Introducing DomainIncite PRO

As you know, today is a Big Day in the domain name industry.
That’s right, today’s the day that I’m excited to announce the launch of DomainIncite PRO, the industry’s newest research and analysis service.
DomainIncite PRO is a DI sister site providing in-depth coverage of industry trends, company case studies, and analysis of ICANN’s new generic top-level domains program as it begins to roll out.
I hope the service will quickly become the domain name industry’s premier source of independent research and objective, vendor-neutral analysis.
Let me assure you that regular DI is not going anywhere. This blog will continue to break the latest domain name news, in our unique style, at least five days a week.
While DI will continue to publish shorter news articles, DomainIncite PRO will carry white papers in the 1,500 to 3,000-word range, often accompanied by downloadable data.
Some highlights of the content available to PRO subscribers today:

Five thousand strings that could get your gTLD application rejected
This paper analyzes a wide variety of scenarios in which new gTLD strings could be rejected by ICANN and provides a downloadable spreadsheet of over 5,000 specific banned strings — including brands, abbreviations and generic terms — that could cause an application to fall at the first hurdle.
How .CO Internet relaunched Colombia’s .co registry
This case study looks at .CO Internet’s strategy in the run-up to .co’s launch and during its first year of operations, exploring its successes and failures with regards marketing, sales, channel partnerships and trademark protection.
Domain name sales price database
To help new gTLD applicants with their premium domain name pricing strategies, we’re making available a database of almost 60,000 domain name sales prices that can be used as a helpful pricing reference.

There’s also a free downloadable white paper about new gTLDs written with absolute newbies in mind.
Expect to see a lot more content, with a big focus on new gTLDs, to start appearing soon.
In the near future, DomainIncite PRO will also begin to carry in-depth data-driven market share analysis of the existing gTLD registry space. This coverage will be expanded to cover all new gTLDs when they begin to launch early next year.
We will also provide ongoing analysis of live policy development within ICANN, helping new community members navigate the minefield of acronyms, procedures and personalities.
While translating ICANN into plain English is one of my key goals, make no mistake: DomainIncite PRO is interested in politics only insofar as it affects businesses.
Don’t expect to find long, tedious reports about interminable internet governance debates, unless the outcome is likely to have a tangible impact on somebody’s bottom line.
I can reveal that DomainIncite PRO’s first contributing analyst is Adam Smith, World Trademark Review‘s well-respected former Senior Reporter.
Adam covered the development of the new gTLD program for WTR between 2008 and late 2011. He knows his stuff and I’m very grateful to have him on board.
I hope to add more writers in the near future (if you’re interested in contributing, please get in touch).
Now the bad news. This great content doesn’t come for free.
Memberships are available on an annual subscription basis, and it’s priced for a corporate wallet.
As it’s a new service, and because this post basically represents a “soft” launch for regular DomainIncite readers, the introductory price for single-user annual subscription is $799.
Multi-user company licenses are also available at a discounted rate upon request, but I do not currently anticipate offering trial subscriptions.
I think the content available today already offers a compelling ROI case.
If DomainIncite PRO sounds like something that could benefit your business, why not check it out for yourself right now?

Former ICANN CFO sues Sedari over €100k deal

Kevin Wilson, who joined new gTLD consultancy Sedari as chief financial officer earlier this year, was fired in October and is now suing the company over a €100,000 investment deal gone bad.
Wilson, who spent four years as ICANN’s CFO, was one of a number of familiar domain name industry faces to join UK-based Sedari when it came out of stealth mode this summer.
But he was let go in October after falling out with CEO Liz Williams over financial matters.
Wilson claims that even as CFO he had to fight for access to Sedari’s financial records, and that when he finally questioned the company’s accounting he was terminated.
His termination letter said that Sedari had “very serious concerns” about his performance.
He had agreed to invest €100,000, in two €50,000 installments, and was fired shortly after deciding not to make the second payment, according to his legal complaint.
Wilson claims that he agreed to become an investor after being told about paying clients, including Cloud Registry, that he came to believe may not have existed.
He also alleges that “substantial sums” were taken from the company coffers by Williams for spa treatments and other personal expenditures.
The lawsuit alleges “fraud” on this basis, and seeks the return of Wilson’s initial €50,000 stake.
Wilson also wants the court to declare that, as a resident of California, he is not bound by the post-employment non-compete clauses of his contract.
He’s currently an independent new gTLDs consultant.
Sedari, through its solicitor Faegre & Benson, said in a statement:

Mr. Wilson has reneged on his legally binding obligations to Sedari both in relation to the payment by him of certain sums and his agreement not to act contrary to the best interest of the company. As a result, the Board has forfeited Mr. Wilson’s shares and taken further action to enforce its rights against him.

