The following is a guest post from Dynadot, a domain registrar that is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with a big sale. The company made a large donation  to help support my fundraising effort for the  Ronald McDonald House. If you could make a donation in any amount, it would be greatly appreciated!
Back in 2002 Dynadot’s founder Todd Han was looking for a domain name and found himself dissatisfied with the control panels of major registrars at the time. So he decided to start his own registrar and on September 3, 2002 Dynadot was officially incorporated.
For the first three years, Todd ran Dynadot from his home, writing the software, keeping the books, and doing customer service. In 2005 he hired his first employee and since then he has built a dynamic team of diverse and quirky people that support Dynadot and its customers everyday.
Flash forward to 2012 and Todd and the entire team here at Dynadot are so excited to be celebrating our 10 year anniversary! If you ask Todd to look back on the last 10 years, the moment that stuck out as one of his happiest was the first order that was Dynadot ever received. According to Todd, he was “so excited [he was] jumping up and down in [his] home office.” The order was only $7.99, but it meant everything to Todd.
That moment is the inspiration behind our anniversary sale. For the entire month of September, we are rolling back our prices to 2002 levels – or $7.99 for new 1 year registrations and transfers for .COM, .NET, & .ORG. We hope you will celebrate with us by taking advantage of our special pricing before it expires at the end of the month, 9/30/12 23:59 PDT.
Now check out our interview with Todd Han about the past 10 years in the industry and what he sees coming in the next 10 years.
What registration trends have you seen in the past 10 years?
Sometimes running a business in the domain industry feels like riding a roller coaster. There have been booms and busts. Companies have come and gone. Entire business models have appeared then disappeared. Through the last 10 years, we have focused on our core business of domain name registration. We have emerged from the turmoil with a loyal customer base and excellent financials. Whatever challenges the future brings, we are well positioned to meet them.
What do you predict for the next 10 years?
Domain names will increase in importance, displacing phone numbers, mailing addresses, and Facebook handles as the dominant addressing scheme. Before deciding on a name for their child, new parents will check to see if the matching domain name is available. The aftermarket will continue to grow as businesses realize that a good domain name is the best advertising investment they can make.
What do you think about the new proposed gTLDs?
I suspect most of the new gTLDs will struggle. Establishing a new TLD in the public consciousness takes huge amounts of money and time. Running out of good names in .COM does not really lead to spillover into other TLDs. It leads to increased aftermarket activity and more creative naming inside .COM. That said I would love to see a new gTLD give .COM some competition. And of course we will offer all the new gTLDs on our website.
If you want to see more from our interview with Todd, visit Dynadot’s blog and don’t forget to get your .COM, .NET, or .ORG domain for our special anniversary sale price while you’re there!
Here is the link to Dynadot’s anniversary blog post.
Godaddy $5.99 everyday, anyday, substantial savings, rolling back registration to the early days, might actually cause price increases. How about for renewals, for loyal customers, oh right screw them.
Dynadot is great if you want to deal with condescending employees enforcing ludicrous payment terms.
For me it is strictly go daddy. Name.com is great too, but absolutely not dynadot.
I get emails from Dynadot telling me in the subject line that my domain name is expiring, then I open the email it is blank.
Funny thing is I do not think I have any domains with Dynadot anymore.
Just out of curiosity, what is to “dislike” about Anticareers comment?
I understand someone disliking what I said, or what Ron said because we both included personal opinions in our comments but Anticareer just said something that happened to him.
What is the rational for disliking something that happened?
It’s funny to me.
Todd’s insight into the future of domaining is encouraging—I bought both my nephews their names several months back. 🙂 —–in dot com, of course. 🙂
But 4 registration, I love GoDaddy, too.
Met Jackie and Todd at Domainfest and they’re super nice. Congratulations and a happy birthday.