Help & Support Portal Updates

---

Help & Support Portal Updates Posted: 20 Feb 2013 06:54 AM PST With the new OpenSRS Help & Support Portal now fully up and running for a few months now, I thought it would be good to show you some of the places where we are sharing important information with you. Announcements Upcoming Maintenance: we’ll post things like registry maintenance announcements and planned OpenSRS maintenance here. We’ll continue to provide realtime updates via OpenSRS Status. Release Notes and Change Logs: Starting on February 28, 2013, we’ll be posting a changelog for OpenSRS Services. This posting will detail the changes made to OpenSRS services, the API and Control Panels in the last month. Going forward, this log will be posted on the last Thursday of the month. You’ll also find release notes for things like goMobi, SiteLock and other services that are provided by third-party vendors when available. Service Bulletins: In the event of unplanned outages or other disruptions of service, we endeavour to provide a summary of the reasons behind the disruption and what we are doing to prevent a reoccurrence. You’ll find those bulletins within a day or two of the conclusion of the outage or interruption. We do our best to be as open and transparent about any issues as possible and we invite your comments if you have any. Services Knowledge Base Those visiting the portal on a regular basis will note that we’ve been steadily adding articles to the Services Knowledge Base. It is our intention to continue to add content here to help answer some of the questions that you might have without requiring you to open a ticket. The search function in the new portal is pretty effective and if you create tickets directly in the portal, you’ll be given suggestions for articles that may hold the answer to your question. Over the last couple of months we’ve created dozens and dozens of new articles in the various categories. You’ll also note that we’ve moved content related to specific policies and documentation for certain ccTLDs to the Services Knowledge Base in the Domains category. Community Forums Last but not least, we’re seeing increased activity in our Community Forums since moving from the old forum software into the new, unified portal. Feel free to drop in and ask any questions that you might have there. Unlike our previous forums which were primarily user-to-user, our support staff are monitoring things fairly closely and are happy to step in and answer your questions there.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Holiday Hours for Family Day, Monday, February 18, 2013

---

Holiday Hours for Family Day, Monday, February 18, 2013 Posted: 14 Feb 2013 12:13 PM PST Our Toronto office will be closed on Monday, February 18th, 2013, for the annual Family Day holiday here in Ontario. This is a mid-winter holiday celebrated in most Canadian Provinces. The idea is to give people a long weekend break in February, and a day off work and school to spend time doing stuff as a family. Most of us will be doing just that (including Payments and Compliance), but some staff will still be in the office to help you out if you need it. Reseller Support will be available as usual (by phone and live chat between 8am and 8pm EST, and via email) despite the holiday. We wish a happy Family Day to our resellers in Canada, and also a happy President’s Day to our friends south of the border.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

New gTLDs and OpenSRS

---

New gTLDs and OpenSRS Posted: 24 Jan 2013 06:44 AM PST By now you’ve heard about the new gTLD program in the works at ICANN; concerning the text right of the dot. Its been in the works for quite a while now and looks like its going to be another year or two before all the dust settles on the initial 2,000+ applications. So far we haven’t really talked about it, unlike some of the other registrars, because frankly there isn’t a whole lot of actionable news yet to share. We have however been following the developments quite closely, and like the rest of our domain business we’re going to bring our resellers as many of the new public gTLDs as possible. In the meantime, we’ve set up a new page on the site explaining our position and outlook, along with a high-level overview of the roll-out timeline. We’ll be updating the page as new major developments come out, and when we get closer to actually having a new gTLD in the OpenSRS platform we’ll make sure you know about it in advance. We also invite you to hop into our community forum and ask us and the community any questions you have about the new gTLDs.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Which Site Seal do People Trust the Most? (2013 Survey Results)

---

Which Site Seal do People Trust the Most? (2013 Survey Results) Posted: 22 Jan 2013 08:55 AM PST We just found some interesting third-party research from the Baymard Institute regarding consumer’s perceptions of SSL and Trust seals. The survey, from January 2013, specifically focused in on e-commerce websites and gave the following results, showing Trust seals outpacing all of the SSL seals with the exception of Norton. Its an interesting article and I recommend clicking through to read more about the results and some of the implications. Including their suggestion sites show multiple seals to increase perceived site security; while also of course improving site security.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo

