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News, tips and reviews from one of Ireland's leading hosting companies |
As of a few minutes ago we have dropped the price of IE domains across the board.
No special links or coupons required.
ALL IE domains are now 21 euro ex-vat for both new registrations and renewals.
We've also got a list of the latest dropped IE domains, so you can grab a previously owned domain - nothing wrong with secondhand domains!
As we mentioned previously, we are one of the sponsors of the Irish Internet Association's Congress, which takes place this year in Dublin's Croke Park.
Full details of the event may be found here
If you would like to avail of a 20% discount on booking simply use the coupon code: Congress2008
As we're sponsors of the event some of our staff should be around during the day, so keep an eye out for them!
It's amazing what designers come up with at times!
Mouse over it to see what it's all about ....
For the last few months we have been regular advertisers in a number of UK magazines including Linux Format.
Print advertising is an interesting "game". You can spend a fortune and reap no return or spend very little and see your sales jump over night.
For the first few months of our advertising "run" in Linux format we didn't do anything really "special" with our ads. The ads we ran were the same as any of the ads we'd run in other publications. While I thought this was a good thing on one level I also thought it would be nice to do something a little bit different for the specific demographic of Linux Format (click to enlarge):
I've no idea where Alan, who does our print ads, found the penguin, but it brought a smile to my face.
We have finally launched the first set of new products and services that we've been working on for months.
As of last night Blacknight VPS hosting is open for business.
The new VPS hosting is the perfect solution for people who want to run custom setups without incurring the costs of dedicated hardware.
For example if you want to experiment with JSP, Ruby on Rails, Light HTTPD or want to install custom DLLs on Windows.
With a VPS you have full control. The only limits are your imagination and your credit card limit!
What's a VPS?
VPS stands for virtual private server.
It's hard to put it into really simple terms, but it's a way to give you the control and flexibility of a dedicated server at a fraction of the price.
What are Blacknight offering?
We're offering a full range of Windows Server 2003 64 bit and Centos 5 (Linux) based virtual servers.
Can I get a control panel for this?
Yes. All VPS servers come with the Virtuozzo Power Panel which gives you control over the basic operations of your VPS.
If you're not comfortable managing your server over SSH / RDP then you can opt to get Plesk as well.
What about other linux distros?
We'll be adding other popular Linux distributions in the coming weeks. For the moment we're offering the most popular alternative to RedHat Enterprise
Will you be offering Windows Server 2008?
We intend to offer it as soon as it is viable ie. fully supported and tested
The entire system is securely hosted in one of Ireland's leading data centres, Interxion in Dublin, Ireland.
In the last few months we've mentioned a lot of upgrades and improvements to our network. Part of the reason for doing all this was to make way for the rollout of our Parallels network.
If anyone has any feedback we'd really love to hear it.
Let us know in the comments or if you'd prefer discretion email management@blacknight.com
Journalists call from time to time asking me to talk about various internet related topics. Most of the time the publications or shows are "general interest", so you can only talk about very general things.
Last night, however, was quite different, as I was one of the guests on "Domain Masters" which is broadcast and streamed weekly at 7pm EST (11pm in Ireland, midnight CET)
The show's host last night was my good friend Jothan Frakes who is one of the domain name industry's gurus.
Although I was very nervous (which probably showed!) we had a nice chat about Blacknight, domains and the internet industry.
If anyone wants to hear the show there should be an mp3 version available on the WebmasterRadio site at some time over the next couple of days.
UPDATE: The Mp3 from last night is now available on the site http://www.webmasterradio.fm/Internet-Marketing/Domain-Masters/Geo-Domain-Expo-and-BlackKnight.htm
UPDATE 2: Of course if I provided proper hyperlinks people might be actually able to use them!
So here you go: Show details including podcast
We've been active members of the Irish Internet Association for the last number of years and have been happy to sponsor several of their events in the past.
This year's event takes place in the Croke Park Conference Centre on Friday May 15th
This year the IIA's conference will be focussing on social networking and new media.
We'll be providing more details on the speakers and the rest of the day's details as soon as they are forthcoming.
At least two or three of our team should be at the event, so please do make yourselves known. There might even be a prize draw for something really cool and useful... If nothing else we'll definitely have a few hoodies and polo shirts to give away (they're really comfy!)
If you haven't done so already I'd recommend that you subscribe to our blog's feed to be kept up to date!
It seems we've been nominated for the Best Business Blog category at this year's Irish Blog Awards.
Thanks to whoever nominated us!
I honestly don't expect us to win, as the competition is very strong in that category, so best of luck to all the nominees!
Earlier today I emailed several thousand of our clients (some don't want to receive emails and have opted out) with a special offer and a link to the first customer survey we've ever conducted.
I was hoping that we'd get some responses, but I'd no way of knowing how many we would get and so far I've been pleasantly surprised by the response rate.
