Posts filed under 'TLDs'
by Chuck Kisselburg
There is no doubt THE hot topic for ICANN’s conference in Cairo, held November 1 through 7, was with the proposed gTLD process. Prior to the conference ICANN produced a comprehensive draft document for the new gTLD program. It was nice to see the document had a great amount of detail where people could actually see, discuss and debate the emerging structure of the program. True, with a price tag of $185,000 per gTLD application (one gTLD string per application), along with additional fees detailed in the document, those who are working towards a community-based gTLD had the wind taken from their sails as the pricing was far more than expected. As heard many times from ICANN staff the document is only a draft and the final document may look completely different than the draft document. Either way, the time frame for accepting applications was mentioned to be around September of 2009. It is quite possible this time frame “may” drift as, during one meeting, it was mentioned that it is “possible” that another comment period may be added between the next document and the final document.
The other interesting part of the new gTLD process is the culmination of programs for IDNs and ccTLDs – all with goal of having things in place for when applications can be accepted for new gTLD strings. In other words, quite a bit of activity is going on at ICANN these days.
Another item I found interesting dealt with security. DNSSEC continues to move forward with further movement regarding acquiring information about the SSAC. However one of the more realistic aspects of security dealt with working with registries and registrars regarding disaster recovery and mitigation. This is a great way for such organizations to practice what they should do in case a disaster of sorts happens to their organization.
For more quick summaries regarding the conference, please read the Daily Conference Summaries, which may be found in the “Announcement” section of the wiki’s main page.
At the June conference in Paris I was enthused by the fact that you had three conferences occurring within two days of each other. You had the Egeni conference, a domainer conference and then ICANN’s conference. The reason for my enthusiasm was due to the fact that at one time you had the entire ICANN “community” under one roof. For those of you who understand this know that this is a rather huge statement. I am talking ICANN “academics”, those working with Internet governance, registrars, registries AND domainers. It was good to see EVERYONE talking. While in Paris I heard of people talking about increasing their involvement within the ICANN process so the “voice” in ICANN’s various committees are more representative of the whole community. So I headed off to Cairo with the anticipation of seeing more people from the various groups. I must say I was disappointed by not seeing what I had hoped. Could it have been due to the economy? Possibly Could it have been the location? Perhaps, but who hasn’t wanted to go to Cairo? Either way my hope continues. I hope to see a greater representation from ALL groups in Mexico City.
December 4th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
In recent days we learned that the London-based registry for .Name has been acquired by VeriSign.
To me this is a rather landmark move for a couple of reasons.
First of all, there are not that many TLDs in the market to begin with.
Secondly, from what I have witnessed, for TLDs to switch hands, or operators, it has typically been done through ICANN going through the RFP process to see who should be awarded the next contract to take over operation of the TLD. .ORG is a classic example of this, with it now being under the operation of the Public Interest Registry. Other examples are a handful of ccTLDs, such as .TV.
What we are seeing with the .Name acquisition is simply a business acquisition, plain and simple. This is the same as businesses in other industries acquiring other businesses. We see this everyday.
What makes this a landmark move for me is I did not hear of a formal process through ICANN for ICANN’s approval, thus awarding of this move. Instead, it was just a simple business acquisition. We will soon see new gTLDs emerge on the Internet in late 2009 or 2010. I can see TLDs/registries being born and developed with companies wishing to acquire registries just as businesses today seek acquisitions of other companies. Will there be a few top registries looking to purchase only those emerging TLDs that do well? Will TLDs emerge solely for the purpose of executing a possible exit strategy a couple of years down the road? As the number of registries go from a few to many, will we eventually see them then go back to a few?
