NameJet and Rightside Partner for Initial New Top Level Domain Auctions

NameJet and Rightside announced recently that they have partnered to help launch the new Top Level Domains, .Dance and .Democrat.

You can read the press release after the jump:

“NameJet and Rightside have partnered to help launch the new Top Level Domains (TLDs), .DANCE and .DEMOCRAT, through the use of landrush and premium auctions.

Rightside Registry, a generic Top Level Domain registry owned by Rightside, is now offering early access to their first two TLDs, .DANCE and .DEMOCRAT, in the landrush phase of their release. Rightside has selected NameJet to manage auctions for both landrush and upcoming premium auctions for these TLDs. At the conclusion of the landrush phase, all available domain names that receive multiple early access (landrush) applications will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Landrush for .DANCE and .DEMOCRAT opened April 16th and will close on May 5th, with general availability opening for each domain on May 21st. Additionally, upcoming Rightside TLDs .REVIEWS and .NINJA begin landrush in early May and will also have auctions operated by NameJet.

In conjunction with the beginning of the .DANCE general availability period, NameJet will be operating featured auctions for premium .DANCE domains including:

ballroom.dance

chicago.dance

touchdown.dance

These auctions are all scheduled to close May 20th – 22nd. For a full list of the .DANCE Premium auctions closing in late May, please visit http://www.namejet.com/featuredauctions/dance.

“NameJet is committed to being a leader in the new TLD auction space, offering some of the most desirable TLDs available,” said Matt Overman, General Manager, NameJet. “This is just the beginning of our strategic partnership with Rightside. In addition to these TLDs, we plan on bringing more to the market as they become available from Rightside and our other registry partners.”

Jeff Eckhaus, Senior Vice President, Market Development and Policy, Rightside said, “Our relationship with NameJet, combined with their experience in new TLD launch auctions and recent sales trends, make them the ideal partner. We’re looking forward to working with NameJet to launch these TLDs and more.”

In the United States there are more than 25,000 professional dancers, 32,000 dance studios, and 38,000 choreographers with LinkedIn profiles. The .DANCE TLD is targeted toward this passionate and enthusiastic group. With the popularity of programs like Dancing With The Stars, which has a weekly audience of over 13 million, the .DANCE domain will give individuals and organizations a powerful and previously unavailable platform for branding.

The .DEMOCRAT TLD appeals to a large market of candidates running for elected office, political enthusiasts, organizations passionate about political identity, and consultants/advisors. There are currently greater than 43 million registered Democrats in the United States and an estimated 500,000 elected officials. With $644 million spent in the last Presidential election cycle, the .DEMOCRAT TLD will give Democrats a new and powerful way to reach their supporters and strengthen their brand.”

Verisign Reports Slowing Growth As .COM/.NET Becomes More Saturated

Verisign reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2014 Thursday, with reported revenue of $249 million, up five percent from the same quarter in 2013 (but down from the 15 percent increase from first quarter 2012 to 2013) and a four percent increase in .com and .net domain registrations, taking the combined total to 128.5 million at the end of March. Still, while growth is slowing, most companies would be delighted with such figures.

Domain name highlights from the results were:

Verisign Registry Services added 1.28 million net new names during the first quarter, ending with 128.5 million active domain names in the zone for .com and .net, which represents a four percent increase over the zone at the end of the first quarter in 2013. This represents a slowing when compared to 12 months ago. To compare, in the first quarter of 2013 1.99 million domains were added, which represented a 5.5 percent increase year over year.
In the first quarter, Verisign processed 8.6 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net as compared to 8.8 million for the same period in 2013 and 8.9 million for the same period in 2012.
the final .com and .net renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 2013 was 72.2 percent compared with 72.9 percent for the same quarter in 2012. Renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter.

A slowing of registration figures is not unexpected as the .com and .net zones become more saturated, even though Verisign have been touting in recent months there are plenty of domains still available in .com. But the question would be – how does one find them, and when you do, would you really want one?

