2- Bored At Work Today?
Take some time for yourself and watch a few episodes of Hak5 on Revision3.com (http://revision3.com/hak5). Darren Kitchen is crazy smart and so funny. Comment back over here about something you loved on an episode, and we just might throw some free swag your way.
We understand the importance of implementing new ways to offer our customers previously registered premium domain names that are for sale by their owners. That’s why we’ve partnered with Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace.
Why Sedo? Partnering with Sedo was a great opportunity to provide direct access to the largest inventory of registered domains (over 15 million) and domain sellers.
Here’s how it works. Visit Domain.com, and search for a domain as you normally would. Now, instead of just seeing the word “Taken,” you’ll see the owner’s listed selling price (if they’ve posted the domain for sale through Sedo). If it’s the name you want, and the price sounds right, you’ll be able to make your purchase directly through your Domain.com account.
If you have any questions about this new service, please don’t hesitate to give Customer Support a call at 360-449-8458.
]]>“A .brand TLD gives marketers much greater control of their online identities. You can now promote your brand at the root of the Internet with shorter, less technical URLs. You can combine all your Web properties, including product sites, campaign microsites, and country-specific Web sites, under a single brand umbrella.”
“Some experts in the domain name industry are calling this a pointless service created by ICANN to profit off companies that will pay just to secure a brand identity. In turn, it also means more business for marketing agencies charged with giving a useful purpose to the costly extensions.”
“The New Top-Level Domain (TLD) Program has been controversial at times and has fuelled many passionate debates within the Internet community. However, it is important to remember that the implementation of new TLDs is written into ICANN’s founding mandate. It is also important to appreciate the level of research, planning, consultation, discussion and compromise that has gone into getting to this point.”
“By letting the market decide what is a desirable address, ICANN won’t be criticized for taking years to create top level domains that nobody really wants — while for some inexplicable reason never creating one we could really use: .movie.”
“People are already trained to understand that the language of the Internet is .com, it’s a meme that has permeated society. Yeah, a personalized domain might look cool, but the people who can afford it will probably have to revert back to the user experience, and users will continue to use and recognize the .com. If you want to make money, don’t confuse your users! I could be wrong about that. But I doubt it.”
“Think about what a mess this is going to become. Sure, any average Joe won’t be able to grab .ibm, but what’s to stop 5,000 different companies from clamoring for .computer? And how confusing is this going to get from a user perspective?”
“The decision to open the Internet to a flood of Web addresses ending in anything from company names to social movements could prove a boon to search engines.”
At Domain.com, we’re excited to see what exactly comes of this unknown quantity of new TLDs, and it’ll be a busy year for us preparing for the launch of numerous new TLDs. We’ll have to decide which ones to offer, when to offer them, and what prices to sell them at. We’ve known the approval of new TLDs was likely for a while now, but as of last week it’s no longer an “if”, but a “when”.
Leave your thoughts on the creation of new TLDs in the comments!
]]>But don’t take it from us. The crew at Film State make a compelling argument for why you should choose .TV:
The lesson? Don’t piss off the universe – get a .TV!
]]>Are you included in that 99% of satisfied customers? If so, we’re extremely appreciative when we see customers promoting us online to their followings and suggesting us to people looking for recommendations. We also generally reach out if we see a customer post a recommendation for us to their friends or followers and give those customers a discount coupon, a free domain name, some swag, or other thank-yous! If you post a recommendation about us, we definitely want to thank and reward you for it.
Many of our new customers come from word-of-mouth promotion, and social networks give us an exciting glimpse into how we’re being promoted. We also always appreciate candid feedback and look to incorporate it into our business processes and products.
The bottom line is we like hearing from our customers, and we want to thank and reward the customers we see promoting us online. Hopefully that includes you!
P.S. We have an affiliate program!
Interested in promoting Domain.com on your website? We have an affiliate program that pays you when you refer customers to us from your site, including bonuses as large as $110 when you sell a hosting package!
]]>If you’re reading this, the world didn’t end yesterday. That’s not to say things haven’t devolved into chaos with flesh-eating zombies everywhere. We just don’t know what may have happened, but hopefully you were prepared! Regardless, if you survived May 21st, now seems like a pretty decent time to make sure you’ve got a website. Here’s why:
Fringe scenario #1: The world has ended. You’re not reading this. Well okay. In that case, you probably don’t need a domain name.
Fringe scenario #2: The world didn’t entirely end, but like we mentioned above, zombies or asteroids or world-wide panic are presenting a problem. Better get a website set up STAT to help you locate your loved ones and organize against the zombie uprising.
Likely Scenario: May 21st came and went, and the media had a blast with all the attention. Your life continues as normal. However, you should take the fact that the world COULD have ended as a sign that now is the perfect time to begin pursuing your lifelong dreams and passions and start making a living off of them. In today’s global economy, the best place to get started doing that is online with a website!
Start today at Domain.com and use coupon code GETONIT to save 10% on your order!