---

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo Posted: 21 Jan 2013 06:52 AM PST We are checking out a new industry show this year that we think could be relevant to a lot of you. Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas at The Venetian & Sands Expo Feb. 27-March 1. It looks similar to the hosting conferences where we tend to meet many of you. Companies like us with products and services to offer come to meet companies like you with end user relationships to offer. This event is focused on the telecom industry. We will be talking mostly about Ting and a bit about our email service. If you offer mobile, VOIP and other telephony solutions to your business customers, this could be chance to learn a bit about the latest trends and products and connect with some of the providers. If you have not ventured into this world much, it is a chance to gauge the opportunity. It sounds like it will be well attended. We would love to see some of you there. You can register here. Use our code, exh13, for a free pass to the Expo Hall or $50 off the Conference and Expo Pass.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Ting Offers: Updated for BYOSD

---

Ting Offers: Updated for BYOSD Posted: 15 Jan 2013 01:19 PM PST Great news! We’ve updated the backend of Ting Offers to now include customers who bring their own Sprint device to Ting; including phones purchased through Glyde. Previously customers who chose those options didn’t receive an account credit and the resellers who referred them didn’t receive credit for the account. As of Monday, we’ve updated the Offers system to support those customers who will now receive a $25 service credit on their account and resellers will receive their referral credit in the same fashion as new customers. In regards to the end-user experience for BYOD; we know it still needs some work to provide a cleaner and clearer path for customers. Rest assured, if a user clicks through your URL to get the cookie, and then visits ting.com/byod, the end user will get a $25 credit and the reseller is assigned to that user for their bounty or revenue share. We are actively working to provide the end user a clearer path for this process so they know they’re getting the discount throughout the process. Just a reminder the Ting offers have changed as well today, as we’ve mentioned before. Please make sure you’ve updated your communications to reflect the changes. As we continue to develop Ting and the Offers plan for resellers, please continue to send in your feedback.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

The platform: key to the hosting sector’s future

---

The platform: key to the hosting sector’s future Posted: 14 Jan 2013 05:57 AM PST Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series of guest posts by Phil Shih, founder of Structure Research. The hosting business is young and has a bright future ahead of it. But the market is getting tougher and big names like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are circling the sector. What can hosters do to fend them off? What are the keys to competing and winning long-term? The best place to find the answer is to look at the sector's success stories. In the cloud we only need to look as far as Amazon Web Services. In dedicated hosting SoftLayer went on a massive run with its automation mantra and in shared hosting we have seen hosters succeed by unlocking the up-sell challenge. What do these three success cases have in common? They were driven by a platform. What is a “platform”? What do we mean by a platform? In a nutshell, a platform is a unified and consolidated infrastructure delivery system built on a single back end (provisioning, management and billing) and consumed by the end user on-demand and in a highly automated fashion. Amazon's platform might not be the easiest thing in the world to use but for technical users it is a highly cohesive set of virtualized infrastructure services available through a single set of APIs. SoftLayer does the same but with a much better user experience and for a much wider range of infrastructure types (dedicated, virtual, cloud). And in shared hosting the providers that have prevailed have grown ARPU by enabling existing customers to easily buy additional services. A good example of a platform in the shared hosting market is Parallels Automation, which is user by hosters to deliver hosting infrastructure and SaaS applications from one back-end with a single front-end user experience. Why Platform? Why is the platform so crucial? Because it is the foundation of the two main ingredients for hosting success: backend efficiency and an enjoyable end user experience. Backend efficiency translates into margins. And margins mean more available resources for investment in marketing, customer support or product development. An enjoyable and efficient user experience means happy customers that renew and buy more services. It also means easier and faster up-sells. All this translates into margin and higher ARPU, which reinforces customer stickiness. Make no mistake. The platform is the key to the sector's future. Hosters have to continually be ruthless about efficiency and margins and the platform ensures that. There are well-resourced challengers encroaching on the sector and hosters will not be able to leave anything to chance. With an increasingly competitive landscape and tightening prices hosters will also have to boldly differentiate. The platform is uniquely positioned to solve that problem by creating user experiences that convince customers to eschew other options. Platforms are not a new thing and they are far from revolutionary. But the sector will need to continually perfect and refine them in order to keep the challengers at bay. For those hosters with messy and legacy-oriented backend systems they should be thinking now about how to integrate them into a platform. The good news for hosters is that there are few fundamental game changes in hosting. The sector moves at a deliberate and evolutionary pace. There is time for hosters to get this right and remain a viable and valuable option for infrastructure service delivery.

You are subscribed to email updates from OpenSRS Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610