ICANN Begins DNSSEC Deployment In The Root Zone - ICANN has announced that DNSSEC deployment in the root zone has begun as of January 27. DNSSEC information is now being served by L-Root, one of the 13 root servers. DNSSEC deployment in the root zone is proposed to be completed by July. (DNSSEC, or Domain Name System Security Extensions, was designed to add security to the Domain Name System.)

.UK Zone To Be Signed - As the first phase of implementing DNSSEC in the .uk registry, Nominet will begin signing the .uk zone on March 1. Details of the next phases, including the signing of .co.uk and other second-level .uk domains, will be provided over the coming months.

Picks To Click

• ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom's presentation at the First Annual .ORG Forum.
• The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is seeking applications for Fellows to attend its meetings in Toronto on April 18-21. Three selected applicants will receive free registration, travel, accommodations, and a stipend.

Timeline

• Sun, Mar 7 - Fri, Mar 12: ICANN meetings in Nairobi, Kenya
• Fri, Apr 2: last day for applications to the ICANN Nominating Committee
• Sun, Jun 20 - Fri, Jun 25: ICANN meetings in Brussels, Belgium
• Thu, Jul 1: registry fee increases for .com/.net take effect

The provinces of Ontario and British Columbia have agreed to implement the harmonized sales tax (HST), which would replace existing provincial sales taxes and the federal goods and services tax in those provinces beginning July 1, 2010.

The Canada Revenue Agency is offering information seminars, at no charge, to ensure businesses receive the information they need for the transition to the federal administration of the harmonized sales tax in British Columbia and Ontario.

The following links provide locations, dates, times and other registration details for seminar attendees:

British Columbia:  http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/vnts/hrmnztn/bc/menu-eng.html

Ontario: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/vnts/hrmnztn/on/menu-eng.html

Note: New locations are being added each week. 

Vancouver seminars are being held in partnership with Small Business BC

Below are my "top picks" from this week's CIRA's to-be-released domains list.

This list is published the first day CIRA releases its new batch of TBR domains, that means more domains will be added to the TBR each day until the date of release.  Remember to check the CIRA TBR list again for new selections.

Our favourite names are in bold.

These domains are available for pre-booking now at Webnames.ca, and will be released by CIRA on Wednesday, Feb 03, 2010. 

advantagefinancial.ca
archrival.ca
bankman.ca
businessplanners.ca
canadianchat.ca
carefreeliving.ca
carhub.ca
chessclubs.ca
chineseblog.ca
clearwaterrafting.ca
commercially.ca
consultantjob.ca
coolhunting.ca
corporategiftcard.ca & corporategiftcards.ca
createwealth.ca
dealcenter.ca & dealcentre.ca
discountbaby.ca
dvdcenter.ca
ebooksdownload.ca
ecobuilt.ca
experiencereview.ca & experiencereviews.ca
eyepatch.ca
filmpro.ca
firefighterjob.ca
flycuba.ca
gametickets.ca
goodshape.ca
harmonyairway.ca
healingforce.ca
homepricewatch.ca
hoteladvertising.ca
idmanager.ca
innerhealing.ca
instantly.ca
kidchat.ca & kidforum.ca
lastwish.ca
malladvertising.ca
marriageretreat.ca
modernwoman.ca
movieslist.ca
newfood.ca
nourishment.ca
perfecthost.ca
pimpyourcomputer.ca
plainspeak.ca
problematic.ca
purchased.ca
queasy.ca
resumeexample.ca
retailadvertising.ca
retirewealthy.ca
schooloflife.ca
simpletalk.ca
singlezone.ca
skiforless.ca
softdata.ca
surveycentre.ca
temporal.ca
topfashion.ca
trendwatcher.ca & trendwatching.ca
wineforsale.ca

Four letter domains

acpr.ca
advu.ca
ahrn.ca
arpo.ca
cjvy.ca
cnbf.ca
cush.ca
eoip.ca
fite.ca
itgo.ca
lase.ca
mbhl.ca
nali.ca
vofi.ca
vone.ca
wmls.ca

To pre-book a To-Be-Released .CA domain from the above list:

1) Go to Webnames.ca's To-Be-Released .CA Domains page

2) Find and click on the domain(s) you wish to pre-book and they will be added to your cart

3) Review your shopping cart. Login or create a Webnames.ca account. Complete your transaction as though you were registering new domain(s)

4) If your pre-book is successful you will be notified by CIRA after the Wednesday registration period. Within 24 hours of receiving this notification, Webnames.ca will charge your credit card for successfully registered domains

Note: You will only be charged for pre-booked domains that are successfully registered.