We weren't interested in people telling us how "wonderful" or "great" we were. There's no way that we can improve things if all we hear is positive feedback.
It's the negative comments that I'm really interested in and I'm delighted that so many people have given honest and blunt replies.
We decided to use Group Surveys to run the survey for us and I'm delighted that we did, as the reporting facility makes it quite easy for me to see what people have been saying.
I'll let the survey run for a few days, as I know from previous experience that not everyone is as obsessive about checking mail as I might be!
However it is my intention to do a number of things based on the feedback we've been receiving:
- I will publish a summary of the survey. (I just need to work out how easy that is to do!)
- I will collate the negative comments and the positive ones and publish a summary of what people have been saying as well as any responses we have at present.
- We, as a company, will be reviewing each and every response internally to see how best we can address any issues that people have raised.
While we did spend quite a bit of time coming up with the survey ie. choosing the questions we wanted to ask and how we wanted to ask them, several people have spotted glitches in it. I was hoping we'd ironed them out before making it public, but I was obviously mistaken. We can learn from our mistakes!
If you're an existing client or subscribe to our newsletter make sure you check your mail. We've sent you a very tasty special offer.
No. This offer is not open to the public
Every year I usually organise some kind of sale in the new year. We usually offer a discount on domain registrations or something similar.
This year I decided to take a slightly different angle.
Instead of offering a discount to everyone I thought we'd offer a BIG discount to our existing clients (and subscribers to our newsletter).
Of course we like getting new business, but it's about time we gave something extra to our existing clients.
So keep an eye on your inbox.
The email with the details will be "winging" its way to you at some point over the next 3 days.. It's worth the wait!
And if you aren't getting our special newsletters already it's not too late to sign up!!!
DomainFest is being held in Hollywood in a couple of weeks and we're proud to be one of the sponsors.
The event is one of the most important in the calendar for people involved in the domain industry and, if last year's event was anything to go by, it should draw a very interesting crowd from the four corners of the globe.
Last year I got to meet people from every aspect of the industry, so I'm hoping that this year will be similar. I've spoken to several people over the last couple of months who plan on attending THIS event since they had such a good time last year.
Unlike a lot of other industry events I've been to DomainFest manages to mix the business and pleasure to provide an almost perfect cocktail. You can easily find yourself having a drink in the bar with an unassuming multi-millionaire if you're not careful!
Of course a conference wouldn't be a conference if it didn't have speakers and at least one keynote. Last year they had TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, while this year's line up includes John Battelle, whose name may be familiar to anyone involved in SEO.
The agenda for this year's event looks very interesting and I will try to post more details as soon as they become available.
Similar to last year's event there are two "tracks" available.
If you're a DomainSponsor client, then you can learn about some of their new products and services.
However if you're more interested in hearing and discussing the latest trends in the domain name industry then the main track will be the place to be.
The topics on the agenda include new TLDs, legal issues, portfolio management and the famous networking sessions.
Last year was the first time I'd ever been to a networking session that was so intense and so incredibly productive! It's like speed dating, except it's for business contacts!
My biggest concern, of course, is not to get too involved in the live auction! It would be oh so easy to spend large amounts of money when you see the preliminary list of domains that are going to be on offer.
I'll be flying out to LA towards the middle of next week, as I want to take a couple of days prior to the event proper. At least that way I won't be able to use the excuse of jetlag if I spend the company's profits on dodgy domain names!
We're going to maintain the price of .eu registrations and transfers @ 5 euro for the foreseeable future ie. we've no intention of upping the price.
We are hoping that Eurid (the entity that is in charge of .eu namespace) will change some of its procedures and policies with regard to renewals, as the present regime does not benefit either registrars or registrants.
A couple of months ago (time flies!) I was asking people both here and on LinkedIn for product name suggestions.
I was expecting some feedback, but I was totally unprepared for the sheer volume of replies I got.
Wow!
Thanks for taking the time to exercise your grey matter and help us out!
Some of the suggestions were good, some were amusing and some were, well, em, a little, mad!
In the end we'll be opting for something that is hopefully simple enough for people to "get" without being too restrictive:
minimus, medius, maximus
Thanks for the input!
If you're reading this in a web browser instead of an RSS reader you should notice that it's look and feel has changed quite a bit.
We're currently rolling out our new design and look.. Over the next few days we'll be upgrading all the public facing sections of our sites etc., to give you a new uniform look and feel...
Hopefully you all like green and black - it's purely coincidence that Green & Black are my favourite chocolates as well!
Anyhow we've updated the blog (that's here!) and the forum so far and the support area is next on the list
Thanks to the guys in Spoiltchild for the design and 2BScene for the implementation work
If you're going to focus all your energies and money on developing your online presence then there are some really simple things that you need to get right.
If you were to rent a small shop in the centre of any town or city you would have to pay "top dollar", but if your main activity is centred around your website you don't need to worry about that particular expense.
