the needs of your brand and your customers. Email communication, logos, system messages, control panels and related interfaces have all been designed to be reseller friendly – to let you put your company and brand in front of your sub-reseller. Sub-resellers is free and designed for your business. Sub-reseller accounts can be created in seconds, either manually, or via the API. With no extra account setup costs, and multiple account funding options, it's a simple way to rapidly grow your network. We'll even manage the account funding on your behalf. There are no additional charges for this feature, and as an OpenSRS reseller it's already enabled for your account. I've only just scratched the surface of what's possible with the Sub-resellers feature and we're amazed at what some of our resellers have already accomplished in such a short period of time. The Sub-resellers option helps our resellers leverage the power of an alternate sales channel to increase sales, and to strengthen the relationships they have with their customers. I hope this provides you with yet another example of our strong commitment to building the world's most reseller friendly Domain Name Service on the planet and I encourage you to learn more about our capabilities. See it in action at HostingCon 2010 If you're going to be at HostingCon 2010 next week in Austin, TX, and you want to see more, you can request a meeting or just drop by our booth (link to hostingcon event page). If you aren't going to be in the area, then we also have a half-hour webinar that walks through Sub-resellers and talks about different ways to setup and manage your own sub-resellers network.

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Rejected .CO Sunrise Names Now Available in Landrush

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Rejected .CO Sunrise Names Now Available in Landrush Posted: 12 Jul 2010 10:00 AM PDT We’re in the Landrush phase of the .CO domain extension launch and for those looking for some great domains, CO Internet S.A.S., the registry operator for the .CO domain extension, has just published a list of domains that were originally put in as Sunrise applications, but that were eventually rejected. Download the full list (PDF 250kB) These domains are available for registration right now in the Landrush phase. If you had previously put in applications for Landrush domains only to find them unavailable, you may wish to re-submit the order as the name in question might be on the list of newly available domains. Landrush Extended Landrush was extended by the registry and will now close on Friday, July 16th at noon EDT. Landrush is open to everyone – there is a $5.00 non-refundable registration fee, and successful Landrush orders are $220 which includes the first year of registration (all costs shown are in US dollars). In the event that there are multiple applications for the same domain, that domain will go into an auction process where those who had submitted an application for the domain in question will be able to bid against each other for the rights to the domain. General Availability starts July 20 As mentioned, .CO goes into General Availability on July 20th at 2:00pm EDT. OpenSRS is taking pre-orders for General Availability now and on launch day we’ll be attempting to register as many of those pre-orders as we possibly can on launch day. For General Availability pre-orders, there are no fees other than the regular $25 one-year registration fee. If the order is successful on launch day, the domain is awarded and your account is charged. If the order isn’t successful, you aren’t charged anything. Is your Reseller account funded? For those with General Availability pre-orders in the queue, we will be putting the $25 registration fee for each pre-order on hold this week to ensure that the required funds are available at the time of attempted registration on July 20, 2010. If the registration is successful, you’ll be charged for the registration. If the order is unsuccessful, the hold on the funds will be released and you’ll be charged nothing. Please ensure that you have adequate funds in your account to cover the full value of the domains you have on pre-order. More Information Be sure to visit our .CO launch page where you will find more information about the .CO launch, including a package of marketing materials you can use in your promotion of the .CO extension. You might also want to check out the .CO webinar archive if you didn’t attend, or haven’t seen it yet. And the CO Internet website is also a good source of up-to-date launch information as well.

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OpenSRS rated “best bet” for securing a .CO domain name

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OpenSRS rated “best bet” for securing a .CO domain name Posted: 07 Jul 2010 02:50 PM PDT As general availability for the new .CO fast approaches, Domain Name Wire listed OpenSRS as a “best bet” for registering a .CO domain name based on a hyper-competitive price tag of $25. You can read more about maximizing your chances of getting a .CO domain at the Domain Name Wire. You can also learn more information (including webinars, launch dates, etc) on our .CO information page.

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Using Social Media? Improve Your Listening Skills Using Twitter Search

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Using Social Media? Improve Your Listening Skills Using Twitter Search Posted: 02 Jul 2010 08:01 AM PDT In an April 2010 survey, we asked our resellers about their social media engagement efforts. A respectable 39% said they were actively using social media tools like Twitter to acquire new customers and 35% were using social media to help them keep customers. During some informal follow-up conversations with our resellers, we were told that despite their efforts, many of our resellers were waiting to see a return on this investment and that engaging in social media was akin to an eight year old thrown into a swimming pool, with an overzealous father believing that if he yelled “swim! swim!” loud enough, the child would somehow figure it out. In worse cases, some staff dedicated to the role were complaining of burn-out out due to the sheer amount of realtime information they attempted to absorb while they separated the “wheat from the chaff”. Like swimming, social media isn’t a one day, jump in the pool and go kind of proposition. But the good news is that Social media does have the shallow end equivalent of the swimming pool: “Listening”. Using social media to effectively listen One of the simplest ways to avoid social media burnout is to map out what you want to listen for and then build that into the tools your team is using. For example, a major segment of our wholesale reseller base are webhosts and ISPs (Internet Service Providers). For webhosts and ISPs, identifying important search keywords like “cloud computing”, “control panel software”, “webhosting company”, “highspeed <citynamehere>” would all be relevant criteria since they would turn up conversations with people talking about these things. Effective searching = effective listening. It’s not a set-it-and-forget it proposition, but by careful searching, it becomes far easier to find the conversations you’re looking for in order to engage more effectively. The video below offers a beginning user a quick walkthrough that demonstrates how I use Twitter search, followed by adding these searches to Tweetdeck and Google Reader RSS. It’s saved me a lot of time over the years and I hope it will help you too.

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