The full announcement is below:

Verisign Reports 5 Percent Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth in First Quarter 2014 [news release]

VeriSign, Inc., the global leader in domain names, today (24/4) reported financial results for the first quarter of 2014.

First Quarter GAAP Financial Results
VeriSign, Inc. and subsidiaries (“Verisign”) reported revenue of $249 million for the first quarter of 2014, up 5 percent from the same quarter in 2013. Verisign reported net income of $94 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.64 for the first quarter of 2014, compared to net income of $85 million and diluted EPS of $0.52 in the same quarter in 2013. The operating margin was 56.1 percent for the first quarter of 2014 compared to 56.4 percent for the same quarter in 2013.

First Quarter Non-GAAP Financial Results
Verisign reported, on a non-GAAP basis, net income of $95 million and diluted EPS of $0.64 for the first quarter of 2014, compared to net income of $94 million and diluted EPS of $0.58 for the same quarter in 2013. The non-GAAP operating margin was 60.1 percent for the first quarter of 2014 compared to 59.6 percent for the same quarter in 2013. A table reconciling the GAAP to the non-GAAP results (which excludes items described below) is appended to this release.

“Results of the first quarter demonstrate the fundamental soundness of our strategy and discipline in execution,” commented Jim Bidzos, executive chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Financial Highlights

Verisign ended the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $1.7 billion, flat as compared with year-end 2013.
Cash flow from operations was $142 million for the first quarter compared with $151 million for the same quarter in 2013.
Deferred revenues on March 31, 2014, totaled $886 million, an increase of $30 million from year-end 2013.
Capital expenditures were $11 million in the first quarter of 2014.
During the first quarter, Verisign repurchased 2.4 million shares of its common stock for $132 million. At March 31, 2014, $868 million remained available and authorized under the current share repurchase program.
Verisign expects to complete in the second quarter of 2014 the intended repatriation of approximately $700 million to $800 million of cash held by foreign subsidiaries as described in the fourth quarter 2013 earnings release.
For purposes of calculating diluted EPS, the first quarter diluted share count included 14.3 million shares related to subordinated convertible debentures, compared with 7.9 million shares in the same quarter in 2013. These represent diluted shares and not shares that have been issued.

Business Highlights

Verisign Registry Services added 1.28 million net new names during the first quarter, ending with 128.5 million active domain names in the zone for .com and .net, which represents a 4 percent increase over the zone at the end of the first quarter in 2013.
In the first quarter, Verisign processed 8.6 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net as compared to 8.8 million for the same period in 2013.
The final .com and .net renewal rate for the fourth quarter of 2013 was 72.2 percent compared with 72.9 percent for the same quarter in 2012. Renewal rates are not fully measurable until 45 days after the end of the quarter.

Non-GAAP Items
Non-GAAP financial results exclude the following items that are included under GAAP: Discontinued operations, stock-based compensation, amortization of other intangible assets, impairments of goodwill and other intangible assets, restructuring charges, contingent interest payments to holders of the subordinated convertible debentures, unrealized gain/loss on contingent interest derivative on subordinated convertible debentures, and non-cash interest expense. Non-GAAP financial information is also adjusted for a 28 percent tax rate which differs from the GAAP tax rate. A table reconciling the GAAP to non-GAAP operating income and net income is appended to this release.

About Verisign

As the global leader in domain names, Verisign powers the invisible navigation that takes people to where they want to go on the Internet. For more than 15 years, Verisign has operated the infrastructure for a portfolio of top-level domains that today includes .com, .net, .tv, .edu, .gov, .jobs, .name and .cc, as well as two of the world’s 13 Internet root servers. Verisign’s product suite also includes Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection Services, iDefense Security Intelligence Services and Managed DNS. To learn more about what it means to be Powered by Verisign, please visit VerisignInc.com.

This Verisign news release was sourced from here.

How Will Brands Use Their New gTLDs: Wolfe

Brands are certain to begin using their new gTLDs in coming months, and according to one expert on new gTLDs and branding, the auto industry is likely to be one of the early adopters with billboard advertising.