However you do need to make some small investment in your actual online brand, as it's far too easy for someone else to grab it if you're not careful.
I'm always amazed at how little attention companies pay to basic online brand protection and, speaking from personal experience, it's an expensive lesson to learn after the fact!
When I first setup Blacknight I made a number of rather silly mistakes with our online branding. I didn't check that all the domains were available to register - hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Acquiring domains when they've already been registered by someone else can be awkward if not impossible. And even if it's not awkward it can be expensive.
If you're going to start from scratch then you need to check if the name you've chosen fits some basic criteria:
How many times have you heard an advert on the radio for some "cool" product or service and then not been able to find the company's website?
It's happened to me far too often. In some cases it's because the company name is odd and forgettable.
In other cases it's not clear how the domain name is spelt.
When it comes to registering the domain names a bit of common sense goes a long way. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to register a couple of extra domain names NOW than get into litigation about them later.
How much does a legal letter cost?
How much does a WIPO dispute cost?
If you compare those costs against the costs of registering a couple of extra domain names it's obvious which option to go for.
If you're an EU company I'd strongly urge you to get the following extensions:
com,net,org,info,biz,eu and co.uk
If your company is based in Ireland, then getting the .ie domain won't hurt!
Of course if you need to expand your brand into other markets in the EU then you probably need to get a few more extensions, but if you get the ones I mentioned now you'll save yourself a lot of headaches and MONEY !!
If your feed reader went a little nuts last night and grabbed a load of old posts from here there is a simple explanation!
I changed this site over to the .com domain last night as part of our rebranding. This would force a lot of RSS readers to pull down fresh copies of a lot of content - sorry about that - I've no intention of changing the domain again for quite some time!
We've decided to extend the special offer on EU domains for the month of November.
You can register a .eu domain for a mere 5 euro!
Check out which dotEU domains are available by using our online search
We've dropped the price on .eu domains for the rest of this month to a mere 5 euro!
You can place your order online via our website and your .eu will be up and running in minutes.
We've been an accredited registrar for .eu domains for the last couple of months, although we hadn't put our accreditation fully live until this morning.
I've always liked being able to support Irish companies. I don't like supporting them for the sake of it, as that's just plain silly. But if an Irish company offers a product or service that is excellent, then I have no qualms about recommending it to my friends and to our clients and partners.
Why wouldn't I?
That's the case with Infacta.
They're based in Sligo, in the west of Ireland, which is well away from Dublin and the other urban centres of Ireland. Yet they've built up a really cool suite of software and services that help companies communicate with their clients. Although I use Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X for a lot
Group Surveys is a really cool online survey tool. It might not be free, but there's nothing wrong with paying for a quality service, is there? However if you're a Blacknight client you can get some free credits to get you started. How's that?
What can it do?
It's a versatile and easy-to-use application for conducting online surveys. You can create online surveys in minutes using custom designs and multiple question and answer types. A link to your survey can be placed in your website, blog or e-mail, making distribution simple and flexible.
If you want to get started follow this link to the "special" Blacknight page. Happy surveying!
If you want to get your personal IE domain then remember we'll be taking pre-orders up until the "go live" date.
Unfortunately there seems to be some confusion about which domains are allowed and which ones aren't.
To start with, as is indicated on the order form, to pre-order personal IE domains you need to submit them as follows:
select the applicant class ‘Natural Person’ and the domain category ‘Personal Name’.
DO NOT try any other combinations. If you do your application will be rejected.
You cannot register your surname / family name.
You cannot register your first name.
While your friends may call you all sorts of interesting names you can only register names that you can provide documentation for.
What documentation is accepted?
If you are based in the republic:
Irish passport
Irish driver's licence
Irish revenue / social welfare document showing PPS number
Irish birth certificate
Irish marriage certificate
Irish utility bill (e.g.: NTL, Chorus, SKY / ESB, Airtricity / Bord Gais / Eircom / Vodafone, O2, Meteor, Three - bill pay phones only).
If you are based in Northern Ireland:
UK driver's licence with Northern Ireland address.
HM Revenue & Customs / Northern Ireland Social Security Agency document showing National Insurance number
Northern Ireland birth certificate
Northern Ireland marriage certificate
Northern Ireland utility bill (e.g.: NTL, Chorus, SKY, UTV Internet / NIE, Airtricity / British Gas / BT / Vodafone, O2, 3, T-Mobile, Orange, BT - bill pay phones only).
Where should I send the documentation?
All documentation should be sent to us either via fax or email.
Our fax numbers are:
+353 (0) 1 4811 763
UK Fax: 0845 280 088
US Fax: 213 232 3366
Please ensure that any documentation is clearly marked with the domain name in question.
DO NOT send us original documents via mail.
What format name(s) can I register?
