Scotland wants its own domain name

In case you missed it, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, has made a formal request to the ICANN to change the country’s website addresses to .sco as the Scottish National Party is to take its campaign for independence into the online realm by seeking to change the suffixes of all websites based in the country, from “.co.uk” to “.sco”.

This appeal is big news for Scots and it follows the awarding of local suffixes to Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Also noteworthy, in 2005, the Spanish region of Catalonia won the right to its own “.cat” suffix.

It seems very clear that Scotland wants to promote its very own identity on the internet and the call for action, although formerly conducted through the likes of Christine Grahame, a Nationalist MSP, comes from the Scots themselves who claim that it would give their language and culture a higher profile.

While the move doesn’t intend to prevent Scots from using .co.uk, it does allow, however, for the possibility — and alternative — to use the Scottish-centric “.sco” domains. In addition, supporters of the idea deny it would cause unnecessary confusion because users keying in the old “.co.uk” addresses would be automatically redirected to the new ones.

Along the lines of the Scottish initiative, a campaign has also been launched for .cym to become a new Welsh internet domain name and for London to be the first city in the world to be given its own “.ldn” internet domain name.

In closing, the ICANN has stated that the Scottish government would be able to apply for a .sco domain when it accepts applications for new names later this year.

Tags: .sco., scotland, scottish, domains, domain name suffix, names, identity

The ongoing internet land grab

Any seasoned domainer knows that domain names are big business, nowadays.

The gTLD (.com and such) accompanied by the ccTLD (.ca, .co.uk, .be and such) make for a outstandingly comprehensive index to the world’s companies, products and services for the average web user, hence the sustained “direct navigation” popularity.

So while the richer end of domainers deal in heavily advertised auctions where the prime domain name properties are dealt, some of the most surprisingly valuable domains can be snapped up for around 10$ per year, namely when their previous owner lets them go (for whatever reason we’ll never quite know).

Also, technologies evolve daily and new “spin-off terms” are created, some of them being serious dictionnary-worthy candidates — these make for excellent “.com” registration opportunities. Hunt around for new trends and you too could find unregistered keywords that will become very obvious, in the near future.

If you’re just starting in the domaining business and want to create a nice portfolio of domain names for yourself, use your imagination to come up with brandable, memorable and inventive monikers that’ll likely become credible ambassadors for your upcoming projects, online or off.

Be aware that country-level domains might also be a lucrative niche in which to own domain names. The virtual land grab has started over 10 years ago but even if a lot of prime domain properties have already been bought, lots of opportunities abound for the venturing domainers.

There is little chance that the domain name system (the DNS and the idea behind the way domain suffixes are implemented) will ever be replaced. Too many countries, governments and companies have invested billions of dollars in properly setting up their branding to let it fade away.

As such, domain names are here to stay and those who grab some hopefully valuable land today stand to make the most money, tomorrow.

Tags: domains, domain names, domainers, internet land grab, online property, dns

Verisign yanks up domain name fees — again

If you own a “.com” or “.net” domain name, this is very bad news, on all fronts.

Verisign, for the second time in just 6 months, is asking every single domain name owner to shell out even more money to register, transfer or renew their “dot coms” and “dot nets”.

Take notice that starting October 1st, 2008, California-based Verisign which operates the “.com” and “.net” domain name suffixes will raise the fees required to own them. And these aren’t insignificant raises, we’re seeing the “.com” increase from 6.42$ to 6.86$ per DNS (a 6.86% raise) and the “.net” go from 3.85$ to 4.23$ (a 9.87% raise).

Non-content of taking in astronomical amounts of fees for the “.com” and “.net” namespaces, Verisign says that rising traffic on the internet, allegedly from web-connected wireless devices, new technologies that use DNS and demands on improving net security, drive the newly imposed increase.

Domain name owners would be entirely justified, yet again, to interpret this latest increase as sheer greed on the part of Verisign, an incestuous monopoly that’s been decried by both domain name owners and ICANN representatives alike.

Without any dependable independent audit being conducted, Verisign alleges that it handles approximately 33 billion DNS queries daily, with a maximum potential volume of 400 billions — which shows, among other things, how very, very far we are from putting any meaningful stress on Verisign’s current technological setup. Furthermore, Verisign intends to expand that DNS handling capacity to 4 trillion per day, within a couple of years.

