Re: [wg-c] Re: nine principles for domain names

["William X. Walsh" <william@dso.net>]

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On 25-Feb-2000 Philip Sheppard wrote:
> .biz which
> will be second-class .com's

You really believe that?  I see .biz as being a lot more attractive than .com
for many reasons, and I doubt any prospective registry would turn it down if
offered.

Competition comes in many forms.  

When the simple scarcity of domains for commercial use can drive an almost
random 3 letter domain to be worth 6 figures (see dnspolicy.net for an example)
I really find this types of arguments difficult to justify.  I've had offers in
the low 5 digits for a 3 letter .org domain I hold (and never listed for sale),
one which has absolutely no commercial value as far as I can tell.  

I have a hard time with a lot of the arguments about differentiation and
memorability when third level domain registries like the now defunct ml.org
registry can garner over 200,000 registered hosts, and the dhs.org registry
(formed by ex-ml.org staff members) has well over 50,000 in little more than a
year of operation.  At last count I was able to locate over 25 unique third
level domain registries, some with as "uncatchy" names as dhs.org, ods.org,
fdns.net, and my own box.hm. 

Offer the choice, consumers will choose what they do not like.  TLDs that
consumers have a hard time using will be unpopular for commercial purposes, and
will be little used.  But I doubt that .biz would have that problem.

- --
William X. Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
http://userfriendly.com/
Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192
GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg
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