.us Petition for Ron Jackson to further discuss "ccTLDs- Is North America Immune" panel

[Jaco]

http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm

After Latona's opening comments, the show's first business session got underway with Neustar's Ken Hansen and Steve Smith of WebNames joining me in a panel discussion titled ccTLDs are Taking Over the World - Is North America Immune? The session, moderated by Rick Silver, covered the prospects for America's .US extension and Canada's .CA as they try to gain recognition on a continent where they have been overshadowed by .com.

(L to R in the photo above) Ron Jackson (DN Journal), Ken Hansen (Neustar, operator of the
.US registry) and Steve Smith (registrar Webnames) discuss the prospects for .US and .CA.

With conference activity to cover almost around the clock, I won't have time to get into the specifics of the business sessions until we produce our comprehensive conference review article a few days after the conference ends but I can say that the overall consensus from this seminar was that .US and .CA are both making slow but steady progress as more businesses use the extensions (in the case of .US, Maserati.us, Shell.us, Transamerica.us, Hitachi.us, BASF.us and Carrabas.us are just a few examples) and search engines giving them favorable positions in local search results.

Please provide an overview of this and discuss in the greatest detail possible.

Signed

Jaco

 

[snoop]

That has been at the heart of much of the growth problems experienced the new TLDs launched over the last few years. It is a great way for building registration volume but it doesn't necessarily encourage development. Perhaps domain registries have to encourage development rather than just marketing to domainers? It also runs the risk of creating a bubble TLD.

Regards...jmcc

I think they have tried that and it had largely failed, kids.us, .mobi, if I remember rightly other registries tried it also. The thing is if you marketing towards endusers each customer is going to be worth $5 per year (ie one domain regsitration). Plus how exactly do you target these people?

Each domainer customers is probably worth hundreds/thousands per year. Plus you can easily market to those domainers, just go to a domain conference it market it then auction off the best names and you have a captive market & revenue.

---------- Post added at 05:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:18 PM ----------

Not in this recession. Not when I see domainers selling domains here in this forum for $20, having paid $380 for that same domain two years ago.

As far as Neustar spending money on the "promotional campaigns" they promise at domainer conventions, I just don't see it, and I lurk in all the usual domainer forums. Do you have an example?

Snoop, when I think about the amount of BS you spew, I liken in to Mr. Creosote vomiting on the back of the maid (cleaning the floor on hands and knees) in Monte Python's, "The Meaning Of Life." It shoots out like water from a fire hose.

I think it is pretty obvious that domainers are the clearest way for a new registry to obtain sales. The recession doesn't mean marketing to enduser suddenly makes snse. If it did new regsitries would be doing that as opposed to targeting domainers.

Regarding marketing campaigns, kids.us is a very good example of that. Sending staff out to conferences is another. You do realize that when they tell you at a conference that they are working on a big new campaign that is the campaign, ie sending staff to conferences to tell you how good things are looking?

 

[HeyNow]

It is a fact that they've spent money promoting it. The thing is though people will never be happy with it because the kind of budget that the average registry can afford is never really going to have an effect. Ironically the only registies that can really afford a decent amount on advertising are the ones already big (.com, .co.uk, .de etc), and they don't need to spend a dime.

The more you write the more you show how little you really know.

NeuStar, Inc. (NeuStar) provides essential clearinghouse services to the communications industry and enterprise customers. The Company’s customers use the databases it contractually maintains in its clearinghouse to obtain data required to successfully route telephone calls in North America, to exchange information with other communications service providers and to manage technological changes in their own networks. NeuStar operates the authoritative directories that manage virtually all telephone area codes and numbers, and it enables the routing of calls among thousands of communications service providers (CSPs), in the United States and Canada. The Company provides clearinghouse services to CSPs, including Internet service providers, mobile network operators, cable television operators, and voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP), service providers.

Boo hoo hoo, what a poor little registry that can't afford any promotion other than giving lip service to domainers at domainer conventions. Boo hoo hoo.

Congratulations Snoop, you've now demonstrated how you're willing to argue merely for the sake of arguing, and not because you bring to the table any greater level of knowledge. The farce is over.

 

[snoop]

The more you write the more you show how little you really know.