Johnsmith.ie [first name / surname]
Johnpaulsmith.ie [first name / middlename / surname]
John-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / surname]
John-paul-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middlename / hyphen / surname]
Johnpsmith.ie [first name / middle initial / surname]
John-p-smith.ie [first name / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Jsmith.ie [first initial / surname]
Jpsmith.ie [first initial / middle initial / surname]
Jp-smith.ie [first initial / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
J-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / surname]
J-p-smith.ie [first initial / hyphen / middle initial / hyphen / surname]
Paulsmith.ie [middlename / surname]
Paul-smith.ie [middlename / hyphen / surname]
Psmith.ie [middle initial / surname]
P-smith.ie [middle initial / hyphen / surname]
NB: You will need to be able to provide documentation of the name chosen with the spelling chosen, so if you want to register johnnysmith.ie you will need a document in that name
Voting has now opened in the 2007 Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards.
I've been nominated under both Internet Entrepreneur and the Online Trader categories, so any and all votes would be appreciated!
There's also quite a few other names on the list that are familiar to us here at Blacknight. They belong to friends, business partners, clients and acquaintances. I wish them all the best of luck!
We're a hosting company.
Like most hosting companies we have several hosting plans (products)
These plans have names.
Like everyone else the names we've been using are boring:
basic; standard; professional
I want to change them. I want something new. I want something that's a bit more imaginative, but I've no idea what!!!
Options on the table at present:
metals - silver, gold, platinum
grades - essential, premier, ultimate
arthurian - round table, holy grail (you get the general idea)
chess - pawn, rook, king
I'm open to suggestions. I'm open to anything at this stage!
If you'd like to find out what people are getting upto in the wonderful world of mobile devices and the mobile web, then Mobile Monday is the place for you.
On Monday next, September 24th Mobile Monday Demo Night will take place in The Hairy Lemon, which is in central Dublin (map)
Several companies will be showing off their latest creations so it should be good fun.
As we're promoting .mobi domains at present it's only natural that we also take the time to promote mobile web related stuff, so we'll be sponsoring the event.
More info here
The IE Domain Registry have finally released details of the policy change on personal domains which I've mentioned in the past. (For a long rant please see my personal blog)
We will be offering personal IE domains from October 31st 2007 onwards.
For clarity I am republishing the full text of the IEDR's press release:
The IE Domain Registry (IEDR), the managed registry for Ireland’s dot-ie domain names, today announced the relaxation of the rules for registering personal dot-ie domain names for individuals. This policy relaxation comes into effect following full consultation with the dot-ie reseller community and industry organisations.
Registration of personal domains will be available to individuals from Wednesday, 31st October, 2007. This follows a seven week notice period, to allow time for sole traders, professionals, politicians, trademark holders who have not already registered their .ie Internet address, to do so under existing non-personal domain categories.
The introduction of personal dot-ie domain names is a result of the increased popularity of social networking and blogging sites and the increasing number of individuals who are coming online.
The registration of personal domain names will be open to all individuals who can authenticate a claim to the domain name and who have a real and substantive connection to the island of Ireland. To authenticate a claim, a copy of an identification document is required, for example an Irish utility bill or driving licence. The name on the document supplied must match exactly the domain name applied for. This requirement ensures that the status of Ireland’s dot-ie namespace, as the world’s second safest country code top level domain, is maintained and protected in the future. Applications will be time-stamped to ensure fairness and transparency of the process.
Commenting on the introduction of dot-ie personal domain names, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of the IE Domain Registry said, “The IEDR is pleased to announce the relaxation of rules for personal dot-ie domain names. To maintain the integrity of the dot-ie domain namespace, which has negligible levels of cyber squatting and cyber crime, applicants will need to authenticate their claim by providing matching supporting documentation such as an Irish passport or utility bill.
This limited registration policy relaxation comes into effect following consultation with dot-ie resellers. The introduction of personal domain names was first proposed to internet service providers three years ago, but there was little interest due to expected low levels of demand. Since then the broadband take-up and popularity of social networking has created a desire for a personal presence on the Internet, which in turn will have a positive effect on the level of demand for personal dot-ie domain names. The IEDR has also significantly reduced its prices, which have fallen by 50% since 2003 and introduced key system changes that facilitate fast, automated and real time registration, which has reduced resellers’ process costs.”
Over the course of the next few weeks I'll be doing an occasional series of posts on making the most of your dotmobi domain.
If anyone has any suggestions or ideas that they'd like to share please let me know!
The topics I intend to cover will include things like building a site, checking it, making money from it and any other topics that people suggest to me.
What's the deal?
We are running a sale on dotmobi (.mobi) domains starting today.
How much will they cost?
Registrations of .mobi domains will cost a mere 10 euro per annum, so you can make big savings by registering your domain for up to 10 years.
What is .mobi (dotmobi)?
Dotmobi is the domain for the mobile web.
If a company publicises a .mobi site it should work on your mobile device and you should be able to make full use of it.
