Blog Moderator | Mar 15, 2013
It is no secret that there is a rush to register relevant domain names after any highly publicized event. We saw it with the Royal Wedding, the death of Whitney Houston, and Hurricane Sandy. There are few events so widely publicized as the election of a new Pope, and as expected there was an enormous rush to register domains moments after the names “Jorge Mario Bergoglio” and “Pope Francis I” became known around the world. It has been estimated that well over 600 domains related to the Papacy were registered in the hours following the announcement.
Given that a majority of these registrations are happening on Top Level Domain names powered by Verisign, such as .com and .net, we are able to provide some tools that let you drill down into the details of these surges. For example, Verisign DomainView is a Web and iOS app which shows a real time tag cloud of domains being registered at any given point in time. A look at this app in the hours following the Papal announcement would have shown keywords like “Francis” dominating the cloud.
DomainView also has a handy sub-tool called RZU-Grapher. We did some checking and pulled out a couple of interesting results regarding the news.
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Pat Kane | Mar 14, 2013
Recently I joined a number of world leaders, policy makers, NGOs and other groups at the first World Summit on the Information Society review event, WSIS+10. The discussions focused on how we can all make progress toward achieving a truly multilingual, open Internet for everyone and establishing a knowledge-driven society. Hopefully, some of the key learnings will help shape the next review event in 2014 and also encourage a continuing dialogue about how to lower the digital divides that prevents so many users around the world from navigating the Web in non-native scripts and languages. There were many interesting workshops, seminars and interactive sessions happening at the meeting, but I wanted to share some thoughts about a special panel I participated on regarding Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) with Janis Karklins, Baher Esmat, Minjung Park, and Christine Arida, hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
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Scott Schnell | Mar 08, 2013
Today, people often turn to the Internet first for information about businesses and products – whether they are shopping online, or simply looking for a business’ address or phone number – making an online presence one of the most important assets for business. No matter the size or the industry, a Web presence is vital for businesses to help ensure customers can access the information they want.
The most important decision a business owner can make when establishing an online identity is choosing the right domain name. In this digital age, domain names are central to all online activity and businesses should take careful consideration when making their choice.
Which Top Level Domains Best Serve Small Businesses?
First, business owners need to ask themselves which Top-Level Domain (TLD) best serves their business. TLDs appear to the right of the dot, like .com, .net, .tv. The domain name industry is a competitive marketplace and there are many TLDs to choose from. When deciding where to build your online identity, a TLD can be as important to your business as your second-level domain (what’s to the left of the dot, i.e., your name, brand or product) for many reasons, including security, credibility and search – which will be how most customers find your site.
For more than two decades, .com and .net have been the TLDs of choice for businesses seeking to establish their online presence because they have global recognition and consistent records of security, availability and stability. They are also the TLDs of choice for many search experts because search engines give more weight to websites on .com and .net, making it easier for them to be found.
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Sean Leach | Feb 28, 2013
As businesses continue to move critical operations online, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are increasing in frequency, sophistication and range of targets. In a 2011 Verisign study, 63% of respondents reported experiencing at least one attack that year, while 51% reported revenue loss as a result of downtime from the attack. Those numbers are undoubtedly higher today as the size, frequency and complexity of DDoS attacks continue to grow. Mitigation against these types of attacks is challenging and generally requires layered solutions across data centers and the cloud management. The success of these attacks and their ability to damage a company’s infrastructure, revenue and reputation is indicative that many IT managers still haven’t found the right protection formula to proactively mitigate them.
A DDoS attack occurs when a “botnet” (a group of compromised computers) is used to send an overwhelming amount of "bad traffic" to an intended target, such as a company’s website. Computers can become “bots” when they're infected with a virus or other malware through a compromised website or malicious email. This usually happens completely behind the scenes with the user having no idea their PC is part of a botnet. The botnet is directed by a botnet command and control that tells all of the bots who/what/when/where and how to attack. The target of the attack usually spends so much time trying to handle the bad traffic that legitimate visitors, or customers, are crowded out and unable to get to the site.
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Scott Schnell | Feb 15, 2013
Our team at Watch.tv recently talked to several award-winning online video creators about the trend of online video at the International Association of Web TV Awards. In the spirit of the event, the team captured some video of these famed online video producers and actors discussing the importance of owning your online presence on a .tv website, as well as tips and tricks for creating great videos (watch video below). All this great discussion got us thinking about the important role of video as an online communication tool.
Online video is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of content on the Internet. Cisco is predicting online video will grow so fast that two-thirds of mobile data traffic will be video by 2016, illustrating the growing importance and preference of video for reaching Internet audiences. This trend is really important to understand for businesses – small and large - that often have limited resources to reach the broadest audience.
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