First and Foremost – Thank You:

The executives at HEXONET would like to thank our amazing team in Germany and Canada.  They are “HEXONET” and without their efforts and commitment, HEXONET would never have been able to achieve this milestone so quickly.

To our loyal customers, resellers, and partners, we are extremely grateful that you have decided to stand with HEXONET.  Without your support and all your constant feedback (both good and bad), we could not be the company we are today.  Our promise is to stay humble, continue to listen, and work everyday to be better for you.  Again, many thanks.

A Hard Journey to 1 Million Domains:

1. Like any expanding company we have seen growing pains when it came to our employees.  Looking back on both the good and the bad, HEXONET has definitely seen the benefit of bringing in new ideas and minds into our organization.  New blood in the company exposed areas we were weak and helped us identify where we could improve.  Today the team is as talented and as strong as ever.  And we are now looking to add even more amazing people to our team.  Many lessons learned and many issues overcome.

2. Handling security as we grow has been a challenge, but we are on top of it.  Our biggest attack was about a year ago when HEXONET was hit with a massive DDOS.  The attack was on a unprecedented scale with over 2 million queries per second on all our servers generating over 80 Gbits of bandwidth.  This DDOS even saturated our upstream provider’s datacenter, one of Europe’s largest Internet hubs.  We are happy to announce that through proactive measures and procedures no DDOS attacks has affected HEXONET since this last incident.

Many Successes Along the Way:

1. Our reseller and partner network is growing exponentially.  Hosting companies, registrar service providers, domain resellers, domainers, and small businesses are now realizing the strength of HEXONET’s advanced and PROVEN technology platform.  In our opinion, for TLDs and especially ccTLDs, no other platform or service compares.

More than a decade ago, nearly all companies designed their systems for a handful of dominant TLDs (COM/NET), HEXONET on the contrary believed that eventually hundreds if not thousands of TLDs would be the norm.  So today, while others struggle and even hack every new TLD into their in-congruent systems, HEXONET seamlessly adds new TLDs, as our platform was designed to scale from the very beginning.  Even more important is the many years of engineering and operational knowledge held by our staff and engineers.  We can answer questions about the smallest operational and architectural nuisances for TLDs, a skill that only reveals itself when working with a registry system for years and years.

2. Our Registrar Operations Center platform (RegistrarOC), has also been garnering a lot of interest as well as clients among large corporate customers.  These clients with their own accreditations and a large number of domains now realize that there is a huge cost (time and salaries) to update and maintain their own registrar platform.  This is where RegistrarOC steps in and not only saves these companies money, but eliminates a huge operational and engineering burden.  Interestingly enough, prominent law firms are now becoming ICANN accredited to manage their clients domains.  Since law firms are typically not technical, many have turned to RegistrarOC and HEXONET to manage their accreditations.

3. With HEXONET’s platforms gaining popularity, many newTLDs have even come to us asking for help with running a house registrar of their own.  As a result, some .BRAND TLDs have committed to running their own house registrar service through 1API (HEXONET’s house registrar) or through utilizing RegistrarOC.

The Journey Continues – What to Expect:

1. A new and more friendly website launching this summer.

2. A newer and easier to use “orderform” to be progressively released throughout the year.  With each release new features will be available for clients.

3. More Control Panel enhancements and upgrades.  All these updates are from direct feedback and requests from our clients.  Some cool new bulk management features are coming!

4. General public “Domain for Sale” listing service on HEXONET’s domain auction platform PremiumSale.com.  The site and auction service at PremiumSale.com has received tremendous feedback and now we are going to opening it up for members to auction off their own domains through the platform.

Even though we surpassed the 1 million domain goal for the company, we are not resting.  HEXONET continues to work hard for our customers.  Again to all our customers, resellers, and partners, thank you for your support and patronage.

The Internet country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Portugal is .PT and on May 1, 2012, the registry operator of .PT, Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN), introduced a significant and welcome change to the ccTLD. Anyone in the world can now register a .PT domain.  Also, registrants are no longer required to be associated with a brand or a company.

The .PT domain is the most recent European ccTLD to liberalize (open up), making today an excellent time to take advantage of available domain names. In fact, just over the last week alone, HEXONET has extremely high demand for .PT domains. With currently 451,000 .PT domains registered, the registry is expected to grow significantly due to its open registration policy.

Understanding .PT with João Mesquita

In order to gain further insight into the .PT ccTLD and the effect of the recent changes, HEXONET was lucky enough to speak to a prominent blogger and domainer based in Portugal, Mr. João Mesquita.  First and foremost, HEXONET would like thank Mr. Mesquita for taking the time to share his thoughts on .PT.

