Last week, I was in Frankfurt along with a few of my team to participate in a jointly organized workshop, titled: “From Groundbreaking to Mainstream” with Eco Forum . The workshop was a unique opportunity to bring together stakeholders representing different aspects of the .ORG community, from the organizations such as INHOPE.org and BUNDESREPUBLIK.org who manage their identity and advance their missions under the .ORG brand to SEDO who participates in and monitors changes in the secondary market to security experts such as Klaus Landefeld, an eco Board Member, and an European Commission Advisor such as Detlef Eckert.
The main theme of the event was the innovation that is inherent in the .ORG community and whether it would get adopted out to the broader community (think social networking, open source software development, wikis, green IT, etc) as well as innovative programs .ORG, The Public Interest Registry is working on to benefit the long term health of the Internet such as DNSSEC, and industry collaborations to combat phishing and malware.
The guests included a great mix representing all aspects of the Internet industry in Germany including registrars and resellers, ISP domain investors, as well as technical and security experts.
The feedback we received was the wish that we had made the sessions longer and perhaps filled out the full day! We look to continue doing these sorts of community debriefs, if you have a location (virtual or physical) and a topic in mind, let us know at buzz@pir.org.
I recently read an article that was published in Time Magazine, titled, “The Candidates Stump for National Service.” The article illustrated how the U.S. public interest in service has grown dramatically over the past 5 years and how both Presidential Candidates are demonstrating that National Service will be a priority in both candidates’ administrations.
What caught my eye and got me thinking was the following statement, “that each man (presidential candidate) has asserted that national service not only can solve the country’s problems but also can and should be a unifying force for America in the 21st Century.”
The words, “solve problems” and “unifying force” really jumped out at me because these are words that I think define what .ORG’s are all about. As a unified proactive community, impassioned to promote and achieve the greater good, .ORG’s around the world, both large and small, work as a unified force in order to better the world presently and for the future.
Building a safe and resourceful community is at the forefront of our mission. .ORG’s who influence our world every day, effecting positive change on our planet are highlighted on the website as “Extraordinary .ORG’s”, demonstrating the creative ways these extraordinary organizations advance their mission. Part of .ORG’s mission to create a resourceful online community is available through our comprehensive library of information, online tools and resources to help fellow .ORG’s effectively build their .ORG online presence. We have also created the .ORG Ambassadors series, which gives a chance for people to share their voices and opinions as an Ambassador and share their voice with the community through our “World Voices” campaign or through a guest blog spot right here on The .ORG Blog.
Over the next few weeks I will be highlighting how .ORG’s are making a difference and attaining the goal of creating a community that fosters the ideals of achieving the greater good. Look for later posts to come as part of the series over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, I welcome you to share your thoughts and your story of how your .ORG is making a difference.
A recent headline caught my eye the other day. It seems recently that .ORGs have been garnering record sales, which is surprising given the current economic climate and the fact that .ORG has really never actively courted the secondary market. However, we are monitoring it because we believe investments in building brand value and differentiation will start showing up first in secondary market results.
One of the first things we did to differentiate is to build on a successful foundation, because .ORG IS inherently valuable. As one of the original TLDs, it has longevity and worldwide recognition. And unlike .com, though hugely successful, .ORG conveys a message of trust and specific content. If the Internet is the fast growing metropolis, then .ORG is the green oasis of valuable real-estate. You know you are likely to find good content behind a .ORG address, which of course means higher search engine rankings and of course, the penultimate goal – TRAFFIC.
Speaking of traffic, we found something unexpected in talking to various stakeholders about security. Did you know there are pretty savvy Domainers already demanding DNS Security (DNSSEC) from their registrars? Prior to our announcement of DNSSEC implementation, they were already demanding to know how soon their registrars could support this service. For them, it’s all about protecting their traffic. So interestingly enough, .ORG becomes differentiated from other TLDs for Domainers because we plan to give means to secure their traffic.
