Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Peru Telco Seeks to Promote .PE to SMEs

September 30, 2009

The Peruvian telecommunications company, Red Cientifica Peruana (RCP), is planning to assist one million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to gain a web presence in the next 3 years using .PE domain names. The idea is by getting more Peruvian businesses online their competitiveness will be enhanced.

90% of SMEs do not have identity on the Internet. We want all to use the domain .PE as a DNS symbol. We hope to have this program well underway in 2010, said Rolando Toledo, general manager of RCP.

We will grow 10% this year. The second semester of 2009 will be very interesting although our predictions are conservative. We hope to have a turnover of almost US$ 5 million.

Toledo estimated that by the end of the year they would have given their clients close to 50 thousand domain names and said this includes several thousand bloggers in their free blogs service.

This is a long term marketing plan. Just by developing the blog platform and being successful will benefit us as business through the publicity that is put in these spaces, Toledo concluded.

Birthday of .SU

September 28, 2009

On September 19, domain SU (the Soviet Union) celebrated its 19 years’ anniversary. Domain SU has been delegated to the USSR in 1990 a year before the collapse of the Soviet Union and 3,5 years before the creation of Russian ccTLD RU, that is considered as “.SU successor”.

“Domain SU was not delegated to the Soviet Union (although technically it was so). At that time, when the Soviet Union began to collapse, delegation meant the birth of new Internet community. So in fact, domain SU was like a guide and even a symbol of democratic development”, says Alexei Platonov, Director of Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN), which is still playing the role of the Technical Center of domain SU.

During its history domain SU had several key milestones. It is important to remember the 5 fold reduction in the cost of registration in 2007, implementation of IDN support in 2008 and then conferring to the official international “SU code” status “exclusively reserved” by ISO. All events mentioned above caused the quantitative growth in number of registrations in 2007 2008.

According to the statistics provided by web site Stat.nic.ru, today more than 80,000 names are registered in ccTLD SU. The domain demonstrated 600% increase in 2008. Unfortunately, last year the growth of registrations in domain SU significantly decreased. The overwhelming majority of domain names in ccTLD SU are registered by the residents of Moscow (nearly 52%), Moscow Region (10%) and St. Petersburg (8%). By the way, the largest number of .SU names (92%) are registered by Russian residents, remaining 8% by foreigners and international companies from USA, Ukraine, Belize, Kazakhstan, Belarus, France, UK, etc.

Names in “The Soviet Union domain” can be registered using the symbols of 250 national languages. About 18,000 IDN domains already exist in ccTLD SU, most of them in Russian 14,500. Among popular symbols are also Greek, Arabic and Hebrew.

184 Million Domain Names Registered

September 28, 2009

There are now 184 million domain name registered, according to the he second quarter 2009 Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign.

This represents a 1% growth over the first quarter of 2009 and a 9% growth over the same quarter of 2008.

The base of country domain names (ccTLDs) rose to 74.4 million domains, a 14% increase year over year and a 1% increase quarter over quarter. In terms of total registrations, .com continues to have the highest base followed by .cn (China), .de (Germany) and .net.

Around 9 million new domain names were registered in the second quarter of 2009. This reflects a reduction in new registrations with a 14% decline from the first quarter 2009 and a 15% decline from the same quarter in 2008.

As seen in past years, there is seasonality in domain name registrations with the second quarter of the year dropping from the first quarter. In second quarter 2009, the impact of seasonality as well as the overall weak economic conditions impacted the number of new registrations.

The composition of the domain name industry and rank order in terms of base size remained consistent with that of first quarter 2009. The largest TLDs in terms of base size were .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .info, .nl (Netherlands), .eu (European Union), and .biz.

The size of the base for .cn and .de were nearly equal at the end of the second quarter with .cn just edging out .de.

ccTLD Breakdown

The second quarter of 2009 ended with 74.4 million country domain registrations, representing a 14% increase over the same quarter of 2008 and a 1% increase from the previous quarter.

There are more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, but the top 10 ccTLDs comprise 66% of the total number of registrations.

Registrations for .ar (Argentina) domain names grew the fastest with an 8% growth quarter over quarter, which may be related to the opening of IDN registrations at the end of March.

Russian Federation (.ru) domain name registrations grew by 7%, a slightly slower trend than previous quarters but still the second fastest growing among the largest ccTLDs.

The Brazilian ccTLD, .br, also saw domain name registrations grow by 7% over the quarter which was likely due to liberalization of registration requirements for .net.br in April 2009 and .com.br in May 2008.

The Chinese ccTLD, .cn, which had been experiencing notable growth, saw the overall base of registrations decline 8% quarter over quarter.

Only four, .ar, .au (Australia), .br (Brazil), .pl (Poland) of the top 25 largest ccTLDs experienced quarterly growth rates in the second quarter of 2009 that were higher than the growth rates in the first quarter of 2009. Four of the top 25 largest ccTLDs, .ru, .pl, .br, and .fr (France), experienced growth rates year over year in excess of 25%.