HEXONET Q1: Can you please let our readers know about your background and how you got involved as a blogger and domainer?

João Mesquita:

First, let me thank HEXONET for the invitation. It is my pleasure to answer your questions.

I was introduced to the domaining world by a friend that told me about this thing called ‘domains’, back in 2001. Since that day, I fell in the love with the concept. Though I wanted to be a domainer, unfortunately, certain circumstances in my life prevented me from domaining for some time.  However, I never forgot about it and domaining was always in the back of my mind.

I spent some time in the army (which was mandatory) and also studied marketing, which lead to opening an online shop.  Running an online shop taught me some lessons, as the market wasn’t prepared at the time and moreover, I didn’t quite realize the time I would need to wait for the market to become mature. It was not a successful  journey.  However, I learned some lessons that were priceless.

After my online business, I ventured into real estate which I did in parallel with domaining. And now today, I am starting to dedicate more time to what I love the most – domains.

My blogger side has been helped by a great Portugese blogger named Ana Martelo, who provides me with the right tools.  Blogging for me, helps me achieve an important goal, which is to educate people about domaining. This idea came to my attention through seeing many people using and learning the Internet through Facebook or seeing them try to make money online, without knowing anything about domaining or knowing how domains may help them.  Since that day, I have been writing week after week about domaining.  I write in layman’s terms and not in a language that requires one to be a webmaster or an Internet expert.

HEXONET Q2: How active is the domainer market in Portugal?

João Mesquita:

Portugal has a strong web development community and I think that is the main driver for the country. We tend to dedicate tons of time developing a domain and not just trading domains. This is the main factor that I think will be responsible for an increase in the number of domainers in the near future in Portugal. The market is very active from the perspective of buying domains to develop them rather than to simply sell them. In addition, that fact that the Portuguese economy is in bad shape at the moment leads to domain holders taking more initiative and attempting to widen their audience. I believe that the domaining market in Portugal is on the right track. Also, with the new generation embracing entrepreneurship, as well as, recent .PT liberalization, this will make .PT bigger and stronger.

HEXONET Q3: Among the top 10 sites most visited in Portugal, it looks like 4 are using the .PT extension.  What are the most predominant domain extensions used in Portugal and do you see .PT overtaking .COM in the future?

João Mesquita:

The most predominant extensions used in Portgal are.com, .net, .pt and .com.pt.  These other extensions were used, in some cases, due to the restrictions of getting a .PT domain. I think that .com will be the king extension for at least the next 15-20 years. Despite the fact that there is a local trend to think local, history has shown for many other ccTLDs that a .com always remains the better option. Owning both extensions is perfect. The only difference now is the fact that now we can add a .PT to the equation. This was something that was not possible until now, at least in the form of an open registration process.

HEXONET Q4: How do you view the recent liberalization of .PT?  What trends and opportunities lie ahead?

João Mesquita:

The liberalization of the .PT extension became an open door for many people to get a share of the Internet for the first time. In fact, many people finally got the chance to obtain premium domains at a 15 euros per domain price point. May 1st was a crazy one for the community with over 15,000 registrations in just 8 hours. Keeping in mind that Portugal is a small country, these registration numbers are excellent.

FCCN is also trying their best to maintain a certain level of protection on domain registrations that may infringe the registration rules. For example, if you try to register goggle.pt, the chances are that your registration will fail. Although this might be a limitation, it is a positive measure for maintaining a clean .PT space from misleading domains. But not to worry… if you register a generic keyword, FCCN will likely not interfere with the process.

The trends in the .PT extension will mostly likely rely on tourism, drop-shipping services, virtual shops, e-commerce development, domain registration and social e-commerce in my opinion. Tourism because Portugal is known as a major tourism destination. It makes sense that things will expand from brick and mortar businesses to virtual ones. This is something that we are already able to offer – different languages to many different countries.

Drop-shipping because there are many people willing to open their own businesses, especially in areas of knowledge they already possess which require a low capital investment (mainly used for marketing). Also, a drop-shipping type business enables them to really focus on their overall business strategy without having to make significant investments in inventory. This means a great opportunity to offer drop-shipping partnerships.

Virtual shop development is seeing an increase as businesses are using the Internet to complement their physical businesses – generating more profits with lower overhead. People are starting to realize that virtual and physical realities should work together.  In addition, social e-commerce through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks are being used as test drives for developing a real online presence. I believe there is space for more social e-commerce projects and that many will be developed using the .PT extension.

Now that .PT is a major trend, innovative ideas, sites and domains are sure to follow!