“Imagine driving down the highway when you might see this billboard: experience.bmw or Chicago.infiniti,” wrote Jennifer Wolfe on the ClickZ blog.

“Automakers can begin to launch new campaigns in television, print, and other traditional advertising using their exclusive addresses such as 2014.bmw or springsale.bmw,” Wolfe continues. “Local dealerships will be authenticated with their unique address, authorizing only approved dealerships or repair shops. For example: Tricounty.nissan or Smithrepair.suzuki. Most notably, as automakers are building out content-driven advertising on YouTube, they can use their new digital real estate to build out content channels with creative, viral campaigns.”

Samsung and Toshiba have also applied and “may soon build out their digital experiences, tapping into the power of the platform.” Wolfe says companies such as these may roll out new products “in ads with nextbigthing.samsung or galaxy.samsung or even more generics like smartv.samsung.”

It is likely smaller brands will also use the new gTLDs, but in different ways. They won’t have their own gTLD, but as Wolfe writes “you may soon be sitting in a New York cab when you see the local news on the screen ending with, ‘Find us online at Channel4.nyc’ or ‘NBClocal.nyc.’ The next time you order a pizza in the Big Apple, on the box may be rayspizza.nyc or theoriginalrayspizza.nyc.”

And then there’s Google who applied for 101 TLDs, “most of which they use to sell Web addresses to businesses and consumers to provide more unique and personal identity than in the generic .com space. What could you do with your .dad or .how site? Just in time for Father’s Day, ilovemy.dad? Build a site dedicated to him at johnsmith.dad?”

To read Jennifer Wolfe’s post in full on the ClickZ site, go to:
www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2340993/google-and-samsung-among-first-to-sign-new-icann-registry-agreements-for-gtlds

Reported DDoS Attack Traffic Grows 75% In One Year; Europe Leads In IPv6 Adoption: Akamai

Akamai Technologies released their Fourth Quarter 2013 State of the Internet Report that found reported DDoS attack traffic grew by 23 percent quarter-over-quarter and 75 percent from fourth quarter of 2012. Other main findings were the average connection speeds in the top ten countries/regions is now at or above the “high broadband” threshold of ten Mbps and that global average peak connection speed experiences 38 percent growth in 2013. Hong Kong topped the list with the highest average peak connection speed of 68 Mbps.

When looking at Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack traffic, the State of the Internet Report included insights into DDoS attacks based on reports from Akamai’s customers. Although the number of DDoS attacks reported by Akamai customers declined from the second quarter (318) to the third quarter of 2013 (281), reported attacks increased 23 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter (346) of the same year. In total, customers reported 1,153 DDoS attacks in 2013 – a 50 percent increase from 768 in 2012.

Enterprise and commerce continued to be the industries targeted most frequently by the reported DDoS attacks in the fourth quarter, at 159 and 82 attacks, respectively. Together, they account for just under 70 percent of the reported attacks during the quarter, while slightly less than half of the total attacks were reported by customers in the Americas.

In the Third Quarter, 2013 State of the Internet Report, Akamai started looking at the likelihood of a company experiencing repeat attacks after an initial DDoS attack. In the third quarter, Akamai reported this as a one in four probability. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the chance of a repeated attack increased significantly to just over one in three (35%), meaning that 56 of the 162 organisations that were attacked suffered repeated threats throughout the quarter.

In February, Akamai acquired Prolexic Technologies, Inc., a company that provides cloud-based security solutions for protecting data centers and enterprise IP applications from DDoS attacks. As a result, future State of the Internet Reports will include insights using additional observations from Prolexic’s Quarterly DDoS Attack Report. Note that unless otherwise specified, observations included in the respective reports are based on separate and distinct sets of DDoS attacks.

On IPv6 adoption, the United States and selected European countries continue to lead the world in terms of IPv6 adoption, with Europe again having seven of the top ten leading countries. Japan and Peru are the only countries from their respective regions to make the top ten list. Double-digit percentage growth rates were seen in eight of the top ten countries, with Peru and Germany seeing the largest increases, at 41 percent and 43 percent, respectively. The lowest rate of growth was seen in Romania, which increased by nearly eight percent quarter-over-quarter.

