FW: [registrars] Registry and New Service Offering and a HYBRID solution

["Tom D'Alleva" <tdalleva@bulkregister.com>]

I have two points to make from the business perspective, 1. on VGRS Service
Offerings and 2. on how ALL the deletion proposals can work as a HYBRID
solution.

I'm sure David Wascher will jump in and provide technical details and
support for a HYBRID solution.

VGRS Service Offerings

Comments on the monopoly aspects of registry services were well articulated
by Jim A. and Ross R..  However, beyond anti-competitive, anti-trust and
contractual issues, there are business issues that should influence products
offered by the registry as a supplier of products and services.

Some products like keywords, .cc, and DNS services were mentioned as being
ok to deploy from a contractual point of veiw.  However, from a business
perspective, they are not all alike.  When the registry (or supplier) offers
a product that is already being offered as a value added service or
differentiator by registrars (or resellers) they impact our ability to
compete from a business perspective.  It takes away our marketing value, our
differentiators, and our unique core competantcies.  DNS falls into this
category; keywords and .cc in some cases may, but for the most part don't.

WLS (in it's current form) also falls into this (anti-business) category.
Many registrars have invested a great deal of time and resources either by
implementing their own forms of back-ordering or reselling SnapNames.
Similar to DNS products from the registry, the WLS proposal underminds the
investments already made by us (their customers) and does not solve the
problem that we asked them to help solve.

Though we may never please everyone there is an opportunity for either the
RC or VGRS to solve the deletion problem. If VGRS comes back with an
alternative or ammended proposal, I would hope that they listen to our
feedback as customers and supply a solution that does not undermine our
businesses.

****** HYBRID Solution ********

Regardless of what VGRS decides to do, I suggest that we continue to develop
a solution that works for both registrars and registry. I think we already
have all the pieces in the current proposals.  Understanding, why there are
different proposals is part of the solution.


There seems to be several categories of customers influencing several types
of services that each of us is attempting to deliver.
1. the consumer that wants to try to get names at very reasonable price.
2. the advertiser or speculator that is looking for a large quantitiy of
pretty good names
3. the small to medium business (SME) that is looking for specific names and
willing to pay a reasonable prices
4. the larger enterprise that is willing to pay higher prices for the names
they value
5. the investor, collector or larger enterprise willing to bid on names.

Each one of these categories can benefit from one or more of the proposals
currenty being considered. That's why a hybrid solution works the best.
This would allow each registrar to differentiate by targeting all or some of
the categories of customers with specialized solutions.  It would also allow
us to place a different value proposition on each of these services to cater
to these different markets.  Finally, keep in mind that higher priced
services are usually lower quantity but higher margin (profit) services.
This also allows new ways to differentiate and compete.

Here's one way a hybrid solution can work.  Consider the different demands
of the different types of customers.
1. Consumer = low price
2. Advetiser/speculator = quantity - good price
3. SME - high intrinsic value names - reasonable price
4. Larger Enterprise - High value names - price is not a big issue
5. Investor/Collector - High value names - price is not a big issue

Now lets consider the proposals falling into different service levels:
1. Lowest service level = lowest price = the normal service of anyone
ordering a name
2. Medium service level = medium price = clever registrars utilize
connections to pound the registry pool for deleted names
(Tucows/MIT)
3. Higher service level = higher price = Backorering - (Parallel registry
proposal - SnapNames/WSL)
4. Premium Service level = premium price = Afternic Proposal - bid on names
in the 45 day pool
5. Gold Service level = premium price = Private or public ANYTIME auctions.

Potential Costs and reasons
1. $6 - current cost for a name (plus ICANN tax)
2. $7 - $10 - Potential costs for the registry to provide extra services
that allow a deleted pool of names to be "pounded"
3. $40 - Proposed WLS costs (I think SnapNames can cut a better deal)
4. $$? - I forgot what Afternic was proposing for this but it was pretty
good
5. $$ - TBD

How it could work? - this is the technical part (See David Wascher) but I'll
take a high level stabb.
The levels of service go from level 1 being the least valuable (and lowest
service) to level 5 being of highest value and highest service. To simply
things it's better to not go in exact level order.

Let's say that level 5 is an auction model that can happen anytime and is
not part of the deletion period.  That leaves 4 levels.
Level 1 - names fall into two catagories
	a. new names that haven't been ordered before or are beyond the 45 day
deletion period in a general pool
	b. leftover names in the deletion pool - (like fine grapes being pressed a
second time for a different quality batch of wine)
Level 4 (Afternic) has priority on getting access to names in the deletion
pool within the 45 day window.
	Business reason: more than one person can bid and the name goes to the
highest bidder. simple supply and demand
Level 3 (parallel registry) has next level of priority because they paid
more for the higher likelihood of getting the name.
Level 2 (pound away) for all other names in the pool that are not tagged by
level 3 or 4.

One last quasi technical bit to help the registry support the HYBRID
solution.
The registry can simply create 4 pools for names that they are about to
delete.
Level 4. pool for names that have an afternic bid
Level 3. pool for names that have a back order and do not have an afternic
bit
Level 2. pool for names that are freshly deleted but do not have higher
level bids in place (Registry benefit - pounding would be natually limited
as a result of a smaller pool of names.)
Level 1. pool for aged names that were not taken during level 2.

Tom D'Alleva
BulkRegister