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Registrar Connections
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August 2006
In
this Issue:
Two
Events, One Location, Register Now!
Event #1:
North American Engineering Symposium: September 19, 2006, Mountain View,
CA
Register
now for the VeriSign Engineering Symposium event coming on
September 19 to VeriSign’s headquarters, just outside of beautiful San
Francisco. This is a chance for your technical teams to exchange ideas
and review the latest implementation and technical issues with the VeriSign
engineering staff. These face-to-face meetings continue our series
of technical events, and provide practical information and discussion
to improve the processes of domain name registration. Please pass
along to the colleagues who would best benefit from participating in
this event.
Topics:
Led by Mark House, VeriSign’s Vice President of Engineering,
this event will be packed with sessions and presentations full of valuable
information. The topics scheduled to cover include: The State of the
Domain Name Industry; Systems Changes and Updates, New Product and Services:
A technical overview; and EPP Migration: What you need to know.
Who Should Attend?
This registrar event is designed for technical teams tasked with
the implementation and integration of VeriSign products and services
into their domain name registration operations. The presentations and
discussions are highly technical, and provide an opportunity for registrar
staff to interact directly with VeriSign’s lead engineers. All registrars
are invited to attend, with particular emphasis on registrars in the
North American region. Our next Engineering Symposium event is tentatively
planned for the fourth quarter of this year, to be held in Europe.
For more details surrounding the event, visit our event
page to learn more and register. Hurry, time is running out.
Please contact us if you have any questions at namingmarketing@verisign.com.
Greater participation just means an even better event. Please be sure
to pass this along to any colleagues who fit the description above.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Event #2:
North American Registrar Days: September 19-21, 2006, Mountain View,
CA
Just after the Engineering Symposium, VeriSign will be holding
a Registrar Day event focusing on the particular dynamics of the North
American region. A few times each year, VeriSign brings together registrars
to share the latest data and information around the trends, research,
products and services that are affecting our industry and how to maximize
the opportunities that it provides. We continue with that goal
in Mountain View, with a special focus on issues affecting the North
American region. We intend these events to be an important communication
exchange as we seek to continually enhance our offerings and service
to you, our customers.
Deep in the Heart of Silicon Valley
Taking place at VeriSign’s Mountain View location, from September
19-21, this will be a data rich event, with presentations and information
designed to provide practical information that can be used to help achieve
your business goals for 2006 and beyond. Topics expected to cover
include: The
State of the Domain Name Industry; New Perspectives on Domain Name Usage;
New Product Overviews; Driving Domain Registrations; Plus. .com/.net
Business Overviews, Add-Delete Activity, Registrar Profile Research
and more!
Who Should Attend?
These events are more successful when there is high participation
and attendance from a wide range of registrars and their staff.
This event is designed for registrar professionals with responsibility
for: Business
and Product Strategy; Marketing and Sales Development; New Product Development;
and anyone tasked with improving the overall business performance of
their companies.
All registrars are invited to attend, with particular
emphasis on registrars in the North American region. Our next Registrar
Days event is tentatively planned for the fourth quarter of this year,
to be held in Europe.
For more details surrounding the event and other events,
visit our event
page to learn more and register. Hurry, time is running out.
Please contact us if you have any questions at namingmarketing@verisign.com.
Greater participation just means an even better event. Please be sure
to pass this along to any colleagues who fit the description above.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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Name
Store Acceleration and Automated Transfers
Regional ccTLDs on the Name Store currently enable
registrars to sell 54 of the most popular country code top level domains
in an easy and simplified way. And beginning August 24, the Name
Store will let you complete more business, faster. The new and
upgraded platform will provide up to 30 times the current capacity,
which will shorten response times. Name Store registrars will
gain the benefits of managing their existing portfolio more efficiently
and increase the delivery speed for new registrations.
Introducing Automated Registrar Transfers
News flash! In November, the Regional ccTLD program will
provide automated registrar transfers for 39 of its 52 ccTLDs.
