.Com vs. Co.uk

If you live in the UK and are starting a website, you have many domain extensions to choose from. The most popular choices are .com and .co.uk. Which one should you pick?

Both are good choices and cost about the same to register on a yearly basis, although .co.uk requires a two-year commitment. Which one you pick is really a matter of your target audience. Pick .com if you are targeting an international audience, especially if your site sells good or services. Internet surfers abroad are often leery of buying from foreign sites. Americans in particular are most comfortable with the .com extension.

On the other hand, UK web surfers prefer .co.uk names. If your target audience is the UK, stick with a .co.uk domain. Britons feel the same way about .co.uk as Americans do about .com. Of course, you may be stuck with a .co.uk anyway if the .com name you want is already taken.

Photo | Flickr

VeriSign launches How Do You .com? contest

Verisign, operator of the .com gTLD has launched the How Do You .com? contest inviting .com owners to submit videos or essays about how the domain has changed their lives. What’s at stake here? Contestants have the chance to win one of ten iPads, $2500, $5,000 or $10,000.

The video must be under 2 minutes in length. Essays are limited to a paltry 300 words. This page
has a list of the most popular submissions so far. And of course, Verisign screens all entries for appropriateness, so you can’t make a video about your porn start-up.

Renew your domains before July 1 to avoid the VeriSign price hike

On July 1, gTLD operator VeriSign will increase the prices its charges registrars for .com domains by 7% and .net by 10%. Registrars will pass this cost onto customers, but not until July 1. Domainers have three days left (including today) to renew their domains and lock in the current price.

Only .com and .net names will be affected. Keep in mind that you can renew names at the current rate for up to 10 years. So assuming that your registrar raises its fee by $1.00 USD, you can save up to $10.00 by renewing in advance.

Actually, you could save quite a bit more because you would also be immune to price hikes for the duration of the registrations and most registrars provide discounts of up to 15% on long-term registrations.

Sex.com up for auction finally

After bankruptcy proceedings look to have been resolved, the sex.com domain is back up for auction by Escom. An agreement was reached between litigating parties by the Central California Bankruptcy Court such that Escom only needs to take the next steps to put it up for auction.

There was a final obstable in the sex.com auction proceedings with a last minute objection from investor Nothin’ But Net (owned by Mike Zapolin). But since then, Nothin’ But Net worked with creditors DOM Partners and Washington Technology Associates to resolve their objection.

We can only imagine that when sex.com does go to auction, it will sell for big bucks. At the last auction of sex.com back in 2006, the domain name apparently sold to Escom for $14 million and we can’t imagine that its value will have depreciated. Perhaps the world’s most valuable domain name, but certainly among the top five, it will be interesting to see in 2010 just what these kind of premium TLDs are worth. We originally bet on $20 million for sex.com and will wait and see!

Photo | Flickr

Skype launches music streaming site Rdio.com

The highly successful VoIP provider, Skype, is expanding its services and has a launched an online music streaming site denominated Rdio.com. Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have explained that Rdio.com would be pronouned “AR-Di-O” and indicates a mix between radio and audio, as it reflects web 2.0 youth culture.

Despite any problems the Rdio.com domain might encounter, Zennstrom and Friis payed the almost negligible figure of $5,001 for the domain name, and if it follows in the footsteps of Skype, they’re unlikely to worry about whether anyone spells it differently at the start.

Verisign raises domain prices, gets $27 million extra

Verisign has informed its registrars that the wholesale prices of .com and .net domains will be going up as of July 1st, so if you’re in the market to be purchasing a domain name, get ready to pay more. Verisign has stated that .com domains will increase by 7% and .net domains will increase by 10%.

We can only expect the registrars to pass these costs on to the market, possibly at higher rates again. Verisign can now increase domain prices by a rate of 7% each year, meaning it just added an extra $27 million to its takings.

Source | Gawkwire.com

Photo | Flickr

From AOL to YouTube: Verisign celebrates 25 years of .com and the internet

VeriSign has announced a “.com 25″ list of some of the most important websites, and their creators, the world has seen in 25 years of the internet. The honorees were selected by a panel of Silicon Valley elites and includes names such as Pierre Omidyar of eBay, who was also nominated in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list for 2010.

The 25yearsof.com website states:

In the last 25 years, .com has transformed nearly everything in our worlds from the way we shop, connect with our communities, make weekend plans, engage with our government, educate our children and even how we think! So commonplace is .com, that we now take much of these daily life changes and its profound impact for granted. Yet none of this would be possible without the great minds, innovators and risk takers that made .com what it is today.

The 25 years of .com list is as follows:
Read More >>

Prices on .com and .net domains to increase

VeriSign, a company which provides .com and .net registration services to all registrars, has announced that it will increase .com prices by 7% and .net by 10%. Because the prices paid by registrars will go up, the added cost will be passed on to you and me.

The new prices will take effect July 1. Those looking to save money can renew their names early, however. It is possible to renew for multiple years and lock in the discount. So if you own a lot of .com domains, it would be better to renew them now and save 7% next year.

First dotcom domain celebrates 25th anniversary

Although it was 1985 with Symbolics computers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA registered the very first .com domain name, it would take nearly 12 years for Web as we know it to really explode with doctoms.

“This birthday is really significant because what we are celebrating here is the internet and dotcom is a good, well known placeholder for the rest of the internet,” said Mark Mclaughlin, chief executive officer of Verisign the company that is responsible for looking after the dotcom domain.

There are now 668,000 .com websites registered every month and over 80 million total. It has become the default choice for most web users. Even new users who do not even know how to perform basic searches often type whatever they want followed by “.com” hoping to score a hit. It is a huge information space and also a huge market for domain registrars and web hosting providers. Even with numerous other top-level domain options (such as .net and .org), it is .com that still reigns supreme and may continue to do so for years to come.

Source: BBC News
Photo: Flickr

Verisign to spend $300 million on tech upgrades

One of the most well-known Internet companies, Verisign is planning a major upgrade. After the upgrades, Verisign’s hardware will be capable of handling 4 quadrillion requests per day from computers trying to access .com and .net top-level domains (TLD) for which Verisign is responsible.

According to ken Silva, the Internet giant’s CTO, these upgrades are crucial to ensuring they can keep up with the rapidly increasing Internet traffic and the occasional spikes caused by malware, attacks, and malicious bots. In 2007, Verisign spent $100 million to increase their capacity until 2010. This next round of upgrades reflects the fast-growing nature of the Internet.

In addition to providing access to .com and .net domains, Verisign is also renown for selling SSL certificates. What is not clear from their announcement is what the upgrades will entail exactly and how long these latest upgrades will sustain the rapidly expanding cyber-universe.

Source: Associated Press