But whatever you do, you’d better hurry! The Mayan calendar’s end of the world is only 18 months away!
]]>Some have speculated that LinkedIn is overvalued, but all recent trends have indicated that startups are once again hot commodities. Facebook and Twitter have also been valued in the billions of dollars (though they do not currently trade publicly).
So what does this mean to you? All of these businesses are growing rapidly and finding huge success, and all of them were started solely as online businesses. All of them were founded by entrepreneurs with an idea, a domain name, and a website. There’s nothing stopping you from doing the same thing. Embrace your entrepreneurial spirit and register the domain name for an idea that you’ve been considering. Or if you’re like many of us, you may have purchased domain names for various ideas but never followed through on creating a website and promoting the business idea. It’s never to late to get around to it, but jump on your idea now before someone else does!
Need more inspiration for creating your unique new business online? Here are some other recent startups with innovative ideas:
Sqaure is a new online startup that allows people to take credit card payments using their mobile devices. Square is attempting to disrupt the credit card payment model by not only making it easy for anyone to accept credit card payments, but also by reducing the fees paid to credit card companies.
Hipmunk wants to be the best online flight and hotel search tool available by giving a graph-based listing of available flights with numerous ways to sort, including price, duration, and “agony”
Paper.li is an innovative online company that allows you to turn blog posts, facebook updates, twitter posts, and more into an online newspaper that you can share with other.
So what are you waiting for? Buy a domain name and get started on a website for your startup, and you could be the next billion dollar online company! While that scenario may be a little far-fetched, starting an online company that supplements your income or allows you to make a living entirely is actually pretty manageable with the right idea and enough effort.
]]>The economy is still in rough shape, and while employment prospects for new graduates are improving a bit, it’s still no easy feat for a new graduate to land a job quickly. With a Google search taking just seconds, nearly all HR departments do a quick review of search results for job candidates to get more context on who they are. It’s absolutely critical that candidates rank well in Google for their name, and the content that displays for their name needs to give people reviewing the candidates confidence that they would be a good employee (Hint to job hunters: make your college party photos on Facebook private!).
A personalized domain name and website is one of the best ways to rank well in Google, and this will allow the new graduate to control the content that displays in search results. A personalized domain name such as “amyhoffman.com” or “brianrichards.me” will immediately convey professionalism to potential employers, and when a job hunter lists a website on their resume, it provides a clear way to learn more about an applicant than the resume alone can. A personal website doesn’t have to be complex; it can be a basic informational page or a resume. Websites allow job candidates to be much more creative and engaging than a standard resume format, because they allow for things like videos, photos, and portfolios that a piece of paper or an email attachment can’t convey! On the topic of email attachments, adding email to a personalized domain name will make an applicant seem even more professional when their resume comes from “paul@paulcameron.com”.
While every graduate is hopeful that they’ll find the perfect job straight out of school, the reality is that many of them will spend a long time job hunting before finding employment. Others will find jobs, but will quickly realize it’s not the perfect fit for their skills and interests. New graduates tend to have an entrepreneurial spirit and boundless optimism, and a website is a perfect way to let them explore their passions. An aspiring photographer can showcase their work with a web gallery, while a graduate with an electrical engineering degree can start a blog about their experiments with solar energy.
These sorts of side-projects often spur the ideas that turn into successful new small businesses, both online and brick-and-mortar. Plus, for those job hunting, sending out application after application is exhausting. Having side projects focused on passions and skills, and displaying those projects online, keeps morale high for job hunters. Plus it gives potential employers a sense of the applicant’s skills and abilities, and, more importantly, their passion for various subjects.
Employers look for candidates who are constantly seeking to improve themselves. In today’s job market, being tech-savvy and web-literate is one of the best ways for a new graduate to set themselves apart. A basic understanding of HTML, web design, and how to create a web page can go an extremely long way towards finding a job. This applies to a huge number of graduates with degrees such as business, journalism, sciences, design, engineering, education, and more! By giving a domain name and web hosting to a recent graduate, you’re setting them up with the tools necessary to learn how to build a website.
Do you want to help a graduate get set up with a website? If so, great! Domain.com offers everything needed to get started. The two basic things each website needs are a domain name and web hosting.
At the base level, all websites need a domain name. This is a great starting point if you’re looking for a small gift.
Website Hosting Options:
If you think a basic one-page website that can be created in minutes for someone with no website-building experience sounds about right, give our Instant Website product a try.
If you want to give a graduate the ability to build their own website from scratch or with numerous website-building tools like SiteBuilder or WordPress, one of our Web Hosting plans will be a great option. These plans all allow for maximum customization of websites, but also include an application vault with plenty of options to help build and manage a website. All of our Web Hosting plans also include custom email!
Congratulations to the class of 2011! And remember, your next great idea starts with a great domain name.
Questions about buying a domain name and web hosting for a graduate in your life? Ask us in the comments:
]]>Yes, we do plan on selling .XXX domains when they become available.
Read on to learn why.
