Tag: Tucows

Having been made suspicious by the large number of “5-star” ratings his software got from download sites, Andy Brice of Successful Software decided to run a little experiment. He took a text file with these words:

This software does nothing.

It doesn’t even run.

I was created as an experiment to see how many shareware awards it got.

See the results of the experiment at:

www.successfulsoftware.net

He gave the file an .exe extension and gave it the asking-to-be-caught name “awardmestars”. He also included a PAD file — that’s “Portable Application Decsription”, a standard for describing software in the shareware industry — that clearly indicated that the software did nothing at all.

In spite of all the warnings he provided, plus the fact that it was a non-functional non-application, he still managed to rack up these 16 awards:

As regular readers of this blog know, I work for Tucows, whose original business was being a place that reviewed and hosted downloadable shareware.

Would we have given Andy Brice’s non-application an award? No. Why?

An award from Tucows is not given lightly. In fact, just to make it on to our site, a software title needs to maintain a minimum three cow rating, and it needs to generate downloads. Titles that do not maintain an appropriate level of popularity are removed from the library on our site.

We offer a truly “best of” collection of software. One of team members reviews every single piece of software that is submitted. In fact, over 70% of the submissions to Tucows are rejected because they fail to meet our stringent ratings criteria. In a nutshell, for Windows applications (we have different rating scales for Mac/Linux/Games, etc.), Tucows uses a 56-point rating scale with a large proportion of the rating based on usability (21 points), we allot up to 14 points for Help, Documentation and Support, 10 points for program enhancements, and 11 points for the opinion of the reviewer. The Tucows rating guide is so standardized, that a third-party site provides a “Tucows Rating Calculator” where software authors can analyze their title to get an idea of how it would rate on Tucows.

I’ve known Bill Sweetman since the mid-nineties, back when I worked at Mackerel Interactive Multimedia, so I was very pleased to find out that Tucows — the company where I hold the title of Technical Evangelist — has hired him as General Manager of our domain name portfolio.

Bill writes:

I’m going to be leading the charge to further monetize that portfolio as well as develop new products and services related to the portfolio. Translation: I’m going to be performing Domain Name Karate as a full-time job!

When presented with the opportunity to turn my long-held passion for domain names into a full-time gig, I leaped at the chance. This was truly one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunities’ and I knew I’d regret turning it down. Plus, I get to work again with Ken Schafer and a great team of people who are equally passionate about the domain name space.

It’s good to have you on the team, Bill. Welcome to the herd!

What Does Tucows Do?

Since I work at Tucows, I get asked this question a lot: What does Tucows do?

Here’s the short answer, which should do for the purposes of this article: Tucows is in the business of providing wholesale services to ISPs and hosting services, such as domain name registration and email. The ISPs and hosting services then provide these services to their customers. By buying our wholesale services rather than implementing and maintaining these services themselves, they can concentrate on customer service.

Tucows’ Domain Prices: Lower and More Transparent

The announcement on the Tucows Blog puts it so well that I’ll just quote it:

How’s this for a radical idea: Charge less for each domain, then add more services and features and then fully explain where every penny of each transaction goes. It sounds crazy, but that’s exactly what we’re doing starting today.

For example, our price of a .com domain used to be US$10.05, and now it’s dropped to US$9.20. Here’s how it breaks down:

Item	Cost
.com registration (charged by the registry)	US$6.00
ICANN fee	US$0.20
Tucows management fee	US$3.00

In pie chart form, the cost breakdown looks like this:

Here’s what the Tucows management fee covers:

• Free Name Suggestion Tool powered by DomainsBot
• 50% of net domain parking revenue
• The ability to sell any of hundreds of thousands of premium domain names
• Access to a library of APIs and web-based tools for provisioning and management of domains
• Technical support

And come September, these will also become available with every domain name:

• Free WHOIS Privacy
• Free Managed DNS

For more details, see our news release and our blog article.

The obligatory disclaimer: Yes, I work for Tucows, where I hold the title of Technical Evangelist.

From Shareware to Solutions

The Tucows site — that is the one at tucows.com, the original site where the company got its start as being a place to download shareware — has undergone a big makeover. Here’s a screenshot:

Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

Back when the company got started in the early 90s, finding software online was difficult. Search engines were just in their infancy, 28.8 kbps modems were considered fast and it actually made sense to publish magazines and even books simply cataloging sites and software that you could find online. During this era, Tucows and a number companies found a niche as places where you could find and download software as well as see reviews.

In the age of high-speed connections, Google search, AdSense and that amorphous thing called Web 2.0, the “shareware site” approach doesn’t make as much sense. I download many of my applications directly from the vendor, and number of other apps I use exist as web applications.

In spite of the technological changes since Tucows’ early days — when processor power was measured double-digit megahertz and there was less RAM in my machine than in my present-day key fob — one thing remains: people are still asking “How can I do this using my computer?”

The new Tucows site aims to be a place online where you can go to find solutions to your computer and internet questions and problems. By “solution”, we mean anything that solves your problem. Sometimes it’s software that you can download. Sometimes it’s a web application or site. Sometimes it’s a set of steps that you can follow.No matter what the solution may be, we want to be the place where you can find it.