NeuStar, Inc. (NeuStar) provides essential clearinghouse services to the communications industry and enterprise customers. The Company’s customers use the databases it contractually maintains in its clearinghouse to obtain data required to successfully route telephone calls in North America, to exchange information with other communications service providers and to manage technological changes in their own networks. NeuStar operates the authoritative directories that manage virtually all telephone area codes and numbers, and it enables the routing of calls among thousands of communications service providers (CSPs), in the United States and Canada. The Company provides clearinghouse services to CSPs, including Internet service providers, mobile network operators, cable television operators, and voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP), service providers.

Boo hoo hoo, what a poor little registry that can't afford any promotion other than giving lip service to domainers at domainer conventions. Boo hoo hoo.

Congratulations Snoop, you've now demonstrated how you're willing to argue merely for the sake of arguing, and not because you bring to the table any greater level of knowledge. The farce is over.

If I've said some incorrect please point out what it is. As I said before their revenue from .us is about $9 million per year. The fact that they have other businesses doesn't mean they are going to spend more on .us.

 

[DU]

Have you considered that marketing to domainers may be the most direct way for a domain registry to increase sales?

This needs considering?

I'm always amazed that domainers think things should be done for them.

They're not doing enough to make the market look good to MY customers.

If you're selling you have to be a salesman sometime. You want to sell a .US? Put some of YOUR portfolio on the top of Google/Bing for simple searches. Send them to some .US that you've sold that look good, rank highly.

Expecting someone else to spend millions on ads for your benefit? That's just wishful thinking.

 

[snoop]

This needs considering?

I'm always amazed that domainers think things should be done for them.

They're not doing enough to make the market look good to MY customers.

If you're selling you have to be a salesman sometime. You want to sell a .US? Put some of YOUR portfolio on the top of Google/Bing for simple searches. Send them to some .US that you've sold that look good, rank highly.

Expecting someone else to spend millions on ads for your benefit? That's just wishful thinking.

Agree, but it is a heck of alot easier to sell something that people want as opposed to trying to convince people.

 

[ecigs.net]

Agree, but it is a heck of alot easier to sell something that people want as opposed to trying to convince people.

They can't really want, what they don't know exists. If you go to a country like Germany, everyone, absolutely everyone, knows what dot DE is. The typical American doesn't know what our ccTLD is (or even what a ccTLD is) in the same way that citizens of other countries know their own ccTLD. Nobody needs to convince American small businesses to buy dotUS, they need to inform them that it exists.

 

[snoop]

Nobody needs to convince American small businesses to buy dotUS, they need to inform them that it exists.

I don't think this is realistic. Business won't just buy it because they know it exists. There has to be a compelling reason, like customers expecting them to have that address.

 

[ecigs.net]

I should have added the word first. If they do not know the domain exists first, you can't convince them to buy it or not to buy. No decision is being made at all. First they have to know that it exists, then you can convince them or not. Right now, most Americans don't know what US is at all.

 

[HeyNow]

If I've said some incorrect please point out what it is. As I said before their revenue from .us is about $9 million per year. The fact that they have other businesses doesn't mean they are going to spend more on .us.

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[jmcc]

I think they have tried that and it had largely failed, kids.us, .mobi, if I remember rightly other registries tried it also. The thing is if you marketing towards endusers each customer is going to be worth $5 per year (ie one domain regsitration). Plus how exactly do you target these people?

Each domainer customers is probably worth hundreds/thousands per year. Plus you can easily market to those domainers, just go to a domain conference it market it then auction off the best names and you have a captive market & revenue.

Targeting domainers, especially the large portfolio domainers is an easy win for registries. However marketing to the end user is difficult, expensive and takes years to see the effects. I've been going through the stats for the top ccTLDs and gTLDs and there is a shift towards ccTLDs happening at the moment. These are the top ten gTLD and ccTLD extensions at the end of May 2010 with the gTLD figures being for 01/June/2010:

com: 87,528,607
.de: 13,692,618
.net: 13,067,210
.uk: 8,533,377
.org: 8,312,156
.cn: 7,620,043
info: 6,320,784
.nl: 3,920,715
.eu: 3,214,556
.ru: 2,842,784

Of those, only .eu is a recently launched ccTLD. The .biz, .mobi, .asia and .tel TLDs don't even make it into the top ten. I'll also be adding .us ccTLD tracking to HosterStats starting with the July 2010 stats.