1 year .ASIA registration – FreeB Promo – Headphones

2 year .ASIA registration – FreeB Promo – Stylus Pen

5 year .ASIA registration – FreeB Promo – Bluetooth Keyboard

10 year .ASIA registration – FreeB Promo – 7″ Android Tablet with Camera

Click here for promo rules and regulations.

ASIA is witnessing explosive adoption and usage of the Internet. Total number of Internet users in the Asia region is expected to top an amazing two billion by 2013!  .ASIA is fast becoming a very important TLD (Top-Level Domain) for the Asia Pacific region. At HEXONET we certainly see evidence of the growing numbers of .ASIA registrations and expect much more upside in this TLD in the coming year.

I recently came across two very interesting organizations using .ASIA. The first is Searchblog.asia which features the latest news, trends and tips when it comes to SEO and search in Asia. The second is  JFDI.asia (the Joyful Frog Digital Incubator) who connects people, communities and capital to form innovative digital companies. Please feel free to share with us examples of other innovative companies using .ASIA.

If you are interested in learning more about the above promo or require access to the promotional graphics, please reach out to us at: sales@hexonet.net

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.

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.

Since the liberalization of the registration eligibility process, much has happened in the .PRO Domain Name Space.  The Registry was recently purchased by Afilias – one of the top leading registry services providers (Read the official Press Release). Soon thereafter, the Registry partnered with GoDaddy.com and held a premium auction for one, two, and three character domain names.

The seven-day event was a smashing success, which saw opening bids as high as $5,000 USD and final single domain sales as high as $40,000 USD (GO.pro).  Other notable .PRO sales from the auction include XXX.pro, which sold for $18,903 (with 125 bids) and Job.pro, selling for $5,456 (with 91 bids).  RegistryPro is planning another auction to be held in the second quarter of 2012 (Read the offcial Press Release). Stay tuned!

HEXONET is in full support of the new direction of the .PRO registry and is also in full support our good friend Karim Jiwani – President of Registry.PRO.  To celebrate the great start of the new .PRO, HEXONET would like to offer two .PRO promotions.

.PRO First Year New Registration Price Promo:

• Promotional Pricing:
  • Reseller:  $7.02* (net: 5.90) USD per Domain/Year
  • Premium: $5.83* (net: 4.90) USD per Domain/Year
  • Platinum: $4.64* (net: 3.90) USD per Domain/Year
• Promotional Pricing Ends: April 30, 2012
• Promotional Price only applies to new one (1) year registrations
• Multi-year registrations are NOT eligible at promotional pricing
• Transfers and renewals are NOT eligible at promotional pricing

.PRO Consolidate Transfer Price Promo:

Until recently, .PRO domains were very expensive due to their restrictive nature and the handful of registrars offering them.  HEXONET is now going to make keeping your .PRO easier and cheaper.  Until April 30th, 2012, transfer your .PRO domains to HEXONET at an amazing discount.  And by moving all your .PRO domains to HEXONET, save the overhead of dealing with multiple registrars!

• Promotional Transfer Price: $9.41* (net: 7.90) USD per Transfer
• Transfer Pricing applies to all Price Classes equally
• Special Transfer Pricing Ends: April 30, 2012

If you are interested in registering larger volumes of .PRO domains, please do not hesitate to contact our Sales Department and allow us to make you an offer (sales@hexonet.net).

* The GROSS price includes Germany’s 19% VAT; many resellers pay the lower NET price without VAT.

• 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.

NASK, the registry operator of the .PL ccTLD, just released their latest report on the state of the .PL domain. In 2011, the registry grew by 284,062 new registrations. Today, .PL ranks as the 5th largest ccTLD in the European Union.

Poland is the biggest Central European country and a member of the EU.  Though the country has a large population of 38 million people, among its European neighbors, it still has a relative low Internet penetration rate (58%).  With a burgeoning tech sector together with a dynamic and growing domain market, Poland now has the 5th largest e-commerce market in Europe. At HEXONET we certainly see evidence of the growing number of .PL registrations and expect much more upside in the Polish domain market in the coming year.

At last year’s DOMAINFest conference, we had the opportunity to meet Daniel Dryzek, a domain investor and CEO & Founder of ddfund.eu (domain development fund).  Daniel is an expert in the Polish domain market and was kind enough to recently grant an interview with HEXONET.  We want to thank Daniel for his valuable feedback and insight.

Question & Answer:

HEXONET:  What are the most popular domain extensions used in Poland?

Daniel Dryzek:  The most popular extension in Poland is of course .PL with over 1.5 million registrations, .com.pl comes in second place with 352,000, followed by .eu with 232,000 and then .com with around 210,000 names.

HEXONET: Over the past couple of years, what do you think is driving the strong growth of the .PL ccTLD?

