HEXONET’s DotAsia backordering technology is one of the first, if not the first, backorderingservices for .ASIA domains - thousands of domains soon to expire on DotAsia’s anniversary.
Vancouver, Canada March 3, 2010 — HEXONET (www.hexonet.net) announced today one of the domain industry’s first, if not the first, backordering services for DotAsia domain names. Utilizing HEXONET’s revolutionary domain backordering search engine and service platform, starting today, for the first time, anyone will be able to search for expiring .ASIA domains as well as backorder them even before they expire. Again, only at HEXONET, can .ASIA domain backorders be placed using this new technology.
“With DotAsia’s Landrush anniversary fast approaching, HEXONET was determined to launch the DotAsia backordering service as quickly as possible,” said Robert Birkner, Chief Strategy Officer of HEXONET. Birkner also went on to say, “On February 20th, thousands of domains, if not tens of thousands, first went into redemption (expiration) resulting from DotAsia’s massive launch two years ago. Many fantastic domains are going to be up for grabs towards the end of March and only HEXONET customers will have the newest technology to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Edmon Chung, Chief Executive Officer of the DotAsia registry, has been quoted as saying, “We are excited to see technological innovations built around DotAsia domains. With the implementation of the Asian Free Trade Area between China and 10 South East Asian nations earlier this year, the usage and demand of DotAsia domains will continue to grow, not only for new domains, but also for domains that have been previously registered as businesses expand to the regional Asian marketplace.”
Individuals, businesses, and organizations can sign up for free at HEXONET and immediately start backordering .ASIA domains. Backordering for other domain extensions–such as .DE, .INFO, .BIZ, .ORG, and more–is also available.
About HEXONET
Since 1999, HEXONET has been a leading developer and service provider of reseller technologies for the domain industry. Thousands of resellers, startups and service providers from across the world trust HEXONET as their domain platform provider. And today, HEXONET manages over six hundred thousand domains for its clients.
Considering all the turmoil going on in Asia with .CN Domains, this may be the best timing for .ASIA to make some head-way.
Top 5 Reasons to register .ASIA Domains:
#1: With all the restrictions CNNIC has now imposed on .CN Domains, why not change to a TLD that provides security and stability and is used and commonly known for ASIA?
Recently, CNNIC the official TLD Registry of China disabled .CN registrations from international registrars, meaning international accredited registrars were no longer permitted to register .CN Domains on behalf of their customers. Just recently CNNIC has opened registrations once again for international registrars, however the burden is now on the registrars to collect the required documentation from the registrant prior to submitting the registration request. With all this manual work, the prices of .CN Domains are bound to sky-rocket or you may even see many registrars start taking .CN off the shelf. It is very unfortunate that it had to come this far with .CN Domains. Everything was working fine without any problems, until CNNIC started giving away .CN Domains at a few cents, basically opening the gates to Spammers worldwide. Based on the above one should now consider if a .CN Domains is the right choice. Given all of the above, I would recommend going with a .ASIA Domain, which is stable and secure.
#2: Anybody can register a .ASIA domain, quickly and easily without the hassle of documentation
An .ASIA Domain can be registered within seconds and no additional documentation is required. You immediately know, if you got the domain or not, thus providing more security and stability to the registrant.
#3: Asia is the market of tomorrow. Did you know, that a .ASIA Domain improves SEO for searches relevant to the Asia Market? With all other SEO elements held equal, domain anmes make a difference in search results. The term “ASIA” itself is already one of the most popular search keywords. A “.ASIA” domain helps improve search engine rankings naturally, especially when Internet users search for information about Asia. Getting a .ASIA is a cheap and efficient way of increasing your SEO.
#4: Did you know, that every .ASIA registrations helps fund community work in ASIA?
DotASIA has a core mandate towards digital inclusion, education and development. Today, DotAsia is already supporting many major community projects: Relief.ASIA, ISIF.ASIA (R&D Grants Fund), CreativeCommons.ASIA, OLPC.AISA (One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative in Asia), … and many more. Every registration contributes funds to the social and technical development of the Internet throughout Asia.
#5: How likely is your desired domain to be taken beneath .COM and still available in .ASIA? Very likely indeed. The .ASIA namespace is still fairly young, hence the chances of your desired domain name taken beneath .ASIA is significantly lower than searching for your domain in .COM.
To emphasize on this prime opportunity, HEXONET is offering a special price promotion throughout the months March and April 2010. The required Asian CED Contact is provided with each registration free-of-charge.
In the event you are interested in registering larger volumes of .ASIA Domains, please drop sales@hexonet.net an email and allow HEXONET to make you an offer.
