Teams are being formed, challenges have been made and accepted. On May 22, 2008, The Inside Ride happens at Tucows Head Office in Toronto’s Liberty Village.

What is The Inside Ride?

It’s “Canada’s first indoor cycling challenge and fundraising event dedicated to raising monies in support of families and children with cancer.” The fundraising event works like this:

A whole bunch of state-of-the-art stationary racing bike trainers will be set up at Tucows. Then, teams of six riders will ride for 10 minutes, flat out, to see how much mileage they can cover. The individuals and teams with the highest distance, the most team spirit, and of course, the most money raised win rewards.

Get Involved

Are you in the Toronto area? We’d love to have you down to the Tucows offices to take part. Show us what your company is made of, and help us raise money for the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation.

And if you’re not close by, any donations to the cause are more than welcome.

In either case, contact Sherry Azim for more information. More information is available from The Inside Ride website.

Sears National Kids Cancer Ride

This event in support of Coast to Coast Against Cancer meshes very nicely with another cycling-related charity ride for Coast to Coast Against Cancer of more epic proportions. Ross Rader, who heads up our retail division, will be climbing onto his bike in just 24 days for a 19-day, 7,600 km trans-Canada ride from Vancouver to Halifax. Ross has been training incredibly hard over the last while and he’ll join a select group of riders for the cross-country trip.

Some quick math tells you that with 7,600 km (4,700 miles) to cover in 19 days, the riders will have to average 400 km (250 miles) per day.

Show your support for Ross through a donation to the Sears National Kids Cancer Ride

The real winners are the various charities from coast to coast in Canada dedicated to providing emotional, physical and medical support to children and teenagers living with, and beyond, cancer.

Ross pointed me to this video featuring Andy Brooks, an 18-year-old, blind cancer survivor who is taking part in the full cross-country ride himself:

ISPCON Spring ‘08 kicks off next week. What’s billed as “The Internet Industry Event” runs Tuesday, May 13th, through Thursday, May 15th. We’re getting ready to make the trip and we hope to see you at Chicago’s Donald E. Stephen’s (Rosemont) Convention Centre.

Wednesday, May 14th, is “our day” with three Tucows-related events on the ISPCON schedule:

• The day starts early with a panel discussion, “Who Should Be Running Your Email,” scheduled for 8:45 AM in Room 9. Rohan Jayasekera, Director, Tucows Email Service, will participate as a panelist.
• Then, at 10 AM, Elliot Noss, our President and CEO, will present, “Why YOU and lowfat lattes are Google’s Worst Nightmare.”
• And be sure to join us between 1:45 PM and 2:45 PM in Room 11 for “In Conversation with Tucows.” You’ll be able to meet some of our key people, ask questions, and find out more about our products and services and where things are headed.

We’re gearing up for the show, and we’re looking forward to getting the chance to meet potential new, and current customers face-to-face. We’ll be in booth 114 as you can see on the map. See you there!

Tucows is a proud sponsor of this evening’s CaseCamp Toronto 7. Hundreds of folks from Toronto’s digital marketing, social media, and communications community have signed up (on the wiki and/or the Facebook group) to attend. Tonight, our very own Bill Sweetman will be on stage to talk about the Tucows domain name portfolio to this group of digital gurus.

The action for this free communications and social media unconference gets started at 6:00 p.m. The event starts with networking and interactive art in the bar, followed by four 15 minute case-study presentations from the good people at TD Canada Trust, RedFlagDeals.com, Story2Oh!, and the Hospital for Sick Children.

What happens to the ccTLD extension when a country ceases to be? Apparently, the answer is “it’s complicated.” When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the ccTLD .su should have gone with it. But more than 15 years later, .su domains continue to be sold despite ICANN’s efforts to shut the domain down.

In other cases where a country has split, like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia to name two examples, the ccTLD domain extension has been eliminated. But for whatever reason, .su continues to live on, with the registry accepting new registrations despite ICANN’s wishes.

At issue is how to handle the elimination of the .su extension in a fair manner. Owners of .su domains continue to hold and use them, many refusing to switch to the new .ru domain. As of early this year, there were about 45,000 .su registrations. That’s up 45% this year alone. Compare that with the over 1.37 million .ru domains registered as of April 21st, 2008.

RU Center, the Registry operator for .su and .ru domains is actively promoting the extension of late. A price reduction has brought the cost of a .su domain in line with .ru (at 600 Rubles). And on April 15th, 2008, they began taking orders for IDN .su domains.

Contrast that with the website of IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. It lists the .su ccTLD as “being phased out.”

Meanwhile, cybersquatting is rampant with names like apple.su and ford.su being registered by individuals not associated with the trademark holders.

ISPCON Spring 2008 is less than a month away. That means there’s only a few days left to take advantage of free exhibits and events passes.

If you are planning to attend ISPCON, head over to their website to sign up today. The free exhibits and events pass offer only lasts through April 18th. Also of note, the price for conference and one-day passes also goes up after April 18th as well.

Tucows will be at ISPCON again this spring. Elliot Noss, Tucows CEO and President will offer up his thoughts in a keynote address on Wednesday, May 14th. Elliot will explain “Why YOU and lowfat lattes are Google’s Worst Nightmare.”

In addition, Rohan Jayasekera, Director, Tucows Email Service, will be participating in a panel discussion. That session, “Who Should Be Running Your Email,” is scheduled for the Wednesday, May 14th, but check the ISPCON conference schedule for the official word on times and for information about the other sessions.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Seth Godin has an interesting post over at his blog today in which he debates the question, “Drop the dot?” as in, can we get rid of the dot com when talking about websites.