The statement notes that Sedari has not yet been formally served the complaint – which was filed in the Superior Court in Los Angeles on October 25 – adding:

In the event that Mr. Wilson proceeds with his complaint, it will be defended comprehensively.
The claim is devoid of merit, wrong in fact and all material allegations are rejected. Mr. Wilson will also be pursued for any further loss his actions may cause the alleged defendants.

Wilson said in a statement that he wants to “resolve matters amicably”.
According to exhibits filed with the lawsuit, Sedari’s other investors include Williams, with a majority 53.7% stake, as well as director Dennis Jennings and policy chief Philip Sheppard.
Registry services provider Afilias paid $375,000 for a 27.4% stake in the company, according to these documents. Its chairman, Philipp Grabensee, sits on the Sedari board.
Here’s the complaint.

Sedari hires Fay Howard as COO

New gTLDs start-up Sedari has recruited Fay Howard, formerly general manager of CENTR, the Council for European National Top Level Domain Registries, as its new chief operating officer.
Howard has also previously worked at Nominet and Eurid, where she wrote the winning application for the .eu registry contract, according to Sedari.
It’s one of a number of recent senior hires for the company, which came out of stealth mode this summer to provide new gTLD applicants with application and registry management services.
Last month, the company hired Philip Shepard as director of policy.

Staff changes at new gTLD consultancies

There’s movement in the new top-level domains consultancy market this week, with new hires and departures at a couple of startups.
It’s been a case of one in, one out at Sedari, the registry management services company founded by Liz Williams this summer.
The company has hired Philip Sheppard, most recently director of public affairs for AIM, the European Brands Agency, as its new policy director.
Sheppard is an ICANN veteran from the IP/business side of the house, who has chaired multiple policy committees since becoming involved in 1999.
But Sedari has also lost another industry vet, Jothan Frakes, who’s decided to go freelance.
Elsewhere, FairWinds Partners, which shares management with the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, has also emerged publicly as a new gTLD consultancy.
The Washington DC-based company hope to use its track record of criticizing the new gTLD program to win the support of big brands skeptical about the ICANN process.
FairWinds said this week it’s taken on former ICANN director Michael Palage of Pharos Global, who has worked for both proponents and opponents of the program, apparently on a freelance basis.

Twitter co-founder to headline DOMAINfest

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is to keynote the 2012 DOMAINfest Global conference, organizer Oversee.net has just announced.
It sounds rather like his speech will focus on the “inspirational story” angle, rather like Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons’ keynote at the 2011 show.
According to the agenda, Stone will “share his thoughts on Twitter’s future and the evolving world of social media”.
Judging by the other speakers and panelists lined up, it’s an SEO-heavy agenda, but there will be a workshop entitled “Everything You Need to Know about New TLDs”.
For the new gTLDs panel, so far only Neustar’s Ken Hansen is listed as a confirmed speaker. I don’t expect that state of affairs to last long.
The show will be held at the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, California, from January 31 to February 2 next year. Prices start at $1,195 if registering before December 31.

Google threatens domain names with Direct Connect

Google’s latest social networking play is a potential threat to the relevance of domain names.
The company has announced the launch of Direct Connect, a feature that enables direct navigation to Google+ pages via the search engine.
Essentially, typing a + sign before the name of a brand in the search box will take you directly to that brand’s Google+ page, assuming it has one, bypassing search results.
This video explains it pretty well:

Google said yesterday that at launch a handful of brands, including Pepsi, Toyota and Angry Birds, are signed up, but from where I’m sitting only +google seems to work as advertised.
The feature also only seems to work when used with the search box on Google’s home page.
However, it does not require a massive leap of the imagination to see it quite easily showing up soon in the Google Toolbar and the integrated search/URL bar in Chrome.
Direct Connect was launched alongside Google+ Pages, the company’s answer to Facebook Pages – a way for companies to have their own branded fan page for interacting with customers.
Many companies are already advertising their Facebook addresses, or simply encouraging people to search Facebook for their brand, in print, on TV and elsewhere.
It might not be long before we see +brand advertising along similar lines.
Could Google train people to type +pepsi instead of pepsi.com? It’s an interesting notion.
The + operator was of course until recently a way of telling Google that you really, really wanted to see search results containing your query.
As Google has increasingly crapified its search engine with infuriating “user-friendly” guff over the last few years, I’ve trained myself to automatically put a + in front of every search in order to get the results I want rather than what Google, in its infinite wisdom, thinks I might want.
I’m sure I’m not alone.
While the + function has now been deprecated in favor of enclosing queries in quotation marks, it is nevertheless already trained user behavior in many cases.
I’m not suggesting that Google is going to kill domain names, but at first glance Direct Connect certainly seems to be a step toward attempting to make them less relevant for branding and advertising.
I can’t help but note that Google+ Pages was launched unilaterally by Google with no multi-stakeholder consultation, no battles with intellectual property interests, and no government oversight.
The Association of National Advertisers has yet to demand that Google shuts it down.