A Quick Tour

If you visit Tucows.com, the first thing you’ll see, right near the top of the page is the Search solutions & software box, where you can start your search quickly.

Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

If you’re not sure of what to search for or prefer browsing through solutions, there’s a list of popular and recent solutions just below the search box:

Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

Clicking on a solution title takes you to the page for the solution, which may provide download links, links to site or an article, depending on the solution:

Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

You don’t need to sign up for an account, but if you do, you can also rate and comment on solutions:

Click the screenshot to visit Tucows.com.

With an account, not only can you offer your feedback on an existing solution, you can also submit your own.

Give the new Tucows.com a try!

For More…

• Tucows Gets Social, the Original Software Download Site, Launches Radical Redesign: the official announcement of the site’s re-vamp.
• A screencast featuring the new site, featuring me and Greg Weir, our Director of Content Services. [Length: 8 minutes, 10 seconds]

Tucows will be in Chicago at HostingCon 2007, which starts today (Monday, July 23rd) and runs until Wednesday, July 25th at Navy Pier. HostingCon bills itself as “the largest gathering of hosted services professionals in the world” and for more details about the conference, check our their conference program.

We’ll be making our presence known there — I won’t be there, but my coworkers Kim, Leona, Adam and Hasdeep will. Be sure to keep an eye out for squishy cows and…

Our Booth

We’ll have a booth in the exhibitors’ hall — booth 817, which is right beside the networking lounge. Feel free to come chat with us about our new Email Service, Premium Domains and other upcoming things from Tucows.

You can look for booth 817 on the official HostingCon map or use our slightly customized one below to find us:

Our Session: Rethinking Domain Name Search

This Wednesday, July 25th, from 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. in room 109, Product Manager for Domains Adam Eisner will be making his presentation, Rethinking Domain Name Search.

Here’s the description of his presentation:

With the rise of the domain name aftermarket, many expired names never return to the public for repurchase. This, combined with the fact most web hosting companies don’t provide an effective domain name search feature on their website, results in many lost sales opportunities for domain names, web hosting, email and more.

This session will show web hosts how to “re-think” their website’s domain name search strategy in response to market developments like better name suggestion technology, fewer available names, and the rise of the domain name aftermarket. The strategies outlined and demonstrated will help web hosts obtain tangible improvements in their domain name and web hosting sales.

Topics covered will include:

• How to improve sales by improving your existing domain name search process (using tangible examples)
• Maximizing the number of relevant results provided using name suggestion technology
• Using domain name aftermarket to ensure customers receive the most relevant domain name availability results possible

Come on out and say hello!

Tucows will be at HostingCon 2007, which takes place next week in Chicago from Monday, July 23rd to Wednesday, July 25th at Navy Pier. HostingCon bills itself as “the largest gathering of hosted services professionals in the world” and for more details about the conference, check our their conference program.

We’ll be making our presence known there — I won’t be there, but my coworkers Kim, Leona, Adam and Hasdeep will. Be sure to keep an eye out for squishy cows and…

Our Booth

We’ll have a booth in the exhibitors’ hall — booth 817, which is right beside the networking lounge. Feel free to come chat with us about our new Email Service, Premium Domains and other upcoming things from Tucows.

You can look for booth 817 on the official HostingCon map or use our slightly customized one below to find us:

Our Session: Rethinking Domain Name Search

On Wednesday, July 25th, from 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. in room 109, Product Manager for Domains Adam Eisner will be making his presentation, Rethinking Domain Name Search.

Here’s the description of his presentation:

With the rise of the domain name aftermarket, many expired names never return to the public for repurchase. This, combined with the fact most web hosting companies don’t provide an effective domain name search feature on their website, results in many lost sales opportunities for domain names, web hosting, email and more.

This session will show web hosts how to “re-think” their website’s domain name search strategy in response to market developments like better name suggestion technology, fewer available names, and the rise of the domain name aftermarket. The strategies outlined and demonstrated will help web hosts obtain tangible improvements in their domain name and web hosting sales.

Topics covered will include:

• How to improve sales by improving your existing domain name search process (using tangible examples)
• Maximizing the number of relevant results provided using name suggestion technology
• Using domain name aftermarket to ensure customers receive the most relevant domain name availability results possible

Come on out and say hello!

Back when I first started at Tucows — four years ago last Saturday — they asked me to start a developer blog that featured a mix of articles about programming in general and articles about developing using Tucows’ services. This blog became The Farm, and it received a fair bit of acclaim and a decent-size readership (typically about 1,500 pageviews on any given business day).

When we introduced the Tucows Blog in the fall of 2006, we thought that we’d roll the programming content in The Farm into it. Over time, we learned that it it’s better to have articles on programming in their own blog, so we’ve decided to bring back the developer blog and make it a little more “official” by making it part of the services.tucows.com site.

And thus the Tucows Developer Blog was born.

It’s aimed primarily at developers who use Tucows’ services or are likely to do so, which means that it’s got articles about developing using Tucows services and articles for developers in general, especially those doing web application development. Like The Farm, I plan to update it every business day and write it using my “voice”, which is generally casual and sometimes irreverent.

Please drop by!