Regards...jmcc

 

[oldtimer]

The kind of domains that domainers are usually interested in are the first few thousand keywords that we always see get registered no matter what the TLD is, for .com its probably a greater number since domainers go after many more different types of domains (such as 3 and 4 character, token domains, long tails, geo targeted, and third and forth tier keywords), but the percentage of domains that are registered by domainers is relatively very small compare to the total number of the registrations for any given TLD, so even though the domainers are valuable to registries when it comes to getting a TLD started, but eventually the regular customers are the ones who take the registration numbers into the millions and they are the ones that the TLD needs to be promoted to if its going to stand out among all the others.

At this point why are we wasting valuable time arguing with the naysayers (no disrespect intended Snoopy ), when we should be discussing amongst ourselves (.US fans) the different ways of getting this extension off the ground. Don’t be fooled by all the usual naysayers that seem to be active in every sub forum and their only duty seems to be controlling the herd of domainers and channeling them towards what serves their own interest. We need to realize that it is part of their strategy to discourage other domainers from pursuing other alternative TLDs, some naysayers are only looking out for their own individual interest while some others are being sponsored by some of the big domain companies in order to control and manipulate the domain Industry in their own favor (we know who you all are ). Its funny they always claim that they are doing other domainers (especially newbies) a favor by keeping them from making costly mistakes, but if they are so much concerned about other domainers not wasting money why is it that they are never willing to share with them any of the secrets to their own domaining success.

Lets not waste time arguing about what NeuStar should have or could have done in the past either, the important thing is what can they and everyone else who is involved with .US do now to make sure that the American public knows about this extension. We can either present our ideas to NeuStar as a unified body (such as a professional group or association) or we can express our opinions to them individually on their .US blog and forum. One way or another we need to put some wheels into motion, by this time next year when the 500 or so new TLDs are going to start to be released our job will be ten times harder because by then we have to compete with so many new extensions that are also going to be after the mindshare and market share in the US. We have a small window of opportunity to make good things happen for .US before things get more complicated, so lets not waste anymore time arguing with the naysayers and lets not waste our energy by acting against one another. Time is running out, we need to come up with some good ideas fast to make .US better known to the small businesses and the American people in general.

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[domainica]

I think everyone makes valid points here. But the best way to promote .us is through development of .us sites. I, for one, haven't done my share (and ppc sites don't count).

As far as Neustar, they're sitting on some premium .us names. How about developing a few, I mean REALLY developing and marketing the sites, so that it starts drawing interest and visitors? The more visitors it gets, the more people will become familiar and comfortable with the .us extension.

But since we can't depend on Neustar (take a look at their Kids.us site and you'll know what I mean), it's up to domainers. And development is the only way to do this.

 

[ecigs.net]

I think everyone makes valid points here. But the best way to promote .us is through development of .us sites.

Very true. That's the entire truth for all new, none COM TLDs. Without a few important sites using the extension (like ORG has Wikipedia), people will never notice these TLDs. And why should they? The internet is for information. Most of the great .US keyword domains are parked. Zero information to be found anywhere. Talk about lack of vision. If all you can do with business.us or news.us is park them, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to use them at all. Parking a name like new.us makes that person the worst entrepreneur on earth.

 

[bmugford]

But the best way to promote .us is through development of .us sites.

Yeah, or getting the domains into the hands of end users who will make use of them. I have done my share in that aspect.

Brad

As far as Neustar, they're sitting on some premium .us names. How about developing a few, I mean REALLY developing and marketing the sites, so that it starts drawing interest and visitors? The more visitors it gets, the more people will become familiar and comfortable with the .us extension.

I think it would be a good idea to accept proposals for some of the premium domains they are holding. It would do more for .US than just sending them to auction.

It also doesn't help that the US government owns several top end ones like Health.us / Education.us and does nothing with them.

Brad

 

[oldtimer]

I think it would be a good idea to accept proposals for some of the premium domains they are holding. It would do more for .US than just sending them to auction.