For years, in the back of my mind, Jens and I have had the idea of building a better “domain backordering” service. Though we had the concepts in creating a better service and having the specialized engineering experience and skill, we never got around to actually putting one together. Often business trips, customer and employee needs, projects, and operational reasons seem to have always impeded us. After opening the North American wing of HEXONET in 2009 and getting back together with Jens, one resolution was clear from the beginning, build a better “domain backordering” service.
Clearly from my perspective:
For these reasons, we simply had to build the HEXONET Domain Backordering Service by January 2010. And strangely enough, it became our first new year’s resolution for 2010! Yes, committing to a new years resolution in the fall of the previous year is kinda odd, but we were serious about making the domain backordering service our first milestone of the year. And we actually accomplished our goal (resolution) January 5th, 2010!
On January 5th 2010, HEXONET launched the better “Domain Backordering Service” for .COM, NET, ORG, BIZ, INFO, MOBI, US, DE & SE. Though starting off with just a handful of TLDs now, more ccTLDs are already in the pipeline. And by the end of 2010, we believe, this service will be the premier ccTLD backordering anywhere.
2009 is slowly coming to an end, and what a year this was. Looking back, here are some of my personal highlights.
January 2009 - Completion of Consulting
I completed my consulting assignment for dot ME, which was a fantastic experience. Seeing a TLD with so much creativity grow was amazing. It was also beneficial to actually have had the opportunity to see the views of a registry and not just a registrar.
February 2009 - Founding of HEXONET Services Inc.
HEXONET Services Inc. was formed and officially inaugurated in February. I am now back on track of what I always wanted to do. I have a great partner on board here in North America, and I have someone in Germany whom I trust and with whom I have worked together with before very successfully - Jens Wagner. In addition to this, I’m extremely happy to be once again working with Dennis, Chris and Sven in Germany with whom I’ve also worked very successfully with at Key-Systems, and have come to respect. It is amazing how things sometimes turn out.
March 2009
HEXONET Services Inc. launched product offerings for North and South America in joint collaboration with our colleagues in Germany and we have started to sign up customers on our new control panel.
April 2009 - Pre-wedding Reception in China
Leona and I had our pre-wedding Chinese reception in China with my parents and Leona’s family. It was a wonderful and moving experience. This was my parents’ first trip to China, they had a great time touring in Beijing, Shanghai, then finally in Guangzhou, for the reception.
May 2009 - Nesting
Enough with moving from country to country, it was time to settle down. With help from friends, Leona and I moved into our new house and spent the next two months spending money and more money on furniture and accessories. The terrace is looking good, I got my BBQ on one side and patio furniture on the other, add couple Coronas, a dash of sun - voila, life is great!
June 2009 - New Office
HEXONET Services Inc. moved office - Hello White-Rock! A huge and exciting step for HEXONET Canada.
July 2009 - Wedding
My brother and his family came to visit for 2 weeks prior to the wedding. All of a sudden Leona and I had a full house and had to get used to 2 kids. Having a brand new house with two kids can be very tiring. Nonetheless, you get used to them so quickly and once they left Leona and I started to miss the two terribly. July was just a very busy but happy month. We had to take care of family and ensure that they enjoyed Vancouver. Both Leona and I were so thankful to having our parents come over, my brother and sister with family as well as family and relatives from Leona. And just like that, July 16, 2009 was upon us and what a day this was. Truly a day to remember, with perfect weather for our wedding at the Brockhouse. Shortly after the wedding it was already time to say farewell to friends and family as they traveled back home.
October & November 2009
These two months were spent traveling the world again. Thankfully Leona and I work in the same industry which allowed us to sometimes travel together. October was spent entirely in Germany visiting clients and potential clients, as well as spending time at HEXONET HeadQuarters. Towards the end of October we left for Seoul to attend the next ICANN Meeting. From there we went on to HongKong to attend a fantastic event hosted by .ASIA. It was good to be back in HongKong, the city held many memories for both Leona and I. Later in the month of November we were then off to Hawaii to attend a different fantastic industry event. Luckily for us, we were able to spend a few additional days on Maui and just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed life with a good book and even better cocktails.
That basically concludes a very exciting and significant 2009. I am happily married, have a wonderful wife, have a roof over my head, am working once again with people I trust and HEXONET is doing great and definitely heading in the right direction.
I am now already looking forward to 2010 and what this coming year has in store for me.
I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. In the event that you are traveling over Christmas, remain calm and travel safe! See you in the New Year.