Do I think this is a good move? Yes and here is why. First of all we are at the threshold of seeing the emergence of many TLDs. I believe someone mentioned a “possible” number being 18,700 applications, when you include large corporations that would submit TLDs for purposes of brand protection, such as .IBM, .Microsoft, .Exxon-Mobile, to name a few. Aside from the large corporate, brand-protection initiatives, there will be the entrepreneurial startups that will come up with the full gamut of ideas; much like what we saw in the late ‘90s when the dotcom boom was getting started. Out of the MANY ideas that emerged then, there were still a lot of great ideas then. As mentioned, these TLDs will all be a startup of some sort. The fees associated with becoming a full fledged registry is far more than what simple boot strapping allows. Funds will need to be secured from outside sources. Investors, whether angel investors or venture capitalists will need to come together to help these new TLDs come to fruition. Where there is outside investment there will more often then not be the need to understand the new organization’s exit strategy.
So did the VeriSign acquisition of .Name lay the foundation for how future acquisitions can occur? I think so. There is no doubt this is a safe move; one registry being acquired by another registry. What can we, as an industry, learn from the full integration from such an acquisition? How can the industry apply what was learned from this acquisition when, in the future, a registry is acquired by a corporation that is not a registry, does not even play within this industry, but wishes to diversify its portfolio? What implications will such acquisitions have on the Internet?
So let’s watch and analyze the lifecycle of this acquisition to understand what the future holds!
October 6th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Today ICANN turns 10 years old!
While many may wish ICANN never existed to begin with I can’t help but reflect on the industry as a whole. In the last couple of months, when talking with people, I would ask them to think back to what the Internet was like 10 years ago for them. That usually follows with a “wow” like facial expression. In other words, they are in agreement that the Internet has progressed greatly in the last 10 years.
When you look at this industry from ICANNWiki’s perspective, the entire ICANN community includes not only the ICANN “academics”, but the registries, registrars and Domainer communities as well. I should also note that I also view ICANN “academics” apart from the global movement centered around Internet Governance.
Not only has ICANN built structure to support the survival of the Internet, but the other communities associated have created a whole new multi-billion dollar industry. As with several of my previous posts one thing I find energizing about this community is the very fact that it is entrepreneurial. Overall this community of ours is still in its infancy, working to move forward while at the same time helping to define its future.
And, from my perspective, the future looks even brighter with the work that is being done towards opening up the market for new gTLDs and, of course, the vast impact the Internet will have on those with the introduction of IDNs.
As we take this time to reflect over the previous 10 years, what about looking ahead? What would you like to see? Personally speaking I feel that the whole ICANN community is in a TREMENDOUS position to utilize its vast contacts to assist in more humanitarian efforts, whether that be in areas of charitable fund raising, such as what Sedo has done with its “SedoCares” initiative or in developing programs whose goal is to assist in disaster relief efforts, such as what DotAsia has done with “Relief.Asia” and their mindset in giving back to the .Asia community.
So as the day goes with the world’s financial markets reeling from recent events, wars in other countries and the world watching and waiting for a new US president to be elected, ICANN turns 10 years old today. For some this is a celebration. For others this may only fuel their dislike of the organization. However, travel back to your experience with the Internet 10 years ago today. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but marvel over the organization and efforts that have brought the overall ICANN community, not to mention the Internet itself, to where it is today.
Happy birthday, ICANN!
Now, I’ve got to go. A phone call is coming in on my PC…….
September 30th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki
I have been reading several blog posts concerning ICANN’s possible adoption of the auction model to help solve disputes regarding applications submitted for the same, new gTLDs. To be specific, the concept of an auction was raised through the efforts of auction design firm PowerAuctions LLC with the assistance of ICANN staff, resulting in a paper regarding the auctioning process for new gTLDs. In other words, multiple organizations can submit applications for the potential gTLD, “.bank”. To resolve the issue “.bank” would be sent to auction for resolution.
For me several things come to mind…..
WHY NOT?
First of all I would have to say, “Why not?” At the conference in New Delhi Peter Dengate-Thrush, ICANN’s Board Chair, complimented those from the DotAsia organization for the fantastic job they had done and that, through the use of the auctioning system implemented by DotAsia, all domain names that were requested by more than one entity were handled through the auction with none having to go through a dispute resolution process. The auction process seemed quicker with less fuss associated. Case closed.
