Registrar Connections

Growing at 31 percent over the same quarter last year, the third quarter of 2007 ended with a total base of 146 million domain name registrations worldwide across all of the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs). This represents a six percent growth over the second quarter which is slightly slower than the quarterly growth in the first two quarters but in line with the seasonality that traditionally impacts the third quarter. The total base of Country Code Top Level Domain Name (ccTLD) registrations was 54.6 million, a six percent increase quarter over quarter and a 38 percent increase year over year. Reviewing the total base of registrations in both global TLDs and ccTLDs, .com has the highest base with the next two spots remaining unchanged with .de (Germany) and .net rounding out the top three. This quarter, .cn (China) moved solidly to the fourth spot. This leaves the fifth spot to be shared by .uk (United Kingdom) and .org with approximately the same number of total domain name registrations.

The total base of ccTLD domain name registrations grew to 54.6 million by the end of the third quarter 2007. The overall ccTLD domain name base experienced six percent quarter over quarter growth and 38 percent year over year growth.

The overall .com and .net domain name adjusted base increased by five percent quarter over quarter resulting in 77 million .com and .net domain name registrations at the end of the third quarter. This represented a 25 percent increase year over year. New .com and .net domain name registrations were added at an average of 2.5 million per month in third quarter 2007 for a total of 7.5 million new registrations.

The Domain Name Industry Brief series highlights key trends in the industry, key performance indicators and growth opportunities. VeriSign will issue the latest report with full findings later this month.

Winners of the Registrar Connections Survey Contest

Big thanks to all who participated in our recent Registrar Connections Readership Survey. We received responses from registrars representing 42% of the .com and .net customer base, and as promised, for those who included their name, company, and email address on the completed surveys, their forms were entered into a contest for a chance to win a $50 Amazon.com gift check. Congratulations to the winners, Adam Eisner of Tucows and Paul Goldstone of Domain IT.

Report: Registrar Connections Readership Survey Results

The results are in and you’ve told us that you are satisfied overall with the Registrar Connections articles and that the information we provide is relevant for you and directly supports your job performance and skills. You’ve also responded that you find research reports and product updates valuable, including policy updates and notifications. The detailed results are as follows:

We will continue to refine our Registrar Connections newsletter and take all your feedback and comments into serious consideration. Thank you for providing valuable insight into how we can improve this important monthly publication.

Report: ROTC Event

The VeriSign Naming Services' Registrar Overview & Training Camp (ROTC) event -- our first educational program offered to ICANN-accredited Registrars launched on November 7th in Dulles, Virginia. Registrars representing 35% of the .com and .net base participated. Based on the evaluation forms, the response was unanimous that it was a valuable training event with 64% saying it was an “extremely valuable” one-day training camp). Participants stated that they would all strongly recommend the VeriSign ROTC to their colleagues and supervisors.

The top rated presentations included Matt Larson's "DNS Demystified," followed by Joe Waldron’s “The Five R’s (Registry, Registrar, Registrant, Registration and Resolution),” Jim Gould's "Technical Overview" session and the Customer Support session on “Tools, Reports and Terms.” Here are a few comments submitted by the attendees: “[Sessions were] very informative! DNS session was great but need[ed] more time.” “Enjoyed all topics. But some (mostly technical) were too much since I am not in those departments, but were helpful.” And “Overall incredibly useful! I'd absolutely attend successive events. Greatly appreciate how concise schedule was and the presentations' thoroughness…”

It was a full and productive day and a lot of fun. And yes, we will be scheduling repeat sessions throughout 2008. In the meantime, if you would like to send us your questions or suggestions for future training camps, please send an email to namingmarketing@verisign.com.

Usability Tips: Accurate Data from Online Forms

Contributed by the VeriSign User Experience Design Team. This section will provide tips on how to better convert sales, increase shopping cart sizes and attract attention to promotions.

Well-designed forms result in an easier user experience in information entry and manipulation, more accurate data gathering from users and more user participation. A recent usability study conducted by the VeriSign User Experience Team found that users are more willing to provide their accurate information to carefully designed online forms. Follow these tips to get the most accurate and relevant data from your online forms and increase user satisfaction:

Make It Easy
Account for tabbing behavior. Some users use tabbing functionality when completing online forms. Make filling-out your form easy by allowing users to tab through the form. Users prefer single-section fields to multi-section fields, because single-section fields are easier for data entry and copying and pasting of the data. However, if your form requires multi-section fields such as multi-part phone numbers or registration key fields, make sure that you allow auto tabbing. In a multi-section field, auto tabbing refers to the automatic mouse movement from the current part of the field to the next part when user finishes entering the information for the current part.

