Global Domains International Story

The Internet Age practically requires you to have a prescence on the Web! Currently, there are more than 20 million dot com domains, and over 34 million total domains registered worldwide. It doesn't show signs up letting up soon! Can you imagine a day when personal computers come with domain names?

The word from Intel is its in the works and Industry Experts are predicting a record boom of over 500 million domain names in the next several years! As if you didn't need more proof that Internet is exploding at an exponential rate!

In 2002 GDI was ranked #37 by Inc 500 Magazine for Fastest Growing Company and ranked #5 in the State of California.

But just how did this rising company get its start?

So Who Are the Brains Behind GDI:

Back in 1998 Michael Reed and Alan Ezeir, the CEO and President respectively of Global Domains International, Inc. (GDI), recognized another opportunity most people were hurdling right passed in the rush to corner the markets on Advertising and Bandwith.

They wondered, "Besides dot com, are there other extensions that businesses could use as a domain name?"

A little known fact about the origins of the Web: The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigned each nation a country code in the mid '90s. Each designated code gave each country an address to use for their own Internet needs.

You would recognize them today if you saw them: Australia's .au, Brazil's .br, United States .us

Well Michael and Alan's unique vision paid off. After a long weekend of research they discovered the country of Samoa, home to 200,000 people possessed the .Ws domain.

Those two details are incredibly important.

For starters Samoa hadn't begun to activate their domain on a large scale. Secondly, Michael and Alan realized the .Ws extension could easily be marketed as the abbrieveation for WebSite! They excitedly contacted the correct officials in Samoa, which was literally a world away in the South Eastern Pacific

However the duo's foresight didn't quite line up with what the Samoan government had in mind and at first it seemed as though both the .Ws Domain contract and GDI's future were about to go up in smoke. The contract was initially awarded to a locally owned Samoan technology company.

Michael refused to give up. He located the Samoan company and placed a call to its General Manager. "The company was local on the island, so I had a hunch that their ability to market the domains globally would be limited," said Mike. "I had to change my way of thinking. So, I pitched him on the idea that we should partner together, and he accepted."

In November 2000, less than nine months after launching .WS to the global Internet community, GDI announced it had sold over 100,000 .WS registrations to customers such as Yahoo!, Intel, Cisco, Dell Computers, and other companies and individuals in more than 180 countries.

And the Samoans?

"They originally wanted to wait to see just how well we performed," Mike said. "They proposed that, as a test, our Company had to produce 15,000 registrations in just three years. We did that in the first month," Alan proudly stated. "The Nation of Samoa now receives a percentage of all .WS domain sales that GDI generates, and is delighted with our success. Our company is proud of our exclusive agreement to distribute .WS worldwide."

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