NamesCon Recap

Several members of the HEXONET team recently attended the premier domain conference event NamesCon held in Las Vegas, January 10-13, 2016. This year's record 1200 attendees were lucky to see excellent keynote addresses, hands-on workshops, roundtable discussions, breakout sessions, an exhibition floor and networking. HEXONET would like thank Richard Lau, Jothan Frakes and their entire team for organizing this exceptional event! Some highlights of Namescon include:

• HEXONET was a key sponsor of the Network Lane held on the first day of the event. It was an excellent opportunity to chat with some of our existing customers, industry colleagues and forge new business contacts.
• The new gTLDs were a highlight and it is clear that the success of the new gTLDs will be a marathon, not a sprint. Although activation and usage of the new gTLDs continues to grow, it was acknowledged that it will take time for major brands to embrace them. The majority of .brand TLD operators have not launched their sites to the general public yet. And as more .brand sites get launched, this will help drive overall consumer awareness and adoption of the new gTLDs.
• NameJet and Right of the Dot hosted a live domain auction generating over $1.6 million USD in sales. Some of the top sales include: lawn.com ($240k), Tuscany.com ($157.5k), Penis.com ($110k) and Erotica.com ($80K). There were also several significant new gTLD sales including 88.xyz ($70k) and web.hosting ($52.5k).  Several high-profile domains were also part of an extended online auction that ended on January 21st, the sale details have not been published yet.
• DotClub shared an update on the fantastic growth they had in 2015.  The Registry had a very strong fourth quarter with total premium name sales of $2,350,116.47 as of December 31, 2015.  Total cumulative sales of registry reserved premium .CLUB names reached $3,398,167.27. The highest single sale of any .CLUB domain is still Wine.club at $140,000.00. The highest premium domain sold this last December was 5.club selling for $58,720.97.
• The China Factor: China was a hot topic of discussion throughout the conference. The Chinese domain market has witnessed dramatic growth this past year, especially in the aftermarket. Many of the conference sessions touched on the importance of this market and how to take advantage of it. For example, VP of Sales at DomainNameSales, Jeffrey Gabriel, showed sales data from the past year demonstrating the importance of the Chinese market to their company. China accounted for just 2% of their leads yet generated 57% of the dollar volume of sales! Our team also had a chance to meet with several Chinese attendees that provided valuable insight into this market.
• A popular topic of conversation among HEXONET's clients and strategic partners was on domain search functionality and innovation.  The good news for our customers and resellers is that HEXONET is already developing a new highly intuitive domain search tool that will display targeted and more relevant search results. Stay tuned for further details!
• The WaterNight Gala event raised over $115,000 for the WaterSchool foundation, a very important foundation that helps transform the lives of families in need of clean water in many African communities.

.CO Hits 2 million Domains as Premium Sales Surge (Source: Neustar)

Neustar, the operator of the .CO Top-Level Domain, announced that .CO has surpassed 2 million total domain names under management, with new domain registration growth accelerating from 10 percent in 2014 to 18 percent in 2015.

“Since its global launch five years ago, .CO continues to grow and has become the domain name of choice for innovators, entrepreneurs and businesses in more than 200 countries around the world,” said Sean Kaine, Vice President of Registry at Neustar.

He noted that global brands like Twitter (t.co and Vine.co), Google (g.co and campus.co) and Taco Bell (ta.co) have all helped to bring mainstream awareness and adoption to .CO.

This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of innovators, entrepreneurs and startups that every year choose .CO as the domain for their business, including high profile organizations like 500 Startups (500.co), Angel List (Angel.co), Up Global (Up.co) and Common Bond (CommonBond.co) to name just a few. 

While Neustar’s portfolio of .CO premium domain names has consistently enjoyed high demand from big brands and funded Silicon Valley startups, the last quarter has also seen a sharp rise in demand from Chinese investors.  Interest from China has been particularly strong in connection with two character number-number and letter-letter premium domain names. 

“Even in the face of hundreds of new Top-Level Domains entering the market, today’s milestone is a testament to the fact that startups, innovators and entrepreneurs from around the globe continue to adopt .CO web addresses at a rapid pace,” Mr. Kaine said.

HEXONET has also seen an increase in .CO registrations in recent months. We are also helping our customers secure .CO backorders. To learn more:  https://www.hexonet.net/index?preferredTLD=co