So from the standpoint of DotAsia successfully handling duplicate requests quickly and easily without having to go through the normal dispute resolution process, why shouldn’t ICANN take note of such efficiencies?
JUSTIFYING AN AUCTION BID?
As noted from reading the paper this process can get expensive for those submitting applications and wind up in the auction process – kind of. “Huh?”
When reading the paper the three bullet areas succinctly summarize the use of the auction process.
• Applicants whose true intentions or abilities are to serve many users would be able to justify higher bids than applicants who will serve few users;
• Applicants capable of providing high-quality service at low cost would be able to justify higher bids than low-quality, high-cost applicants; and
• Applicants who intend to develop the gTLD immediately would be able to justify higher bids than applicants whose purpose is to hold the gTLD, unused, for speculative purposes.
The question that comes to mind revolves around the word “bid”. In other words, “… justify higher bids… “
So instead of a typical auction process whereby users can bid as high as the price will go, there appears to be some form of justification required for one to add a higher bid. In other words, with each potential increase in the bid price, competing organizations need to justify why their bid should be taken over the others. In other words this could be a long drawn out process. The nice thing about this is it serves to guide the awarding of the gTLD to an organization that will do something with their new gTLD. However, it still remains to be seen that if someone goes through all the justification and receives the highest bid to receive the new gTLD, can they truly be held to the deployment of the new gTLD or can they simply sit back on their new gTLD, doing the minimum amount of sales, if possible, knowing that it may become more valuable later? Valuable to whom? But that is under ICANN’s control, correct? Perhaps as long as it is under an ICANN controlled Internet.
BUSINESS!
The other part of me looks upon this as a way for ICANN to increase its health. Commercial or not, ICANN is still an operating organization that has bills and employees to pay. Bottom line (pun intended) ICANN still lives by a profit and loss statement.
When in Paris I overheard someone say that ICANN has sunk a lot of cost into developing the gTLD process and will continue to do so to finalize the process before organizations can submit applications. As such ICANN will need to recoup their costs. From a business perspective that makes sense to me as companies who wish to stay alive need to have income to recoup their costs, especially for development. In some cases startups will acquire the funding through key organizations becoming customers to help with the development of their product before they have a fully deployable product ready to be purchased by the whole world.
When reading ICANN’s 2007-2008 budget there were a couple of things that stood out to me……
“New gTLD Process” section:
“The process for the introduction of new gTLDs must be robust in form, timely and predictable to administer, and scalable to accommodate the numbers and variety of potential applications. The global nature and complexity of the project have direct bearing on the program’s start-up and recurring costs. ICANN anticipates a significant investment in the project, in year one, to create the gTLD program office.
The new gTLD process costs are intended to be fully self-funded and off-set by the application fees. It is anticipated that first-round costs will be significant due to one-time start-up expenses and that subsequent rounds will be less expensive to administer. Start-up costs include, but are not limited to: recruitment of new employees to staff the gTLD program office, professional services fees associated with production of the applicant request for proposal (RFP), development of the objections filed/dispute resolution model, retention of resources to conduct technical and business/financial reviews, and recruitment costs associated with the creation of an independent panel or series of panels to provide adjudication services around dispute resolution and string contention.
A significant component to start-up costs is the creation and implementation of a communications strategy, across many different languages, to announce and promote the first round to the global Internet community. ICANN will incur media costs when it publishes applications following conclusion of the application window. If ICANN is to foster a geographically diverse representation of service providers on the Internet, it first must communicate and educate them about the gTLD process.”
OK, so the above makes sense to me.
The other item that stood out in the budget was found in the “gTLD Registry Fees” section:
“In fulfilment of its obligation to develop alternate sources of revenue, ICANN has proposed the implementation of registry-level transaction fees. Transaction fees will serve to increase ICANN revenues and enable revenues to grow in proportion to growth in the DNS.”
“In fulfillment of its obligation to develop alternate sources of revenue…”. Hmmmmmm.