2009 is coming to an end and I just finished my last business trip of the year. On my way back home to Vancouver it dawned me that I used to love flying and that nowadays I simply hate it. I attribute this to the fact that I am on the plane quite often and that I am simply fed-up of traveling. I know that this sounds odd to many people, especially since their is a perception that flying to all these different countries on business is glamorous. Believe me, it isn’t. It is tiring and draining. Yes it is good to see different countries and cultures, but one usually doesn’t have enough time to actually visit any places.
While flying home on my last lag of the journey I thought I would write about the top things that bug me the most when flying and why.
#1: Checking-In
Checking in is painful, especially with a European Passport in Canada. They nowadays have the electronic check-ins, where you have to scan your passport to get your boarding pass and put on your own luggage tags. Every single time, I tell the lady that directs me to the machine, that the machine won’t read my passport, but no, I still get instructed to use these machines, even though they don’t work for foreign passports. What a waste of time. You would expect the airline personnel to know their machines and what works and what doesn’t.
If it isn’t the electronic check-in machines, then it is the long check-in lines through economy, why are people are pushing and shoving. Where is the common courtesy to respect people in line? Are they afraid they will not make the flight? If you are late and need to get by, then just ask! Thankfully Airline have mileage programs, where if lucky you can avoid the long line-ups.
#2: Airlines should enforce carry-on restrictions
I am sure this happens elsewhere in the world very often and also with other airlines, but since I have been living in North America for the past 3 1/2 years, naturally I will rage about North American Airlines. I understand the convenience of take your luggage on board the plane and disembark without having to worry about baggage claim of any sort. I admit that I am the same and whenever I can I will try to take my luggage as carry-on. That is a little carry-on and a notebook bag. However what I can’t stand is when people actually take two huge carry-ons on board and by the time you get to your seat there is no space in the overhead, resulting in the innocent who stick to the rules having to put their carry-on luggage under the seat in front of them, as there isn’t enough room in the overhead bins. Then when you ask around “excuse me are these your bags” nobody responds. Where the heck has all the common courtesy gone? If you take two carry-ons on board, then show some courtesy to the others on the plane and stuff one of your carry-ons under your own seat!
Airlines: If you have restrictions, then enforce them or at least charge for additional carry-ons and reduce your fees or offer the on-board food a bit cheaper! Why do airlines have a hand-luggage size check right before boarding if it isn’t used?
#3: Mileage Programs
I am a member of Lufthansa Miles and More Program, but I am definitely starting to question it. Lufthansa is a member of Star Alliance which is the global leading airline network, in terms of daily flights, destinations and countries flown to and amount of member airlines. What good does all of this do, if you can’t upgrade your flight at one of the partner airlines? Useless … I can’t upgrade with my Miles and More Card on an Air Canada flight, even though Air Canada is a member of Star Alliance. The same applies to other airlines as well, this is not the “Friendly Sky” you’ve promised.
#4 Seat Space
Fortunately/unfortunately I am very tall, meaning I am always cramped into the economy seat. Passengers might consider taking into consideration the person sitting behind them before ramming their seat back or even ask if the person behind would mind, if they put their seat back. Ultimately it’s the airlines who need to invest in newer fleets, built for humane travel.
#5 Immigration
Immigration is the worst. Imagine the following picture. You just got off a 12 hour flight cramped in economy and all you’re looking forward to is a hot shower, in a nice hotel room, and a decent meal. Then it feels as if you got hit by an invisible fist, when you see the long line-up for immigration and only 2 counters are open … You then look for a shorter line and see 8 shorter lines with basically nobody standing there, but …. you can’t go their as this is only for “residents” or “citizens” … what is up with that? People visiting your country for either business or leisure, willing to spend money and the first impression they get is that foreigners have to wait.
Have you ever experienced any of the above?
A colleague and a close friend of mine Tony Kim - CMO at HEXONET just wrote a very interesting blogpost that holds so true.
Check it out under BLOG.HEXONET.NET.
Enjoy!
Why Choose HEXONET Over Your Competitors? What Makes HEXONET Different?
With every phone call, meeting, or industry gathering, seemingly we at HEXONET always get asked the same questions - Why HEXONET? What makes HEXONET different from your competitors? Why should I want to partner with HEXONET? The answer is clear, HEXONET has the right people, the proven expertise, and best technology.
The Team @ HEXONET
At HEXONET, our team is immeasurably greater than the sum of our individual parts. This can only happen when a team has a common vision and the passion to pursue it. HEXONET’s employees strive everyday to empower resellers through world-class engineering and innovation, whether that’s going above and beyond to answer a support call or simply investing countless of hours testing to ensure our latest builds are rock solid. This is who we are and how we work everyday.