The production release will be the culmination of 12 months of painstaking
research and development to enable our registrars to drive new business
from their customer bases from domain name transfers. One of the
many benefits of this automation is the level of simplicity this will
provide for Name Store registrars. Complex and numerous ccTLD
registrar transfer policies have been consolidated and streamlined within
the Name Store, giving registrars more time to focus on marketing campaigns
and transfer-in promotions to increase revenue and market share. Look
for more on these advancements as we get closer to the launch date.
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Domain
Names Surpass 100 Million Worldwide
The VeriSign Domain Name Industry Brief reports that
the domain name industry ended the second quarter of 2006 with over
105 million domain names. This is the first time that domain names
have surpassed the 100 million mark and represents a milestone for the
Internet. Continuing the healthy growth of the past year, this
milestone figure represents an eight percent growth over the first quarter
of 2006 and a 27 percent growth over the previous year. The Country
Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) experienced particularly strong growth,
10 percent, in the second quarter buoyed by the introduction of .eu,
the European Union ccTLD. In terms of total registrations, the
five largest Top Level Domains (TLD) are .com, the German ccTLD (.de),
.net, the British ccTLD (.uk) and .org.
The overall .com and .net base increased six percent
quarter over quarter resulting in more than 57.5 million .com and .net
domain names at the end of the second quarter. Nearly six million
new .com and .net domain names were added in the second quarter.
This continued strength in the second quarter was also reflected in
the 76 percent renewal rate for .com and .net domain names.
The Domain Name Industry Brief series highlights key
trends in the industry, key performance indicators and growth opportunities.
VeriSign will issue the latest report with full findings on August 28.
The report will be available here.
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RRP
Sunset - Automated Batch Pool
VeriSign established an Automated Batch Pool to support
registrars whose business practices include the execution of intensive
automated batch processing. This pool is completely separate from the
Guaranteed Pool and is accessed via a separate hostname. Intensive automated
batch processes should be performed in the Automated Batch Pool only.
VeriSign plans on making an EPP Automated Batch Pool
will be available in parallel with the RRP Auto-Batch Pool beginning
on October 3. The hostname for the EPP server will be epp-auto.verisign-grs.com.
The VeriSign plans on decommissioning the RRP Protocol
will be decommissioned from the .com/.net Production and OT&E Environments
during scheduled maintenance on October 28, 2006. This will include
decommissioning the RRP Auto-Batch Pool, per the July 27 notification.
Registrars must use EPP following the October 28,
2006 decommissioning maintenance and will no longer able to perform
transactions using the RRP Protocol. Access to the following RRP environments
will be terminated:
- rrp.verisign-grs.com
- rrp-auto.verisign-grs.com
- trrp1.verisign-grs.com
(OT&E)
From October 3 through October 28, registrars may
use any combination of RRP and EPP subject to the total Auto-Batch Pool
limit of four connections per registrar.
All registrars are encouraged to use the EPP OT&E
Environment (epp-ote.verisign-grs.com) to test client applications,
and are encouraged to migrate to EPP well in advance of the RRP decommission
date.
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Best
Business Practices: Keys to a Successful International Reseller Program
The Internet is experiencing growth across the globe,
providing opportunities for registrars willing to put the effort required
to expand their reseller network internationally. Through the course
of our own registrar development programs, VeriSign has identified several
key drivers in establishing successful partnerships with local industry
players in these emerging and under penetrated regions.
Finding the Right Partner
Clearly, a positive start is to thoroughly investigate the target
region, and look for potential reseller partners that feature some of
the following characteristics:
- Operates as an Internet
or web hosting services provider
- Has a leading top-ten
position within their industry segment
- Maintains a scalable
and stable technology infrastructure
- Provides extended
and quality customer service/support
- Has a presence in
the target country with strong knowledge of local business practices
- Owns a solid client
portfolio with extensive understanding of local consumer behavior
Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk
The most important thing a registrar must bear in mind when prospecting
resellers internationally is the language barrier. Any efforts
to have presentation or proposal documents translated, or having someone
that speaks the local language in your meetings would be appreciated
and make them much more effective and efficient.