In terms of the total base of domain name registrations, .cn, .de and .uk were the largest ccTLDs. Year over year, .cn growth rate was 9%. Rounding out the top three ccTLDs were .de and .uk, at 6% and 11% growth year over year, respectively. Together, the bases of domain name registrations for these three ccTLDs represented 45% of all ccTLD domain name registrations.

Web Shake-up: New Domains Coming

September 23, 2009

Big businesses will shell out for custom Internet domain names in the next few years when hundreds of new suffixes become available to supplement .com, .gov, .org and others.

Expect domain names such as .dupont, .exxon mobil, .amex and .pepsico to flourish.

There will be lots of generic domain names, too. Look for .realtor, .food, .green, .wine, .nyc, .boston, .music, .hospital and others. They won’t come cheap: The application fee will be $185,000. That will cover legal costs, processing fees and work needed to ensure that an applicant is legitimate and technologically capable of running a separate domain.

To stave off disputes about what company or organization will get a prized domain name .airline, for instance ICANN will aim to award proposed names to logical recipients, such as giving the domain .realtor to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), even if several independent realty firms bid for the rights.

The NAR would then be empowered to manage the domain and allow interested real estate agents, for a fee, to sign up and be part of the domain. It’s expected that many companies in a given industry will want to be part of the custom domain to show customers and clients that they are legitimate industry players.

Cities may also see a custom domain name, such as .kansas city, as a revenue raiser, enabling officials to charge merchants a barbeque restaurant, for instance that want to be identified with the city for marketing purposes.

ICANN will hold a tight rein on the process. It may approve .restaurant, for instance, but not endless variations, such as .restaurants or .dining or .formal dining.

ICANN is expected to formally approve the initiative later this year and begin accepting proposals for custom domains in the first six months of next year. In some cases, ICANN will use an auction (after the application fee) to determine what company or organization may be awarded a favored domain name, such as, fourseasons for either the gourmet Four Seasons restaurant or the Four Seasons hotel chain. ICANN will retain the right to reject applications rather than get bogged down in endless disputes over names such as islam or einstein, or whether a proposed domain may be seen as offensive.

The organization is also setting up a dispute arbitration and appeal process in anticipation of hard to resolve domain right issues.

City Specific Domains Soon for South Africa

September 21, 2009

South Africans could soon choose to register their internet sites by using city specific domains, or specialty fields like sport instead of the .co.za domain, the .ZA Domain Name Authority recently said.

This was due to the boom experienced in the .za domain, said .ZA Domain Name Authority general manager, Vika Mpisane in a statement.

“The number of internet users now using the South African domain co.za has passed the 500.000 milestone and is increasing at an impressive rate as more and more people register.

“The authority is looking at offering South Africans more secure and easily identifiable options in .za… a limited number of new domains may be opened to provide users with a wider choice including city specific domains”, said Mpisane.

Apart from considering domains like sport, food and local city specific ones, the authority was also considering re opening domains like web.za and net.za, said Mpisane.

“The recent experience globally has shown that city specific domains may generate a lot of excitement in the market. The Authority will be willing to explore the possibility of adding city specific domains in .za,” he said.

The ADR process currently covers the .co.za domain only, the largest under the .za banner.

He said the boom on the .za domain was due to South African businesses being aware of the benefits of registering with their country’s domain name.

“There are vital reasons to register a .za domain name. Not only do you enjoy the benefit of your country of location being easily identifiable online, as opposed to .com or .org where you are somebody somewhere in the world, you also know that any legal disputes over your name will be settled locally.

“This is not the case with non South African domains when you register a .biz, .com, or .net names, you are exposed to foreign jurisdictions which might have severe cost implications.

1,5 Millionth .fr Domain Registered

September 21, 2009

On September 10, France Domain Registry registered its 1,5 millionth .fr domain name. This domain was registered by a group of professional performers called Les Secoues du Vocal.

Its site, www.lessecouesduvocal.fr, draws back the curtain on the shows, singing lessons, workshops/ musical comedies etc. offered by these performers, who have decided to go for the .fr extension.

The main purpose of this company is organizing theatrical shows (mainly musical comedies), while also offering singing lessons, drama workshops and various musical creations jingles for adverts, music for films and events etc. In setting up this site, the founders were above all hoping to get their company better known and publicize their latest shows.

The .fr extension was a natural choice given that they are based in France, but also on account of how well known, effective and practical it is. As one of the co founders highlighted We decided that .fr was the right choice for us given our audience, which is mainly centered on the Haute Savoie region. Furthermore, our website is exclusively francophone”.

The .fr extension certainly seems to be on a roll, hitting the 100,000 mark in October 2002, the 500,000 mark in July 2006 and one million in January 2008. The .fr extension represents 80% of the net growth in the domain name market in France in 2008/2009, with a 25% increase in volume compared to 10% for the market as a whole.

This success can be readily explained by the simplicity, speed and affordability of registering .fr domain names. More than ever, .fr is the preferred extension for addressing a French audience in French.

Open Registration of .CM Starts September 18

September 17, 2009

.CM Domain Registry for Cameroon has announced that registration of first level .CM domain names will begin on September 18, 2009. As from this date you will be able to order .CM domains in our website.

The registration fee for domains directly under .CM with Registrar Marcaria.com will be USD 125 for a 1 year registration period.