Our passion is fueled by the commendations from our customers. Emails, phone calls, and meetings where our customers not only give us praise, but also give us positive criticism provide guidance as to what we can do better and how we can innovate even more. At HEXONET we welcome our clients and partners to share in our philosophy and work with us towards making things better. This is how we grow.
And above all things, our team holds true to doing business the old fashion way - that promises are kept and our word is our honor. At HEXONET, we would rather close our doors than lose the trust of our clients and partners.
Expertise of the Team @ HEXONET
There are HEXONET competitors who are way better at marketing than us, no doubt. Also, there are some of competitors who also have top notch engineering like us. And there are some who have been in business longer than us. So how are we different? At HEXONET we believe we have the right balance of skill and experience, that when combined properly, is vastly more superior than any one skill our competitors possess.
HEXONET’s foundation is world-class engineering, which is lead by some of the industry’s foremost technical talent. Though technology serves as the foundation for the company, it is our business leaders who make what we do special. Worldwide, there are only a handful of individuals who have both the high-level strategic acumen and the practical and practiced exposure in our industry to actually make things work correctly.
Altogether, HEXONET has more than thirty (30) years of experience in the domain and hosting industry, as executives, programmers and operational managers. We know the top-down strategy and most importantly the bottom-up mechanics for success.
The Technology - HEXONET eats, drinks and breathes Technology!
HEXONET technology is a reflection of a single philosophy heralded by its founder and CEO, Jens Wagner - automation is the key to success, and making automation faster and more stable only brings success that much sooner. So how does HEXONET technology bring success faster to our customers?
The foundation of HEXONET technology is an ultra-fast, highly reliable, and scalable domain registration system that provides anyone who uses it the widest selection of domains from a single source (see the list). Simply connect with the platform once and everything else is entirely automated. Even if technology changes, new registries arise, old registries die, or new regulations becomes mandatory, HEXONET does all the hard work of automation for our customers!
Add to this amazing platform an abundance of ways to connect, whether it be via API, web control panel, EPP 1.0, or our newest way, Registrar Operations Center (RegistrarOC), moving from a decision to registering the first domain with us can literally be minutes.
Whether preparing for the impeding new gTLDs or looking for ways to save money without sacrificing performance, HEXONET technology even makes the decision to try totally risk-free. Risk-free because anyone can start off as a reseller (no signup fees or commitments) and seamlessly switch to their own accreditation utilizing RegistrarOC when the volume makes sense. In fact, switching requires no engineering, no effort to migrate domains onto one’s accreditation (fully automated and free of charge), and once done, saves customers even more money since afterward, domain registration and management only costs a small administrative fee per domain.
Talk with us, work with us, and see how our technology is easier to use, more reliable, and more cost effective!
The continent of Asia and the nation of China in particular has been an area of high interest for me this past decade. Asia and specifically China is obviously a massive opportunity and clearly the domain market of the future. Though many impediments and hurdles exist to entering the Asian market, those with the right timing and execution of entry are poised to win big. I myself have almost taken the plunge several times, especially right after the hugely successful launch of .CN.
Given all this potential, .ASIA, operated by dotASIA Organisation in Hong Kong, is uniquely positioned to be a very important TLD for the region. How important, I didn’t realize until I had the opportunity to meet with dotASIA representatives and fellow registrars at their annual .ASIA Retreat in Hong Kong. Over the two day period, I was impressed by some of their creative marketing campaigns, which were done in partnership with some of Asia’s celebrities, as well as, how wide and deep many of Asia’s ccTLD registries support .ASIA.
Though .ASIA has gotten off to a slower start than expected, around 250,000 domains under management in two years, I am confident the Registry will increasingly expand its influence and popularity in Asia and outside of Asia. The fact that .ASIA has the support of so many ccTLD registries in the region almost certainly assures their longevity. Additionally, given the information I received at the retreat, some of which I will share in this post, the future success of .ASIA is looking bright.
Community:
dotASIA has as their mandate to invest heavily into community projects, as well as, provide monies for Internet expansion and awareness in Asia. These efforts are slowing starting to pay off. Couple this awareness with the growing Internet user base and the formula for success becomes clear.