Ask Relevant Questions
Only necessary fields should be mandatory. Users are willing to respond to questions that are directly related to the goal of a form. They do not want to respond to unnecessary questions or they provide inaccurate data. Depending on the nature of a form, the relevant information fields might vary. For example, the usability study showed that in a registration form, most users preferred providing their first name, last name, and email address. However, they stated that when completing a registration form, they would not provide accurate information about some fields such as company revenue, company address, and business phone number.

When you make your form easy to complete for your customers and only ask them questions that are relevant to the goal of your form, you will get accurate data that you can use and also you will increase your customer satisfaction.

Europe Registrar Day – December 12

“Expanding Your Business” is the theme for this year’s 2007 Europe Registrar Day event. Come join us and take this opportunity to interact with VeriSign and your fellow registrars. Register today! The event will focus on the particular dynamics of the European region with emphasis on the event’s main theme “Expanding Your Business.” VeriSign holds these events as a forum to share the latest data and information around the trends, research, products and services that are affecting our industry and how to maximize the opportunities that it provides.

A Magical December in Prague
VeriSign’s 2007 Europe Registrar Day will be held in the beautiful and charming city of Prague with its enchanting Christmas markets where you can enjoy listening to Czech Christmas carols while sipping your hot wine and browsing through the shops filled with traditional holiday decorations and gifts.

Who Should Attend?
All .com and .net ICANN accredited registrars are invited to attend, with particular emphasis on registrars in the European region. This event is designed for registrar professionals with responsibility for:

VeriSign is committed to helping registrars improve their business and drive more domain name registrations. Based on past event successes and feedback from attendees, we have developed an agenda (link “Agenda” to the Web page) that promises to deliver valuable information to help our registrars expand their business.

We look forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions on the 2007 Europe Registrar Day, please contact namingmarketing@verisign.com.

360 View: Strategic Direction

VeriSign Refines Strategic Direction to Focus on Internet Infrastructure
Strategy Broadens Footprint in Core Businesses and Returns to DNA

New York, NY, November 14, 2007 – VeriSign, Inc., the leading provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world, unveiled new details about the company’s strategic direction for 2008 at their annual analyst day held today in New York. VeriSign’s business strategy moving forward will be more tightly aligned with its core competency—providing highly scaleable, reliable and secure Internet infrastructure services to customers around the world.

The strategy will call for divesture of a number of businesses in the company’s portfolio, such as communications, billing and commerce. This will allow VeriSign to invest more in extending the footprint of its core businesses, such as web certificates (SSL) and the Internet Registry Business (VeriSign Naming Services), and developing closely aligned growth opportunities, such as identity protection services.

Staff Spotlight: Tom Correia

The product manager for .tv and .cc is an eight-year veteran of VeriSign, and continues to exhibit passion and enthusiasm for the company and the various jobs through which he has transitioned and progressed within VeriSign throughout the years. Tom Correia was a computer networking graduate (after switching direction from a veterinary medicine curriculum!) and was lured into the technology world, namely Network Solutions back in April 1999, before the Registry arm of that company was acquired by VeriSign in 2000.

Tom started as a customer service representative and was thrilled to learn about the Internet, the infrastructure, the intricacies of the Registry and how end-users used the Internet. Following his initial six-month post, his enthusiasm and quick-to-learn abilities were rewarded by a promotion to supervisor with two teams under him. Tom was a natural in empowering his teams and motivating them to aim for providing excellent service to customers. Given the natural flow of events, he was then promoted to trainer of new customer service hires.

From his trainer job, Tom has been involved in many aspects of the Registry including the secondary domain name business, the launch of the Name Store platform and the Network Operations Center (NOC). For the past 18 months, Tom has served as product manager for .tv, .cc and the NameStore platform.

Tom is completely involved in three big passions of his life – his wife (newly married since September 22, 2007), VeriSign and martial arts.

Tom described his passion for VeriSign. “VeriSign is amazing because whenever you send an email or check the sports score, or buy music from the Internet and in almost all your day-to-day activities, VeriSign is there, making all those things possible. Now, wouldn’t you be excited too if you worked for such a company? I am!”

Special Report on Technology from eMarketer: Western Europe Internet: Users and Usage

Europeans are among the world’s keenest users of the Web, although rates of Internet and broadband penetration do vary from country to country. Of the five major European nations—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy—the UK has embraced the Internet most fully. It was the first of these countries to see more than one-half of its population online. The French, Germans and Italians were slower to respond to the Internet opportunity, but all three have reached at least 50% penetration.