Socializing and building a closer relationship is
fundamental in numerous cultures. Try to find out in advance how people
negotiate and close deals in the target location. Allow for time to
build trust and you will be compensated in the long term.
Turning a Good Reseller Prospect into a Good Partner
Once you have identified a good list of prospects to reach out
to, registrars should be prepared to provide the necessary support for
a smooth, timely launch such as:
- Translated agreements
and other administrative and legal documents, even if just as a courtesy
- Easy to implement
APIs in different programming languages
- Options of manual
or online registration systems
- Contact details
of a person who fluently speaks the reseller’s language in case a registrar’s
regular customer service assistance in English is not sufficient
- Alternative methods
of payment or money transfer to the reseller credit account, including
local bank account and/or by credit card
- Straight-forward
rules and guidelines on managing end-customer relationships
- Localized marketing
packages for advertising and promotion
International Success
Resellers and registrars alike need to be prepared to face the
market. Building a strong reseller network around the world requires
a well-thought out strategy. The more registrars invest in developing
and localizing back-end processes and products, the more resellers will
be able to leverage these tools and grow into successful local businesses.
With all the right pieces in place, registrars and resellers will be
poised to take advantage of the fantastic growth the industry is seeing
across the globe.
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The
.net Necessity
Which marketing tactic will bring you the most return?
While paid search is garnering a lot of attention, don’t forget
that your house email list is a valuable asset. In fact, 47%*
of marketers rated targeting your ‘E-mail house list’ as the best performing
online advertising tactic, second only to paid search ads.
How can you leverage your house list to drive new registrations?
There is opportunity to cross-sell a .net domain name to your
current .com registrants. They may have not thought about using
a .net so the following messages may resonate with them. Consider
an email campaign around one or more of these messages:
- You organize your
business to help employees perform efficiently, to ultimately deliver
stellar service to customers. Your online entity should be treated with
the same sense of urgency to be efficient and organized! Get .net for internal
website, email and other services, while you maintain your .com services for your customers.
- Your .com is the show window to the world, and your .net domain name is your operational business essential.
- Many mature companies
use a combination of .com and .net domains, each with specific purposes. This gives customers
a strong image of a professional entity and a robust, credible, reliable
organization.
- As businesses mature,
there is a need for more space, more infrastructure, more compelling
reasons than merely protecting your brand. Do not overburden your .com site.
That is the role of .net – which historically has served as a networking domain
and thus, plays a critical role in the infrastructure of the internet.
- Consumers and SOHOs
(small office/home office) recognize .net
with 93% brand awareness in North America, 74% in Asia and 89% in Europe.
They also perceive .net as a trustworthy domain name that offers them a professional
image.**
- The statistics compellingly
show that support the importance of .net as the infrastructure backbone of any enterprise. That’s
why 43% of all Web hosts are in the .net domain name space, 30% of all TLD domains depend on .net for name
service and three of the largest Web mail providers have a .net domain
name.**
With these messages in hand, leverage what marketers
agree is one of the best performing tactics and e-mail your house list.
Sources:
*“Targeting Pros and Cons,” Online Ad Targeting, www.eMarketer.com,
October 2005
**VeriSign Domain Name Studies in North America (2005), Europe
(2004), Asia (2005).
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Priorities,
Priorities: Making the Most of Name Store
Running a business is hard work. That's why it is
critical to work smart. It's easy for enthusiasm to dissipate
and for important plans to slip at best, or worse, become neglected
and forgotten. That's why at VeriSign, we want to refresh your memory
(and create a sense of business urgency) to the advantages of Name Store.
Recapture the reasons and priorities that made you sign up for Name
Store in the first place.
Save Time and Increase Revenue
Name Store alleviates the burden of integrating with multiple
ccTLD registries, involving time-consuming, exacting work that quickly
becomes cost-prohibitive. Using the Name Store to fulfill more
of your products provides time and cost savings. Let us do the
work and become your one-stop access to the most frequently requested
ccTLDs so you can reclaim your valuable time to focus on marketing your
products and growing your business.