How can I test my dotmobi site?
You can test your .mobi site to see if it will work properly on a mobile phone using the ready.mobi suite of tests.
Who is behind dotmobi?
Dotmobi is supported by some of the biggest names in mobile and general technology including Ericsson, Google, GSM Association, Hutchison (3), Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefonica Moviles, TIM, Visa and Vodafone.
How can I register a .mobi?
You can check if your chosen domain is available by doing a search here
I mentioned not so long ago that we were going to be doing some rebranding.
You'll see this happening slowly until the new site launches, then it will be a little bit faster.
The kind of things that are going to change on the outside are:
We're not dumb. In fact we always try to hire the best and the brightest, so we're not going to be doing away with anything. If you are used to going to a particular URL to access a service of some kind it will still work. It might redirect to a new one, but the old links will still work.
If we do change email addresses over to the .eu domain, which we will probably have to do at some point, all the old ones will still work (I still get mail on about 5 variations of our main domains as it is!).
The thing that is going to be the most painful is how the search engines handle matters.
When we launched our current website about 3 years ago (can it really be that old?) we changed all the URLs and pages around completely. We didn't have any choice, as we were changing the site's backend completely.
The earlier iterations of the Blacknight company site didn't have a "backend" per se, unless you call notepad / dreamweaver / editplus / vim backends. (If you want to see them they're on archive.org - though you'll need to do some detective work to guess the domain!)
When we moved to using Typo3 as our CMS all the inbound links were lost except to directories eg pages that were accessible via a "/".
We had to work hard with the developers (2Bscene) who were also assisting us with SEO to get things sorted out. Thankfully Tom Doyle knows his stuff and we were able to maintain our pagerank and get reindexed quite quickly.
This time round we will have to be very careful, but we have learnt from our past experiences and our past mistakes.
Taking a hit in terms of SEO is something we won't be able to avoid entirely, though we will be trying our best to minimise the impact!
Yes - that is a very big image!
But it hopefully caught your attention
Ken McGuire has made a series of PodCamp logos and buttons available for people to put on their blog / site.
Podcamp is a free event and takes place in Kilkenny city (about 30 minutes from our offices) on September 29th 2007.
If you haven't registered, why not do so now?
It won't cost you anything!
EDIT: Fixed the links.
We're happy to be sponsoring the .net Magazine Awards 2007. The awards, which have 16 categories, have been running for several years and attract quite a bit of interest internationally.
We had a choice to make when it came to the sponsorship and it wasn't an easy one. Which category did we want to be associated with?
In the end I had to follow my heart and go with "Standards Champion", which is described as being awarded for:
the best use of accessible design in 2007. Nominees will be judged on standards compliance, originality, and downright sexiness.
I've always been a fan of web standards, as they make life easier for all parties concerned.
While it may be difficult to be 100% standards compliant 100% of the time, there's no reason why a website cannot aspire to standards compliance all of the time.
There's a subtle, but important, difference here. If you give it your best then you can feel satisfied that you have made an honest effort to reach out to as many web users as possible. (Why do you think we use text based captcha on our company sites?)
The full list of categories are (in no particular order):
Who is judging it?
Well Future Publishing are the event organisers (they own .net magazine), so they have a lot of clout and this is reflected in the calibre of the judging panel
We'll publish more information on the awards as and when we receive them.
So get voting!
If you are a mobile user then you might be interested in adding the Blacknight widset to your account.
It's a nice little alternative to using an RSS reader to get the latest news, tips and rants from team Blacknight!
More info on the Widsets site
Over the next few weeks and months we'll be rebranding slightly.
It's not going to be one of those "huge" rebranding exercises where we change the company name, fire all the staff and move our offices to Los Angeles or anything crazy like that.
We'll simply start using a couple of the domains that we have more actively than the blacknight.ie domain that we have been using for the last few years.
Unless one of our beloved sysadmins does something really silly none of you will really notice anything different, until the new website is launched.
Why are we doing this?
For a couple of very simple reasons.
Over the past few years we have been working hard on building up our business in Ireland, Europe and further afield.
We now have clients from every major country in the world and while we may love our .ie domain it may not portray the image that our clients need.
We would have opted for .com, but we have one of those "waiting in the wings" for another project that will be launched later this year (hopefully)
So for the moment we will start pushing blacknight.eu.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the best way of promoting a domain is to use it, so that's what we intend doing.
Of course we may be stark raving bonkers and this could be the worst marketing decision I've made so far this year, but I can live with that :)
Any feedback is, as always, welcome
BarCamp Galway takes place on 22nd September and we're delighted to be sponsors.
We may even get to send someone to attend the event! Though I won't confirm that just yet, as it seems to curse any chance of it happening if I do!
In any case you can find out more on the event's blog or on the wiki.
So far to date we seem to have sponsored every barcamp event that's been held in the 32 counties!