Daniel Dryzek: There has been a lot of growth in Polish Internet for the last couple of years. Growth in the number of Internet users, as well as in Internet usage, and money spent on e-commerce. There has also been constant high GDP growth – compared to the Western European countries. Domain registrars also put a lot of effort into promoting domain names and websites.

HEXONET: How active is the aftermarket in Poland? What were some of the highlights of the MeetDomainers conference held last October in Poland?

Daniel Dryzek: The Polish domain secondary market is one of the most active domain markets in the world in my opinion. As you mentioned, we have several domain conferences and the MeetDomainers conference is one of them. The last one was staged in Warsaw. The Polish domain registry covered statistics and news from the .PL domain market.  We also had sessions dedicated to opportunities and threats for the secondary domain market in Poland. And we also focused on alternative investments like start-ups, wine, green energy, land investment and domains as well. We believe that it is very important to diversify your investments.

HEXONET: Are there any trends regarding the .PL ccTLD that we should be made aware of?

Daniel Dryzek: .PL growth rate is no longer as high as it was in the past years. This is due to the global crisis which has had an impact on Poland and the Polish economy. High renewal fees play a role here as well. Growth rate for .Pl domains: 2008 (73%), 2009 (23%), 2010 (22%) and 2011 ( 14%).

HEXONET: What are the challenges and obstacles for .PL moving forward?

Daniel Dryzek: The Polish registry, NASK, has to lower the renewal fees to sustain the growth. There is no possibility for future growth with 10 EUR net (wholesale price) renewal fee for .PL.  At the end of 2011, there were 2,278,722 .PL domains registered but churn rate was very high: 40.28%.  Only 6 in 10 .PL domains are extended for the next year.

HEXONET: Is there good adoption of idn.pl in Poland?

Daniel Dryzek: Yes. Poland was the first country in Europe that implemented IDNs (Internationalized Domain Names). You can find IDNs on billboards, in press advertisements and on the Internet. It has become standard that a company registers both non-IDN and IDN (if applicable) for its website.

HEXONET: Finally, do you think the new gTLDs will have an impact on the importance of .PL in the future?

Daniel Dryzek: Not really. I don’t really believe in the new TLDs and I definitely don’t believe they will have a significant impact on ccTLDs in general.

Please note the following price decrease for .CZ domains that will take effect February 1, 2012:

• Reseller: Reduced from 368.90* (net: 310.00) CZK to 351.05* (net: 295.00) CZK
• Premium: Reduced from 315.35* (net: 265.00) CZK to 297.50* (net: 250.00) CZK
• Platinum: Reduced form 255.85* (net: 215.00) CZK to 238.00 (net: 200.00) CZK

.AC, .IO and .SH – Price Decrease – February 1, 2012

Effective February 1, 2012, HEXONET will be reducing the price for .AC, .IO and .SH domains:

• Reseller: Reduced from 36.30* (net: 30.50) GBP to 34.51* (net: 29.00) GBP
• Premium: Reduced from 34.51* (net: 29.00) GBP to 32.73* (net: 27.50) GBP
• Platinum: Reduced form 31.89* (net: 26.80) GBP to 30.11* (net: 25.30) GBP

* The GROSS price includes Germany’s 19% VAT; many resellers pay the lower NET price without VAT.

Available extensions:

• .EC
• .fin.EC
• .pro.EC
• .med.EC
• .info.EC

Pricing for .EC (Second Level ONLY)

• RESELLER: 79.61* (net price: 66.90) USD per Domain/Year
• PREMIUM: 76.04* (net price: 63.90) USD per Domain/Year
• PLATINUM: 70.21* (net price: 59.00) USD per Domain/Year

Please note, that new registrations have a negative setup fee of -5.60 USD, which reduces the first year registrations fees on all new .EC registrations.

Pricing for .fin.EC, .pro.EC, .med.EC and .info.EC:

• RESELLER: 36.89* (net price: 31.00) USD per Domain/Year
• PREMIUM: 34.39* (net price: 28.90) USD per Domain/Year
• PLATINUM: 32.01* (net price: 26.90) USD per Domain/Year

.EC Registry Information

• The registry: nic.ec/eng/
• WHOIS-Server: whois.nic.ec
• Registration Periods: 1-3, 5, 10 years
• Add Grace Period: 0 days
• Accounting Period: 0 days
• Finalization Period: 5 days
• Registration System: Real-Time
• Transfers: With Authorization Code

If you have any questions about registering .EC domains, please do not hesitate to contact HEXONET at support@hexonet.net.

* The GROSS price includes Germany’s 19% VAT; many resellers pay the lower NET price without VAT.