In Spain, the online population is growing more rapidly than in France, Germany, Italy and the UK in percentage terms, although from a much smaller base. eMarketer thinks that some of this discrepancy will persist through 2011. As other major European countries pass 60% online penetration, Spain will struggle to reach this milestone. Ireland shares some of Spain’s difficulties. Many of the Irish claim that they have no desire or need for the Internet.

As the Web becomes a common tool for young people, students and the working population, older Europeans are in danger of missing the Internet boat. With only a few exceptions, the growing ranks of citizens over 50 are not well represented online. Europe’s governments must work to win them over and help them to overcome obstacles to full online access. Marketers also need to see the older audience on the Internet, for they are an important target with huge spending power.

To read the full report, please contact Jennifer Moore at 212-763-6046 or send an email to jmoore@emarketer.com.

In the News

This section contains a selection of articles pertaining to the Domain Name Industry compiled by Information, Inc.

"Net Protocol to Unleash Explosion"
Australian IT (10/30/07) Sainsbury, Michael
After more than 11 years of work, ICANN's IP Version 6 (IPv6) system will finally go live later this week. The new system, the biggest technology upgrade to the Internet in more than 20 years, is designed to alleviate the shortage of IP addresses. The current system, IPv4, provides for 2.4 billion IP addresses. However, the growth of broadband and Internet-connected cell phones, as well as the growth of Internet use across Asia, has significantly reduced the number of available IP addresses. In fact, some had predicted that the number of Internet addresses would run out as early as 2010 unless something was done. "Domain names are growing at double digits and some of the country codes are growing at 20 to 30 percent each year and .com is growing in the same range," says ICANN President Paul Twomey. "We have 18 percent left of the Internet protocol number pool and there is an expectation that the unallocated pool will deplete sometime in 2010-11." But under IPv6, there will be room for 4 quintillion (trillion, trillion, trillion) IP addresses. Such a large number of available IP addresses will make it possible for billions more devices--including cars, household appliances, and security systems--to be connected to the Internet.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22669059-15306,00.html

"Fellowship Program Brings Global Voices Together at ICANN"
ICANN.org (10/24/07)
ICANN will host 24 fellows from 22 different countries at its 30th International Public Meeting in Los Angeles. The fellows were chosen from 167 applications, and the fellowship covers their airfare and hotel costs, allowing residents of developing nations to participate in the international conference. "Reaching out to the global community, we saw a desire to be a part of the key discussions that take place at our meetings, but some countries and Internet users just didn't have the resources to attend," says ICANN vice president Theresa Swinehart. She says that fellows who attended the previous meeting in San Juan were a vital part of the discussions. At the Los Angeles meeting ICANN will discuss international issues such as new top-level domains and the implementation of internationalized domains.
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24oct07.htm

"Register.com Announces 'Business Web Site Makeover--New York' Contest"
Business Wire (10/29/07)
Register.com is offering small New York businesses a chance to win a free makeover of their Web site. To participate in the contest businesses must submit applications through Register.com's Web site. Nine finalists will be chosen, after which the public will vote for the three top sites in need of makeovers. The "Build My Web Site--Custom" service will be used to revamp the selected businesses' Web pages. Register .com CEO Larry Kutscher says, "Our small business customers have told us time and again that they need help in creating sites that make their businesses stand out, and that drive online revenue." Kutscher says the contest will enable businesses to reinforce their Web sites and provide them with a stronger online presence. In February, Register.com will post the contest winners.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071029005372&newsLang=en

"One of the 'Net's Most Powerful Women Lands a New Role"
Network World (10/17/07) Marsan, Carolyn Duffy
The Internet Society on Wednesday announced that Leslie Daigle will be their first chief Internet technology officer. Daigle, who previously worked for both Cisco and VeriSign, has served as the leader of the Internet Society's Internet Architecture Board for the past five years. The Internet Society works with the Regional Internet Registries and ICANN to deal with the issues facing the Internet community. Daigle hopes to foster a cooperative, open environment as the Internet gets larger, and will reach out to the registries and standards bodies to work on a variety of issues. Daigle says that internationalized domain names is one of the most important issues facing the Internet today. "I'd like to see us retain an environment where technical people come together and identify and resolve problems in an open fashion," Daigle says. "I view the Internet Society as an obvious place to make that happen. Specifically, what I would like to accomplish in this new role is to bring different organizations together to continue to help the Internet grow." She says the main challenges for the Internet Society during the next few years will be demonstrating "to the world that an open collaborative model for Internet development and deployment still works in the current environment, as the Internet expands in all directions."
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/101707-one-of-the-net.html

November 2007

In this issue:

Report: State of the Domain Name Industry