Dotster says Application Vault, which is available at no extra cost with all of its hosting plans, enables customers to install and upgrade over 30 common open source applications from their control panel, like blogging, e-commerce, content management, photo sharing and project management tools.

Some of the specific applications available for download with Application Vault include Wordpress, OSCommerce, Joopla and DotProject.

Besides managing the installation, the Application Vault also manages latest version updates and automatic security patches, says Dotster.

“Dotster’s new and improved Application Vault helps our customers easily install popular applications for both their business and personal sites,” says Clint Page, CEO Dotster. “Many customers don’t realize that they can install and leverage these programs with little effort and have the ability to blog, conduct e-commerce, build intranets and more from their own websites.”

Application Vault marks the third new value-added service Dotster has launched in the last two months. Last week, Dotster announced it is offering EmailBrain, a new tool for creating, managing, sending and tracking newsletters and email campaigns.

The new tool provides small and medium businesses with an email campaign and newsletter management and delivery system that helps businesses target the demographics of their customers.

EmailBrain marks the second new value-added service Dotster has launched in a month. In June, the company began offering Dotster Connect, a complete suite of social networking and media sharing capabilities that enable businesses to engage users via interactive features such as community forums, blogs and polls.

EmailBrain provides web-based tools to produce, distribute and track content-rich email based marketing, sales and promotional campaigns.

“EmailBrain incorporates a powerful feature set that enables businesses to manage their brand image and messages with email newsletters,” says Clint Page, CEO of Dotster. “It includes a full suite of tools within its template library for online content creation and online content storage. Combined with a powerful HTML editor, template library, online image and document hosting capabilities and foreign language capabilities, EmailBrain allows even beginners to easily create dynamic looking HTML email marketing campaigns.”

The service enables users to create an email campaign or newsletter program with an advanced delivery platform. EmailBrain helps facilitate a high delivery rate by using a set of delivery tools and methodologies guaranteed for success.

The service maintains “white list” status with the top ISPs including AOL, MSN/Hotmail, Yahoo and Comcast, ensuring that these important communications end up in the inbox of customers.

The EmailBrain platform features many high-end and sophisticated tracking mechanisms. Through real-time Web-based reports and analytics, businesses have access to high level and detailed views on open, read and/or click through rates for campaigns. Each business receives a high level view of the campaign results, plus the ability to drill-down into the specifics of the data.

EmailBrain also includes many advanced List Management features, such as Import/Export Wizard, Subscribe and Unsubscribe Management features and HTML Forms Wizard. These features help email marketers save time and deploy more efficient email campaigns.

The cost-effective email marketing solution includes a starter plan that Dotster claims is “less than one-third the cost of leading competitors.”

Not unlike Open-Xchange’s recent offering, strategically-timed, presumably, to come out right around the highly-anticipated release of the newest version of the iPhone, web hosting provider Hostway announced a similarly well-timed offer on Wednesday, in light of Apple’s latest iPhone release on July 11, to offer customers a chance to “experience all the benefits of Microsoft Exchange on the most cutting-edge wireless device to date.”

Hostway says it will be holding three drawings for the new 16GB Apple iPhone 3G with winners to be announced on July 25, August 25 and September 25. Purchase is not necessary to be included in the draw and customers who order five or more hosted Exchange accounts between June 17 and September 17 will automatically be entered into the drawing, says the company.

On Thursday, web hosting provider Dotster, perhaps best known for its “Dotster Dots” spokesmodel search campaign in 2006, announced it will be offering a “Happy Hour” promotion on June 24, during which the company will give away 50 free domain names every hour from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PDT. Dotster says its will award a total of 400 visitors a coupon redeemable for one free .com, .net or .org domain name.

Also on Thursday, UK domain registrar 123-reg announced it is “kicking off the mid-summer sales” with a new 20 percent price slash on its shared hosting, e-commerce and InstantSite products.

And on Friday, web hosting provider Host Department reported that it is celebrating the Fourth of July with a “blast of discounts” for all its nolimit and reseller web hosting plans.

Customers that sign up from now until July 4, using the coupon code “FOURTH” will receive a 10 percent discount off the regular price, says the company. Customers using their credit cards are eligible for 20 percent discounts. And any sign up with a 12-month or more billing period comes with two free domains, including a “special Independence Day” .us extension, says Host Department.

Through the “eBiz in a Box” promotion, the company will give away one “eBiz in a Box” package per week for each of the next eight weeks, beginning earlier this week on Tuesday, June 10.

The prize, according to Dotster, has a retail value of more than $100, and includes a domain name, the means to build a website using Dotster’s SiteBuilder tool, free email and Standard Linux web hosting for a year.

According to Dotster, customers who enter the sweepstakes but do not win will be given a coupon worth a 20 percent discount on a hosting package from the company.

The contest can be entered from the front page of the company’s website, which includes an animated “box” that becomes a very uncomplicated entry form, complete with a “did I win?” button.