It also doesn't help that the US government owns several top end ones like Health.us / Education.us and does nothing with them.

Brad

If you have a good idea that involves NeuStar it would probably help if you also post it on their .US community forum or blog.

http://usblog.neustar.us/Home

http://usblog.neustar.us/forum

PS: make sure that your comments are polite and professional incase they are also seen by government agencies that are in charge of overseeing the .US namespace.

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[Kate]

At this point why are we wasting valuable time arguing with the naysayers (no disrespect intended Snoopy ), when we should be discussing amongst ourselves (.US fans) the different ways of getting this extension off the ground.

How ?
One area where we can help raise the profile of .us is to lead by example and develop our names so they add to the pool of developed websites.

But I don't think being an unpaid ambassador for the registry like the pro-.tv folks is the solution.
Domainers have zero influence on the market and unlike Neustar they don't have a budget available for the purpose of promotion. Neustar hasn't done a lot to promote .us, but it would be foolish to believe domainers can do any better. It's not their duty anyway.

PS: I'm not claiming I have a solution.
I am only saying, cope with the TLD like it is, don't swim against the tide if it isn't worth it.

It also doesn't help that the US government owns several top end ones like Health.us / Education.us and does nothing with them.

Squatters :notme:

 

[oldtimer]

First thing that needs to be done is to take a survey to see what percentage of Americans currently know about .US and that are aware that it is the official ccTLD for the United States, because our whole idea of having some kind of a promotional campaign is based on our assumption that this percentage is very low.

We also need to find out what percentage of Americans might be inclined to using .US for their websites once they find out that they have this option and are made aware of the advantages of this extension.

By conducting this survey we can also get a better idea as to which segments of the population might be more interested in using .US so that we can gear our promotional campaign more towards them.

This information is going help us determine our strategy to a great extent. Now as to who is going to conduct this survey, that’s where it would be helpful to have some kind of a professional group or association so that we can operate at a larger scale and have a bigger impact by combining our efforts and energy together.

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[DU]

We also need to find out what percentage of Americans might be inclined to using .US for their websites once they find out that they have this option and are made aware of the advantages of this extension.

By conducting this survey we can also get a better idea as to which segments of the population might be more interested in using .US so that we can gear our promotional campaign more towards them.

This information is going help us determine our strategy to a great extent. Now as to who...
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Who is us, we and who? and why?

You have leased domain names from a company that leases them. Why you think they have a vested interest in you being able to sell the rights to that lease to someone else for even more is beyond me.

You have great domains and they are worth far more than you likely paid for them. That said, I don't think anyone is going to give a damn about making efforts to increase their value on your behalf.

 

[oldtimer]

Why the hostile tone here, no one is forcing you to take part in anything that you don’t want to, why are you so bothered by the mere fact that we (the .US fans) want to discuss the future potentials and possibilities for an extension that we have invested in.

Who is us, we and who? and why?

You have leased domain names from a company that leases them. Why you think they have a vested interest in you being able to sell the rights to that lease to someone else for even more is beyond me.

You have great domains and they are worth far more than you likely paid for them. That said, I don't think anyone is going to give a damn about making efforts to increase their value on your behalf.

 

[DU]

Why the hostile tone here,

No one is forcing you to take part in anything that you don’t want to, why are you so bothered by the mere fact that we (the .US fans) want to discuss the future potentials and possibilities for an extension that have invested in.

Wasn't meant to be hostile. I just find it curious that you are referring to us and we all the time when there is no we and no us.

Look at what you want and realize the absurdity of it:

You want a National Survey on .us
You want to create a Professional Group/Association
You don't want to actively create said group personally
You want to promote .us because with TLD our job will be harder
You want a large scale (national) promotion for .US

Now here's the kicker:
You don't want to actively start a group (or forum). You can't finance any of this.

Other than increasing the value of your .US portfolio what is it you want to accomplish? What doesn't help domain values are threads that appear on the surface to be domain pumping.

BUT in the interest of positive domaining I will leave you to your thread and refrain from posting on it.

 

[oldtimer]

Wasn't meant to be hostile. I just find it curious that you are referring to us and we all the time when there is no we and no us.

