HEXONET’s North American office is based in beautiful Vancouver, Canada.  Vancouver has a flourishing start-up scene and is home to several prominent tech companies like HootSuite, PEER 1 Network Enterprises and Electronic Arts.  We recently had the opportunity to meet a new start-up that is launching a new gTLD (generic Top-Level Domain) with a very patriotic flavour. Canadian patriotism you might ask? Not exactly. Although the drive behind this new venture is based here in Vancouver, its real roots are based 12,000 kms away in Christchurch, New Zealand.  On February 22, 2011 a powerful earthquake struck New Zealand’s second largest city of Christchurch. It caused significant damage and killed over 185 people. Tim Johnson, a Vancouver-based expat New Zealander, who moved to Vancouver in 2008, was shocked to see the extensive damage done to his hometown of Christchurch. This tragic event truly resonated with Tim and he decided to do something that could really help the people of Christchurch. Tim, who has a background in software development and technology business management, teamed up with some other prominent expat New Zealanders to form Dot Kiwi. Dot Kiwi has just submitted its application to ICANN to become the registry for the .kiwi (dotKiwi) gTLD. There are over one million Kiwi expats around the world. “I was keen to provide a way for New Zealanders around the world to connect and claim their Kiwiness online. I could also see a great opportunity to provide ongoing financial support for the rebuilding of Christchurch.” says CEO Tim Johnson. Kiwis will be able to wave the flag and claim their own online identify as an alternative to existing TLDs like .COM.  A percentage of Dot Kiwi’s revenues and profit before tax from the sale of .kiwi domains will be donated to a trust established to provide funds for the rebuild of Christchurch. Dot Kiwi has assembled a very strong team including Board of Director Peter Dengate Thrush, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICANN. It is great to see this kind of innovation coming out of Vancouver and we wish Tim and his team every success moving forward.

Verisign has just published its latest report called the “Domain Name Industry Brief” for this last quarter ending December 31, 2011.

HEXONET would like to highlight key information in this brief:

• The fourth quarter of 2011 closed with more than 225 million domain name registrations across all TLDs (Top-Level Domains).
• Registrations grew by more than 10% compared to the fourth quarter of 2010.
• The base of ccTLDs (country-code Top-Level Domains) now stands at 90.6 million domains, an 13.2% increase, year over year of the base.
• There are more than 250 ccTLD extensions globally, with the top 10 ccTLDs comprising 60% of all registrations.
• Among the 20 largest ccTLDs, Poland, Sweden, Tokelau and the Russian Federation each exceeded 4 percent quarter over quarter growth.
• The report also discusses the threat of domain name hijacking and the importance of researching the security of one’s own registrar – HEXONET offers a number of valuable tools that can help registrants mitigate the risk of hijacking. These include a free ‘registrar lock’ that prevents a domain from being transferred under any condition, as well as, pay for services like WHOISTrustee Services (identity protection) and Domain Alert (domain change notifications). Please contact your account manager for further details.

The brief coincides with HEXONET’s own internal metrics on ccTLD growth.  ccTLDs are growing in popularity like never before, so now is the time to add a wide selection of ccTLDs if you don’t already offer them.

CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, has just released its 2012 .CA Factbook, a collection of facts and research about the global domain name industry and .CA’s place relative to other registries. It is a comprehensive report delivered online to encourage ‘social sharing’ (i.e. tweetable factoids and excellent graphics). We encourage you to take some time to view this report in its entirety (here). Below are some of the highlights of this report:

• By mid-2011 there were over 214 million domains registered globally and approximately 84 million of these were ccTLDs (country-code Top Level Domains)
• Canada’s .CA is the world’s 14th-largest domain registry, up two spots over the past year
• .CA’s share of the Canadian market has grown consistently and now accounts for approximately 29% of all domains registered in Canada
• Most ccTLDs enjoy a large domestic share advantage over gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains). This is especially true for .NL (Netherlands), .DE (Germany), .SE (Sweden), and .UK (Britain) and although overall market-penetration rates are very low, Brazils’s .BR  (see chart below)
• As suspected Canadians pay far more than most for high-speed Internet access; Canada’ ranking in the areas of broadband speed and price is quite far down the list. Based on OECD data, Canada is #23 on the list! Japan actually leads the pack… a country where one mbps costs less than one-tenth of what it does in Canada.