I am still getting emails from people asking if we are really renaming to YellowFur.com. Sorry for those that fell for our April Fools joke, no need to worry but we will be keeping our great domain and brand BlueFur.com.

Now that we own YellowFur.com I was thinking that we could create a sister site with a new service. I have been doing some research on providing VPN services. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. The way a VPN works is it allows you to connect to a remote network so that you can then surf the Internet from that server.

Why would anyone want to use that service? I have found a few sites, especially movie, TV and music sites that prohibit Canadians from viewing content based on having a Canadian IP. If I were to connect to a US based VPN I could then surf to these sites without any issue and view the content. There is a downside to VPN in that there is usually a reason why those sites are blocking access (legal issues). There is also the concern that someone would be using the VPN to spam, phish or do some illegal behavior. We have the ability to phone verify customers automated so those doing illegal behavior can be curbed.

With those factors in mind what do you think of us offering a VPN service?

Pricing would be in the $10 per month range which would include a secure VPN with a dedicated IP on a server in the US. We would have a 50% off coupon for BlueFur.com customers bringing the price in around $5 per month. I am curious to see what you think of this type of service before we continue with any internal testing.

What other services could we brand with YellowFur.com if not this?

We acquired another Fur domain that could work. As the leader in community evolved hosting your opinion on which one we should choose is in your hands. The 2 options are…

This poll will be closed tomorrow at midnight.

We at Manticore Media Group Inc. would like to announce the change of the name of our hosting business from BlueFur.com to YellowFur.com due to allegations of trademark infringement again. We felt that, rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees defending our use of the name and possibly affecting our ability to continue to deliver affordable hosting and the excellence in customer service our customers are accustomed to, it was the best option to settle this matter out of court. Manticore Media Group Inc. and YellowFur.com will continue to strive to meet and exceed our customers’ needs and expectations. We look forward to marketing under the YellowFur brand and growing with the industry in years to come. As I am sure there will be many questions we have posted some of the obvious ones here:

Will there be any disruption in my service due to this change?
There should be no disruption to your service due to the change. Once we are 100% sure that the YellowFur.com domain is running at full capacity we will start to point the BlueFur.com domain to the YellowFur.com domain. This should happen in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Why did you pick YellowFur.com?
Finding a domain which allowed us to continue using our lovable mascot was a tricky venture. We feel that YellowFur.com is a great brandable name that is unique and easy to remember.

Who brought these allegations of trademark infringement against you?
Part of our agreement states that we can not disclose the details of the agreement. Let’s just say that they are a very large US based company with deep pockets.

Does this mean you are going out of business?
By no means does this mean we are going out of business. We look forward to the challenge of getting our new name out and making YellowFur.com a household name.

Is there any way we can help?
If you provide links on your site to BlueFur.com we advise you to update and redirect them to YellowFur.com. 

With around a million dot ca domains out there I am sure each of them have their own story. Share your story with CIRA and you can win an Apple Mac.

Like many organizations I am glad to see that CIRA is using social marketing ideas to increase awareness of the dot ca domain. My only concern again is that this contest was emailed to me (see below).

 

Like last time I do not remember saying it was okay to email me contest or promotional details. This time there was an unsubscribe link at the bottom but like before the email was not addressed to anyone.

Did you get the email? If so did you consider it spam?

This year was the first year we spent actually blogging every days and focusing on the blog as a way to build a community around our company. I think the blog was a success for both us and for our community. Here are some numbers to mull over…

575 posts
1,694 comments
147,162 spam comments
52,163 unique visitors
1,138,401 pages views
17.56 GB bandwidth used

We are looking at another big year for the blog as we continue to build our company with the help of you our community.

As we close the books on another successful year we want to share some of our own numbers. I know most hosts keep these numbers a secret but as we grow we think that it does not hurt to know where we are at.

New Sign-ups 2007
2,031

Total Customers
6,427

Total Domains Hosted
148,036

Revenue Percent Increase 2007 Over 2006
98%

New Servers 2007
56

Website Visitors
152,654

Referral Rate
79%

We are looking forward to another successful year in 2008. If you have any suggestions or ideas to help us improve let us know.