Demand Media/eNom is Contestant #6 in our Registry Speed-dating Contest. Demand Media bought Paul Stahura’s eNom, and is therefore a strong player in this space. Enom has 11 million domain names under registrar management and crunches enormous amounts of data to analyze domain names and determine their value — of which they have a keen sense. Their entry as a domain name registry operator is therefore no stretch.

Registry Operator Contestant #5 is Directi, the parent company of LogicBoxes (domain registrar/hosting system) and Skenzo (domain parking service), both very successful, full-featured domain name software platforms. Directi has been dabbling with registry services, with involvement in .MN and (soon) in .PW. Now they appear to be throwing their hat in the registry ring in a serious way. As a fast-growing company attracting significant attention and investment, Directi can sink a lot of resources into its registry systems if it’s so inclined.

Contestant #4 in our registry provider speed-dating is CoCCA (Council of Country Code Administrators) is a terrific co-operative of sixteen (and growing) country-code registries. Their open-source software can either be hosted or installed on your machines. Just as important, they have put together a policy framework, providing their members with registration agreements, dispute resolution services, an ombudsman (think drastically reduced legal fees), ICANN liaison, and other important registry functions. Best of all, they work on a cost-plus basis, so it’s very inexpensive.

Contestant #3 in our registry provider speed-dating was CentralNIC, a durable study in an alternate business model. They’ve been around since 1995, selling domain names under a “two-letter-code.com” taxonomy, for instance uk.com, us.com, and so on. While some have whined that this is “cheating” or “unreal”, the fact is that domain names from CentralNIC work just as well as any other, and aren’t subject to the vagaries of ICANN or ccTLD policies. They have a large network of registrars, and are proof that you can do things differently and thrive.

Contestant #2 in our registry provider speed-dating was Afilias.

Featured new TLD registry operator: VeriSign. A quick overview of each of the registries who came to our Registry Speed Dating event at the recent ICANN meeting in Paris.

Starting a new gTLD? Are you going to start your own registry, or outsource? It’s a critical choice, because with “stability of the Internet” as the watchword of the day, you want to make double-sure that your application isn’t torpedoed on technical grounds. Unless you’re very sure of what you’re doing, it makes a lot of sense to find a partner who can pass all of ICANN’s tests.

But whom to choose? Who’s out there, and what do they offer? What prices do they charge? Will they help with your application. Do they support the business rules that you need to implement?

To help answer these and other questions, Jothan Frakes and I set up a “speed-dating” session during the recent ICANN meeting in Paris.