April 2010 Archives

Much of our time in 2009 was spent on refining our domain management service to make it more attractive to partners around the globe. Consequently we launched a Dutch language partner site called Benikvrij and a German site called meinName. We also designed a system that means we can roll out a new implementation of the iWantMyName platform within a few days and scale up rapidly as customer demand grows. We provide our partner companies with a complete set of front end templates and they make the necessary translation into their home language. Of course we handle the billing set-up including whatever currency is required and make it compatible with any existing systems. You are also free in the choice of any domain registrar back end on the market.

With ICANN moving steadily towards full implementation of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), it is encouraging to know that we have already invested in a fully IDN capable system. The Russian and Arabic language domain name space looks set to heat up for this reason very soon. But we also see great opportunities in parts of Asia such as Japan and Korea where high average incomes and heavy internet usage combine to present an attractive proposition for a niche registrar player. South America looks like an interesting story as well. With an increasingly affluent middle class population and a highly developed mobile internet infrastructure, we'd love to see a Spanish or Portuguese language version of iWantMyName in that market.

We think that users all around the world will continue to demand a better experience when it comes to domain registration and management and we believe that iWantMyName provides a unique, easy-to-use package that helps domain registrars and resellers to grow market share. In particular our innovative web app domain customization service gives registrars a competitive advantage. Therefore we are now inviting expressions of interest from companies interested in deploying a customized version of iWantMyName in a foreign language market to meet the needs of their customers.

If you would like to discuss a partnership opportunity further, please contact timo@ideegeo.com.

It's not often that you meet talented people with an eye for real simple designs. We were lucky to catch up with one of them last week. Local designer Jarred Bishop developed three custom Tumblr themes and his "Wordographic" theme was selected by Tumblr as one of the few templates available in their new premium theme garden. Jarred also told us that he's got other themes cooking so stay tuned for more excellent customization options (besides your own domain name) for your blog or portfolio.

Are you a theme / template designer for Tumblr, Posterous, Blogger, Shopify or other popular services? Drop us a line and get featured on our blog!

Domain name redirection or web (URL) forwarding is one of the easiest ways to start using your own web address and is a service we provide free to all customers at iWantMyName. With this option you can forward domains to any other public location on the internet. Although it shouldn't be the preferred setup, it makes perfect sense under some circumstances.

So why would you choose to redirect a domain name? First, some web services do not support custom domains but only offer to get a username tied to their web address in the form of domain.com/username, e.g. twitter.com/username or facebook.com/username. In this case forwarding is the only option to point a domain to the respective site. Secondly, a redirection comes in handy if you haven't decided what to do with a new internet address yet. By forwarding a domain, you could let all visitors go to a Facebook page or LinkedIn profile instead of presenting them with a blank site or an error message in your browser.

Here's our top 10 list of services to forward to:

1. Facebook profile / page -> http://facebook.com/username
2. Twitter profile -> http://twitter.com/username 
3. LinkedIn profile -> http://linkedin.com/in/username
4. Google Profiles -> http://profiles.google.com/username
5. Flickr fotos -> http://flickr.com/photos/username
6. YouTube videos -> http://youtube.com/user/username
7. Vimeo videos -> http://vimeo.com/username
8. Last.fm music -> http://last.fm/user/username
9. MySpace profile -> http://myspace.com/username
10. Identi.ca profile -> http://identi.ca/username

Besides linking your domain to only one of the mentioned services, you could also create your own namespace like:

You get the drift... only by owning a domain name and having control over the full web address, are you actually able to change the destination at any point in time. Don't like Twitter anymore? Simply change yourdomainname.com/status to another service.

You can set up free domain forwarding through your domain management interface at iWantMyName.

It's dead easy to set up Tumblr and Gmail on a custom domain name with iWantMyName. If you register a domain with us, you do not need any geeky knowledge to get the customized version of both the popular blog and email service up and running. Moreover, it's completely free to host your domain on Tumblr and Google Apps and hence the perfect combination to start owning your online identity.

Simply follow these 5 steps to personalize your experience of the web:

1. Search for an available domain name. Most popular for personal sites are .COM, .NET, .ORG, .ME (on sale!), .NAME and .IM domains or your preferred country code extension.
2. Register the domain and proceed to the "Services" tab in your iWantMyName dashboard.
3. Choose "Google Apps" to set up your email following these instructions.
4. Add the domain to your Tumblr account.
5. Go to "Tumblr" in the list of services at iWantMyName and click on "Set up Tumblr".

That's it! You should now see your Tumblr blog on your shiny new domain name and also be able to send and receive emails with Gmail @yourdomain.com/net/org. Benefit from the world's easiest custom domain setup for the most popular web services and register or transfer your domain name today!