Colleges and universities continue to be early adopters of IPv6, with moderate to large quarterly increases in adoption rates seen across most of the top 10. Iowa State, the University of Vienna Austria and the University of Saskatchewan all saw double-digit quarterly percentage increases.

On global average broadband connection speeds, the report found they continued to improve, with a quarterly increase of 5.5 percent, reaching 3.8 Mbps. Despite this improvement, half of the countries/regions listed among the top ten in global average connection speeds – including the top four countries/regions – actually saw nominal declines quarter–over–quarter, ranging from a loss of 0.7 percent in the Netherlands to a drop of 6.7 percent in Latvia. Despite a 1.1 percent decline in average connection speed, South Korea held the top spot from quarter to quarter, reporting the highest average connection speed of 21.9 Mbps.

On mobile connectivity, in the fourth quarter of 2013, average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network providers ranged from a high of 8.9 Mbps (Russian mobile provider RU-1) down to a low of 0.6 Mbps (mobile provider ZA-1 in South Africa). The high is down just slightly from the 9.5 Mbps reported in the third quarter of 2013.

To check out more information, see the Akamai Technologies news release at:
www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2014/press-042314.html

AFNIC : Growth of 8.8% for the global domain name market in 2013

Afnic, the company behind .FR extension has recently provided a quantitative overview of the global domain market in 2013 against a background of the ongoing slowdown in growth.

You can read the report after the jump:

“At the end of 2013, an overall total of 275 million domain names had been registered, of which 151 million (55%) were generic TLDs (gTLDs) and 124 million (45%) were country-code TLDs (ccTLDs). These volumes represented variations of + 3.6% for gTLDs and + 12.1% for ccTLDs, for an overall market growth estimated at 8.8% (integrating the so-called “free” ccTLDs which grew 21% in 2013).

On-going slowdown in growth

The market growth for gTLDs continued to follow a downward trend in 2013, while remaining positive. The downturn remained sharp but was less pronounced than in 2012. The trend in domain name creations is of concern among gTLDs, since it was negative for the second consecutive year and even worsened in 2013 to -1.4% against -0.8% in 2012.

Contrasting trends

The averages conceal strong contrasts between active gTLDs in 2013, as shown by the changes in stocks. Of note was the sharp deterioration in the situation of the .coop TLD, the stock of which almost halved after an explosion in domain name creations in 2012 (despite the predictable effect of renewals, which are often low at the end of a promotion campaign). The .info TLD also continued to plunge, with a loss of -21% against -11% in 2012. Other less known gTLDs or those formerly registered for “defensive” reasons (.travel, .tel, xxx, .pro, .name) are victims of the same trend. The major gTLDs of the past (.com, .net, .org) managed to pursue positive, albeit relatively small growth, the .com remaining the undisputed leader with its 114 million names, and even outperforming the average for the gTLDs and ccTLDs in the European Union. The “TOP 3” gTLDs in 2013 consisted of the .mobi and .biz gTLDs (promoted by a campaign allowing them to garner 24% of their annual number of domain name creations in September 2013 alone) and the .cat ccTLD, confirming once again the potential of regional TLDs.

The challenge for 2014: the “maintenance” rates

Overall, the ccTLDs doped by the .cn (China, 70%) and TLDs marketed in the so-called “free” mode grew faster than the gTLDs, which have probably already been faced with the phenomenon of disposals. Domain name registrants are confronted with a dilemma: either to keep domain names which are often unused, in which case increasing their domain name budgets in order to register new names under the TLDs that have opened since the beginning of 2014; or to abandon the largest possible number of unnecessary names and move to the new TLDs without exploding the same budget. Presumably most registrants oscillate between the two alternatives and in all likelihood therefore the maintenance rate of gTLDs and ccTLDs (in relation which, however, holders appear to be more loyal) will follow a downward trend in 2014.”

Check out EuroDNS here to register your .FR domain name.