DomainTools Blog

2010 is rapidly drawing to a close, and as we look forward to the new year it seemed a fitting time to take a moment to say hello and talk briefly about the past and future of DomainTools.

First the hello! This month marks five full years I have worked directly in domain-related businesses, formerly with IREIT and Thought Convergence, and now with DomainTools. I started here in August of 2009 but mostly have stayed in the background as we have the incomparable Susan Prosser leading our Marketing and Client Service efforts (thank you Susan!). I hope to be more visible in 2011 both on this blog and at industry conferences. On that note, I will be at DomainFest in Santa Monica in early February and hope to meet with many of our clients there. For those I have yet to meet, please contact me anytime via email: ‘ tim (at) domaintools (dot com)’. I would like to personally thank all of our many clients, partners and followers for their support this past year.

To our clients and regular visitors, it likely seems as if not much has changed recently at DomainTools. Much of 2010 has been spent shoring up our internal operations: moving to new office space that can handle additional employees, rebuilding code for increased flexibility and scale, investing in network capacity to handle increased traffic and user engagement. This work is necessary, but not very sexy nor very visible. DomainTools processes and stores an enormous amount of data, and bringing that to bear for our clients in a meaningful, reasonably fast way is more challenging than it may appear on the surface. Our efforts in 2010 have positioned us to increase the breadth and depth of our product suite in future years, and I would like to thank our Development, Engineering and Technology organizations for their hard work this past year.

2011 will be the year that all of our valued clients, partners and visitors will see more visible and tangible change from DomainTools. We have significant ambitions this year for our products, our users and our partners. As we roll out new features and products, we will expect the usual bell curve of positive and ‘constructive’ feedback. The more the better. Please contact myself, Susan or our Client Service organization at any time with input, flattering or not. The email memberservices (at) domaintools (dot com)’ is always the best place to contact the firm.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season and a prosperous 2011!

Warm Regards,
Tim Chen
CEO
DomainTools

Have you uncovered Santa’s Favorite Whois yet?

About SantasFavoriteWhois.com
Every year Santa has to check the files of millions upon millions of people to determine whether they have been naughty or nice. With such an enormous volume of data, and with such potentially dire consequences riding on each of those determinations, Santa uses only the best, most dependable research tools available.

One of Santa’s favorite tools is DomainTools’ Whois Lookup, which allows him to search historical data on who has been naughty or nice. DomainTools makes it quick and simple to identify email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, and additional records of all who Santa needs to research.

To find out more about Santa’s entire toolset, visit DomainTools.com.
Ho, Ho, Ho! Happy Holidays!

As 2010 is coming to a close and we prepare ourselves for the new year, all DomainTools employees gathered together for some good food and holiday cheer. Our holiday party was held last Thursday, December 16. It was a fun day filled with laughs and a little competition!

Part 1: Delicious Food & ‘Who Done It’ contest at Table 219

We had quite a buffet feast at Table 219 with plenty of comfort food options to choose from: pork sliders, sweet potato fries, salad, roasted garlic & bacon deviled eggs, mini tuna tartar tacos, mac ‘n cheese with truffle oil, and more.

Once everyone had time to eat and mingle, we began playing a holiday-themed game so everyone could figure out how well we really know each other. We played ‘Who Done It’ with a winter/holiday twist! (If you’d like a refresher on what the game is, you can read about it here).

We had pages of ‘Who Done It’ entries we mulled over – here’s a sampling:

*Once pointed out to someone at a 4-H party that they had misspelled ‘Christmas’ on the holiday cake they made by using a PA system

*Totaled my car while out buying holiday presents and now my wife has an $8,000 KitchenAid mixer

*Ate a friend’s Christmas present due to dinner being burnt on a snowed-in Christmas day (the present was boxed Seattle salmon that was supposed to be sent the following day)

*Delivered nearly 1,000 packages in one day while working for UPS during the holiday season

*Went to a Midwest university. During my senior year, I remember walking to class when the temperature was -5 and the windchill was -40 and not a single final exam was canceled

*When I was 12, my big present from Santa Claus was my very first stereo. As  stocking stuffers, I got a replacement needle for the phonograph and BOTH the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever and KISS Love Gun…on 8-track. Good times…

*Have fond memories of helping cars out of being stuck in the snow for extra holiday money

*Was busted by cops for piling old Christmass trees in a friend’s yard in the middle of the night

*Found someone’s pet mouse in the snow – the mouse was WHITE!

*Was never allowed to decorate for Christmas until December 15th…but we left our Christmas lights on the outside of the house all year round

*Built snow tunnels and proceeded to have an outdoor picnic in them once with the neighborhood kids – hot chocolate was not a good idea!

*Celebrate Christmas right on midnight every year and I purchase most of my family gifts on Christmas eve

*When it snowed, the neighborhood kids and I would fix up a dummy in snow clothes and tie it next to a parked car and we’d hide behind the car. When drivers would stop to check the dummy, we would throw snowballs at them and run!

…..it proved to be a very difficult game to play but Tim Perez was up to the challenge. He scored a whopping 75% correct and collected the grand prize of $100.

Part 2: Bowling at The Garage

Next we walked a few blocks to The Garage, a fun place to gather for bowling or pool.  The DomainTools King of bowling that night was our CEO, Tim Chen! He was on a roll with 4 strikes in a row!

To see more DomainTools holiday party photos, visit our Facebook page – and friend us if you have not done so yet.

Happy Holidays and best wishes for a wonderful new year from all of us at DomainTools!

Many of the key issues in discussion at the ICANN meeting in Cartagena December 5-10 have been well reported on, such as new gTLD program or .XXX sTLD approval, since the conclusion of conference last week. If you have never attended an ICANN conference, or you only follow current news updates of the major undertakings, then you may not be aware of the prolific amount of sessions that take place during the week-long ICANN conference. Topics vary wildly from technical policy and protocols to budget and operational discussions.

The sessions surrounding Whois policy and evolution was a topic of interest that I follow. One session in particular went into great detail about ‘What is Whois” and the definition of this. The Whois term is used in casual conversation with the assumption by many that it is referring to domain name registration data. However, if you listen to the first 20 minutes of the transcript from the session, the lesson learned was that the definition of the term Whois truly depends on the audience.

As riveting as the 20-minute discussion was about determining how and when to use the term Whois, the crux of the matter discussed later in the session is that the 25+year old protocol dating back to ARPANET era is in desperate need of revision. The Whois protocol has had small updates over the years. And, as the Internet has advanced, the Whois service has not. This is very apparent in Internationalized Domain Names (IDN). The ability to support local languages or scripts on input and output in domain name information registration data must evolve with Internet. This requires the advancement of Whois.

At DomainTools, being the largest aggregator of domain name registration data, we pride ourselves in striving to have the most accurate, up-to-date information. We are very supportive to the advancement of WHOIS, and improving local language support in both WHOIS data and Domain Names (IDNs).

Yes, we admit it. We’ve dropped the ball with the DomainTools blog…but, that’s about to change! We will be posting new content on a regular basis from here on out.

We’ll try to bring you relevant, engaging, news about what’s going on in the domain industry, along with updates on what’s going on with DomainTools in general. And, most importantly, we’ll be doing this on a more regular basis. So, get your RSS feed set up (if it isn’t set up already) and let us know if you have any content you’d like to see! We welcome you to respond to this blog post with any topics you’d like us to cover. What do you want to learn about? What’s important to you?

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Cheers,

DomainTools