
GoDaddy CTO and Cloud VP Heads to Google - archielc
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/16/godadddy-cto-and-cloud-vp-heads-to-google
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derFunk
Unqualified comment, I admit, but GoDaddy as well as other domain shops seem
to be stuck in the late 90s. With UI, tech and support quality. Also
Namecheap, which I'm using primarily. They just put a fresh UI on top of parts
of their customer acquisition facing system couple of years ago and still run
the same core system.

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ben_jones
Two thoughts.

* If it ain't broke don't fix it.

* Google could take some tips from a lean tech company that creates a legacy product that requires minimum upkeep while staying respectable profitable.

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nihonde
But...really it is broken, because, as a long-time Namecheap customer, their
shitty legacy systems have got me looking for a better option. I recently
complained that they sent me an email warning about a pending expiration,
followed immediately by an email about auto-renewal on the same account. Their
response was basically to shrug and explain that their email notifications
suck. That's garbage customer service no matter how you cut it, and the domain
registration/hosting business is 100% customer service.

And GoDaddy is all of the above, but a thousand times worse.

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davidandgoliath
For reference, ICANN _requires_ that upcoming renewal notifications are sent
in specific intervals, so it results in very noisy registrars.

Namecheap could note within that renewal notice (and subsequently avoiding the
auto-renewal notice) but, I can see where they're coming from.

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nihonde
That's definitely interesting. At the end of the day, the messages are
misleading at best, arguably negligent, and definitely sloppy. They could fix
it, but their whole site just seems like five or so legacy systems glued
together without any overriding consideration for the user.

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JeremyBanks
Accidentally down voted instead of up voting, so I'll just pipe in to say that
this is exactly my impression. It's as though they felt like putting an Ajaxy
new UI on top of their collapsing backend would make things better, when it
really made them worse because it's harder to tell if your request has been
sent or the system is lagging out, or what. I was with Namecheap for something
like ten years, but now I'm migrating everything away as they start to get
close to renewal.

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betaby
It's more interesting why Google hired her. I agree with statements above that
GoDaddy is someting from 90s. GoDaddy isn't famous for tech innovations.
What's kind of expertise potentially she can bring to Google?

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Stryder
They probably tried to modernize GoDaddy and the efforts didn't take. Look at
the folks she's brought over from MSFT.

This is just moving on to greener pastures as the market shifts its
expectations. This is potentially a well timed career move as well depending
on what she's going to be doing at Google.

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chipperyman573
A bit unrelated, but I'm curious how GoDaddy is so big. All their products are
overpriced and they don't sell anything you can't get somewhere else at a
better price. Their tools are just as user-friendly as any other service as
well.

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tyingq
Marketing expertise. They are good at:

\- Initially low prices that go up at renewal time

\- Cross sell and upsell

\- Stickiness. Like the (since removed) 60 day lock on domains if you changed
the whois info...even if it was removing privacy so you could transfer it.

\- Affiliate (kickback) programs

\- Advertising

~~~
joelrunyon
The 60 day lock is mandated by ICANN, not Godaddy.
[https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en](https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en)

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tyingq
The ICANN policy is 60 days after TRANSFER. GoDaddy extended that to include
"any change to whois data". ICANN, in fact, issued several advisories to stop
this sort of thing.

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davidandgoliath
Interestingly enough, the CIRA (.ca domains) implemented a policy that says
quite the opposite. Any domain changes result in a 60 day lock.

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hardcandy
One of the happiest days of my life was when I finally migrated 100+ personal
domains away from GoDaddy over to Namecheap and was able to close my GoDaddy
account forever.

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darren0
Now it makes sense why Elissa is on the CNCF TOC.

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ruffrey
Mildly related - whatever happened to Nodejitsu after Godaddy ate them?

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iamleppert
So now we can expect annoying up sells and unsolicited pressure marketing
whenever we buy or register for a Google product?

The last straw for me with Godaddy is when they started sending me e-mails
warning me my "domain was not secure" trying to get me to buy some phony
domain secure service with a bundled drag and drop website builder. No thanks.

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havetocharge
What does the CTO have to do with sales and marketing?

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diegorbaquero
Good choice.