ICANN has debated and delayed the creation of .XXX for years, but in late March they finally decided to allow it. During the debate back and forth, various pro-family groups came out against it, saying it would lead to the proliferation of obscene content online. At the same time, other pro-family groups came out in favor of .XXX with the reasoning that it would allow for greater filtering of adult content so that it becomes easier to block, etc. Many adult industry groups also expressed concerns with .XXX, fearing that there might be a push to restrict all adult content to only those domains rather than the .COM, .NET, and other domains currently in use today for adult content.
With all the various positions for or against .XXX, ICM Registry (the registry that will manage .XXX) is moving forward on releasing the new TLD with a focus on “promoting online responsibility” and making it clear that adult sites will not be forced to use .XXX, but instead will be encouraged to utilize good business practices including safeguarding children from adult content.
While some competitors are busy shooting elephants and filming their next racy commercials that could probably use their own .XXX domain, we are thinking about ways to improve the Internet for both users and content creators. Adult content will continue to exist online regardless of whether or not .XXX is introduced, but .XXX will help segment that content so that those who don’t want to view it or should not view it can filter it out.
At Domain.com, we strive to help reduce spam and low-quality sites, improve online safety, provide relevant information to visitors, and improve the organization and categorization of websites. .XXX will help in all of these categories, because it, along with the upcoming imminent launch of many new TLDs, will help to structure and segment the web so that visitors have context for what to expect on a website before they even visit. In this case, more options for domains will improve customers’ ability to name their website, and new TLDs will aid in direct navigation to websites as well as providing indicators to search engines and search engine users of content type. Just as you wouldn’t visit a .XXX site expecting a blog about healthy eating, you wouldn’t visit a .FOOD site expecting adult content.
We see .XXX as just one of many TLDs coming, and we want to offer as many of them as possible as long as it makes business sense for us to do so. We don’t want to set a precedent of limiting customers’ options when they purchase domains, so offering .XXX is just one step towards offering customers a huge variety of TLDs to find the one that’s the right fit for their site.
While .XXX is likely to be one of the more controversial new TLDs coming out, we’re excited to be able to offer our customers an even greater number of options for their websites.
]]>Botnets and the negative activities they can promote are one of the banes of online companies, and we’re no exception. Two major problems they pose for us are spam and DDoS attacks, but luckily we’ve taken preventative measures to protect against both threats. The good news is that there are recent positive signs that we (the Internet as a whole) may be making some progress in winning the war against botnets.
Progress Made
There have been several recent news events surrounding the takedown of botnets by the FBI in coordination with various tech companies. The two biggest recent takedowns have been the Rustock Botnet, which may have been responsible for up to a third of all email spam, and the Coreflood Botnet that was responsible for wire fraud and bank fraud.
A long Way to Go
However, there are plenty more botnets in existence with new ones still being built, and web spam is by no means a shrinking problem. Domain.com has taken actions to deal with both issues, specifically with our spam filtering built into our email products and our use of a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for our website. The CDN has proved to be particularly vital, as people sometimes use “domain.com” as an example or test domain, for both good and bad purposes. This includes as a testing domain for DDoS attacks, with the attackers likely not even realize they’re targeting our website in the process. However, our CDN has handled some huge DDoS attacks with ease, resulting in improved uptime and reliability for our website visitors. If you have a high-volume website and uptime is key, we highly recommend looking into a CDN.
How is Domain.com Helping?
Domain.com is helping to protect you and the web in several ways. Our fraud and abuse teams do an outstanding job making sure customers purchasing domains and using our web hosting are legitimate and do not have illegal or spammy intent for their services. Our automated security scripts for web hosting also regularly check to make sure our web hosting servers and customer content are free of viruses, malware, and other exploits that could lead to the creation of botnets or mass-spamming. We also work with government authorities when necessary to shut down customers who are abusing our services or using them for illegal activities per our registration agreements.
How can you help?
In general, be informed on how to stay safe online. Use strong passwords and keep various passwords for various logins, so that cracking your email won’t give an intruder access to your bank accounts, social profiles, etc.
Make sure you also perform good system scans for viruses and malware, as botnets only grow when they are able to compromise new computers. Individual computers running outdated software are often the easiest targets for hackers and automated scripts looking to compromise computers.
For more info, we recommend visiting StaySafeOnline.org for tips on how to improve your web security.
Winning the War?
There is certainly a long way to go in winning the war against malicious activity online, but at Domain.com we feel that a spam-free and abuse-free Internet is a realistic possibility in the long-term. The key to getting there is spreading knowledge among all users about the tactics that hackers utilize and how to protect against them. This is part of the reason we’re big fans of (and sponsors of) Internet TV show Hak5, which includes information on common hacking methods and the best ways to defend against them. Host Darren Kitchen is an extremely seasoned web security expert, so if you’re a tech geek who wants to learn more, we definitely recommend checking out the show.
Have thoughts on Internet security we haven’t addressed here? Feel free to leave your questions or thoughts in the comments below.
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