The Planet Blog

As those of you who frequent The Planet forums know, I made the move from marketing to sales nearly one month ago. I’d like to share some interesting insights and observations I’ve gained since joining this team.

When I first arrived in sales I got a little training from my fellow team members, mostly watching how they handle live chats and the phones. Our sales folks are on commission, so taking the time to help me is not good for their bottom line. Even though I’ve known some of the sales team members a long time, and I shouldn’t have expected anything different, I was surprised to discover that it didn’t matter. They wanted to help make their new team member great and were willing to sacrifice their time selling to show me the ropes.

I also worried about how different the sales organization might be from the one I “grew up” in at EV1Servers. We had a saying at EV1, “The sales department doesn’t sell servers, the Web site sells servers.” So we acted as more of a consultative sales team than one that had any sort of interest in whether or not you chose to purchase.

We have a vested interest in whether or not you order the right server and the best way to serve our customers’ needs.

You may be asking yourself why you need a sales representative when we have a shopping cart that allows you to pick your server and customize it to your heart’s content? We have a fabulous shopping cart, and I know all of you are perfectly capable of ordering your own servers. You’re obviously brilliant since you’ve selected The Planet as your dedicated server provider. Regardless of how fabulous our shopping cart is, it may be helpful to have someone on the inside with your best interest at heart when ordering your server.

We may know about a promotion you may not be aware of. Just 15 minutes before I began writing this blog, I told a customer about the Free Fall promotion and saved him $50 on his control panel and setup fee. Plus he got some cool free extras, just because he stopped to ask whether or not cPanel supports unlimited domains.

And , it doesn’t cost you a dime. You pay the same setup and monthly fee whether a sales representative helps you or not. But we can’t help you fulfill the same server needs for less, or customize a server that’s perfect for you, unless you give us a call, send us an e-mail, or talk to us in chat.

When you’re ready for your next order, we’ll be happy to help you. My teammates and I hope to hear from you soon!

- Brooke

While I’m certainly not the first to blog on the subject of domain tasting, a.k.a. domain kiting, I wanted to chime in on the subject as someone who has managed domains from not only the reseller and registrar perspective, but as the registrant of my own domains. I hope this helps to clarify the issue for some of you.

First, a little history for those not completely familiar with the topic. On March 15, 1985, now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc. registered symbolics.com, the oldest still-registered .com domain. Creation of the World Wide Web was still four years away and Verisign wouldn’t exist for another decade, but that first registration was the beginning of the booming domain registration industry¹.

Changes to the domain registration system that would eventually lead to domain tasting did not occur until the late nineties. First, the creation of ICANN on Sept. 18, 1998, allowed for competition in the domain name industry. By the end of the twentieth century the cost for .com domains to dropped from $50 annually to $35 and, finally, six dollars a year. Before the end of ICANN’s first year, an agreement between the government-mandated non-profit and Network Solutions — then the .com registry — led to the creation of the Add Grace Period (AGP).

The AGP allows registrants to delete a domain name within five days of registration. The policy was created in response to demands from consumers who had incorrectly spelled their desired domain name during the registration process. While it is a very customer-service oriented policy, the AGP unintentionally led to the creation of the domain tasting industry.

My first near-encounter with domain tasting would come in August 2003, when EV1Servers became a reseller for Canadian-based registrar, Tucows. We sold domains for $5 a year, a great less than any other company offered .com domains at the time and a good amount less than we paid for them. Our hope was that the low price would drive registrants to our Web site, who would then lease dedicated servers for less than we would normally spend on pay-per-click advertising.

The low price did drive traffic to the site from potential server customers, but it was even more attractive to domain portfolio managers. These are companies that register thousands of domains and park ads and links on them, capitalizing on type-in traffic from those individuals either unaware of or averse to using search engines.