Here is a "big picture" look at what happened on the Internet in 2009.

This data was gathered and reported on by the cool folks over at the Pingdom blog, Royal Pingdom. A complete list of the references for this data is available below, so attention stats junkies, get ready to bookmark!

In the words of the people at Pingdom, "prepare for information overload, but in a good way." 

--------------------------------------------

Email

90 trillion - The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
247 billion - Average number of email messages per day.
1.4 billion - The number of email users worldwide.
100 million - New email users since the year before.
81% - The percentage of emails that were spam.
92% - Peak spam levels late in the year.
24% - Increase in spam since last year.
200 billion - The number of spam emails per day (assuming 81% are spam).

Websites

234 million - The number of websites as of December 2009.
47 million - Added websites in 2009.
Web servers
13.9% - The growth of Apache websites in 2009.
-22.1% - The growth of IIS websites in 2009.
35.0% - The growth of Google GFE websites in 2009.
384.4% - The growth of Nginx websites in 2009.
-72.4% - The growth of Lighttpd websites in 2009.

Domain names (Our personal favourite!)

81.8 million - .COM domain names at the end of 2009.
12.3 million - .NET domain names at the end of 2009.
7.8 million - .ORG domain names at the end of 2009.
76.3 million - The number of country code top-level domains (e.g. .CN, .UK, .DE, etc.).
187 million - The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2009).
8% - The increase in domain names since the year before.

Internet users

1.73 billion - Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
18% - Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
738,257,230 - Internet users in Asia.
418,029,796 - Internet users in Europe.
252,908,000 - Internet users in North America.
179,031,479 - Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
67,371,700 - Internet users in Africa.
57,425,046 - Internet users in the Middle East.
20,970,490 - Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

Social media

126 million - The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
84% - Percent of social network sites with more women than men.
27.3 million - Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
57% - Percentage of Twitter's user base located in the United States.
4.25 million - People following @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter's most followed user).
350 million - People on Facebook.
50% - Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
500,000 - The number of active Facebook applications.

Images

4 billion - Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009).
2.5 billion - Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
30 billion - At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.

Videos

1 billion - The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
12.2 billion - Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).
924 million - Videos viewed per month on Hulu in the US (November 2009).
182 - The number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month (USA).
82% - Percentage of Internet users that view videos online (USA).
39.4% - YouTube online video market share (USA).
81.9% - Percentage of embedded videos on blogs that are YouTube videos.

Malicious software

148,000 - New zombie computers created per day (used in botnets for sending spam, etc.)
2.6 million - Amount of malicious code threats at the start of 2009 (viruses, trojans, etc.)
921,143 - The number of new malicious code signatures added by Symantec in Q4 2009.

Data sources:

Website and web server stats from Netcraft.

Domain name stats from Verisign and Webhosting.info.

Internet user stats from Internet World Stats.

Web browser stats from Net Applications.

Email stats from Radicati Group.

Spam stats from McAfee.

Malware stats from Symantec  and McAfee.

Online video stats from Comscore, Sysomos and YouTube.

Photo stats from Flickr and Facebook.

Social media stats from BlogPulse; Pingdom (here and here), Twittercounter, Facebook and GigaOm.

ICANN has approved the first four internationalized top-level domain names (IDNs) for Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In a statement released yesterday, ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom called it "a pivotal moment in the history of Internet domain names."

Why exactly is the support of internationalized top-level domain names so significant? For starters, the exclusivity of the Latin alphabet in Internet's top-level domains (TLDs) has officially come to an end. Domain names have been limited to thirty-seven characters since their creation in the 1980's, including the twenty-six "A to Z" letters of the Latin alphabet, hyphens and numbers 1 through 10.

