.Coop eNewsletter 

25 May 2011 - Special Global Awards Issue

Global Awards Deadline Extended Until 1 August 2011 - Enter Now!! 

The deadline for entries for the 2011 dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence has been changed to 1 August 2011 to ensure that all interested co-ops and co-op organizations have time to submit their entries.  The Awards recognize the application of cooperative values and principles to drive cooperative and business success.

The new streamlined entry form available on www.globalawards.coop provides a simple framework for identifying critical points that identify how entrants have used the cooperative business model to become successful businesses. An online translation tool makes the questionnaire accessible in most languages to encourage global participation.

Winners will receive funding towards travel to Cancun, Mexico to attend the ICA General Assembly in November to accept their award. 

Become a Global Award Sponsor in 2011 - and 2012

With 2012 being celebrated around the world as the UN Year of the Cooperative, dotCoop would like to welcome cooperatives businesses and organizations that would like to become sponsors of the 2011 dotCoop Global Awards. 

Sponsorship benefits begin this year and carry over into 2012 so you get two years worth of benefits for one contribution.  All sponsorship funds will be used for the dotCoop Global Awards and associated promotional activities.

Sponsorship opportunities start at the US$100 level and have no impact on your ability to enter the Awards as sponsorships will not be announced until the judging is completed. 

Help us make the world aware of cooperatives and their contribution to the global economy as well as business ethics by becoming a dotCoop Global Awards Sponsor today! 

Global Award Judges Have a World of Cooperative Knowledge 

dotCoop is excited about the cooperative leaders that have agreed to be the judges for the 2011 dotCoop Global Award for Cooperative Excellence.  From backgrounds in fields such as education and development, these individual bring diversity and a depth of knowledge to their task of judging the entries being submitted this year.

For more information on our judges, please visit our Judges page on www.globalawards.coop and read their short biographies.  They will inspire you!

New Top Level Domains Coming Soon

ICANN is poised to move towards a new approach to approving new Top Level Domains - the part of the domain name at the right end side of the domain name like .coop or .com.

Before 2000, when .coop was approved as one of the seven new gTLDs, the Internet got along with just the .com, .org, .edu, etc. TLDs.  Then .coop and the other six new TLDs were added after a "competition" where TLDs were selected from those that submitted an application.  A second round of "selected" TLDs was added in 2004.  In each instance, a lengthy contract negotiation period followed the selection and required a significant investment by the TLDs before they could "open for business."

At the ICANN meeting to be held in Singapore in June 2011, ICANN is expected to approve a new ongoing application process including detailed contracts and requirements so that each application is "scored" and any applicant that scores at a certain level will be awarded the TLD. This is expected to generate hundreds of new TLDs such as .movie and .green.  Visit the ICANN site for detailed information on this process which has taken 6 years to come to fruition.

DotCoop supports this process as it will increase Internet users' awareness of the TLD as a way to identify communities on the Internet - like .coop!  In addition, the larger number of valid TLDs will encourage vendors to support all TLDs on their sites so that non-legacy TLDs will no longe r have problems with acceptance for email addresses and other services.

DotCoop is looking forward to welcoming our new neighbors on the Internet!

IPv4 is Out; IPv6 is In 

For those of you interested in some of the details of what keeps the Internet going, the news that the last IPv4 addresses were assigned in February is old news now.  These are those IP addresses that you see like "111.111.111.111" that are the reason that domain names like .coop exist.  Because we can't remember the numbers but we can remember the names.

When the first addresses were handed out over 30 years ago, it probably seemed unlikely all of the 4.3 billion addresses would ever be used up.  But they were - in February 2011.  Although addresses are now being recycled (just like other non-renewable resources), addresses in the new IPv6 format are now being assigned and used as well.

Currently, dotCoop does not support IPv6 but is planning for that support in order to accommodate .coop registrants.  Of course, IPv4 support will continue indefinitely and dotCoop will move to dual support of both options.  We'll keep you informed of our progress, but please contact dotCo op at support@nic.coop if you think you will need to use IPv6 so we can work with our users on this latest change on the Internet.

The good news is that IPv6 provides 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses so it's unlikely this issue will come up again for a long time.

2012 .Coop Domain Names Available for Limited Time 

dotCoop is offering domain name that contains "2012"  in the name for three years at one low price through the following registrars: 

• Domains.Coop  
• Encirca, Inc.
• Good Luck Internet Services  
• NamesBeyond  
• Secura

Prices vary by registrar but each registration is for 3 years to make your name available:

• in 2011 as you plan your activities 
• all of 2012 as you celebrate and
• as you wind down your activities in 2013. 

Take advantage of this limited time offer today and be sure to visit the www.2012.coop site to see what's happening around the world for co-ops in 2012!