So, again speaking from the business perspective, I can understand where an organization would need to recoup its startup costs. I can see that as the costs are recouped the costs for new applicants will go down. I can also see a business always looking for alternate sources of revenue.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
So after thinking about, “Why Not?”, “Justifying an Auction Bid” and “Business”, general thoughts come to mind……
1). If all of this is to shore up the expense of developing the process, then what was not learned through the awarding of new gTLDs for .asia, .aero, .coop, .org, .travel, .tel, .com, .net., .mobi, .biz, .net, .name, .museum, .edu and .info to name a few. There are also some applications that have been in limbo for several years, such as .berlin, .paris, .cat and .nyc, to also name a few. So with all of those that have signed registry agreements and have been placed in the root servers, and with those applications that are in approval limbo, I can only wonder what has NOT been learned that requires the recouping the costs for establishing a new gTLD process?
2). Only those that have significant amounts of funding will be able to submit an application for processing, let along survive the bidding process to win if submitted through auction.
3). Organizations who win the approval and sign the registry agreement with ICANN regarding their new gTLD will also have to recoup their costs, thus passing the costs of their gTLD acquisition cost to those purchasing domain name(s) for the respective, new gTLD.
4). I know there is a big question mark as to ICANN’s future. How much longer will they be under the US’ Department of Commerce? Will ICANN emerge from the Department of Commerce to be a separate entity that can, or will be allowed to survive outside the grips of the US government? In other words, will ICANN be able to move its operations to any location around the globe, such as Belgium? I know the question was raised directly to ICANN’s Board in Paris by Elliot Noss. The exchange between Elliot and the Board was frustrating as it was NOT like peeling away layers of an onion, but more like peeling away layers of an onion made of dense, tightly closed rusted iron. It was that exchange that points to the ongoing suspicion people have of ICANN.
5). What is the magic number that, once reached, the price for applications will go down? Through my reading of various blogs on the topic of new TLDs we could see larger organizations going after TLDs as part of their normal brand protection processes. One blog mentioned that such efforts of brand protection through TLD acquisition “could” mean a total of 18,500 applications submitted. At $50,000 a pop, NOT to mention the extra amount received via the auction process, any recouping of upfront costs could be accomplished very quickly!
6). With the amount of money ICANN is envisioned to bring in, might it then be able to take a good portion of that funding and turn it into global charitable initiatives, such as Sedo has done with their SedoCares program or how DotAsia – Giving Back to the Community is living up to one of their three mission statements through their Relief.Asia program? (see September 2nd blog post on “Sedo and DotAsia - Doing What They Did Not Have to Do“)
SUMMARY:
So to summarize, there are quite a few reasons that call for the need for an auction. However, with what I have read and heard, as well as NOT heard, business is business. Such a process will ultimately aid in the strength of ICANN’s bottom line, but will also need to be passed through to the those seeking domain names as the registry needs to recoup its costs. Also, as costs are recouped how much will the costs of applications go down? In other words, applications for new gTLDs will become like a “quasi” commodity as the process “should” be nailed down soon, however, it will never become a true commodity as a commodity implies competition. How can there be competition when applications can only go through ICANN?
So, will an auction help make the process smoother? I have no doubt it will. Will it also help ICANN’s bottom line? I also have no doubt it will. Should ICANN be able to conduct business and aid their bottom line through an auction? From a pure business perspective I can only say, “I have no doubt they should”.
September 8th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
The below is what was printed in today’s Sedo newsletter, with content assembled by Crystal Peterson of The Public Interest Registry.
With the increased focus on the importance of corporate social responsibility and green issues, businesses are reaping the rewards of maintaining a separate .org website alongside their commercial .com.
What better way to clearly differentiate charitable and social initiatives from commercial initiatives than by operating a .org to highlight a corporate foundation’s mission?