For those who keep tabs of Verisign’s arrogance and greed, keep in mind that the last time the billionnaire company bumped up the “.com” and “.net” fees was October 15, 2007 when the “.com” rose from 6$ and the “.net” from 3.50$. Prior to the latest “greed shots”, fees had remained stable since 1999, when the ICANN first set up a DNS pricing scheme.

Because of arrogant price hikes like this one, both Verisign and the ICANN, a for-profit firm that works with the U.S. Department of Commerce to set DNS policy, are continuing to meet with significant resistance from the internet community, as a whole, who view such price hikes as unjustifiable taxation.

Tags: .com, .net, domains, domain names, verisign, icann, internet, price hike, fees, greed

Concerns over enterprise uses of P2P

End-users already know how powerful a peer-to-peer (P2P) network can be when data needs to be shared, especially across large groups.

To better understand how people can make proper use of P2P networks, consider User A who creates something interesting, let’s say it’s a nicely laid out document on “how to install an air conditioning unit in a window”. That information is likely to be useful to a whole lot of other people so User A makes it available (for free) to anyone who wants it through a P2P community, using software such LimeWire, BitTorrent, Morpheus or eMule.

The more people share this document, the more easily available it become through the P2P community, thus spreading the load (cost of bandwidth or CPU time, mainly) across more and more end-users. It’s a very smart way to distribute data which can encompass anything digital, including music, videos and code.

So this kind of network is likely to appeal to enterprise users but since the data used at the office is likely to be more sensitive than the stuff from home, IT Security admins need to assess the P2P threat before the problems occur.

Instead of banning P2P networks altogether, companies should educate their users and show them how to use these networks without putting the company and its data at risk of being leaked to outsiders.

Why is P2P so important for companies?

Well, because of its architecture, P2P networking is a good way to run apps across shared computing resources and share public data. P2P is often employed in research, education and bioinformatics. In business environments, it has potential for file sharing and collaboration while providing major efficiencies in storage and CPU power.

Assuming the IT Security people have put the appropriate policies and controls in place, P2P is a faster, cheaper way of sharing media files and by all means, that’s a growing requirement in many companies who may even find it useful to develop custom P2P apps to cover their specific data distribution needs.

While file systems may be exposed by inattentive users, properly configured company firewalls should be able to stop illegal data movements. The greater risk comes from laptops sharing data over P2P networks outside the company firewall so that’s where the education part becomes so vital to the overall security of a company’s data.

As long as companies monitor P2P usage (within their firewall’s realm) and the networks (from the “outside world”), there should be less risk of embarrassing data leaks, copyright or privacy violations.

Tags: p2p, peer-to-peer, networks, enterprise, data, leaks, privacy, companies, it

More opportunities for Web 2.0 workers

Enterprises are now expecting IT pros to leverage technologies such as blogs, social networks, mashups, wikis and RSS.

While Web 1.0 is set to be part of the digital landscape for a long while, the market has clearly shifted to Web 2.0 methods of interfacing with the users who, using the latest technologies, have much more control over the general flow of data.

The number of companies calling on Web 2.0 technologies to address problems facing their information systems is on the rise and IT workers should act accordingly by offering at least part of the skill set that the job market requires.

To date, most IT departments have resisted Web 2.0 tools, viewing them more as consumer-grade solutions which represent less interest than their other investments but 2008 might be the year all that could change.

According to Robert Half Technology, CIOs anticipate a 15% increase this year in the need for IT workers with Web 2.0 application development skills.

Web 2.0 technologies deliver considerable value for the money they cost so it’s no surprise that more businesses turn to “profoundly user-centric” methods of conveying “the right data to the right people”, in a way end-users are most likely to appreciate.

Enterprise inroads for Web 2.0 skills might first occur where information worker problems remain unresolved, such as help desk ticket resolution, IT project management, document tracking and email.

Also, wherever knowledge workers abound, expect IT departments to be hunting for talent capable of adding value to the company through the smart implementation of blogs, wikis and even RSS feeds.

Tags: web 2.0, blogs, social networking, mashups, wikis, rss, it, jobs, hiring

Volunteering for the ICANN

If you’re looking to have a say in the future decisions the ICANN takes regarding the stewardship of the domain names you’ve grown to like so much, now’s you chance!

Under the theme “Make the Internet Your Business”, motivated individuals are invited to submit a Statement of Interest by April 15th, 2008, at 23:59 UTC.