So having started on a good foundation, we went further by highlighting the valuable content (or what we call the .ORG Community) through our “World Voices” Campaign. We invested in new branding, logo, and innovative programs such as the Webby Awards and viral videos that tell the story far more effectively than we could. I am not sure if all these efforts were behind the record sales, as they are all long-term investments…but the indications are positive.
We will be spending more time building the value of .ORG, as we believe the .ORG Community is worth the extra effort and valuable to everyone – including Domainers and the secondary market.
During the 32nd public ICANN meeting in Paris, France, .ORG held a special event for our registrars, board members, advisory council, other registries, and many important people in the Domain Community. Called FESTIVAL with .ORG, we had an exciting night at Les Pavillons de Bercy in Paris on this past Tuesday, the 24th of June.
On a warm summer evening, everyone was able to relax and have fun while networking with other ICANN attendees amid jugglers and stilt walkers. A highlight of the evening was the presentation of one .ORG’s “World Voices” videos with notable .ORG interviews from Jake Brewer of Idealist.org, Angela Beesley of Wikipedia.org, and Marianne Heuwagen of Human Rights Watch – HRW.org. It continues to be an honor and a privilege for us to highlight this wonderful, passionate .ORG Community to help let their voices be heard worldwide. While the role of those of us in attendance is focused on internet infrastructure as well as the policies that support and encourage the use of .ORG as a channel for advocacy, to see the people and hear their “World Voices” describing how they are changing the world one step at a time, well it was a rewarding moment for us.
With raffle prizes, games, and excitement, we had a successful “festival” in the heart of France. Our CEO, Alexa Raad, highlighted accomplishments over the past 7 months since our last event at the Los Angeles ICANN, and we thanked the rest of the .ORG friends and family who helped make our success possible including our Advisory Council, Board, Afilias, and registrar partners. The positive feedback continued that evening though the next couple of days. Our collective message back to the .ORG Community — the World Voices, is great work! And we will continue to make .ORG the most relevant channel to build your web presence and inspire people around the world. Don’t miss the opportunity to promote the .ORG Community with us during our upcoming events. Stay tuned to our event calendar on where you can find us in the upcoming months.
Every year, leading edge technology and social /cultural trends converge at an event called The Webby Awards in NYC. The awards are billed as “the leading International award honoring excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet”. Just as the motion picture industry has the Oscars, our industry has the Webby’s. The Webby’s brings out celebs as well as media types, to rub shoulders with the most creative up and coming talents and change makers in the Internet world.
And we were there. This is the first time .ORG has been a sponsor of the Webby’s, and we chose a darn good year. This year was a record for .ORG winners, 17 in all! Not surprising, considering the contribution individuals and organizations in the .ORG Community make to the Internet and to society in general. Given so many .ORG nominees and winners, our presence and message resonated with the attendees at all three events which happened over the course of the Webbys. Stay tuned for video and photo coverage of the “Sunset Cocktails”, the “Film and Video Awards” and of course the Gala.
As an Official Sponsor of the Webbys, we had tickets to all three nights, plus prime seating at the gala, right next to the stage. So who did we invite? We took along some guests, such as Dan Rundio of TierraNet and his .ORG customer Sura Hart of Grassroots.org. Idealist’s Jake Brewer, a past Webby Winner, and Jim Craner of the Chicago Technology Cooperative( they help non-profs create their web presence), as well as Jeff Zaretsky of KickApps (one of our showcase members in the “.ORG Resource Center”) were also our guests. We were also joined by members of our Advisory Council, Angela Siefer and George Sadowsky.
We had a chance to congratulate some of the extraordinary .ORGs who won. For example, one of my favorites, Factcheck.org won three Webby awards and delivered one of my favorite 5 word acceptance speeches of the night: “Where truthiness goes to die.”