Just look at these leading companies for examples of the trend to utilize their .org for corporate foundations:
• WholeFoodsMarket.com runs the WholePlanetFoundation.org to provide “innovative assistance for entrepreneurship - including direct microcredit loans and tangible support for other community partnership projects…to create wealth and prosperity in emerging economies;” and
• Google.com operates Google.org, which “aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease.”
“Google and Whole Foods are just two of the innovative corporations that are branding their green initiatives, philanthropic efforts and outreach activities behind the Trustmark of .org to gain more attention and traffic,” says Alexa Raad, CEO of .org, The Public Interest Registry.
Most organizations, who have a .org in conjunction with other TLDs, point their .org to their principle TLD to maximize the number of eyeballs to their core product. However, with ICANNWiki.org’s focus being “community”, many organizations miss a golden opportunity – the opportunity to enhance their brand and loyalty through highlighting their involvement with the community.
How does your business interact with the community? Utilizing a .org is the best way to highlight the community-minded aspect of your business!
August 13th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last month Paris was the site for all things Internet.
June 21-26 ICANN held its 32nd International meeting. I am not saying that fits my claim of “All things Internet” because two other conferences were being held just prior to ICANN’s conference. The other two conferences were the EGENI conference on the 20th and the Domainer Meeting on the 19th and the 20th. All three conferences were held at the same venue.
As we all know, the goal of ICANN meetings is to focus on utilizing input for purposes of the development of policy regarding the Internet. The Domainer Meeting focused on the domaining industry with sessions on the industry followed by an auction. The EGENI conference covered issues regarding the future of the internet, what users want and the impact of new TLDs, especially what they may be able to do from a cultural and heritage perspective.
While ICANN continued to have their “standards” feel, and the Domainer Meeting continued with the Domainer entrepreneurial spirit, the EGENI conference viewed more into Internet Governance from the public perspective. The EGENI conference also provided perspective from the needs of the European Union in the overall global discussion.
From ICANNWiki’s perspective, this is a dream only because everyone that makes up the ICANNWiki “community” was under one roof. What I especially liked was members from the three groups were talking – TOGETHER! While members of the EGENI conference actively take part in the various ICANN conferences, there are members from the Domainer community that are going to take on a greater role by actively participating on various ICANN committees. I have seen and heard others talk about respective groups bickering over other groups. So getting ALL voices to the table is a good thing.
In all this was a very successful venue for all conferences. While the EGENI conference was more regionally and IGF focused, the conference pulled in around 100 people, the Domainer Meeting, more European-centric, attracted over 300 people. As for the ICANN meeting, this was ICANN’s largest meeting with approximately 1,500 in attendance.
The three things I pulled from ICANN’s conference were:
1). Additional TLDs are on the way. The process is being defined and applications, at the time of this conference, should start being accepted by 2nd quarter, 2009. Yes, this may slip, but the overall feel is this will happen. The main concern voiced by conference attendees rested with security.
2). IDNs continue to progress and will become a reality. Progress is being made.
3). Reaching out to businesses. ICANN’s new effort is to reach out to the business community. Reaching out not only ensures the voices of the business community are heard, it allows the business community to hear what is coming, how they will be impacted and why changes are important. The item at the top of my mind is to help businesses understand the need for converting from IPv4 to IPv6.
As for the EGENI conference the main things I took away from this conference were:
1). As the European Union continues to develop, their needs can differ from those of the US as the EU has a common interest and culture difference from the US; so it is important to ensure the EU is heard. The EU has an initiative known as “E2010” where by the year 2010 education and healthcare will be able to use the Internet to enhance reaching out to the public. With this come challenges such as the need for the protection of:
* Children
* Personal data
* Data protection
2). The various ISOCs (Internet Societies) provide a way for the public to provide their input; with the ISOCs providing input to the political level. In other words, the political level is wanting to get more involved in raising the EU’s concerns regarding Internet development.
3). What do you do with a society that utilizes their mobile phones to a greater extent than people in the US? What about the need to reach out to various devices on the net that are not PC-based; hence a pressing need for migration for IPv4 to IPv6.