Internet users will now be able to access sites and services in those countries using domains expressed in non-Latin character sets, for example Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Devanagari, Hebrew, Korean, and Cyrillic.

Support for non-Latin domains has been described as the most significant shift in the way the Internet's top-level domain name system works since it first launched 40 years ago. The move is regarded as a major step towards making the Internet more accessible to an estimated 1.6 billion Internet users whose languages have writing systems that aren't based on the Latin alphabet.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Beckstrom described the support of IDN's as "also an issue of pride of people and their own culture and their own language, and a recognition that the Internet belongs to everyone."   

Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are the first four of sixteen IDN requests representing eight languages received by ICANN to pass String Evaluation; the remaining twelve IDN requests are still being processed. ICANN noted on its official blog yesterday that it looks forward to finalizing the other requests, as well as receiving new requests.  

In coming months internationalized domains will also go live in the Internet domain names root system, which will allow people to type entire domain names in their own language.

A staff support function is available to help all countries and territories interested in participating in the Fast Track Process. Inquiries can be sent directly to ICANN by emailing idncctldrequests@icann.org.

Read More:

ICANN Announcement | First IDN ccTLDs Requests Successfully Pass String Evaluation

ICANN Blog | First 4 IDN ccTLDs through String Evaulation

Congratulations to Vancouver Sales and Social Media Experts Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger on their new book "Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down."

Gibson and Jagger talk about using social media to create real relationships that impact individuals, businesses and community, having fun and being profitable.

 As they note in their introduction, Gibson and Jagger are "sales professionals and entrepreneurs who have built our businesses using social media and social networking combined with the ability to sell and close a deal. We're business people using technology to grow our businesses, not techies trying to fit technology into a business setting". It is this perspective that informs the book and their approach to social media.

Sociable launches today on Amazon.ca. Get a taste for the book by reading or listening to the first chapter by visiting the Sociable website at http://www.sociablebook.com/.

My fellow Small Business Roundtable board member Garth Frizzell, CEO of Terra Cognita Software Systems Inc. has compiled 10 tips on how small businesses can prepare for media interviews that I want to share with Webnames.ca readers. With the mass of media about to descend on Vancouver in less than a month for the 2010 Winter Olympics, I believe that these tips are especially timely.

With reporters and videographers roaming the Mainland for human interest stories, are you ready to capitalize on the opportunity for your business to be featured? 

  Here is a quick checklist of do's and don'ts in getting the most out of free media exposure:

1) Choose interview locations with powerful visual impact since stories with the best visual appeal have a higher probability of being featured

2) Open and close an interview with reference to name of your small business.

3) Ensure your straightforward call-to-action information is up to date and at your finger tips      e.g. "go to www.mywebsite to get more information about..." or  "go to www.mywebsite to get your own..."

4) Keep the story angles and language simple - reporters focussed on human interest stories related to the Games may not have the background to appreciate business complexities.

5) Don't give quotes about things outside your expertise; don't speculate, or give an opinion, stick to the facts.

6) If you can't answer, say why you can't, don't use the phrase "no comment".

7) Don't speak off the record; assume everything you say may be used.

8) Repeat the question before you answer - this gives you time to compose your response BUT don't repeat negative questions.

9) When you have an open-ended question and a lot of time to fill, don't.  Answer the question, then stop.

10) Project the confidence and energy of a small businessperson with a compelling story.

Below are my "top picks" from CIRA's to-be-released domains list this week.

More domains get added to the TBR list each day until the date of release, so check the list again for new selections.

This week a large and targeted portfolio of domains pertaining to cosmetic/reconstructive surgery is up for grabs on the CIRA TBR, including:

breastjob.ca, breastlift.ca, browlift.ca, chemicalpeels.ca, chinimplant.ca, earpinning.ca, eyelift.ca, gelimplants.ca, laserskin.ca, nosereshaping.ca, otoplasty.ca, skinpeels.ca, skintreatments.casiliconebreastimplants.ca, siliconeimplants.ca, wrinklefiller.ca, wrinkletreatments.ca

Below is our weekly list of top TBR picks with our favourite names in bold.

