From third level domains to new TLDs to domain registration, CentralNic does it all.
Ben Crawford, CEO of publicly traded CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC), discusses his company’s twenty year history and its plans for the future. CentralNic is a company on the move; it has acquired two domain name registrars in the past year and powers more new top level domain name registrations that any registry services provider.
Also: Minds + Machines outsources, sanctions and .Sport, BrandBucket’s sales, what Sedo does with non-paying bidders, China, Ted Cruz and an interesting new TLD promotion.
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Great podcast as always Andrew. Appreciate everything you write and do here on DNW as a resource.
I respect that Ben Crawford and CentralNIC have grown to be a major backend registry in the last few years. However… anytime the third level subdomains they sell are mentioned or I see them in use by someone I am working with, I require they read this article.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/01/thousands_of_gb_dot_com_sites_go_dark/
It is a bad idea to build your personal, business, organization, .etc web presence on a CentralNIC subdomain. You do not technically own the domain and as Kevin Murphy (DomainIncite) says in the article they are “pseudo-extensions.” That describes perfectly what they are.
I’d recommend buying new gTLDs over these pseudo-extensions any day. At least you have control over the domain you bought. CenralNIC lost control over some of the 2-letter domains in that article for periods of time. You just haven’t seen people mention it.
Most people don’t have any idea about what they are buying. They need to be educated. What do you think Andrew?
I think that’s a fair assessment. Ron Jackson made a similar comment once when a third-level CentralNic domain sold in the aftermarket.