4). New TLDs will be coming out with the new TLDs being able to provide a strong focus on culture, heritage, and economic development for the respective TLD regions, whether a specific TLD covers a city, the region of a country, or a region that encompasses multiple countries due to a common economic region.
You can learn more about the EGENI conference by viewing the session notes.
So to wrap up this post, again I get back to how great it was to see the confluence of people from the various groups (ICANN policy/standards, Internet governance, Domainer) in one place. I hope this confluence continues as “continued” dialogue is healthy and committee participation from the various groups is the best way in moving forward. Perhaps someday “confluence” will be replaced with “convergence”. In the mean time, as mentioned earlier, “Getting ALL voices to the table is a good thing.”
July 10th, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last August I blogged about “.asia, A Social Networking Goldmine”. While the gist of the post centered around the new .asia TLD (its value with the advent of IDNs and how it can foster community) the underlying theme has been, and continues to be for me the value of what such regionally focused TLDs can bring to the “community”.
In previous posts also I discussed the value IDNs bring not only from the perspective of DotAsia, but from the perspective of India. To be specific, “What IDNs Mean to DotAsia: A Conversation with Edmon Chung of DotAsia” and “IDNs and India: A Conversation with Rajesh Aggarwal of NIXI”.
Again, the underlying theme being that of “Community”.
Recently we were able to witness the power of what such a regionally-based TLD, such as the DotAsia organization can accomplish when trying to support the community.
May 3, 2008 a cyclone hit Myanmar. At the time of this writing 78,000 are dead with 56,000 still missing.
May 12, 2008, an earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province. At the time of this writing 40,000 are dead with 32,000 still missing.
Shortly after the cyclone hit Myanmar and before the quake hit in China, Edmon Chung and his organization, DotAsia lead the charge of forming “Relief.Asia”. The Relief.Asia website, “… was deployed as a tool and platform to drive awareness and community contribution towards the rebuilding of nature-savaged regions such as Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sichuan, through the application of Information Technology. Other organizations that jumped in to form a working, cohesive partnership include Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK), The Professional Commons, Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG), intERLab of Asian Institute of Technology, Myanmar Egress, APNIC, and Museum of World Religions, amongst others.”
Through the relationships developed among the various partners, Relief.Asia was able to secure one of the first planes into Myanmar with relief supplies.
As we have seen with Myanmar, politically speaking Myanmar and the US do not have the best of relationships, thus making it difficult for the US to provide relief supplies to Myanmar. Where governments fail in this regard it helps when organizations have relationships within governments, but are not part of a government agency themselves. With that said, DotAsia is not a governmental, or political organization. However, with the establishment of the .asia TLD they have relationships with members of a country’s respective government. I can’t say such relationships helped with Myanmar or Sichuan, but I do know progress towards relief efforts were made due to the relationships established with the various partners of Relief.Asia.
With the development and deployment of regionally-based TLDs on the horizon, I can only wonder if the world has a new avenue for marshalling resources through partnerships to aid in geographically-based relief efforts.
May 21st, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
I recently attended the Domain Roundtable conference. As with my attendance last year I walked away impressed with the entrepreneurial spirit of people coming together to constructively define and grow an entire industry. With last year’s attendance of the conference I approached the conference expecting to see the wild west of the Internet. What I found was basically no difference in working with general entrepreneurs.
The key word I heard over and over was, “Development”. “Development, Development, Development!”
Parking of domain names, while a way for domainers to monetize their domains, is not necessarily the best use of domains because:
1). Visitors are not receiving that much value from a “traditionally” parked page.
2). Visitors are recognizing a “traditional” parked page and thus getting more irritated and seeing less value.
3). Development means more than simply parking a page.
As stated by Dan Warner, “Something that is rare AND valuable equals sustainable”
The basic principles of domain development include:
1). Obtaining unique and “clean” assets of domains.
2). Provide content that is original.
3). Develop community around your respective domain.