The companies who have since emulated the loss-leader domain strategy are careful to include terms we didn’t realize were necessary, like requiring the purchase of hosting, or increasing the price of renewals. Our policy allowed anyone to register as many domains as they desired, no strings attached – a lesson learned. Domain tasting employs a similar strategy. While portfolio management is considered a legitimate business, many consider domain tasting less so. They register thousands of domains and, like portfolio managers, aim to capitalize on type-in traffic. The difference is if they discover the traffic is less than favorable before the five days are up, the domain is deleted and the domain taster is refunded the cost of the domain.

It sounds like a harmless process. The domain goes back into the pool of domains available for registration and the domain taster moves on to another collection of thousands of domains. A look at ICANN’s numbers, however, reveals a practice that is out of control. Of the 1,784,772 .org domains registered by five registrars in January 2007, only 10,862 were retained after the grace period. That same month 47,824,131 .com and .net domains were deleted before the end of their grace periods.

Although there is come concern regarding domain tasting’s impact on the overall stability of the Internet, the real victims of this practice are not ICANN, the registries or registrars, but rather the registrants for whom the policy was instituted to protect. Domain tasters do not limit their potential business to newly registered domains. In fact, dropped names — names that were once registered, but were deleted from the registry upon deletion — are much more valuable to tasters than new names.

Registrants who are naïve about the domain registration system often fail to recognize the importance of keeping administrative contact information up-to-date. As a result, they miss their domain renewal reminders. Not wanting to pay redemption fees that have been known to top $300 (another practice under scrutiny), they assume they can simply wait until the domain has expired and register it again. When the domain is deleted they are shocked to find it registered by a company who will either keep the domain for the traffic it generates, or offer to sell it back to the registrant for ridiculously inflated prices.

ICANN and the various registries are working toward a solution for this broken process, but how do you balance the needs of the registrant at the time of registration and during accidental deletion? To most businesses it’s an insignificant loss, but to an individual running a site for charity or a student just cutting their teeth on the hosting industry it can be devastating.

I look forward to the eventual solution of this problem. In the interim, if you find yourself a victim of domain tasting, there are a few tricks that may help you get your domain back. First, whatever you do, do not visit your former domain name’s URL.

Traffic to the domain will only increase its value in the eyes of the taster. Also, do not contact the company that has registered your domain. Any perceived interest in the domain may drive the taster to put the domain up for auction. Simply wait five days and attempt to register the domain again.

If you find at that time the same taster still has your domain you need to decide if you’re willing to pay a large amount of money to get it back. In some cases you may be able to prove the domain is your intellectual property and use ICANN’s Universal Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy to regain ownership. Bear in mind this is a long and often expensive process. If a different taster has the domain, repeat the same process as above for as long as is necessary.

- Brooke

1. Source: ICANN

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that little more than a year ago, and for the four years prior, I worked in sales for a company called EV1Servers. The news that our happy little family was being sold to a private equity firm came as shock to say the least, but the real surprise was when rumors started to surface that this private equity firm had also purchased The Planet, our largest competitor and arch nemesis.

Few entities in history have been as fiercely competitive and fearful of the other as our two organizations. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, Lex Luthor and Superman and Khan Noonien Singh and Captain Kirk are a few examples that come close, but still don’t quite capture the essence that was the rivalry between The Planet and EV1Servers.

We had several proud and storied traditions, one of which was the Sumofan, a big plastic sumo wrestler holding a foam desktop fan. Aaron Conklin, whose blog appeared on Tuesday, had acquired him at a white elephant gift exchange and he became a trophy, bestowed upon the person who had given the last good burn (the term “burn” in this instance refers to “insult”). As the last person to give the other a good burn – although I can’t for the life of me remember what it was – the Sumofan has been in my exclusive possession since I moved from the call center to the corporate office late last year.

When our merger was made official and our two sales teams joined forces, we identified a commonality very quickly. On a visit to Dallas, Aaron spotted a Sumofan on the desk of another sales executive Jeff Reinis. Turns out our Dallas Sales team used him as sort of an anti-trophy, he was the Sumofan of Shame. He was the albatross around the neck of the last salesperson to lose a deal. This striking similarity was really groundbreaking for us and our relationship with Dallas, and we now had cultural ambassadors, Houston Sumofan and Dallas Sumofan, to bring us even further toward our goal of absolute mutual understanding.