These domains are AVAILABLE FOR PRE-BOOKING NOW at Webnames.ca, and will be released by CIRA on Wednesday, December 23, 2009.

3steps.ca
adultnightlife.ca
afraid.ca
amazement.ca
azzo.ca
babygate.ca
babyproof.ca
bargainprice.ca
betterpages.ca
boatracing.ca
bootycamp.ca
botoxspecialist.ca, botoxtreatment.ca
boxsetdvd.ca, boxsetdvds.ca
breastjob.ca, breastlift.ca
browlift.ca
calgarytherapist.ca
caloriechart.ca
canned.ca
cardiopro.ca
careerfasttrack.ca
careerpaper.ca
carwrecks.ca
celebritylimo.ca
chemicalpeels.ca
chinimplant.ca
chores.ca
cirawatch.ca
classictruck.ca
cultmovie.ca
discountmarket.ca
earpinning.ca
eastwing.ca
easydonations.ca
educationaldvd.ca, educationaldvds.ca, educationalvideo.ca, educationalvideos.ca
emapping.ca
energybiz.ca
energyreduction.ca
eyelift.ca
freelocalsingles.ca
freeweightloss.ca
freshpaint.ca
funnygirl.ca
fusionwebs.ca
gardenwedding.ca
gayjocks.ca
gelimplants.ca
giftzone.ca
globaldirect.ca
globalsolution.ca
greenpolice.ca
halfwayhouse.ca
halibutfishing.ca
healtheffects.ca
hiringspecialist.ca
hockeyhighlights.ca
homeinvest.ca
houseadvisor.ca
htmlcodes.ca
industryinfo.ca
interjection.ca
jms.ca
jobplan.ca
justcomputers.ca
laserskin.ca
lawyerprofile.ca
lesbianvideos.ca
lumbersource.ca
marketcommunications.ca
marketinsight.ca
meatpie.ca
movemedia.ca
namechanges.ca
newbody.ca
newreleasemovie.ca, newreleasevideo.ca, newreleasevideos.ca, newvideorelease.ca
oceanguide.ca
officevideo.ca
offthepress.ca
oki.ca
openidentity.ca
otoplasty.ca
playstore.ca
pores.ca
porngalleries.ca
priceit.ca
printconnect.ca
rass.ca
rollbacks.ca
royalbanking.ca
savedata.ca
securelogin.ca
shopfashion.ca
siliconebreastimplants.ca, siliconeimplants.ca
skinpeels.ca, skintreatments.ca
smartwomen.ca
spapro.ca
supermotel.ca, supermotels.ca
supersoft.ca
taxzone.ca
toysdepot.ca
tripsafety.ca
voipprovider.ca
weddingplace.ca
weddingsandevents.ca
wrinklefiller.ca, wrinkletreatments.ca
yodle.ca

Follow these steps to pre-book an expiring .CA domain from the above list:

1) Go to Webnames.ca's To-Be-Released .CA Domains page

2) Find and click on the domain(s) you wish to pre-book and they will be added to your cart

3) Review your shopping cart. Login or create a Webnames.ca account. Complete your transaction as though you were registering new domain(s)

4) If your pre-book is successful you will be notified by CIRA after the Wednesday registration period. Within 24 hours of receiving this notification, Webnames.ca will charge your credit card for successfully registered domains

Note: You will only be charged for pre-booked domains that are successfully registered.

We all know that one person can have many pieces of contact information:

- Home Telephone Number

- Work Telephone Number

- Cellular Telephone Number

- Email Address

- Home Address

- Website(s) and Social Networking profiles/pages

This is a lot to keep track of and hard to fit on a business card.  Now you're a couple (or in a partnership) and there are twice as many contact details to keep track of!

Give your friends and family a break and just give them your .tel address. 