Look at what you want and realize the absurdity of it:

You want a National Survey on .us
You want to create a Professional Group/Association
You don't want to actively create said group personally
You want to promote .us because with TLD our job will be harder
You want a large scale (national) promotion for .US

Now here's the kicker:
You don't want to actively start a group (or forum). You can't finance any of this.

Other than increasing the value of your .US portfolio what is it you want to accomplish? What doesn't help domain values are threads that appear on the surface to be domain pumping.

I really don’t understand why my opinions, ideas, and suggestions sound absurd to you or that you think that this thread is meant for pumping, these are some of the steps that in my opinion would help get .US off the ground. Not only that I don’t want to force any of my ideas on anyone, but I am hoping that the other .US fans here would come up with some helpful ideas and suggestions of their own on how to improve this extension’s overall standing. Nevertheless these are just ideas and suggestions at this time, before me or anyone else can take the lead to start taking further steps we (the .US fans) need to come to some kind of a consensus as to what our goals should be and what might be the best ways to go about achieving them, since most .US fans are already here (in this forum) I don’t see why we cant have our discussions here, I wish they would bring back the .US sub forum again (like the way it was couple of years ago) so that .US threads wouldn’t get mixed up with all the other threads, but then this will serve our needs for now until we (the .US fans) are ready to start with our next steps.

BUT in the interest of positive domaining I will leave you to your thread and refrain from posting on it.

Thanks for leaving us (the .US fans) alone.

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[Kate]

Have a look at Neustar's website:
.us domain registry, web address registration

The 2 last press releases date back to 2007 & 2003 respectively.

Announcements
Neustar has been awarded the contract to operate and administer the .US Internet domain name registry.
Neustar Statement, October 22, 2007

Neustar Recognizes Go Daddy Software As Top Registrar for .US
.US Registrations Top Half Million Mark
Neustar Press Release, March 06, 2003

Yet is costs nothing to post a website - you just have to have something to say.
But It appears that Neustar has nothing to say about .us. Their website is just dead. It speaks volume about their commitment. That's what I mean when I say swimming against the tide

 

[DotUSDomains]

Like kate said, youre swimming against the tide, and a very very strong tide at that.

theres not enough of us .us fans to make it work, we would never make a dent in promoting .us unless there were 100's if not more.

I'm actually making more sales in .us now that i ever have, more end users, more money.

more offers, even from domainers.

i have about 1000 .us at this time, and i plan on upping that by 200-300 in the near future.
all my names are paid for, all my future (that i can see) purchases are paid for, all thanks to a few really good sales this year.

I think .us is just fine conisder the lack of promotion, and we should wait a few more years to see what happens, you never know, .us might just get the boost it's been looking for when all these fancy extensions start to appear.

I do agree with a poll of some sorts, as it would be good to know what % of americans know .us exist.

1 person in 1 big city for every state. ? Not to hard to do. will cost a few $$$ but may be worth it.

Neustar is irrelevant when it comes to promoting .us theres no point hoping they will come forward, it aint going to happen, ever.

I still think oldtimer should get a job at neustar ont he .us side of things Thats about the best thing we can make happen.

 

[jmcc]

I've crunched the cross TLD comparison for .us /com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia/tel TLDs.

HosterStats.com: .us ccTLD Cross Domain Comparison

The zonefile used for the comparison is that of 26 June 2010. The .us ccTLD is not quite like the gTLDs.

Regards...jmcc

 

[oldtimer]

The .us ccTLD is not quite like the gTLDs.

Please expand on this comment further; it will be great if you could explain this in more details.

We all know that .US and ccTLDs in general are different from gTLDs, and we also realize that .US has a long way to go to become like other major ccTLDs such as .de or .co.uk , the question is how much room there is for .US to grow and what would be a realistic expectation for this extension in the future, what could be done to accelerate the acceptance of .US within the United States so that it could get to its optimum market share sooner.

PS: When comparing the number of registrations of .US to the ones from other global TLDs it is important to keep in mind that only the portion of the registrations of those global TLDs that are specific to the United States should be used in the comparison, although I realize that it might be difficult to figure out the exact percentage for that.

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