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Issue #10 - Spring 2009
Webnames.ca's Corporate Domain Management News
We hope your year is off to a good start. Read our recap of domain industry news from the past few months below. You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/webnames
In this Issue:
.TEL - A New Internet Standard for Integrated Communication
Many of you have already registered or pre-booked your .TEL domains. Others have heard by now that .TEL is different but are not sure their business needs another domain name. With .TEL General Registration on the horizon, we thought it was important to explain how .TEL is not your average domain.
.TEL is not for hosting a website and is more than another extension you’ll forward to your primary website or blog to funnel traffic. .TEL was designed to facilitate rapid connection. It stores your business’s contact data directly in the DNS instead of returning an IP address. Because .TEL does not map you to another location on the Internet, it is incredibly fast at pulling information. Think of it as the ultimate business card.
When TelHosting launches on March 6th, yourbusiness.tel will function as a live, interactive communications hub where you can publish all your means of communication, for example: phone, mobile, fax, VoIP, IM handles, email addresses, critical links and more. TEL's ability to store structured information will give your customers more options for getting in touch and will connect them quickly to the right area of your company.
To see how .TEL will work, enter your business name in the .TEL Simulator or watch our short video for business users. To learn more, visit our comprehensive .TEL resource page where you can access articles, videos and tutorials about
everything from configuring your .TEL through to what apps are currently being for iPhone and Blackberry users.
Key .TEL Business Benefits
- Makes your company easier to find, to reach and to remember
- Routes online customers directly to specific departments or branches
- Features click-to-connect functionality for phone, mobile, email, chat, etc
- Drives traffic to your web site without hosting or coding
- Can be updated or accessed from any internet enabled device
- Increase online discoverability in different markets through multi-lingual keywords
.TEL Registration Options
Landrush - $375US for 3 years - Register today.
This advanced registration period is open to everyone. It allows businesses to secure important non-trademarked names before General Registration begins.
General Registration - $19.99US for 1 year - Pre-book today.
Webnames.ca will accept pre-book requests for .TEL until aprox. 6:00am PST on March 24th, one hour before 'Go Live' begins. Increase your chances of securing the .TEL name(s) you want by pre-booking them early. We submit all pre-book requests the second registration opens and you only pay for successful registrations.
Twitter for Business – Is it right for you
As the saying goes, “everybody’s doing it”, but does that mean your business should be on Twitter? It depends. Twitter was not designed with businesses in mind; however, corporate culture has embraced it in a big way over the past year mainly because the rest of world has. Conservative reports place worldwide Twitter users in the tens of millions.
For the uninitiated, Twitter is a social messaging utility that is often described as a "micro-blog". Users log into their Twitter account and post messages ("tweets") of up to 140 characters. For businesses, Twitter can be a great way to build relationships, expand your network, share your expertise and monitor your brand; however, it’s important to remember that Twitter is a community — not an advertising space or target audience.
Twitter experts have the following tips for businesses joining the Twittersphere:
- Before you sign up, have an objective. It can be simply to share ideas or connect with others in you industry. This will help you focus your efforts.
- Share informative links, pose questions, reference other people’s tweets and add to the conversation. Try to participate meaningfully in your community, whatever it may be.
- Follow a manageable number of people and try to keep your followers to followee ratio relatively equal until you’re confident.
- Don’t focus narrowly on you or your products. tweet about the cool things other people and businesses are up also. Occasional promotion is acceptable, but only after you’ve established real relationships.
- Share something that "humanizes" your business - pictures, causes, goings-on, interesting things your co-workers are up to, etc.
It may be termed micro-blogging, but Twitter is not a micro sized commitment - it requires considerable mindshare, energy and time to do it well. There are a lot of great resources out there to help you start out on the right foot. Below is a list of recommended reading that we found helpful when we decide to take the plunge.
Domain Industry News
ICANN has released a second draft of the Applicant Guidebook detailing the process of applying for new gTLDs. ICANN has also published an analysis of the comments received so far (PDF). A video update of the Applicant Guidebook and New gTLD Process can be viewed at http://www.icann.org/video/ . As a consequence of overarching issues raised with respect to trademark protection, security and stability, malicious conduct, and demand and economic analysis, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey has stated that "it is unlikely that the application round will open before December 2009". Comments
on the revised draft Guidebook are being accepted until April 13.
ToysRUs has bought toys.com at auction for $USD 5.1 million.
Worldwide Domain Name Growth Slows – VeriSign’s quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief [PDF], indicates that during 2008 the number of domain names worldwide grew by 24 million to a total of 177 million, an increase of 16%. The 2007 annual increase was 27%. ccTLDs registrations totaled 71.1 million.
The annual increase for 2008 was 22%, as compared to 33% in 2007. The most popular domains of 2008 were .com, .cn, .de, .net, and .org. Also notable is how the .cn domain for China moved from fourth to second place on the list.
List of the top 100 .CA domain sales of 2008.
ICANN’s Strategic Plan July 2009 through June 2012 is now available to the public.
One and two character .MOBI domains are now available from the dotMOBI Registry. Interested companies "who will use the domains to drive the adoption of the mobile Web” are invited to submit expressions of interest.
The Scottish Government has set up a working group with the aim of creating a top-level domain .scot or .sco for the worldwide family of Scots.
Recent Domain Disputes & Resolutions
- Yachtworld, Nova Scotia Company, U.L.C. wins a dispute over yachtworld.ca.
- Extreme Fitness, Inc. wins a dispute over extremefitness.ca.
- Discovery Toys, Inc. wins a dispute over discoverytoys.ca.
- Best Buy Enterprises Services Inc. wins a dispute over computergeeksquad.ca.
View the decision documents
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