RobandSandra.tel or JonesFamily.tel for example can be the one place your friends or family need to go to get a hold of you.  When your contact details change, you won't need to email everyone, text out your new phone number or re-print all your business cards, because JonesFamily.tel is always current. 

You may want to stay away from names like SmoochieWoochie.tel, but that's your prerogative. What are you waiting for? Search for your new joint .TEL name today!

Webnames.ca, bringing people closer ;)

Two deadlines this week:

• Friday, January 22 is the last day for applications to be considered for CIRA's Nomination Committee. The committee's critical role is to identify and attract excellent candidates for CIRA's annual Board of Directors election.
• On Thursday, January 21, the comment period closes on the first draft of ICANN's Strategic Plan for 2010-2013.

Other items:

• Telnic, the registry for the .tel domain, has been given permission to deploy Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Telnic has not yet announced plans or a timeline.
• SIDN, the registry for the Netherlands' .nl registry, has implemented changes to its Whois service. To protect registrants' privacy, less personal information is now available, although the registrant's name and administrative and technical email addresses are still shown.

Timeline

• Thu, Jan 21: last day for comments on ICANN draft 2010-2013 strategic plan
• Fri, Jan 22: last day for applications to be on CIRA's Nomination Committee
• Tue, Jan 26: last day for comments on report on trademark protection in new gTLDs
• Wed, Jan 27: last day for comments on ICANN draft EOI model for new gTLDs
• Sun, Mar 7 - Fri, Mar 12: ICANN meetings in Nairobi, Kenya
• Fri, Apr 2: last day for applications to the ICANN Nominating Committee
• Sun, Jun 20 - Fri, Jun 25: ICANN meetings in Brussels, Belgium
• Thu, Jul 1: registry fee increases for .com/.net take effect

So I am thinking of quitting my job here at Webnames to start my own business coming up with super cool names for iPhone apps, Web 2.0 companies, new products, gizmos and gadgets!

All you developers and entrepreneurs out there think that all the great names like Twitter and Shazam are gone and you are reduced to plopping "i" in front of things and adding extra "o"s to the middle of your name.

Au contraire mes amis!

At my new branding business it is simple for me to have a 5 minute conversation with you about your company and come up with names like Maxco, Meager, Moonman, Chompers, Red Paint, and Drifter.

"Good names", you think, "but you'll never get the domain".  Oh ye of little faith.  These are all available as .CA's and I'm sorry, but what are you  - you're Canadian companies.  You should have the .CA.  And you didn't have to pay $14,000 to get it from the owner.

The secret to my new branding business is using the CIRA To Be Released list to find great names that people are allowing to expire.

It's cheap and easy and afterwards I can turn around and charge you $200 an hour to come up with names like:  Oxidation, Cuticle, Sawhorse, Suss and Vapid ... which all happen to be on the latest CIRA TBR, so prebook them already!

BTW - We publish a list of the best expiring .CA domains on WebnamesBlog.ca every week, so be sure to check the TBR .CA Domains category each week for our top picks.  

Below are our "top picks" from CIRA's to-be-released domains list this week.

More domains get added to the TBR list each day until the date of release, so check the list again for new selections.

Our favourite names are in bold.

These domains are available for pre-booking now at Webnames.ca, and will be released by CIRA on Wednesday, December 23, 2009.

