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People,
Companies & TLDs in the News: Bhavin Turakhia, Alexa
Raad, .TV, .AU and Fabulous.com
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This
has been a busy week
with
my usual editorial duties mixed in with
relatives visiting from out of state and our
daughter home on spring break from medical
school. So, I wanted to use this bright and
beautiful Friday in the Sunshine State to end
the week with a round up of some industry news
of interest.
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Let's
start with major congratulations to Directi
Co-Founder Bhavin Turakhia who has just
been honored by the World Economic Forum (WEF)
as a 2011
Young Global Leader - one of just
190 rapidly rising entrepreneurs selected from
65 different countries for the prestigious
honor. Bhavin was one of 12 honorees from
India where Directi is based in Mumbai.
The
WEF said the program is designed to recognize outstanding
young leaders from around the world for
their professional accomplishments, commitment
to society and potential to contribute to
shaping the future of the world.
Bhavin
and his brother Divyank
founded Directi as teenagers in 1998 and
have grown it into a powerhouse that is believed
to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (and
one that is still growing at a rapid clip).
Everyone in the domain industry is familiar with
their multiple services including Skenzo,
Big Jumbo, DomainAdvertising.com, Reseller
Club and LogicBoxes among others.
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Bhavin
Turakhia
Co-Founder, Directi |
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Alexa
Raad
CEO, Architelos.com |
Alexa
Raad, the former CEO of the .Org
Registry, announced
the formation of a new company Thursday.
Architelos
is a strategy and market development consultancy focused on the domain name
industry. Ms. Raad will serve as the
company's CEO with fellow co-founder John
Matson, a veteran management consultant to Fortune 500 companies, filling the COO role.
The
company's services will include advising
organizations that will be applying for new
gTLDs in vertical niches such as
banking where there are specific service, technology and security requirements. Architelos will also assist companies in the
application process for new TLDs, once the program is finalized. That
process, overseen by ICANN, may begin
later this year.
Ms. Raad
said, “The future landscape of the DNS
market will be not only challenging but
also promising. Navigating the
complexity of these strategic decisions
is Architelos’ core strength.” |
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A
big auction
of top quality .TV domain
names, being conducted by SnapNames
and Moniker, in
conjunction with Verisign,
is currently underway with names
including Air.tv, Stocks.tv,
Bargains.tv, Lawyers,tv,
VA.tv and SW.tv
among the domains up for bid.
The auction got underway
Wednesday and will run through Wednesday,
March 23, 2011 at 3:15
p.m. US Eastern Time (12:15
p.m. US Pacific Time). You can
find more details on the sale at
Moniker.tv. |
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Australia's
.au country code TLD
reached a major
milestone
this week when it hit 2
million
registrations. Almost a
quarter of a million .au
domains have been sold
this financial year
alone, pushing the
extension to record
heights. .Au
registrations have
soared since the central
registry, now operated
by AusRegistry,
relaxed registration
requirements, making it
easier to obtain .au
domains. |
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Speaking
of Australia, Fabulous.com,
the popular registrar based in Brisbane,
just announced a new partnership
with Enom
(the world's largest wholesale
registrar) that will have Enom
providing backend operations
technology for Fab. In an email
to customers, Fabulous
said |
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the
deal will allow them to "optimize
our registrar technology,
freeing us to focus on what has
been key to our success - great
tools, great support and great
customers." The company
added, "we expect to be
able to implement more
features as a result - such
as a broader selection of
TLDs." |
(Posted March
11, 2011)
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