Internet User Base:
Three of the top five countries worldwide are in Asia, according to Internet World Stats as of March 31, 2009. Furthermore, Asia as a region has the largest Internet user base in the world.
| Internet Users By Country:
1. China - 298,000,000 Users |
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| Asian Bloggers:
According to the ADMA market Yearbook for 2009, the growth and popularity of blogging in Asia is in overdrive. Even in comparison to the US the numbers are amazing. Just looking at the “Average Monthly Unique Visitors”, Asia is approx. 44% larger than the US. |
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Unique .ASIA Websites:
| 1.) www.KeepClicking.asia
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| 2. www.Listenup.asia
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| 3. www.apea.asia
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I expect to see much success for .ASIA in the coming years, especially given the demographics of their target audience, their partnership with ccTLD registries, and their bold marketing philosophy.
It has been a while since I last posted something on ccTLDs. I decided this time to write about .BE, the official ccTLD of Belgium, operated by DNS.BE.
Brief History of .BE:
Though the chart above gives the indication that the registry has reached maturity, the ups and downs are likely attributable to various promotions. Some such promotions lowered the price a lot increasing the registration numbers, but my suspicion is that in the end, this just lead to poor renewal rates; thus, the fluctuating registrations.
If I recall correctly from one of numerous .BE Registrar Meetings I have attended in the past, then companies dominate the registrant user base for .BE mainly due to past registry policy. Over 80% of all registrations are from businesses and only 20% are from individuals. It would be extremely interesting to see the results of a whois-scan to see the latest makeup of organizations vs. individuals.
Registration Rules and Facts:
Trade Feature of .BE:
Unlike gTLDs, .BE Domains require a special command be sent to the registry for change of ownership, called a TRADE. A TRADE is like a classic domain transfer - registrar however remains the same - , meaning upon successfully processing of a TRADE, the registrant information is changed and the registration period starts from new. The registry charges an annual fee for this feature and registrars naturally bill for this on their end. This same feature is also used within dot EU, which is basically a mirror of the DNS.BE System. This “TRADE” feature is unique to .BE and .EU. I am sure many registrars worldwide would prefer to see .BE and .EU get rid of this feature and give the registrars more control over their customers.
HEXONET offers .BE Domains at very affordable prices. In the event you are interested in registering large volumes of .BE Domains, please reach out to the Sales Department at HEXONET at sales@hexonet.net for negotiated pricing.
Source: http://www.dns.be
This past weekend, I took my wife to Victoria, Vancouver Island as she had never been there even though she has now lived in B.C for about 1 1/2 years.
I left work a bit earlier on Friday (this is the advantage of being on the West Coast. You can leave work at 2 or 3 p.m. and it doesn’t really matter as the East Coast has already gone home). Luck was with us as we just made the ferry at 2:00 p.m. to Swartz Bay. What an amazing ferry ride over. Blue sky and calm seas as far as you could see. I was a bit disappointed, as I had hoped to see some Orcas… We did however see some seals playing while the ferry navigated between the Islands.
Saturday morning was spent strolling around downtown Victoria. What a beautiful city with such British flair. During breakfast we decided to join a Whale Watching tour as I have always hoped to see Orcas in the wild. We left Victoria harbour at 3.15 p.m. on a ship that was fully packed! Before departing they took a head count of 74 people! Wow! I immediately started running the numbers, …. holy cow.
74 people X 95.00 CAD$ (tax excl.) per person = 7,030 CAD$.
3 fully booked tours a day 7,030 CAD$ * 3 = 21,090 CAD$
… nice business.
We were hitting the waves for more than 1 1/2 hours before we slowed down. Our guide had spotted some Orcas. Actually a pod of Orcas, approx 15 whales. Our guide switched off the engines as the Orcas were swimming directly towards us. I was speechless. What amazing mammals! They swam as close as 15 m. passed us. We got some really nice shots.
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I remember visiting Sea World in Florida as a kid. It’s one thing seeing an Orca in a tank and quite another seeing them in the wild. What an unforgettable experience, it was worth every single penny. After hanging out with the whales, we headed back to the Victoria harbour. It was already getting late and the temperatures had dropped quite a bit. We grabbed ourselves hot chocolates and listened to some wild stories the captain had to tell. We had so much fun standing on upper level while the others huddled downstairs for warmth. On the way back the waves started picking up and the boat started hitting the waves pretty heavily. I was a bit concerned for my wife, but she was having a blast, thoroughly enjoying herself and laughed every single time we hit a wave!
We finally got back to the harbour around 7.30 p.m. and both of us were frozen, but happy! A quick hot dinner, a stop at the liquor store for a bottle of Merlot and off to the hotel. We hardly finished 1/2 a glass of wine when both of us passed out. We must have had spent the last of our energy staying warm on the boat.
Anyone who visits Vancouver should stay a few days longer and take the time to visit Victoria.