Focus on Your Customers and Expand Your Business
Name Store takes care of the troublesome fulfillment and administrative
tasks that accompany many ccTLD’s. When you use the Name Store
you can spend your time delivering initiatives that make you a leader
in your industry and strengthen customer relationships to secure their
loyalty.
Run Your Business Efficiently
Name Store makes it easy for you to take advantage of all 54
of its ccTLDs. If you sell and manage just one ccTLD by going direct
to that Registry, you could be spending up to 61 business days a year
managing that single relationship instead of marketing your products,
selling more units and making a positive impact to your bottom line!
Expand your ccTLD offering to your customers
Name Store provides registrars with the opportunity to sell multiple
ccTLDs through a single API, one billing mechanism and one customer
service point-of-contact.
Your business success is our success, and using Name
Store makes it happen. You've taken the first step and signed up for
the Name Store. Now turn the Name Store advantage up to high power!
To learn more about Name Store, click
here.
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Customer
Service: Frequently Asked Questions
This section includes some recent questions handled
by the Customer Service group.
Question: Is there a limit to the number of characters that
an auth code can have?
Answer:
Yes. The limit is 32
Question: When is the RRP Sunset Date?
Answer:
RRP will sunset on October 28, 2006. If you have not already,
please take steps to ensure you have integrated EPP into your systems.
Question: Is it possible for an RRP Registrar to set an auth
code for a domain?
Answer:
Yes, they can set the code in the Registrar Tool.
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Special Report on Technology from eMarketer: Social
Networking Sites – Is it time for traditional marketing to get involved?
Are social networks ready for prime time?
Led by MySpace, now the seventh most visited site
in the US, social networking is a bone fide cultural phenomenon, but,
as an advertising revenue model, it is still "under development."
Even so, eMarketer estimates that this year experimenting
marketers will spend $280 million on social network marketing in the
US, and an additional $70 million in international markets, mostly to
create profile pages and sponsored promotions.
"Although MySpace is on track to generate an
estimated $180 million in ad revenue this year, its long-term prospects
are anything but certain. The site must deal with myriad issues, ranging
from sexual predators to unsavory content," says Debra Aho Williamson,
eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the forthcoming report, Social
Network Marketing: Carving Out Some MySpace. "On the other hand,
it is adding members at a rate of more than six million a month and
has more than tripled its number of monthly visitors in the past year."
The good news is that social networking is an area
where many marketers are eager to test the waters. The bad news is that,
in time, many social networking ventures will no doubt be shelved as
grand experiments.
"The overall concept of social networking is
a powerful thing and it is not going away," says Ms. Williamson.
"The underlying concept will influence the way advertising is done
in all media, not just online."
People use social network sites to form connections
with other people and bridge their online life with their offline life.
And companies whose business is built on creating buzz need to tap into
those connections in order to effectively market to tastemakers. Social
networking, by bringing together friends and strangers alike, enable
instant communication and provide an easy way to share content (whether
self-created or from another source) and offer a single source for viral
marketing and word of mouth. "Hollywood studios and automotive
companies have been at the forefront of social network marketing. They
are businesses with a steady stream of new products to promote,"
says Ms. Williamson. "But even for companies whose products are
more mundane, or not youth-targeted, social networking provides opportunities."
Social network ad spending will account for 1.7% of
the $16.7 billion spent on US online advertising in 2006, rising to
6.3% in 2010.
Globally, social networking will be an estimated $350
million business in 2006, rising to $2.5 billion in 2010.
"Regardless of the social networking venue that
marketers use, gaining an understanding of how messages are spread virally
and involving customers (and potential customers) in the marketing process
are two things that will surely pay off in the future," says Ms.
Williamson.
Don't be lost in the social whirl, sign up to be notified
when eMarketer's report, Social Network Marketing: Carving Out Some
MySpace is released.
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In The News
This section contains a selection of articles pertaining
to the Domain Name Industry compiled by Information, Inc.