NetNames puts gTLD.com domain to good use

European registrar Group NBT has a pretty great domain for its new generic top-level domains consulting business: gTLD.com.
Under its NetNames corporate registrar brand, the company is targeting the “.brand” market, like so many others, judging by its recently relaunched web site.
Its services include pre-application consulting, help with applications, and ongoing management services, provided through its relationships with registry infrastructure partners.
It will also keep track of other ICANN gTLD applications and alert clients about potential cases of trademark infringement.
One thing’s for sure, new gTLD applicants in general are spoiled for choice now when it comes to selecting a consultant.

DomainTools opens massive email record database

DomainTools has opened up a huge database that matches domain names to the mail servers they use.
A search on ReverseMX.com for a domain name returns the mail servers that domain uses. In reverse, you can search for a mail server or IP address and find out which domains use it.
For example, a query for one of Google’s mail servers will spit back a short list of some of the domains that use Google for their email, along with an aggregate domain count.
DomainTools said in a press release:

ReverseMX can be used by a wide audience – basically anyone interested in researching the footprint of small or large email providers. For example, users can analyze which mail servers’ domains are using certain email providers, or how Microsoft’s hosted email is doing against Gmail or Yahoo.

The data currently covers the 130 million domains registered under .com, .edu, .net, .org, .info, .biz, and .us – the largest TLDs for which zone files are freely available.
DomainTools has already uncovered a few interesting factoids, such as that 30 million domain names use Go Daddy for their email, making it easily the largest provider.
The service also interrogates domains’ SPF records to work out which IP addresses are authorized to send email for any given domain.
I can imagine ReverseMX being useful for researchers in the security industry (and their spammer adversaries?).
But unlike DomainTools’ other services, it does not immediately appear to be something that many people in the domain name industry will find themselves using on a daily basis.

Now you can outsource your whole gTLD

It’s already common practice for domain name registries to outsource their technical operations to a back-end provider such as VeriSign or Afilias, but a new company hopes that new gTLD registries will want to go one step further.
Sedari, which appears to have soft-launched at the .nxt conference today, wants successful new gTLD applicants to outsource their back-office functions too.
The company, headed by former ICANN policy advisor Liz Williams, “helps string owners outsource the risk and responsibility of running a registry in compliance with ICANN’s contracts”, according to its site.
I understand this means functions such as billing, support, compliance, and liaising with the back-end registry and the front-end registrars.
I guess it’s going to be possible for a successful gTLD applicant to sign a registry contract with ICANN and then do very little to actually manage its day-to-day operation.
A registry that outsources its technical infrastructure to the likes of Neustar and its back office to Sedari will presumably be free to focus on nothing but marketing.
Sedari is staffed by a number of familiar faces.
Its CFO is Kevin Wilson, who had the same role at ICANN until January, and former ICANN director Dennis Jennings is on the board.
Its CTO is Wayne MacLaurin, who was previously CTO of Momentous. Jothan Frakes, formerly with Minds + Machines, is senior VP of channel management.

New gTLD conference planned for Bulgaria

Bulgaria is to get its own conference on the new generic top-level domains opportunity.
Set for the Grand Hotel Sofia in the nation’s capital, November 7 (and possibly November 8, according to the schedule), Domain Forum is being organized by Uninet.bg and Register.bg.
Uninet is the organization that’s been pushing ICANN, so far unsuccessfully, for a Cyrillic version of Bulgaria’s ccTLD, .bg.
The program looks like a mix of local-interest talk and general gTLD discussion, and I’m told it will be conducted in a mix of English and Bulgarian. Two-way translation will be provided.
The organizers expect about 100 attendees. ICANN staff will be there, but names have not been confirmed. I’m also planning to attend.
Oh, and registration is free.
The new gTLD conference diary is certainly filling up.
We have Kieren McCarthy’s .nxt coming up next week in San Francisco. I attended the first one in February and thought they did a great job. I wrote about it here.
And next month there’s United-Domains’ two-day newdomains.org meeting in Munich, Germany, which I believe will be Europe’s first new gTLD show. I’m on a couple of panels at this event.