Another winner was Artocracy.org , who provides a digital marketplace for original art – a great site that democratizes the art world and makes art accessible to anyone, anywhere. Nothing against the venues where our industry typically congregates (ICANN, domainer conferences, policy workshops) but sometimes I hear the same issues/ideas that were discussed last year, or the year before with little or no change, like living your own version of “Groundhog Day”. Well, not at the Webbys, where the creative quotient is high, and you get a first hand glimpse at talent and companies that rocked the Internet in the last year and possibly in the very near future. Think viral videos such as Will.i.am’s “yes we can” and Obama’s viral video which was more effective than a 10 city, $1000 per plate fundraiser. Think animation, photo blogs, social media and network apps, mobile campaigns, etc. It is refreshing to see this level of creativity and and the attitude that everything can and should change.
It occurred to me when taking over as CEO last July that .ORG has what no other TLD can claim: a real sense of community. True, this is where you can find an awful lot of good content — but when you look deeper you can glimpse an antidote to the daily news of warfare, and discord, namely, what makes us humane, not just human. Within our community are individuals, organizations and companies all trying to inspire, educate, advocate and generally change the world as we know it.
The challenge is how to tell this story….Often the story is best told first hand or better said – by the community members themselves — hence, we launched a campaign and series of events under the “World Voices” banner, giving a chance for organizations large and small to share their story, their “voice” so to speak from all over the world. . As part of this campaign we would like to promote diverse expression and various contributions of the global .ORG community. The web does have a mission to inspire and educate along with its other functions!
Our recent events in Berlin and London were part of our “World Voices” campaign. They were attended by .ORG luminaries, previous and current Webby nominees in London, .ORG websites, our registrar partners, bloggers, and the media. Presenters from both events (Wikipedia.org, Greenpeace.org, Netzpolitik.org, Human Rights Watch, hrw.org, Idealist.org, Bundesrepublik.org, VideoLAN.org, OECD.org, and AlertNet.org) were asked to sum up their story and their identity is a series of a few slides that did justice to their cause.
London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts was a fitting venue for our April “.ORG coming out party” on April 14 to support the Webby Awards and the People’s Voice voting — and the event made a clear statement that the Internet is more than the sum of its technical capabilities, but rather a vibrant, opinionated and motivated collection of individuals and communities of interest. Jake Brewer of Idealist.org and Henrik Steffen of City-Map.org (both .ORG Community guests) were two of our attendees that blogged about the event and their posts can be found here:
The Webby Awards put together a great video to kick off the People’s Voice Voting for .ORG too:
While in London I was able to visit one of our global .ORGs, Alertnet.org, an early warning system connected to Reuters, one of the world’s top news agencies. The office is in the Reuters tower in London’s new financial district at Canary Wharf. (The principal competitor to Reuters, the Associated Press, is actually a news cooperative of leading newspapers with the domain name www.AP.org .)
AlertNet is linked to leading humanitarian organizations and international agencies constantly monitoring disasters and the world’s response, offering information and resources about problem solvers as well as problems. Their team, led by Timothy Large, is impressive, knowledgeable and deeply committed. Given the recent events in Myanmar and China, organizations like AlertNet are instrumental. If you don’t have Alertnet.org bookmarked, you should!
The DIHK or Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce held our most recent event on Wednesday May 14th in Berlin – with a packed house of our registrar partners (1&1 Internet, InterNetX, and Key-Systems) along with our .ORG Community presenters to create both viral video clips and introduce .ORG as a unique global name and community to the German community. We know that Germany is an Internet leader, and it has Europe’s largest telecommunications market. Web use is higher that the EU average. But more importantly, and perhaps unknown to those outside Germany, it also has a spirit of giving, a history of taking up the environmental causes before anyone took note on our shores and an opinionated and active blogging community.
You can see pictures from the event through our Flickr set here:
At each venue, I went first and introduced .ORG and the company behind it. I explained that the .ORG community was in effect the heart and soul, and perhaps the conscience, of the Internet, and that we had seen some amazing organizations and individuals work tirelessly and unassumingly to inspire, educate or move us to make a difference.