Dotster’s “eBiz in a Box” promotion is a fairly ordinary marketing tactic in comparison to some of the company’s previous efforts. In 2006, the company conducted a nationwide search for a group of on-staff models charged with promoting the company’s services. The models were referred to as the “Dotster Dots” and they appeared at, among other events, the 2007 CES tradeshow.

Throughout the day, visitors to the Domain.com website will have the chance to win one of 25 free .com, .net, and .org domains every hour from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PST. Visitors who click the Free Domain Day Giveaway banner will be directed to a page where they will have a chance to win a coupon for one free domain.

“Domain.com’s ‘Free Domain Day Giveaway’ gives consumers the ideal opportunity to take advantage of our comprehensive services, at little to no cost, to start creating an exceptional online presence,” says David Steinberg, marketing director of Domain.com.

During the Domain.com giveaway, the domain registrar is promoting its full range of value added services, including web hosting with a free website builder, URL and email forwarding, email accounts and private domain registration.

The promotion will also feature multiple discounts and promotions where visitors can receive other web service savings, including one new free domain with the purchase of any one year or above web hosting plan.

The company is also offering a 20 percent discount on all its one year and above hosting plans today, bringing the cost to as low as $4.20 per month, as well as two domain names for the price of one.

While it’s not totally clear from the announcement whether the price is the news or the service is just being launched, it stands to reason that Dotster, a relatively well-known player in the hosting and domain business, would have introduced a private registration feature years ago. The price tag

The private registration service is a fairly common offering among domain registrars, but Dotster said it is driven in particular to offer the service by the growing use of the WHOIS database by spammers to locate new targets for their email.

The press release cites recent statistics showing email spam having grown to about 90 billion messages a day and spammers continuously mine the public WHOIS database to obtain domain owners’ personal contact information.

At its current pricing, Dotster’s new addition appears to come at a lower cost than both the pricey and the affordable services from competing registrars. Network Solutions offers a private domain registration for $9 per year with email filtering and customer control over the domain registration and GoDaddy offers one for $6.99 per year with similar services.

Like other private registration services, Dotster’s WHOIS privacy service places Dotster’s contact information in the WHOIS database rather than the information of the domain owner. The company’s website specifies that the customer retains the ownership of the domain. Dotster provides a filtered email address in connection with the private registration.

“In today’s high-tech world where personal information is available at the click of the mouse, Internet privacy rarely exists, and this can lead to identity theft and additional major problems for domain owners,” says Clint Page, CEO of Dotster, in the press release. “Dotster is working to combat that and return power to domain owners by keeping their private contact information the way it was designed to be – private.”

“Dotster is proud to welcome Daniel Frechtling and Ross Johnston to our executive management team,” says Clint Page, CEO of Dotster. “Both have stellar track records in helping to elevate and grow successful Internet services and other leading businesses. We look forward to Daniel and Ross helping Dotster further achieve its aggressive business goals in the marketplace.”

As the CMO, Frechtling will help shape Dotster’s strategic marketing vision and growing company revenues, as well as lead the company’s market research and analysis, product management, marketing communications, direct marketing and sales. Frechtling has over 15 years of marketing and management experience, having most recently served as senior VP of marketing and business development for early education company, Knowledge Learning.

As VP of business development, Johnston will develop new strategic partnerships within the US and internationally, which will enable Dotster’s various platforms to acquire new customers. He joins Dotster with nearly twenty years of business development and marketing experience, having most recently served as senior director of business development for CNET Networks.

The company says it is offering personalized domain names to customers who want to give a customized domain name to their special someone. Each personal domain also comes with an email address.

Dotster is also offering its sitebuilder product for $9.95 per month and users can choose from over 300 templates and add content and interactive pages, like photo galleries, a blog, online polling and an RSS reader, to their websites.

With .mobi Mobile Web Developer Certification, MyDomain’s Web designers offer specialized knowledge in mobile Web development across multiple platforms, including .mobi sites. The Web designers also feature extensive background in the best practices of the W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative.

“As a leader in Web hosting and domain registration, MyDomain understands that companies who want to tap into the growing legions of mobile users need to offer them the optimum online experience possible and content that is designed specifically for them,” says Dotster CEO Clint Page. “MyDomain’s .mobi Mobile Web Developer certified designers are experts in the field, and offer a strong competitive advantage and high-level of excellence that our customers have come to expect.”

As .mobi Mobile Web Developer certified, MyDomain’s Web designers each have a personalized .mobi Web site with proof of certification, and have been added to .mobi’s directory of certified developers for client referrals.

The new service includes total Web presence management and strategic marketing services to help SMBs target and capture new business online and reach a broad consumer market.

The package starts from $399 for an entry level e-commerce business class Web site, ensuring small businesses can afford to open online storefronts to target niche and local markets. The Design Studio’s e-commerce experts manage all components of the solution including configuring the shopping cart, installing a secure certificate, and training clients on how to add products, track purchases and manage their own online store.

Additionally, the Dotster Design Studio’s specialized site redesign service revitalizes a company’s Web presence by refreshing and modernizing its existing Web site. As such, Dotster Design Studio clients have reported increased visitor loyalty, improved customer satisfaction, and a significant jump in lead generation after launch of their redesigned sites.