When we had our first company-wide corporate meeting in Crockett, Texas, this past April, Jeff brought his Sumofan and I brought mine. We traded, allowing our Sumofans to travel and experience life at the other offices. Dallas Sumofan seems to be enjoying his time at the corporate office, and he’s always good for keeping things cool.

I haven’t gotten any calls from Houston Sumofan begging to come back home so I can only assume things are going alright for him as well. At the next company-wide meeting we will exchange them again, and so on, until the end of time.

- Brooke

According to Wikipedia.org, O’Reilly Media coined the phrase Web 2.0 sometime in 2004. The term has since become ubiquitous, but it’s difficult to pin down when Web 2.0 — the focus of the Internet community on user-generated content — actually began.

When social-networking sites like MySpace began making news and gaining popularity of course I had to take a look. What I found was largely underwhelming. Not to disparage the creators of MySpace — that community is a force of nature, and something to be respected and admired by all Internet entrepreneurs — it just didn’t seem like a completely new concept.

After all, forums are comprised of users who generate their own content, upload photos to their profiles and create online communities, usually based on a particular interest or hobby. These are communities nonetheless. Who knew sites like Web Hosting Talk and our own humble customer forums would be the unacknowledged godfathers to an entire movement called Web 2.0?

Hopefully the popularity of forums won’t diminish like other user-generated content formulas. I’ve always felt the advantage forums have over other types of communities is their ability to foster dialogue in an arena overcrowded with monologues. And yes I am aware of the irony of using a blog to make that statement.

It’s my belief that both mediums of communication are essential to building relationships with our customers. In fact, I’d like to think that we add value that even goes beyond exchanging credit card numbers for dedicated servers. Blogs provide an opportunity to communicate a concept, idea or opinion to its fullest, while communication in our forums is mostly reactive versus informative.

So until next time … I’ll see you on the forums!

- Brooke

The first time I saw the inside of a data center I had already worked in Web hosting sales for nearly two years. A member of our executive management team had decided that if we were going to sell dedicated servers we should probably have some concept of what they looked like.

I knew the building well; we’d once had a company-wide meeting in the lobby at 7:00 AM on a Saturday, so until our field trip I associated data centers with stale coffee and discontent over early weekend meetings. Although the data center and I had shared a less-than-stellar first encounter, when I finally stepped through the door that separated our then 14,000 or so servers from the rest of the world I never wanted to leave.

For those who have never had the pleasure or opportunity, visiting a large data center is something akin to a religious experience. Everything is so clean and sanitized. There are thousands of machines lined up in perfectly symmetrical rows and racks that tower above you, all connected by miles upon miles of a brilliant cable rainbow. The words you speak die in mid-air, absorbed by the sound of an electrified, whirring wonderland.

But in spite of the majesty of our data center’s sights and sounds, the part that struck me most was the smell. Imagine the new-plastic smell your CPU gives off when you plug a home computer for the first time, multiplied by many thousands, floating through perfectly filtered air. Within the first five minutes I wanted every customer to come and visit. They had to see and hear and, most importantly, smell what I was experiencing.

So when I read this article about the rising popularity of rub and sniff marketing my first thought was that we needed a way to recreate the smell of our data centers and include it in our print ads. We would be pioneers in olfactology for IT businesses!

Before this idea could come to fruition, it was pointed out to me that the smell of the data center really doesn’t do it for everyone. Although I cannot imagine why, some people even find it downright unpleasant, preferring smells like vanilla and sandalwood to plastic and electricity. One of our data center managers has even told me that while the CPUs and the electricity were contributing factors, most of what I smell is the fan belts on the air conditioning units, but that sounds much less romantic.

Still, the data center experience is more widely available to our customers than ever before. We now have a data center tour, starring actual Planet employees and filmed in our very own data centers. Click the button that says, “Take the Tour” on http://www.theplanet.com/ and enjoy our video, scent not included. For that part, you still need to make the trip to Texas and schedule a guided tour … break room coffee included.