Godin says no, because saying dot com is easy to say - just four letters, two syllables - and pretty much leaves it at that. But let’s weigh the possibilities:

Yes, drop it

On the “Yes, forget the dot com” side, there’s the Google angle. Type the brand into Google, and it will find it for you. There have been a couple of stories floating around the Internet of late that talk about companies in Japan doing just that, and displaying their brand in a search box instead of showing a URL.

No, it’s not that simple

On the “No way, you need the dot com” side, there’s the Google angle as well. Relying on Google keywords puts a lot of power into the hands of Google (or Microsoft or Yahoo, depending on which search engine you choose). What if your brand isn’t number one?

It turns out that Google is pretty much perfect when it comes to brand searches. I tried dozens and the first result was always what I expected it to be.

Next argument: what about all the other domain suffixes? The American Cancer Society uses cancer.org for its website and doesn’t own cancer.com. Whitehouse.gov is another classic example — whitehouse.com is a political news website (and famously, it used to be a porn site).

The American Cancer Society is the number one Google result when you search for cancer. And a search for whitehouse returns whitehouse.gov first.

To some, Google is the Internet

I think the question really comes down to how people are using the Internet. Do people pay attention to domain names at all, or is it assumed that a company can be found at [brandname] plus dot com? Or are users now skipping the address bar and directly typing names into Google?

Recently pizza.com sold at auction for $2.6 million. It was suggested that Pizza Hut, Papa John’s or Dominos should buy the name. But when users want pizza, and they go to the Internet and type pizza into the search bar, what do they see? PizzaHut.com, followed by PapaJohns.com, followed by Dominos.com. Just what is that $2.6 million buying you and do you need it?

Maybe the dot com is superfluous after all. Thoughts?

Flickr, the popular photo sharing web service added video yesterday. They’ve taken an interesting approach and only allow video clips of up to 150MB in size and under 90 seconds in length. Think the kind of little clips that you might shoot with your digital camera on the movie mode.

“But what’s the Tucows connection?” you’re thinking.

Last time we looked, there were about 565 photos on Flickr of our delightful and fun squishycows. We’ve handed out thousands of cows over the last couple of years and many of those who received them joined in the fun and contributed their own squishy pics.

With the addition of video to Flickr, the fun can expand considerably. Squishycow is no longer confined to a mere instant in time. She’s now free to explore a full 90 seconds of whatever adventures she might find.

Here’s some inspiration for all you closet Spielbergs:

An article on ecommerce-guide.com today says that eBay will no longer allow digital goods to be auctioned, instead requiring them to be listed using its classified ads format.

It is presumed by ecommerce-guide.com that domain names would fall into the digital goods category. From the article:

“EBay has not provided specific examples of items that are affected by the new policy, but it’s safe to assume that it covers all items delivered through Internet downloads or by e-mail. This includes goods such as e-books, graphics and digital photos, software, domain names, Web site templates, Web hosting and many other types of goods that are sold on eBay in digital format.”

I put the question to eBay support for clarification and was told that domain names were not considered digital goods and sellers could continue to list them for auction. We’ll try and get a more definitive statement from eBay over the next few days.

A check of eBay listings in the domain names category shows more than 3,700 items up for auction right now.

The official announcement from Brian Burke, Director, Global Feedback Policy at eBay says the move is being made to “preserve the integrity of the Feedback system.” Burke says because digital goods can be reproduced at little to no cost for the seller, the potential exists for Feedback Manipulation.

Predictably, there is a good amount of outcry about the change within eBay’s own community forums. Most of those opposed to the change are seeing a source of income disappear quite literally overnight. Some were in the business of selling ebooks, or PDF woodworking plans, for example.

As for the domain names, Bill Sweetman, General Manager, Domains Portfolio, Tucows, says if domain names end up being part of the digital goods category, he’ll be sad to see the listings go. He tells me that eBay auctions is one of the only places where portfolios of multiple domain names can be bought and sold in addition to individual domain names.

As a Vendor Member of the Federation of Internet Service Providers of the Americas (FISPA), Tucows is looking forward to the FISPA Regional Meeting which is happening in Orlando, Florida, on tomorrow (Thursday, March 20). FISPA gives us a chance to meet with current and prospective customers for our range of Internet services.

Communication is a two-way street. Our membership in organizations like FISPA, and this kind of event in particular, provide us with a valuable opportunity to hear from members and to gain a better understanding of their needs. That, in turn, helps us to better tailor our services to those needs.

If you’re attending the meeting, either Max Lufer or Christian Goulart would be happy to talk to you about hosted email or domain names, and we’d love to hear what you’re looking for when it comes to providing quality Internet services to your customers.

I was confused when I got to work this morning and people were moving through the halls of Tucows with an unusual accessory: slices of delicious, bakery-fresh pie. There was talk of apple, cherry – maybe this was some pre-spring enthusiasm meant to cheer up a chilly gray day in Toronto?

As another slice wafted past, attached to a grinning owner, I’d had enough. I wanted answers. I asked someone what was up with the influx of pastries and was given the most obvious of answers: “Because Kari, it’s pie day.”

Pie day?

“Three point one four.” 3.14? March 14. Not pie Kari, pi!!! It all came together. Clearing the smoke from around my head I couldn’t help but laugh at this, the geekiest of holidays I’ve ever had the pleasure of celebrating. Turns out Pi Day has been a big thing since Larry Shaw started it at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988. Albert Einstein was born on March 14 and if you’ve applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lately, today is the day to expect your acceptance letter.

So to all our readers we raise a slice and wish you a very happy and healthy Pi Day!

Thanks to flickr user hhwlib for making the delicious photo, available under a Creative Commons license.