We started ideegeo with the intention of creating a pipeline of software projects and using our technology development and commercialisation experience to create a portfolio of opportunities that meant we could earn more export dollars and employ smart people to work with us. Mindful that it takes more than just good ideas to succeed on the Web; through our new venture arm ideegeo Research Ltd. we are reaching out to identify future projects. We have already got a new “skunkworks” partner project lined up for 2011 plus lots more ideas of our own to work on. Watch this space.

Geek Trivia: Skunk Works was a secretive hi-tech research facility of Lockheed Corporation. The name has become synonymous with informal technology R&D involving small teams, blue skies research and minimal managerial oversight. The name originates from a popular cartoon of the 1940s and 50s called Lil’ Abner featuring a bunch of rebellious hillbillies. Skunk Works was the local moonshine distillery that reportedly had skunk scent as its secret ingredient.

We plan to spread our wings in 2011 with more innovations at iWantMyName, new partnerships and a push to offer additional consulting services for web based projects.

All the best for a safe and happy Christmas and New Year

Media Release:

A Wellington, New Zealand software developer sees greater opportunities to promote its domain registrar technology globally after Internet governing body ICANN changed the rules regarding registrar ownership.

Developers at ideegeo Group Limited launched their registrar service iWantMyName into the European marketplace with both Dutch and German language registrar sites a year ago. Company CEO Paul Spence stated that, “the European sites proved we had a robust and highly scalable technology that we could rapidly deploy into other offshore markets”. The company is forecasting over 200% revenue growth this year.

Mr Spence went on to say that recent rule changes at ICANN meant that domain registries, that oversee all top level domains (TLDs), were now permitted to own and operate their own registrar services allowing them to retail directly to the public. “The number of registered domains has now surpassed 200 million and continues to grow at around 7%. The industry still has a lot of momentum, fuelled by mobile growth, new top level domain launches and plans to make fully internationalized domains available.”

Chief Marketing Officer for ideegeo, Timo Reitnauer said the ICANN rule change opened up a whole new market for the company. “The iWantMyName software has multi-currency capability, inbuilt DNS management and made it easy for end users to domain customise a growing range of web services. We provide partners with a white label offering including a template structure and all the tools they need to translate content into their home language”, he said.

Many web designers have a little bit of a coding background as well - but it’s not their first love. Polishing up the paintwork is usually much more rewarding than getting your hands covered in oily muck installing a gearbox. At ideegeo we don’t mind getting up to our armpits in oil and spare parts (and we are pretty good at back end web stuff too!). We want to work with the coolest designers around by helping with the nuts and bolts that make great websites tick.

If you are a web designer and need a hand with back end coding or sorting out databases and hosting, get in contact - we’d love to help. The code monkeys at ideegeo built popular domain registrar iWantMyName and are experts at scalability as well as knowledgeable in implementing full e-commerce functionality. Put them to work on your next big project.

Right now we are getting fired up about a couple of fresh ideas. The first involves building some new services that help individuals secure and develop their online identity. The second is a project that grew from our experiences in establishing payment systems for e-commerce sites. Traditional payment systems are under threat and we think some great new services will evolve that both complement and compete with existing providers.

We are pleased to report that we’ve been invited to take these ideas along to X|Media|Lab Sydney later this month to mix and mingle with the best and brightest from the global media and digital innovation industry. It’s an inspirational event that we try to attend on a regular basis, but this year it will be especially thrilling to be participating directly.

Maybe you’d like to set up your own Tumblr page? Remember iWantMyname customers can personalise Tumblr pages with their own chosen domain using our free custom domain setup service. We can even recommend some cool background themes for your site. If you need other apps or services to manage social media content for your business or personal use we make it easy to set up these as well.

With ICANN moving steadily towards full implementation of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), it is encouraging to know that we have already invested in a fully IDN capable system. The Russian and Arabic language domain name space looks set to heat up for this reason very soon. But we also see great opportunities in parts of Asia such as Japan and Korea where high average incomes and heavy internet usage combine to present an attractive proposition for a niche registrar player. South America looks like an interesting story as well. With an increasingly affluent middle class population and a highly developed mobile internet infrastructure, we’d love to see a Spanish or Portuguese language version of iWantMyName in that market.

We think that users all around the world will continue to demand a better experience when it comes to domain registration and management and we believe that iWantMyName provides a unique, easy-to-use package that helps domain registrars and resellers to grow market share. In particular our innovative web app domain customization service gives registrars a competitive advantage. Therefore we are now inviting expressions of interest from companies interested in deploying a customized version of iWantMyName in a foreign language market to meet the needs of their customers.

If you would like to discuss a partnership opportunity further, please contact timo@ideegeo.com.

The Kiwi iWantMyName has New Zealand’s widest range of domain extensions, many of which are unavailable from other local domain registrars. Examples of exclusive domains include the recently launched .TEL and .ME suffixes plus interesting country code top-level domains from all over the world such as .LI (Liechtenstein), .IO (British Indian Ocean Territory) and .FM (Federal States of Micronesia). Customers from the existing site can use the same login details to access their accounts across the iWantMyName platform suite. We also offer the same free services on our Kiwi version so that you can hook up your own domain to customise a wide range of great web applications such as GMail, Blogger and Zoho. In the very near future we also plan to add some cool new Kiwi-made services that we really want to support.

We think it is appropriate that the launch of a new product should be celebrated with some special offers. So until the end of February we are offering new .COM, .NET, .ORG and .NAME domains for only $19.90 NZD plus .INFO for $9.90 NZD. We are also able to offer a FREE one year extension if you transfer your existing domains across to iWantMyName NZ. Transfers can be handled from your personal dashboard once you join up. Please note that all domain prices quoted on the Kiwi site are GST exclusive and that we provide full GST invoicing to all our valued customers.

In addition, we are supporting the Australasian Linux conference LCA2010 which rolls into our hometown Wellington on 18-23 January. Look out for the iWantMyName crew at our stand at the Open Day on Saturday 23rd. We would be happy to demo the new site and discuss how we are supporting the open source movement and other technology communities in New Zealand.

But we aren’t just stopping there. We’ve also opened a wholly owned and operated German language site and we called it simply Mein Name. The German site is a special achievement because ideegeo in part has its origins in an idea that began in Germany. Mein Name a little bit like a return home for us.

The new sites demonstrate how we can powerfully leverage the underlying technology behind iWantMyName and how we can make other partnerships work in new markets. Expect to see further rollouts and cool new services in the future as we change the face of domain name management.