Over the next couple of months a new domain extension will go live - dot asia (.asia) which is aimed at representing the businesses and people of the Asia Pacific region.
We'll be providing information on the registration requirements over the next few days as well as pricing and timelines.
Why would you want to register a .asia domain?
If you are trademark holder then you should do so to protect your brand.
If you are not a trademark holder but are serious about doing business in the Asia Pacific region, then .asia is the domain for you.
I'll be posting more information on this new domain name in the coming days and weeks, so please keep an eye on this site!
Due to work pressures I wasn't able to attend the event we sponsored down in Cork yesterday evening.
Damien tells me that there was a good turnout, so I'm delighted.
The IT@Cork blog has a review of the event as well.
In true blatant self-promo style I would ask you to please vote for us:
I was interviewed recently for an article published by Warren News. We're republishing the article here with the permission of Warner Communications News:
Country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) .us and .eu were launched to great expectations, but several
years on, some wonder whether they will ever achieve their potential. There are claims the .us name space is
not being managed or marketed effectively, and that .eu suffers from too little exposure and too much
"warehousing" by domain name speculators. Registries EURid and NeuStar said they're successful but acknowledge
that their domains could be more popular.
With the .us registry contract up for possible rebid by NTIA, .info registry Afilias and registrar Go-
Daddy teamed up as the Domain Name Alliance Registry to submit a quotation (WID Aug 1 p5). They criticized
NeuStar's management of .us, saying it lost ccTLD market share over the past two years and that only
one in five websites contains original content.
With somewhere around one million registrations, .eu ranks ninth of all country codes, behind the Netherlands,
China and Argentina, the alliance said. NeuStar allowed .us to lose ground in a rapidly expanding market, the
alliance said, "beaten by aggressive competitors" when it should be growing at least as fast as the market in general.
The .us namespace is subject to several policies and procedures unique to it, such as requiring registrants to
have a legitimate nexus with the U.S. and filtering out certain unacceptable words, Keith Drazek, NeuStar senior
manager, industry and government relations, told us. The restrictions tend to weed out many of the abusive registration
practices, such as spammers, who go to other TLDs, such as .info, inflating the size of their registration databases,
he said. That is one of many arguments for why .us has not grown as quickly as other domains, he said.
Drazek stressed that NeuStar supports the policies, which are crucial to maintaining the integrity of the space.
NeuStar, which also responded to NTIA's request for quotations, is committed to continuing its responsible
and aggressive promotion of .us, Drazek said. Among other things, the registry conducts marketing programs designed
to drive "quality" registrations with actual content, he said.
.eu a 'Wasteland'?
The ccTLD is working well but faces several challenges, a June 7 European Commission report to the European
Parliament and Council concluded. Among the challenges is to ensure promotion of more registrations as
well as actual use of .eu by citizens, institutions and companies, it wrote.
Despite the commission's glowing report, some observers say .eu is a no-go. In a July blog on CircleID,
an Internet policy discussion space, Blacknight Internet Solutions Managing Director Michele Neylon
asked if the EU namespace is dead.
Efforts by registry EURid to increase awareness of .eu as a brand are "a bit misplaced," Neylon said.
The domain name only works for native English speakers, who "are anything but the majority" in the EU, he
said. The ccTLD was created to serve European citizens and businesses, but many domains were snapped up
during the sunrise and landrush stages by speculators and "phantom" registrars created for the purpose of grabbing
names, Neylon said. The "fiasco" hurt Europeans' confidence in the namespace because so many names
were taken by dodgy companies on the other side of the globe, he said.
Even the strictest registration rules provide opportunities for mass domain-grabbing and cybersquatting, said
Dirk Krischenowski, founder of dotBERLIN, which aims to roll out city TLDs. Some say domain speculators are the
"salt in the soup" because they create and raise the hype on a new TLD, he said, but mass domain-buying can sour regular
Internet users who find "for sale" signs or monetizing websites at frequently typed terms such as hotel, he said.
The crucial part of marketing a domain is to get famous brands, celebrities and the Googles and Yahoos
to use them actively, said Krischenowski. The EU should also have reserved generic terms for its own use,
such tourism.eu or visit.eu, to help market its assets, he said.
The .eu ccTLD is a "wasteland with perhaps less than 16% of domains being actively developed as websites,"
Internet lawyer Bret Fausett blogged. The rest are holding, framed, pay-per-click or redirected pages, he
said. "Far from being the prominent European choice, it is now very much a third choice for most Europeans," he
said. Unless it finds a niche, it will stay at this level, if it's lucky, Fausett said.
.eu is "fundamentally unnecessary" for big companies, said intellectual property lawyer John Berryhill, who
represents domain name registrants in cybersquatting cases. "If I am Siemens, I already have Siemens.com, and
people can navigate to the language version they want," he said. Registering Siemens.eu adds nothing, he said, because
it's more sensible to have the national distribution organizations use the relevant ccTLD. A large corporation
will not hire a new team to build a .eu site from scratch, it will simply migrate content to it, Berryhill said.