Development means finding a way to provide better, more relevant content that brings value to the visitor. Value means creating something where visitors to a particular domain will want to return. Return means value and value means return. So whether that is development through continually working to find a continual means for providing “relevant” content or developing partnerships with other organizations that may benefit the visitor, suddenly the definition of “development” looks like the more traditional forms of an entrepreneur developing and growing their business.
One of the speakers at the conference was Matt Cutts of Google. Matt’s basic recommendations to the Domainer community were:
1). If a user lands on a page, will that user be happy? Does the page match the topic the user was expecting? Is the content for the visitor relevant?
2). How much unique content might there be when compared with other sites? In other words, is your content stale or is it constantly being updated?
3). Bottom line, for the visitor, does your site add value and is the content unique?
Another speaker at the conference was Gary Kremen. Gary may be most notable to some through his ownership, and subsequent legal battles over sex.com. However, Gary also took one of his domain names, “Match.com” and developed this into a complete business. The basic nuggets of information I took from Gary’s talk were:
1). Is there a business that can be created using a domain that is more than the domain name it was built upon? From my perspective, Match.com is a classic example of this.
2). Are you creating other intellectual property along the way as you develop your domain name(s)?
3). Think about how this business will solve a problem and use this to develop your business plan.
Gary added another element to his discussion that I had never heard before at other domain conferences I had attended and that was “VCs” – Venture Capitalists. This gets into the whole discussion of should you continue to bootstrap what you are doing or does the next step of development require having an outside investment strategy and how outside investment can affect the company you are developing.
While I have the extreme benefit of talking with people across the entire ICANN “community”, I hear peoples’ perspective on what they think of ALL “domainers”. However, when attending a Domain Roundtable conference where speakers come from outside of the “traditional” sense of the Domainer community, I continue to respect the fact that:
1). An industry has formed with little guidance or direction.
2). This industry is trying to provide its own guidance for the betterment of the industry.
3). This industry is more than simply acquiring domain names, sitting on them and later selling them for a profit.
If a Domainer is to be successful, it is simple:
1). Have a “clean” domain portfolio that does not infringe on any trademarks.
2). Trademark your domain.
3). Develop your domain so that what is developed brings value to the visitor, both through adding value and uniqueness of content.
4). Develop your domain such that it solves a problem for visitors to your site.
5). Develop your domain so that you are creating intellectual property along the way.
As such it is my personal opinion to see more of the traditional organizations starting to diversify their portfolios through acquiring their own domain portfolios.
As for the conference itself, it was held to coincide with the AdTech conference. Smart move as several who attended did so because they were able to bundle this in with their trip to AdTech. Another new thing for this conference was the addition of daily passes. While attendance at the conference “appeared” light I ran into numerous attendees who took advantage of purchasing a daily pass so as to attend what was of interest to them. So while the conference as a whole did not seem to have the normal crowd, the “crowd” was there, only more strategic.
May 12th, 2008
DotAsia’s First Day of Landrush
By Chuck Kisselburg
I recently had a brief chat with Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia regarding DotAsia’s first day of Landrush. There was no doubt why Edmon was upbeat as DotAsia reported 266,663 applications received on the first day of DotAsia’s Landrush program. 266,663!!!! That is double what Edmon was expecting! This brings the total of applications received for domain names since Pre-Sunrise, Sunrise, the Pioneer Programs and the first day of Landrush up to 298,861 applications received.
Since fall of last year I have been hearing a small but persistent undercurrent from the domainer community that the domains will mainly be from North America and Europe, thus “basically†nullifying the true reason of DotAsia; being a gTLD that will happen to foster business and development within the rather expansive and diverse Asian region. While 40% came from North America and 24% came from Europe, over 35% of the applications came from Asia. Rough calculations show that over 93,000 applications were received from Asia alone – ON THE FIRST DAY! With respect to that small amount of skepticism, my thought is imagine the number of Asia-region-based applications that would have arrived had IDNs been in use. As mentioned in a previous blog post of mine, “.asia†IS a social networking goldmine; especially with the eventual rollout of IDNs.