"Divided By a Common Language"
Guardian
Unlimited (UK) (07/27/06); McCarthy, Kieren
The Internet is not exactly global in scope for people
in countries outside of Europe and the Americas, countries that do not
use Latin-based languages such as Asian and Middle Eastern nations.
People in these countries who do not know English or another Latin-based
language must at minimum master the unfamiliar letters that make up
.com, .net, .org, and other domain endings. In addition, they often
have to search through volumes of English-language text to find a translation
button, or have to comb through blizzards of English-language Web sites
to find an oasis of Web sites in their own native language. ICANN, Internet
expert Vint Cerf, and the U.K. Parliament are among those who believe
that Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in non-Latin-based languages
is the single most pressing concern for the future of the Internet as
a global system. The emergence of other Internets in non-Latin languages
with their own DNS roots is the main threat to the continued existence
to a single World Wide Web. China already has created Chinese-language
equivalents to .com, .net, .org; China announced it this past February,
but has not broken off from the Internet. Israel has an internal system
in Hebrew; Iran, Syria, Japan, and Korea have similar systems; and Microsoft
plans to debut its own IDN system as part of its newest version of Internet
Explorer. Right now all these systems are added onto the Internet itself,
but how long this status quo may last without a global integration of
IDNs remains to be seen.
(http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/15/79340_HNipv6_1.html)
"Dot-Mobi Fence-Sitting"
Wireless
Week (07/01/06) Vol. 12, No. 14, P. 20; Marek, Sue
Although the dot-mobi initiative has the backing of
several leading companies and trade associations, not everyone is convinced
that the new top-level domain will be a success. Jupiter Research senior
analyst Julie Ask believes there is not enough demand for wireless Internet
browsing to make .mobi a success in the near future. Today about 10
percent of cell phone subscribers use their cell phones for Internet
browsing, says Ask. CM4all CTO Cornel Schnietz concurs, noting that
many mobile Web browsers already route a user to a mobile-friendly version
of a Web site if someone enters a .com address. Schnietz believes that
mobile devices will continue to improve their browsing functionality,
and this also will make .mobi moot. Still, Schnietz says that .mobi's
specifications are an excellent way to ensure Web sites are mobile-friendly.
As companies increasingly offer wireless-focused Internet content, users
will come, says mTLD CEO Neil Edwards. Fox Mobile is one of those companies
just beginning to strategize its wireless Internet strategy, and Fox
Mobile has purchased just a few .mobi names to start. Mobile Internet
music company Mixxer plans to see how these "early adopters"
perform with .mobi before jumping in itself, says Mixxer CEO Bill Bryant.
(http://wirelessweek.com/article/CA6347000.html)
"Aussie Steps Into ICANN Hot Seat"
iTWire
(07/14/06); Corner, Stuart
Aussie corporate affairs specialist Paul Levins has
been named the first vice president of corporate affairs at ICANN. Though
admitting that ICANN is far from perfect, Levins says that its Internet
governance model "has been successful and it has been scrutinized
though the U.N. process and the World Summit on the Information Society
in Tunin. I think ICANN has enough credibility and the ICANN board has
key architects like Vint Cerf and people who currently manage the Internet
globally. It has built up enormous credibility." He stresses that
ICANN's model may not be the best available but it is the one the world
will have to deal with, so it's best to correct flaws, a major one being
ICANN's failure to communicate effectively with stakeholders, particularly
those in the non-English-speaking world. This is largely due to the
fact that the organization does not have a staff exclusively tasked
with this goal. "They had a media advisor who did the job for a
couple of years after they started up, but even that role has been empty
for the past year," he said. "So the burden has fallen onto
the senior management team and they have had to share that along with
their other responsibilities. That is less than desirable: You need
someone with specialist skills." Levins intends to fill that role,
which will also entail the revamping of ICANN's Web site to reflect
the international nature of the Web. "I want to have a 'DNS for
Dummies' in book form and to experiment with a lot of visual material
in a cartoon or comic book form: the sort of thing people can pick up
and say, 'This is how I can participate in the management of the Internet.'"
(http://www.itwire.com.au/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4964&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=127)
© Copyright 2006 Information, Inc.
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