adultpro.ca
auctionliquidation.ca
audioweb.ca
bellcom.ca
bellplus.ca
bestblog.ca & bestblogs.ca
blockparty.ca
bloke.ca
blurays.ca
bodyscents.ca
boundaries.ca
broadbandmusic.ca
businessgolf.ca
canadamatters.ca
canadastay.ca
canadianmaritimes.ca
canadianventures.ca
chatz.ca
countryfresh.ca
crazykids.ca
creativecorp.ca
crownpacific.ca
cuticle.ca & cuticles.ca
dealdirect.ca
digitalroom.ca
diningchoice.ca
domainfarm.ca
domainmonetization.ca
drugsdepot.ca
easyflyer.ca
easypaycheck.ca
ecoserve.ca
essaycontest.ca
expresscheckout.ca
expresspizza.ca
fastbook.ca
finalstep.ca
fishingpermit.ca
focusoptometry.ca
foodchain.ca
foxtv.ca
freehand.ca
freemortgages.ca
freestockquotes.ca
futuredesigns.ca
gemstore.ca
golfexperience.ca
greenyouroffice.ca
groupbuy.ca
hawaiiresorts.ca
healthytrends.ca
holidayplanner.ca
hostingsolution.ca & hostingsolutions.ca
hostnet.ca
hostnews.ca
interrupt.ca
involved.ca
learntocook.ca
leatherrestoration.ca
letsgonow.ca
letterman.ca
listenlive.ca
livefreshlobster.ca
liveinternet.ca
longtime.ca
lowinterestcards.ca
marketconnect.ca
marketfinder.ca
mealstogo.ca
mobilebrowser.ca
moneybooks.ca
moneyconnections.ca
montrealfilm.ca
mortgageanswers.ca
mortgagelending.ca
mortgagesdepot.ca
mosquitorepellant.ca
mosquitorepellants.ca
naturalnails.ca
nicestuff.ca
nonstandard.ca
oilstorage.ca
onlinealbum.ca
oxidation.ca
perceptive.ca
perfectplace.ca
perfectview.ca
photoboard.ca
positivetouch.ca
powergrid.ca
privacyshield.ca
quickjobs.ca
realdesign.ca
realestateloan.ca
reducetaxes.ca
rentalchairs.ca
researchinstitute.ca
safetyadvisor.ca
saveyourbusiness.ca
savingforcollege.ca
secureshop.ca
shopadvisor.ca
simplyamazing.ca
socialforum.ca
stayout.ca
vancouverdigest.ca
webguides.ca
yourgiftcard.ca

Three & Four Letter Domains 

cbct.ca
ccbo.ca
citd.ca
crts.ca
dhec.ca
ibsi.ca
ick.ca
ingi.ca
ndsl.ca
obms.ca
ostn.ca
osua.ca
osw.ca
pbma.ca
riat.ca
rpmm.ca
sags.ca
sazz.ca
toip.ca
veve.ca
wnt.ca

Follow these steps to pre-book an expiring .CA domain from the above list:

1) Go to Webnames.ca's To-Be-Released .CA Domains page

2) Find and click on the domain(s) you wish to pre-book and they will be added to your cart

3) Review your shopping cart. Login or create a Webnames.ca account. Complete your transaction as though you were registering new domain(s)

4) If your pre-book is successful you will be notified by CIRA after the Wednesday registration period. Within 24 hours of receiving this notification, Webnames.ca will charge your credit card for successfully registered domains

Note: You will only be charged for pre-booked domains that are successfully registered.

CIRA Seeks Nomination Committee Candidates - The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), registry for the .ca domain, has issued a call for new members for its Nomination Committee. The committee's critical role is to identify and attract candidates for CIRA's annual Board of Directors elections, to help to ensure that the Board is highly qualified and represents a wide range of views and interests. New committee members will join these current members: Ash Abhyankar, Malcolm Andrew, Gaston Gohou, and Susan M. Mitchell. Applications for consideration to become a member of the Nomination Committee are strongly encouraged and will be accepted until Friday, January 22.

Picks To Click

• Hasbro Inc. wins a dispute over hasbro.ca.
• Family Honda loses a dispute over familyhonda.ca

Timeline

• Thu, Jan 21: last day for comments on ICANN draft 2010-2013 strategic plan
• Fri, Jan 22: last day for applications to be on CIRA's Nomination Committee
• Tue, Jan 26: last day for comments on report on trademark protection in new gTLDs
• Wed, Jan 27: last day for comments on ICANN draft EOI model for new gTLDs
• Sun, Mar 7 - Fri, Mar 12: ICANN meetings in Nairobi, Kenya
• Fri, Apr 2: last day for applications to the ICANN Nominating Committee
• Sun, Jun 20 - Fri, Jun 25: ICANN meetings in Brussels, Belgium
• Thu, Jul 1: registry fee increases for .com/.net take effect