So my congratulations to continued success of the DotAsia team. You can read more about DotAsia’s first day of Landrush through their recent press release.
February 25th, 2008
by Chuck Kisselburg
Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia, and his staff have been working at developing community around the new .Asia TLD. With the .Asia community encompassing a varied collection of countries and cultures, I felt Edmon’s insight towards IDNs would prove to be a valuable discussion. It should also be noted that today is the first day of DotAsia’’s Land Rush program. What follows is my discussion with Edmon.
What does having IDNs mean to you?
Being a pioneer of IDN technologies and having been promoting its adoption since before the turn of the millennium, having IDN means a lot. It means the end of a long struggle and the beginning of a truly global Internet. Direct navigation is still the most consistent method for surfing the web. IDN makes the Internet accessible and associable for the rest of the world. Domain names today are no longer simply a command line on the technical infrastructure of the Internet, but also part of the social and identity fabric of the online world. Having IDN become a natural part of the Internet is a vision me and many of my colleagues who have worked very hard on the issue over the years have.
Will IDNs have an impact in your area?
Yes. Asia is probably the region that will benefit the most from the full deployment of IDN. Many languages in Asia are not expressed in the Latin script (i.e. ASCII), IDN will allow for a native experience on the Internet. Imagine perhaps that the Russians invented the Internet and we all have to learn Cyrillic to navigate to different websites, how inconvenient it would be. That is the reality for the majority of the online population today.
What impact will it have in your area?
I believe that it will open a new era of Internet usage in Asia. IDN will be a platform that will bring corporations, shops and local stores online. For the first time, these operations will find its own voice and identity online. The Internet is as much about global communications as facilitation of local communities. IDN will allow Asia’’s local communities to further flourish in cyberspace and to find linkage around the world through Asians overseas.
How might IDNs help your geographic region?
As mentioned, Asia will probably be the region that will benefit the most from IDN. From the Arabic west Asia, the Sino east Asia to the Indic South Asia and other South East Asia languages, IDN would help different language communities find their voice on the Internet. IDN is not content, but neither is it simply a command line. IDN provides a platform for development of the Internet in Asia.
How might IDNs hinder your geographic region?
Development on the Internet will be hindered without the full deployment of IDN.
How might IDNs help businesses in your geographic region?
IDN will give businesses, especially local and small and medium sized enterprises the opportunity to represent themselves the way they are known to their customers. The value of a name and brand is clear to understand. Being able to reflect that online means facilitation of business.
How might IDNs affect the people in your geographic region?
IDN will allow for a native experience for navigating the Internet.
Which group will benefit most from IDNs in your area and why?
Ultimately, end users will benefit the most from IDN.
Do you foresee any challenges with which applications will be able to support IDNs?
As we have seen through the nearing ten years of work on IDN, there will be many challenges as applications deploy IDNs. Phishing issues, policy issues, languages issues and forward and backward compatibility issues are just a collection of a few of them. Nevertheless, I do not believe any of these should be prohibitive for the full deployment of IDN. Another important area that requires our continued hardwork is email addresses.
What do you foresee as the negative aspect to IDNs?
There has been talk about IDN causing problem for anglo-centric or Latin-based language users to be unable to connect to parts of the Internet. I do not think the characterization of such situation is correct. As the non-English speaking community today navigates through the Internet utilizing search or clicking on links for which mean little to them, in the future, those not speaking a particular language will still be able to search and click to IDN sites and content. Similarly, today there is already a significant amount of content on the Internet that is non-English, does that mean that content causes the fracturing of the Internet for its legacy users?
How do you hope IDNs are NOT used?
I hope IDN will not be un-used.
What is your biggest hope for IDNs to accomplish?
My biggest hope, then when I first started working on IDN technologies as now, is for IDN to eventually become a natural part of the Internet and a taken-for-granted part of Internet navigation. When people do not consider IDNs “IDN” is when IDN is truly successful. Perhaps then people would not believe that in the beginning domain names were only acceptable in English alphanumeric characters.
February 20th, 2008
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