You’ll probably be interested to know that the Nominating Committee is independent of the ICANN and it’s specifically tasked with searching the world for hopefully experienced individuals to fill the following key positions on ICANN’s Board as well as its Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees:

• 2 Board Directors
• 1 GNSO Council member
• 1 ccNSO Council member
• 2 ALAC members (who will represent Europe and North American regions)

Hagen Hultzsch, Chair of the Nominating Committee (NomCom), describes the challenge for the selected individuals as follows:

“Beyond its responsibilities for keeping the internet secure, stable and interoperable, ICANN’s mission is to grow and evolve its global multi-stakeholder decision-making process, so it is the individuals who make up the wider internet community who direct and decide the internet’s future.”

It seems some of the upcoming discussions might be about the multilingual issues in bringing the world’s languages to the domain names and also, the opportunity to offer consumers more “suffix” choices (beyond the common “.net”, “.org”, “.biz” and “.info” alternatives to “.com”).

So if you’re fluent in gTLDs, ccTLDs, DNS logic and related matters, this might be your time to “make the Internet your business” and join the influential team of ICANN leaders — good luck to all applicants.

Tags: icann, committees, organizations, gtld, cctld, dns, domains, domain names

Focusing on key performance indicators

With the rise of dashboards and mashups, the sheer quantity of information that likely to be at an average worker’s fingertips is on the rise.

In order to help keep workers happy, productive and focused, service-oriented architects need to understand the importance of key performance indicators (KPIs) — a well coded information dashboard, accessible through a secure intranet, won’t be of much use if the data doesn’t accurately present the critical metrics.

For starters, KPIs measure actual performance against predefined goals and objectives.

There are two types of KPIs: (1) the first measure real-time performance -or- predict future results while (2) the second type of KPIs measure the results of past activity.

Let’s take a look at the “today and tomorrow” KPIs which help ensure that critical objectives aren’t missed. For instance, if a project manager is advised by the system that in the coming month, the number of available staff for his project is going to be down 10% (for vacations and such), it’s much easier to anticipate staffing adjustments — this is much more efficient than reacting to problems once they’ve occured.

Now, let’s consider the value of the “yesterday” KPIs which are akin to report cards showing the performance levels, in particular areas. There’s a lot of data correlation involved on this rather more “historical” side of the key performance indicators. The first think that should come to mind, in regards to past activity, are the many logs a company typically accumulates. Correlating this data, which show the health and performance of whatever’s measured, may help plan for a more efficient future.

The mountains of data moving back and forth, over the company network but also over the internet, can seem overwhelming but thanks to the savvy use of KPIs, mainly through dashboards, it’s much easier to group (read: correlate) large chunks of data so the worker can remain focused on the issues that -really- affect the organization.

Tags: kpi, key performance indicators, dashboards, metrics, critical objectives, enterprise computing

Time to break down the corporate silos

In the modern enterprise, information technology is an enabler for more productive collaboration between all departments, units and workers.

At a time when key performance indicators (or KPIs) should be readily available for all information workers and especially the C-level, it seems too many decisions are still taken without a clear picture of the real-time data that underlies critical applications, infrastructure and projects.

So even if IT could deliver awesome “dashboards”, ripe with timely and highly readable information, it seems way too many companies fail to tear down their corporate silos to produce such data.

The advantages of overcoming the silo approach makes it possible to envision a much better understanding of the company, as a whole. For instance, in an “un-siloed” company using , the IT department can get much better “real time” information so to anticipate (and resolve) the problems instead of merely reacting to them.

Having some kind of central repository, most likely gathering data from many sources, makes so much sense because to be able, in a single window, to identify [for instance] the performance of critical systems and projects in real time empowers people to act on things, way before problems occur.

It seems straightforward enough to work as a company-wide team but still, too many companies force their employees to rely on manual extrapolation of multiple applications, each containing silos of critical data, to go about their daily work. At best, this results in hit-or-miss decision making and a dangerous slide towards a certain inertia. At worst, working from flawed assumptions leads to significant costs, delays and wasted resources.

Retrofitting portal software to pull together solied data can help but overall, it does little to correlate information into useful guidance. In regards to software destined to enterprises of all sizes looking to implement dashboards, inquire with vendors such as BMC, Oracle, CA, Hewlett-Packard and IBM who are melding business service management (BSM), business intelligence (BI) as well as project and portfolio management (PPM) tools into overall dashboards.

Expect implementation and integration to be somewhat demanding while customization is plain inevitable (call it a “technical challenge”). This complex work might involve SOAP or XML bridges, especially if your application infrastructure isn’t homogeneous.

The payoff for such a bold transformative project towards dashboards mainly resides in the newfound ability to have largely useless data chunks (when taken individually) suddenly provide highly correlative insight, from all the data collected.