The .ORG site and panelist we all probably use or refer to was Wikipedia.org, represented by Angela Beesley in London and its family member, Wikimedia.org was introduced by Patrick Danowski in Berlin. They explained how this unlikely user-created free encyclopedia is now among the world’s most visited websites. Although Wikipedia.org is a non-profit, the site would be worth an estimated $2 billion on the open market. Yet its “priceless” in terms of the ease of use and rather remarkable accuracy of information — another testament to the collaborative nature of human beings. The sum of our efforts is greater than the parts.
Taken together, these and all the other presented sites demonstrate the range and uniqueness of these “Extraordinary .ORGS.” We at .ORG, The Public Interest Registry, are proud to shine a spotlight on them. We are now engaged in a global effort to promote the .ORG domain, what we stand for, and what we will stand up for in a world where commercialized media has more to sell than to tell.
.ORG is about serving the public interest, not just commercial interests although our sites sometimes offer ecommerce and generate revenue through commercial add-ons.
There is in the world today a growing tension between nationalism and globalism, between our dedication to our own countries and culture and the recognition that globalization has forced us to become more aware of international events and challenges like global warming that affect us all.
The Webby Awards and People’s Voice Choices were announced just prior to our event in Berlin with a RECORD number of .ORGs winning this prestigious award this year with 17 .ORG winners and over 65 nominees . I believe the world is officially recognizing what we all know – .ORG is where people turn to find trustworthy content, collaborate on anything from developing shareware to grassroots campaigns, or simply be inspired.
I believe, the new media has not perhaps entirely replaced the old, but transformed it. It’s extended the power of the few to the many, and in the process up-ended old rules. We now have the opportunity though social networking and other interactive technologies to connect, communicate, AND bring forth results that were previously done by large, exclusive and sometimes self-interested fundraisers and lobbyists. For example, Grassroots campaigners like moveon.org have signed up new voters and pushed our political candidates on issues that were not “sound bites” but substantial. A previous Webby Winner, factcheck.org kept the discourse honest and fact based. And there are thousands more …
The .ORG world has been around since the beginning of the internet and it only now “coming out” with a voice and force on its own. Working with our Internet partners, we are urging organizations to adopt .ORG as one of the many tools they are using to get their voices heard. It is an address and domain of distinction.
I want to give a big thank you to all our registrar partners (1&1 Internet, InterNetX, Key-Systems, and Name.com) for their efforts in promoting our events along with our .ORG Community guests.
I will be blogging regularly on what .ORG is doing and offering. Your input and suggestions for how we can strengthen and grow our community are always welcome.
.ORG encourages appropriate comments to The .ORG Blog. Lively debate is encouraged, however, comments should be topical for the .ORG community and not unlawful or offensive. Any comments on this site are the personal opinions of the original authors, not .ORG, The Public Interest Registry or its executives. .ORG may, in its sole discretion, remove comments that are deemed offensive, inappropriate, or off-topic.
As an Official Sponsor of the Webbys, we had tickets to all three nights, plus prime seating at the gala, right next to the stage. So who did we invite? We took along some guests, such as Dan Rundio of TierraNet and his .ORG customer Sura Hart of Grassroots.org. Idealist’s Jake Brewer, a past Webby Winner, and Jim Craner of the Chicago Technology Cooperative( they help non-profs create their web presence), as well as Jeff Zaretsky of KickApps (one of our showcase members in the 
democratizes the art world and makes art accessible to anyone, anywhere. Nothing against the venues where our industry typically congregates (ICANN, domainer conferences, policy workshops) but sometimes I hear the same issues/ideas that were discussed last year, or the year before with little or no change, like living your own version of “Groundhog Day”. Well, not at the Webbys, where the creative quotient is high, and you get a first hand glimpse at talent and companies that rocked the Internet in the last year and possibly in the very near future. Think viral videos such as Will.i.am’s “yes we can” and Obama’s viral video which was more effective than a 10 city, $1000 per plate fundraiser. Think animation, photo blogs, social media and network apps, mobile campaigns, etc. It is refreshing to see this level of creativity and and the attitude that everything can and should change. 