Raymond King
Raymond King is an entrepreneur. He is the Founder and now Board Member of AboutUs.org,[1] the Director of ICANNWiki, and the CEO of Top Level Design, LLC.
 |
 |
| Country: | USA |
| Email: | ray [at] icannwiki.com |
| Facebook: |  [Raymond King Raymond King]
|
| LinkedIn: |  [Raymond King Raymond King]
|
| Twitter: |  @rathbone
|
Background
Mr. King has founded four companies, and enjoys the technical and business challenges of birthing totally new ideas. He started his first company, The Computer Workshop, with a friend while still in high school. It was featured on EyeWitness news and the New York Times[2]. As a sophomore at M.I.T., Ray created a project management software package for his father's architectural firm. This project became Ray's second company, Semaphore, Inc. By 1990, it was rated No. 1 in its space by ARCHITECTURE Magazine. Ten years later, Semaphore had more than 2,500 clients and 100 employees. After Semaphore was acquired by Deltek Systems, Inc. in 2000[3], Ray moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon, to co-found SnapNames.com[4]. The company invented several new ways for people to acquire domain names, and grew to more than $49 million in annual revenue by the time it was acquired by Oversee.net in 2007.[5] Ray's current venture, AboutUs.org, is the world's largest editable index of the Web. The site offers both paid and free services for small business owners looking to drive more traffic to their websites. AboutUs.org serves three million unique visitors per month, and employs 13 people at its Portland office.
Career History
Top Level Design, LLC (2013 - Present)
Created to apply for TLDs in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The company has successfully submitted 10 applications to ICANN for: .art, .blog, .design, .gay, .group, .ink, .llc, .photography, .style and .wiki.
AboutUs, Inc. (2006 - 2012)
Like WikiIndex, the foundation is a page for every website, but because it encompasses the entire web there can be more synergy between pages and this metadata then becomes the starting point of a guide to the Internet that we all can use.[6]
ICANNWiki.org (2005+)
Ray has always been a big fan of collaborative technologies, and in early 2005, he was bit by the wiki-bug. For this, he credits his friend John Stanton who is always making him look at new stuff. His first wiki project was ICANNWiki. He became interested in ICANN through his involvement in domaining.
WikiIndex.org (2005+)
The next wiki he worked on is WikiIndex, which is a listing of all known wikis. The WikiIndex's roots was a site called SwitchWiki -- MarkDilley's original comprehensive list of wikis that he had compiled over the years. WikiIndex is a great way to see what's happening in the wiki world as well find wikis that cover many different subject matters. There are over 3,500 wikis listed by topic, wiki engine, language, edit mode and activity. Furthermore, the site itself is also a wiki!
SnapNames, Inc. (2000-2005)
In the fall of 2000, Ray moved to Portland, Oregon to co-found SnapNames. SnapNames is in the business of helping people acquire domain names as they expire and become available again to the general public.[7] SnapNames was acquired by Oversee.net in 2007.
Semaphore, Inc. (1986-2000)
Wrote financial management software for his father's architectural firm and eventually started a company to go with that. The product, Sema4, is used by approximately 2,500 firms in the U.S.; its clients ranges from 10 employee operations to 1,000 person companies. Semaphore, Inc. ultimately grew to 100+ employees split across 4 offices (New York, California, Minnesota and Oregon) and was sold to Deltek Systems, Inc. on August 9th of 2000.
The Computer Workshop 1985
After 1 year of college, Ray took time off to start MicroTrek Enterprises with 2 CPA's from Price Waterhouse.
The Computer School 1984
Using 4 Apple II computers and his bedroom, Ray taught folks BASIC programming and popular applications such as Visicalc and dBase II.
Affiliations
Websites
- DotWiki, (DotWiki Website)
- AboutUs, Inc. (Website)
- ICANNWiki (Website) / his user page
- WikiIndex (Website)
- RecentChanges.Info - Blog on the subject of wikis (Website)
ICANN Video Interviews
Ray was interviewed at ICANN 44 as a new gTLD applicant
- <videoflash>pK3HjYmeF3U</videoflash>
Ray was interviewed by Gray Chynoweth at ICANN 41 in Singapore. They discussed ICANNWiki and New gTLDs.
- <videoflash>sGaq8bDcSJ8</videoflash>
Fun Facts
- Was briefly on Sesame Street as a detective
- Went to elementary school with Lenny Kravitz
References