If your company isn’t using dashboards yet, now is probably a goodtime to break down those antiquated corporate silos to create infinite value from your various data sources.

Tags: dashboards, corporate silos, bsm, bi, ppm, kpi, it, critical data, information, enterprise

Enterprise IT warming up to mashups

If you’re new to the whole mashup scene, now is still a good time to get a feel for the impressive capabilities of application conglomerations which, for the end-user, is akin to mashing up various content to match specific needs.

From a technical standpoint, which is what enterprise IT folks want to know most, mashups are applications built from multiple pieces of data or other applications.

While the very concept of “mashing up content” isn’t new (think desktop clutter), today’s mashups are all about the web, driven by such technologies as web APIs, RSS content, wikis and social networking environments.

The most entrepreneuring IT coders might feel comfortable jumping into mashup management modules using PHP coupled with AJAX but for those who prefer large solutions from well established vendors, some of the most popular enterprise-level mashup platforms include IBM’s QEDWiki, Microsoft’s Popfly and Xignite’s Splice.

Why should enterprise IT managers take notice of mashups?

For one thing, Gartner expects around 30% of businesses to use mashups this year and the growth, according to most industry observers, should be strong for many years to come.

Furthermore, whatever provides an edge to a company should be investigated. Mashups empower the end-users like never before but also enables developers to help customize the work interfaces, in a highly collaborative manner, thus making it easier to reach higher levels of productivity and general workflow efficiency.

Everybody in an typical business is likely to highly benefit from mashups. Consider today’s popular applications using the power of mashups: CRM, billing, operations, accounting, partner systems, ERP, ECM and other proprietary data repositories that benefit from being mashed up for finely defined tasks.

While the typical application is about information delivery, it would be fair to think of mashups as self-service platforms.

It might also be anticipated that companies that focus on innovation, which may include making good use of mashups, are the most likely to save time and money, make better business decisions and reduce missed opportunity costs.

Tags: mashups, business decisions, knowledge workers, innovation, content, api, rss

Companies need to deal with mashups

Do you remember when you were young and you mixed and matched the different “food zones” that your mom had carefully delimited in your plate?

You were looking for best tasting combination to satisfy your personal preferences. Right there and then, you were mashing up food so your meal would taste the way -you- like it.

Fast forward in 2008, mashups are based on the same food mixing logic only this time, data is being rearranged to fit personal preferences.

Web users “mashup their data” all the time, mainly on their desktop but also, more often now, online.

The rise of AJAX coding has jazzed things up quite a bit, within even the most mundane (static or lightly dynamic) web pages.

In a no-frills scenario, with just a few mouse clicks, a user can decide that a given “mashable start page” will include (1) local news, (2) the titles of the last 10 emails received, (3) a link to the top 20 pop radio hits and why not, (4) the local sports team’s interactive calendar — these snippets of information are called blocks and typically, they can be rearranged by the user for his own needs.

In clear, users are now more in control of which information they see and how it’s presented to them. This approach fits perfectly with the “web 2.0 thinking” but is that the kind of flexibility companies are looking for?

As usual, home computer users bring some of their computing habits to the office and wether they’re prepared for it or not, the enterprise IT has to deal with them. Mashups are simply the latest in a long list of emerging technologies to cross the “home-to-office” bridge.

Opposing views over innovation VS governance spawn heated debate over mashups because while rearranging data might make the worker happier and more efficient, the governance efforts might hit a wall trying to follow-up with “infinitely personalized” work environments and online tools.

By keeping in mind that a mashup is a web application that combines data or services from more than one source into a single integrated application, it’s easy to anticipate the rise of the user as the end of the line “programmer” of information in the way that best fits his needs so in this kind of “mashed future”, the governance people fight an uphill battle.

Governance should be careful not to stiffle innovation, including the emerging mashups, because old IT -and- antiquated work methods could hurt a company in more ways than one.

Once a user has tasted the sheer power of mashups, it’s likely going to be quite frustrating going back to rigid, user-unfriendly interfaces presenting all the wrong information within a marathon of different “screens” that just don’t foster any level of heightened productivity… and work satisfaction.

With the powerful drive from web services and SOAs (service-oriented architectures), governance proponents should probably bite the bullet now and embrace mashups instead of hurting innovation by enforcing rigid rules that nobody but them are likely to appreciate… and approve of.

Tags: mashups, data, information, gui, interfaces, content, web 2.0, governance