"We have only been open for about 15 months and have 2.5 million registered domain names, being the
third largest ccTLD in Europe," EURid's spokesman told us. Some companies are actively using their .eu websites,
the number of domain name system database queries is 7.5 times higher than it was last year, the renewal rate is
"healthy" and around 2,000 domains are being added every day, he said.
It takes time for a new TLD to become a natural part of the domain name world, the EURid spokesman
said. Over time, the registry hopes to see more of .eu "out in the streets, on the back of buses," and in advertisements,
but companies as well as individual need time to adjust, he said.
The phantom registrars some complained of were not illegal, the EURid spokesman said. They were
registered and working under U.K. laws, and there were no provisions in the registry's regulation that allowed
it to limit the number of or exclude registrations by suspected associated companies, he said. However, victims
of the abuses could and still can seek to recover their names by filing alternative dispute resolution complaints
for abusive or speculative registrations, he said.
U.S. applicants are not eligible to register .eu domains, but .eu has U.S. registrars, the EURid spokesman
told us. In one major case, a huge number of limited liability companies were set up in the U.S. and became accredited
as registrars representing a few registrants in the EU to purchase a large number of names during the
ccTLD launch. Since registrars are by contract barred from warehousing names, EURid sued them in a Belgian
court, the spokesman said. The case is ongoing and its outcome uncertain, he said. The registry also revoked
around 6,000 domain names due to lack of eligibility, he said. --
Dugie Standeford
This article orginally appeared in WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 2007
We registered a couple of .mobi domains earlier this year for two reasons:
As the .mobi registration rules are quite different to those of other TLDs we were going to be obliged to actually use the domain for mobile content of some kind (which is a good thing!).
However, after meeting several people from .mobi in LA and also talking to other people about the entire mobile space I thought it would be a much better idea to actually use the domains productively instead of merely shelving them.
So there are now two .mobi domains pointing at our mobile site.
I think we're the first Irish hosting company to put a .mobi site live! So that's another little first for us!
The site is not a copy of the main Blacknight site, nor was it my intention to even try to make it a copy of the current site.
It's sole purpose is it to provide some basic info about us if anyone happens upon the site while using their mobile phone.
At some stage I'd like to see us using the site to actually offer services, but it's not very high up on our ever-growing "todo list".
It would be nice to see more Irish companies embracing the .mobi TLD and doing "funky" things with their dotmobi domains, so if anyone has done something cool I'd really love to hear about it.
I was browsing some of their "picks" on my Nokia this evening (at no cost thankfully, since it connects to my wireless network) and I was truly impressed.
I've always loved The Godfather so I was delighted to see that Paramount's mobile site has plenty of content up for grabs. Unfortunately it won't work with an Irish phone, but I love the idea (maybe I can bribe an American colleague to get some of the content for me?)
So if you'd like to find out more about .mobi, then let us know or simply register one today - they don't cost that much!
As one of the sponsors of the IIA conference we are able to offer our clients a reduced rate on the tickets.
Simply email events@iia.ie quoting "Blacknight rate" for details
One of the things that attracts people to the internet is possibly a hangover of the dotcom boom. People still believe that they can make their fortunes online without having to work hard.
While it may still be possible to make money online the days of not working hard, alas, are no more.
However that should not dissuade you!
We've mentioned selling custom tshirts via your website a couple of times in the past, as we partnered with SpreadShirt (watch this space for more partnership news!)
But what if you can't design?
There are plenty of other options open to you.
A couple of the more popular ones are Adsense and Text Link Ads.
Adsense is quite simple to use. All you need to do is sign up for an account and add some code to your website pages. When people click on the ads you earn money! Not that complicated, is it?
If you start using Adsense you'll soon find that there are thousands of websites and blogs dedicated to providing advice on how to make more money from it. There are even a couple of books on the subject!
Text Link Ads is slightly more complicated, but the rewards can be generous.
The basic concept is that text links ie. not graphic links, are valuable both in terms of traffic and seo, so you, as a website publisher, can make money from them.
The only downsides to TLA is that your site needs to be established and the system will not work with static HTML ie. you need to be using PHP, ASP or some other form of server-side scripting language to use the system.
If you're looking for tips and tricks on making money online you may want to check out the Irish Webmaster Forum, which is popular with Irish web professionals.
I originally started drafting this post on our second day back in the office, but we've been so busy that it's only now that I've actually found the time to complete it. I guess that's good complaint to have 
When I set up the first Blacknight website about 6 years ago I never thought we'd end up where we are now.
As I mentioned on my personal blog, we're now ranked as the second largest hosting company in Ireland according to both webhosting.info and IpWalk.
It's been a fascinating journey so far and we're nowhere near the end yet. (Yes I know that early version of the website is horrendous!!)
