Recently in blacknight Category

Today was a reasonably productive day...

No day is every really as productive as I'd like it to be, but today was pretty good!

To start with I finally had a few quiet minutes to myself and was able to book my flights to Sydney for the ICANN meeting. I had tried to book it online, but I couldn't make sense of the times / dates ie. if you leave Dublin on Friday, which day would you arrive in Sydney. Solution was to just ring Trailfinders and let them worry about it. They also gave me a better rate on the ticket than I'd found online, so it was a "win win" situation. Now all I have to do is either persuade the Hilton to give me a better rate or else find a different hotel....

The other bit of progress today was that we finally launched Windows 2008 with IIS7 on our shared hosting platform. We're giving the first 100 signups for a Windows 2008 Minimus plan a massive 20 euro off, so you can get your site hosted on the latest Microsoft server platform for a mere 29.95 for the first year!! (More details here)

Now if only I could work my way through the rest of my todo list...

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• ICANN Updates New TLD Timeline (blacknight.com)
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• Things To Do In Sydney?? (mneylon.com)
• Shameless Domain Plug (mneylon.com)

If you don't want to read a shameless plug, then stop reading now...

Over at Blacknight we're doing a special offer on .im domain registration - simply use the coupon code "imfeelinglucky" when placing your order and you'll get 10 euro off!

Over the last few weeks we've been working on integrating with a load of different domain registries, such as .je (Jersey) and .gg (Guernsey).

Since we are now an ICANN accredited registrar  I've also been working away at our accreditations with the ICANN gTLD registries.

As we went through the accreditation process instead of buying an existing registrar we have to liase with each registry operator we intend on working with. It's an interesting process, but takes quite a bit of time.

Personally I'm a lot happier that we chose to do things this way!

Taking short cuts when it comes to ICANN is not a good idea (look what happened with RegisterFly!)

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• Blacknight Now ICANN Accredited (blacknight.com)

I'm overjoyed about this one ...

Full details over on the company blog

I finally posted the letter we received from the music labels' solicitors over on the company blog.

I had been meaning to do so for a few days, but I was waiting to see if the ISPAI membership could agree on a response.

We got some really sweet horse's heads from the nice people from MadeInHollywood, but now we're at a bit of a loss as to what to do with them, so we're running a competition over on the company blog ...

Remember 365 selling to UK company Names.co.uk?
Well seemingly Names.co.uk like to overcharge their clients ...

I already mentioned their pricing policy on co.uk transfers out, but they've since gone on to expand that to include com/net/org/info/biz domains. Don't believe me?

Check out this screenshot from the Register365 / Namesco control panel (click to enlarge):



Or how about this invoice a client paid recently for the "right" to move his domain elsewhere (click to enlarge):




So in simple terms if you are NOT happy with their service and want to change provider you will get billed for changing YOUR domains to a new provider.

Aren't they great?

Companies behaving in this manner give a bad name to the entire industry and really make me sick. While I may have had my differences with the previous owners of register365 I somehow doubt that they'd have stooped this low!

And to make matters all the more interesting ..

I'm getting reports from some clients that the charges are being imposed, while others are being told that they can leave without having to pay - what about the people who don't question charges?

NB: Yes I have a vested interest in the hosting and domain industry and I don't hide it. On the other hand I would never be interested in running a company that abused registrants in this manner - there are plenty of ways to make money, messing your clients about isn't one of them

First there was Jaiku, then there was twitter (and again)...

Now I've setup a Blacknight thing on Facebook...

If you're on Facebook then why not join us - I'll probably push out a few "special" promotions to our facebook fans in the coming weeks, but I want to get at least 100 fans on there before I consider it (setting goals makes it easier in some ways ....)

And if anyone who knows anything about managing Facebook pages has any tips please do share !!

Since I'm still in a bit of shock after the Net Visionary Awards the other evening, I'll keep this short..

On the awards themselves...

I am amazed, stunned and humbled that I actually won two awards on the night. I'm always delighted to be shortlisted for awards, but since I'd never actually won any winning two blew me away.

Being nominated for the Internet Marketer award came as a surprise to me and being shortlisted for it was a big surprise. But to actually win that award blew me away completely! I would never have imagined that I could win, so when they announced it the other evening I was left completely and utterly speechless. I wouldn't consider myself to be a marketer and I'd have expected a professional marketer to win - not me!

It was a fantastic night in a wonderful venue and a great chance to meet up with a bunch of people who I haven't seen in a long time (plus a chance to meet people I'd never actually met in person before)

Congratulations to all the other winners, especially Pat Phelan, who got the overall Net Visionary award.

A sincere thanks to everyone who has helped me and the company over the last few years and to those who voted for me this year - I really really appreciate it.

Now my only problem is where do I put those great big lumps of crystal... It's a nice problem to have!

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I posted about this yesterday on the company blog, but forgot to mention it over here ....

We've managed to secure a deal for our clients that can give them up to 75 euro of free advertising credit with Google Adwords.

More details on the blog and offer page