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There
were two afternoon panel sessions following lunch Thursday. The
first, titled “Where is the Domain Space Headed?” covered the
prospects for IDNs (International Domain Names) ccTLDs (country code
extensions) and new TLDs (like .mobi). Jothan Frakes (who produced
the first two Domain Roundtable conferences in Seattle and is now a
DomainSponsor executive) moderated a panel that included Tina Dam
(Director of ICANN’s IDN program), Hiro Hotta (representing
Japan’s .jp registry), Leona Chen (.asia registry),
Pinky Brand (.mobi
registry) and Matt Serlin (MarkMonitor).
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Ms.
Dam said that ICANN is currently focused on implementing full native
character set addresses for IDNs (meaning that the full domain name
and extension would be available in the local alphabet – today
IDN’s have the name in the local script with the extension in
Latin characters like .com or .net). She said there are still a few
technical issues to be resolved but ICANN is trying to fast track
that.
Dam
also said that a revision of the protocol that handles IDNs is
coming that may result in characters from some scripts being
removed. In those cases, existing domains with the deleted
characters will no longer work, so they are working on minimizing
dislocations caused by that. Dam said no target date has been set
for full IDN (including extension) availability though she is
thinking late 2007 or early 2008 is possible.
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Tina
Dam
Director of ICANN IDN Program |
Hotta
said that IDNs are gaining widespread acceptance with Japan’s .jp
extension. He noted that since Microsoft announced in December 2004
that the IDN enabled Internet Explorer 7 browser was coming, the
number of .jp IDNs registered jumped from 40,000 to over 125,000
today. He added that the IDN.jp segment is growing at 10% annually
with a renewal rate above 80% (and as high as 90% among Japanese
citizens).
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Leona
Chen
.Asia registry |
Ms.
Chen introduced the upcoming .asia extension which is expected to go
live with a sunrise period later this year. Land rush and open
registration is not expected before February 2008. It is being
operated by a non-profit organization based in Hong Kong. Chen said
.asia holds enormous potential as there are 132 million people with
Internet access in China alone and 387 million people with web
access in Asia as a whole.
Brand
gave an update on the progress of .mobi, noting that more than
370,000 domains have been registered since the September 2006 launch
of the extension for mobile devices. Brand said .mobi is pursuing
their holy grail – trying to convince hardware, software and
search providers to make .mobi the default extension on cellphones
and other mobile Internet enabled devices. .Mobi has done an
excellent job in marketing their extension, staying in touch with
registrants through blog.mobi and making development tools available
through dev.mobi and
ready.mobi.
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I
moderated the second afternoon session on the Future of the
Domain Name Aftermarket and had the good fortune to be assigned a
panel that included Sedo.com CEO and Co-Founder Tim
Schumacher,
SnapNames.com Vice President Mason Cole and Fabulous.com COO
Dan Warner, all widely recognized experts on this topic.
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Tim
Schumacher
CEO & Co-Founder, Sedo.com |
Schumacher
said the market trends they were seeing at Sedo included
diversification (into multiple TLDs), internationalization, lower
transaction costs and higher levels of sophistication among buyers.
At the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
East conference in October, Schumacher
introduced a domain rating system similar to the stock
market’s Buy – Sell – Hold ratings. Schumacher currently has
Buy ratings on .info, .us and other major ccTLDs and
IDNs. He rates .com, .net and .eu as
Holds (.eu was downgraded from a Buy rating
in October). Schumacher advises selling .biz, .cc, .ws and
.tv.
Naming
names in that manner will obviously make some people happy and leave
others annoyed. There has been a lot of buzz around .tv this
year since DemandMedia’s eNom has taken over management of the
registry from Verisign with big marketing plans ahead (starting with
a .tv relaunch dinner in Las Vegas next month that I will be
attending). |
Given that seemingly positive new turn for .tv, I asked
Schumacher about his sell rating. He said that he still has
reservations about small country code extensions (.tv actually
represents the island nation of Tuvalu) being marketed to mean
something else and is not convinced the strategy will work.
Cole
said there is no doubt that the aftermarket is expanding and will
continue to do so for the foreseeable future. He said the reasons
for than include the influx of investment capital into the market over the past
12-18 months, increasing accessibility to the internet all over the
world, the fact that people of all ages are starting to use
computers and the “web 2.0 effect” which Cole called “one of
the greatest, exponential impacts on the value of domains”. He
noted that it is becoming possible to buy a domain and let the world
populate it with content for you.
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Mason
Cole
VP, SnapNames.com |
Dan
Warner
COO, Fabulous.com |
Warner,
who is one of the best statistical researchers in the industry,
presented a talk detailing the seven primary factors that commonly
lead buyers to purchase a domain name. Those factors are
brandability, mindshare, commerciality, specificity, realization,
immediacy and intent. His analysis of the role each factor plays is
too detailed for this article but Warner provided us with his
complete paper on aftermarket domain valuation factors and you can
read it in its entirety here.
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business day concluded with a 90-minute networking session hosted by
Bruce Honig who employees a unique format we haven’t seen before.
Attendees were repeatedly separated into different groups based on a
variety of factors. For example Honig would have everyone who
lives east of the Mississippi River go to one side of the
room with those from west of the river gong to the opposite side.
After a few minutes, the groups would be separated again using a
different criteria, for example those who have been in the industry
for less than 5 years and those who have been in it longer. The
format ensured that various groupings brought people together who has
something in common which is a good starting point for any new
relationship. |
Thursday
networking session |
The
big evening event was still another spectacular DomainSponsor Party
– one with a James Bond Casino Royale theme that DS party veterans
declared to be the best one ever. A large room in the hotel was
converted into a full scale casino and everyone was given $1,000 in
play money to bet with. Lovely “Bond” girls staffed the gaming
tables, a live DJ kept the music flowing and ample food and drink
was always close at hand. The top three money winners were awarded
prizes topped
by a limited edition 007 Casino Royale watch valued at $7,000 that
was won by Michael Dowdell.
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Scenes
from DomainSponsor's James Bond Casino Royale Party Feb. 1,
2007 |
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Above:
Bond girls deal them out |
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Roulette
wheel draws a crowd |
Ron
Sheridan and Stephen Baldridge
of DomainSponsor decked out! |
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Above
left: DomainCapital President Robert Alfano cashes
his chips (now we know where they get all of that
money to finance domain purchases!)
Above right: Partygoers select hand-rolled cigars |
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Fabulous.com
COO Dan Warner hides behind shades to throw
the paparazzi off his trail, but the shirt is a dead
giveaway! |
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