Pervasive Media and eNom Join Forces

Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by admin in Domain News | 1 Comment »

Pervasive Media®, a newly-formed company specializing in domain-related business enterprise, yesterday announced it will join forces with eNom®, a leading provider of domain name registration services, in submitting bids to create and manage registries for new generic top-level domain extensions.

The bids will be submitted to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN),
the oversight body for the Internet’s addressing system. The announcement was made following ICANN’s quarterly meeting in Cairo, Egypt.

On June 26, ICANN’s Board of Directors approved an expansion of the Internet’s addressing system and announced it would accept bids to widen the field of non-community related domain extensions, or generic top-level domains (gTLDs), for the first time since 2000. Currently, there are 21 generic domain extensions, including .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz, with over 100 million active registrations.

“As the Internet grows and flourishes, it is increasingly difficult for users to cut through the noise and find what they are really looking for,” said Mickey Beyer-Clausen, President and CEO of Pervasive Media. “Domain names are an essential online marketing tool and critical to all aspects of an Internet presence and promotion. Providing more focused domain extensions has the potential to revolutionize how users operate and communicate online. We applaud ICANN for recognizing and promoting the potential of domain names to lay the groundwork for a better Internet.”

As part of the relationship, Pervasive Media will coordinate the submission of bids, as well as manage the launch of any new domain extensions awarded. eNom will operate the registry and will work closely with Pervasive Media to coordinate the registry/registrar launch in the event of successful bids.

“eNom sees this as a great opportunity to shape the future of the Internet, which is why we’ve committed to building a state-of-the-art registry platform to ensure we have the most flexible, reliable and stable registry infrastructure available,” said Paul Stahura, Founder of eNom and Chief Strategy Officer at Demand Media, the parent company of eNom. “By teaming up with Pervasive Media, we have a leadership team that truly understands what works in the domain space, and how best to leverage new domain extensions to enhance the user experience online.”

The partnership brings together individuals with deep experience in all aspects of domain registration, management and marketing. Mickey Beyer-Clausen was the Co-Founder of Ascio/Speednames that created one of the most successful and versatile domain name search and registration engines in the world and one of the first to specialize in corporate domain protection. While at Ascio/Speednames, Beyer-Clausen also co-founded Afilias in 2000, the exclusive registry for .info, the Internet’s first unrestricted top-level domain since .com. Paul Stahura is the Founder and CEO of eNom, the leading provider of domain name registration, which was acquired by Demand Media in 2006. eNom currently ranks as the second largest domain name registrar worldwide with over 11 million names on its platform.

Pervasive Media intends to bid on domain extensions that will add value to particular communities and user groups. “Our domains will have value based on what they identify, not in their ability to mislead web users. It’s contrary to our business goals for trademarks to be infringed upon,” added Beyer-Clausen.

To read the full press release go here.