Matt Mullenweg reports in his blog that Automattic became a domain registrar.
As some folks have noticed already, Automattic is now a “real” domain registrar (ID #1531). This has been a goal of mine for several years now, chiefly because I am a bit of a domain collector myself and I’ve never been completely satisfied with the domain buying or management experience on any of the usual players. Second, custom domains are a popular feature on WordPress.com and should become even more popular with some changes we’re introducing this month and it’ll be good to be able to provide a fully integrated experience for our users there. It’ll be a few months while we build all the tools necessary to begin taking advantage of our registrar status so in the meantime we’ll continue to use Godaddy, who has been an excellent partner.
These are excellent news! I do agree with Mutt that current domain registration and maintenance experience is a pain in the back. No matter which registrar you choose, there is always something awkward about it – prices, support, control panel, etc. I am using GoGaddy for a few years now, and while they provide excellent discounts and DNS hosting uptime, their control panel is horrible. Yet, it’s still better than most.
Automattic on the other hand, is a company known for it’s humanity in policies and user interfaces. WordPress being just one of such examples. Them becoming a domain registrar gives me great hope of having a better domain registration and maintenance experience one day.