- Impact
- 152
What do .pro domainers think about the Registry.pro announcement on 5 Feb?
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RegistryPro’s Advisory Board has issued a statement supporting several proposed modifications to our agreement with ICANN. The complete proposal, which includes changes to dotPRO registration restrictions, new profession-specific second level domains, and a restructuring of the Board itself, was drafted by the registry over several months with guidance from ICANN and input from professionals throughout the world. It was approved by the RegistryPro Advisory Board in late January.
In his letter to ICANN, Board Chair Steven Wright wrote: “The Advisory Board discussed these and the other changes in the amendment package in two telephone conferences, in November and December 2007, with further discussion by email. A vote was held in January 2008, and the proposal to support RegistryPro's proposed amendments was adopted without dissent.”
The proposal has been sent to ICANN for preliminary review and staff comment.
The registry wishes to thank our Advisory Board members for their continued effort and invaluable perspective.
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Somebody PM'ed me today suggesting this was good news for .pro domainers. I read it as bad news.
My understanding is that Registry.pro are applying to add more countries and professions to their registration restrictions. This isn't going to make any difference to the number of .pros registered in my opinion.
If Chinese poets or Dutch florists were queuing up to register .pro, then fair enough, but that just isn't the case. Had they been desparate to register .pro, they could have done so already via Encirca's proxy service.
Any surge of registrations that would flow from adding countries and professions happened in March 2005 through Encirca. There is no mileage left in this as an extension development tool. Why does Registry.pro think there is?
The key to developing alternative extension is to increase the number of domains registered and you are only going to do that by pricing your registration fee competitively.
Demand for alternative domains is price elastic, price cuts result in a disproportionate increase in domains registered and an even bigger increase in reregistrations. You have to set your registration fee at the level which maximises total revenue, then spend that revenue on marketing, advertising, and promoting your extension to your target audience, which in .Pro's case is professionals.
Has anybody ever seen an advertisement for .Pro in a professional publication? At a trade fare? In the financial press? Of course not because Registry.pro have hardly got enough cash coming in to pay their staff salaries let alone actively promote their extension.
The last few years have been excellent for domaining and with the right pricing policy Registry.pro could have got 1m registrations easily and be using that income stream to market the extension to professionals.
Instead, there are only 6,500 registrations which is laughable considering how much interest there has been in other gTLD's like .info and .mobi.
It's depressing and unbelievable that after 3-4 years of abject failure the .Pro Advisory Board think that tweaking the registration restrictions will make any difference whatsoever.
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RegistryPro’s Advisory Board has issued a statement supporting several proposed modifications to our agreement with ICANN. The complete proposal, which includes changes to dotPRO registration restrictions, new profession-specific second level domains, and a restructuring of the Board itself, was drafted by the registry over several months with guidance from ICANN and input from professionals throughout the world. It was approved by the RegistryPro Advisory Board in late January.
In his letter to ICANN, Board Chair Steven Wright wrote: “The Advisory Board discussed these and the other changes in the amendment package in two telephone conferences, in November and December 2007, with further discussion by email. A vote was held in January 2008, and the proposal to support RegistryPro's proposed amendments was adopted without dissent.”
The proposal has been sent to ICANN for preliminary review and staff comment.
The registry wishes to thank our Advisory Board members for their continued effort and invaluable perspective.
-----------------------------------
Somebody PM'ed me today suggesting this was good news for .pro domainers. I read it as bad news.
My understanding is that Registry.pro are applying to add more countries and professions to their registration restrictions. This isn't going to make any difference to the number of .pros registered in my opinion.
If Chinese poets or Dutch florists were queuing up to register .pro, then fair enough, but that just isn't the case. Had they been desparate to register .pro, they could have done so already via Encirca's proxy service.
Any surge of registrations that would flow from adding countries and professions happened in March 2005 through Encirca. There is no mileage left in this as an extension development tool. Why does Registry.pro think there is?
The key to developing alternative extension is to increase the number of domains registered and you are only going to do that by pricing your registration fee competitively.
Demand for alternative domains is price elastic, price cuts result in a disproportionate increase in domains registered and an even bigger increase in reregistrations. You have to set your registration fee at the level which maximises total revenue, then spend that revenue on marketing, advertising, and promoting your extension to your target audience, which in .Pro's case is professionals.
Has anybody ever seen an advertisement for .Pro in a professional publication? At a trade fare? In the financial press? Of course not because Registry.pro have hardly got enough cash coming in to pay their staff salaries let alone actively promote their extension.
The last few years have been excellent for domaining and with the right pricing policy Registry.pro could have got 1m registrations easily and be using that income stream to market the extension to professionals.
Instead, there are only 6,500 registrations which is laughable considering how much interest there has been in other gTLD's like .info and .mobi.
It's depressing and unbelievable that after 3-4 years of abject failure the .Pro Advisory Board think that tweaking the registration restrictions will make any difference whatsoever.