With the New Year comes new staff and plans for the following twelve months.....
Our latest appointment is George Pratt, who previously worked for one of our competitors.
George joins us with about ten years of sales experience in the IT industry and will be heading up our sales team (business development if you like that kind of jargon!).
With George's help we expect to roll out some new and exciting products and services over the next 12 months, so keep an eye out!
In the last quarter of 2006 we took on several new staff in accounts, technical support and programming.
By hiring our own programming staff we have been able to get quite a lot of backend work done including integration with the IEDR's new API system. The new API system allows us to send IE domain registration requests to the registry practically in realtime. While all registration requests still need to be manually checked and verified it reduces some of the workload for our staff. We intend to increase our integration with the IEDR and other registries over the coming months and will be working very closely with ModernGigabyte to this end.
In related news, we have recently acquired Noc Software and will be making a separate announcement about our plans for Noc Manager, which is an addon module for Modernbill.
We'll shortly be announcing details of some of our New Year specials.. We know you'll like them, but we have to make you wait a small bit longer
There was a comprehensive article on broadband in the Irish business & technology magazine Smart Company. While the article itself is extremely detailed and covers many of the issues that Irish consumers of broadband services may face that wasn't what caught my attention.
Slap bang in the middle of the article is a screenshot of the Irish ISP Test :)
With Christmas only a couple of weeks away we thought it was time we got some seasonal banners and button ads, so we contacted our friends in SpoiltChild Design and this is what they came up with:
120 x 60 button - suitable for blogs, sidebars and other sites where screen space is at a premium.
728 * 90 leaderboard. This format works very well on fora and other sites that can take an oversized banner.
468 x 60 banner ad. Probably the most popular ad format for online advertising.
Skyscraper 120 x 600. The skyscraper is, like its name suggests, tall and thin
Our Christmas flavoured print ads are also using this design, as well as a couple of other ones, so we'll probably post them as soon as we can get our hands on some gifs or jpegs.
Happy Christmas by the way !!
We'll be letting all our clients know about this really cool special offer later today, but I thought I'd give our blog readers the inside track first.
Blacknight in partnership with SpreadShirt is offering free upgrades to the premium SpreadShirt shops. This upgrade will save you €60!!
Spreadshirt is an online platform that allows you to easily design and sell tshirts and other merchandise from your website or blog. In fact you don't even need a website to use it!
You can easily upload your own designs and add them to high quality tshirts, sweaters and even underwear.
To avail of the special offer you need to sign up to SpreadShirt through our website if you haven't done so already.
Once you have a spreadshirt account setup through us simply follow the link on our signup page to upgrade your account and use the special code reserved for Blacknight clients "BLACKNIGHTMERCH"
Within about 24 hours your account should be upgraded to a premium one which gives you a range of new options including:
So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a Spreadshirt account today and start selling custom tshirts and other merchandise
NB The coupon code and upgrade will only work for spreadshirt accounts that were created from the Blacknight signup page. The coupon code is valid until the 3rd January 2006. Please ensure that the upgrade coupon has worked and that you have not been charged for the upgrade, as we will not be held responsible for any charges.
I'll be down in Cork next Saturday for Bar Camp which looks like it could be an interesting event.
Looking at the list of attendees and speakers I recognise quite a few familiar names so it will be nice to actually meet a few of them "in real life".
If anyone wants to say "hi" just keep an eye out for me...
We're also exhibiting this week at the World Ploughing Championships in Tullow, Co. Carlow.
Paul and his team have been working on putting together some interesting demos etc., to liven up the stand.
I don't think I've ever really been to a ploughing championship, so I've no idea what to expect!
The Irish Internet Association annual awards, the Net Visionaries, will be held later this year.
The Net Visionary award is the only award in Ireland where the public can not only nominate the winners, but also vote for them. You don't need to be a member of the IIA, nor does the nominee.
You can nominate people under any one of the range of categories on the official site.
This year's categories include the introduction of both "blogger" and "podcaster"
Blacknight is sponsoring the "Web Designer Excellence" award.
We're expanding and taking on even more staff
You can see full details of the job here
NB:Agencies DO NOT CONTACT US.
We've always tried to pass on savings to our clients where possible.
Earlier this year we offered IE domains for a mere € 30 as a special offer, while we consistently charge one of the most competitive prices in the Irish market.
We're now upgrading ALL of our shared hosting plans on both Windows 2003 server and Linux.
All package quotas have been increased, so you will get "more bang for your buck".
Take our Soho Linux plan for example.
It now comes with the following features:
All new hosting accounts are on Dell Xeon servers on our Inex peered network.
Although Alexa may not be the most accurate barometer of a website's popularity it does give some indication.
The only reason I mention this is because not one, but two of our company websites are currently in the top 100 for Ireland.
Both our main website and Irish ISP Test are