Bitcoin, the crypto-currency that has captured the imaginations of technologists and economists around the world, has received a considerable amount of attention over the past couple of weeks.
Recently we have seen how domain name registrations tend to surge in the immediate aftermath of global phenomena. The rise of Bitcoin also presents an opportunity to track global interest and investment by way of .com and.net domain name registrations.
One of the greatest strengths of the internet is seen when a customer in one country engages with a brand in another. The internet has enabled companies to grow in influence and reach customers far beyond national boundaries in ways that could not have been foreseen even a decade ago.
One of the few places where national boundaries are still apparent online though is in a brand’s domain name. By using a domain name tied to a country, such as one ending in .uk, .ru, or another country code top-level domain (ccTLD), a brand can signal to the world its country of origin.
This is great for a company that only wants to engage with customers in their home country. However, for a person attempting to access content from abroad, a domain name ending in a ccTLD may be difficult to remember due to its unfamiliar syntax. Companies seeking to connect with a global audience can’t afford to have the address for their digital storefronts be limiting in any way. For this reason, it is usually best to select a domain name extension that people are globally familiar with, like .com and .net.
Guest Post from Ramon Ray – Smallbiztechnology
For any company doing business today, a website is far more than a way to promote products and services. With a consumer market that heavily relies on the internet for everything from directions to reviews, any small business that has not yet set up an online presence could be missing out on a gold mine of potential customers. In fact, Shop.org projects online holiday sales to increase between 13 and 15 percent to as much as $82 billion during the months of November and December this year, and the U.S. Commerce Department reported that final Q4 (October – December) e-commerce sales in 2012 increased 15.7 percent.
Today, Verisign announced that we are updating the Domain Name Industry Brief (DNIB) and a new version of the DNIB is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2014.
With the internet continuing to evolve in new ways, we have been evaluating how best to align the DNIB with that evolution so it better addresses the interests of our readers and expands the scope of the trends we’re tracking. We remain committed to continuing to provide informative content on the latest industry trends that are most relevant to our readers.
With the ease of access to the internet and prevalence of social media today, unsuspecting computer users are making it easier than ever for malicious actors to target them with malcode. This trend has helped provide the perfect environment for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to grow in size, complexity and range of targets. Today’s attacks are not limited to web infrastructure; attackers are increasingly targeting the Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure as well. This trend has been particularly noticeable in the financial industry, which has been hit hard over the last year.
Guest post from Pat Kane, Senior Vice President, Naming and Directory Services
On Oct. 23, 2013, at approximately 11:00 a.m. EDT, Verisign received authorization instructions from the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to delegate four new gTLDs into the root zone, which we are responsible for maintaining per the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and NTIA. Verisign acted in accordance with our contractual obligation and delegated these TLDs into the root zone at 2:33 p.m. EDT the same day.
Today Verisign announced the launch of Verisign DomainScope, a new domain name discovery tool designed to enhance the search for unique, relevant domain name choices in the .com, .net, .tv and .cc top-level domains. Incorporating the same functionality found in our DomainFinder, DomainScore and DomainCountdown tools, DomainScope replaces these tools and allows users to focus their domain search and uncover new domain name registration opportunities in one place.*
The world is abuzz with news of the United States government shutting down as of Oct., 1 2013. As we have seen with previous major news events there was a notable increase in domain name activity that seems to be correlated.
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 any business; not just to share information, but to build credibility.
Consumers are looking to connect with companies more than ever, and establishing an online presence through a website, blog or social channels provides a great way to fulfill this desire. But there are still many small businesses lacking an online presence, effectively hanging a closed sign up for their potential customers.
To understand the benefits, barriers and preferences for creating an online presence, Verisign recently worked with Merrill Research to conduct a global survey of 1,050 small businesses with an online presence about their experiences and gained some interesting insights.
With the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, internet retailers are gearing up for an onslaught of web traffic – which is great, as long as they have the right measures in place to keep their customers safe and satisfied.
Even one hour of downtime due to a website outage or a malicious attack can have significant impact on a retailer’s reputation and revenue, especially during the holidays, a time which the National Retail Federation says can add up to 40 percent of an online retailer’s annual revenue. With some large e-commerce sites earning millions each day during the holiday season, even a few minutes of downtime can lead to financial losses in the tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention customer frustration.