.Pro Landrush Car Crash Take Two

[akcampbell]

During it's first 24 hours, .asia received 266,663 applications.

http://www.prleap.com/pr/114896/

During the first 24 hours of .Pro's second attempt at a "landrush" there were 66 new .pro registrations.

http://www.motion.pro

RegistryPro's CEO Catherine Sigmar continues to live in a dream world;

"We are expecting enormous interest in the dot-pro domain with this expansion and we are pleased to be able to meet the needs of the market with this offering."

Whoever writes RegistryPro's press releases lives in the same otherworldly bubble;

"The extension is already universally recognized on the Internet as the premium space for licensed professionals."

There are a couple of issues RegistryPro still can't grasp in spite of 2 failed attempts to launch .pro

1) You cannot charge 5-10 times a .com price for an extension hardly anybody has heard of. Temporarily "slashing" the price of .pro from an outrageous $99 to a slightly less ridiculous $49 will have no material effect on demand.

To compete against other alternative gTLD's like .info, .biz, and .mobi, .pro has to be priced competitively. $10-$15 is the maximum the market will bear and even at that price .pro would struggle to take business from established unrestricted alternative extensions.

2) High .pro prices have been PROVEN not to work for the last 4 years. Why go through the motions of a relaunch and make the same mistake again? There was a $49 .pro price promotion after the initial launch and it made absolutely no difference, why would it possibly work now? It's a far tougher market to launch an extension into, people are tightening their belts, there is more competition, and there will be even more competition in 2009 after ICANN's recent ruling on gTLD expansion. RegistryPro's inability to work all this out and come up with a sensible reg price defies belief. You have to question Catherine Sigmar's ability to develop an alternative extension.

If RegistryPro wreck this relaunch with uncommercial reg fees and an inability to cut deals with big registrars, I'm thinking of starting a .Pro Action Group representing domain registrants to lobby for radical change in the way .pro is run. I want to see somebody with a track record of successfully developing an alternative extension running RegistryPro or the ICANN .pro registry contract transferred to Verisign or Afilias.

 

[mjs]

I second! This is the Registry's final go around. No excuses. GET IT DONE! (Thanks Andrew... )

 

[davidc]

Im not sure that you are aware of that now that other registrys can register/or gonna get the possibility to register .pro, the rules have changed, or the agreement.

This can result in that they do random checkups on the different domain-owners that they really "are professionals", as the domain was intended for.

We'll see if Encirca will send out a new newsletter on "why" they did a priceslash on the domain.

 

[mjs]

Im not sure that you are aware of that now that other registrys can register/or gonna get the possibility to register .pro, the rules have changed, or the agreement.

This can result in that they do random checkups on the different domain-owners that they really "are professionals", as the domain was intended for.

My call to task notwithstanding, I have no basis to believe that the Registry would act in an undue manner in order to curtail public criticism...(Assuming that's what you meant)

 

[Kate]

I think that the current pricing level is in line with the 'upscale' image registrypro is trying to project. Basically the don't want to 'stoop' to the cheap level of established extensions like .com etc. But I agree that even if they did they would still struggle

With 6000 names the registry must be hardly profitable so I wouldn't be suprised if they pull the plug one day and write it off as an experiment that failed.
Besides I do not see any particular promotion to the masses. People don't miss the things they don't even know exist

 

[akcampbell]

6,000 domains is $300,000 of revenue based on the old $99 reg fee split between RegistryPro and Encirca. They have 15 staff, an office and IT costs to pay for. Catherine Sigmar must earn at least $150,000 so unless everybody else is earning $10,000 per year and the office is free, they must be making a loss which Hostway funds.

Pulling the plug is a possibility but hardly any extensions have had the plug pulled on them, certainly not by their registry. The obvious option for Hostway is to sell their management contract to another registry for a nominal sum.

If RegistryPro went bankrupt, ICANN would pass the registry on to another operator. There wouldn't be any shortage of registries willing to take on .pro, it's a gTLD and that still counts for something, pro is highly brandable, I've quoted the 15,000 US trademarks that include the letters on other threads, and it would save somebody the trouble of applying for a new gTLD.

Premium pricing is fine as a marketing strategy, I would have no problem paying $99 a year to reg a .pro if people regarded it as superior to .com or if it was an internationally recognised domain brand. What I object to is paying a premium for something that isn't being marketed affectively, isn't getting registered, and doesn't provide a viable development opportunity.

I would like to see RegistryPro lose their contract to run .pro because in my opinion they don't have adequate resources to develop it properly. Maybe RegistryPro do market .pro but I haven't seen any evidence of that and I doubt anybody else has either.

RegistryPro's track record developing .pro is so abysmal that if .pro registrants banded together, I think they could embarrass Hostway into surrendering their management contract to a more competent registry or persuade ICANN not to renew RegistryPro's management contract. With only 6,000 domains registered mjs and me account for 10% of total .pros registered. If an Action Group could get to 75%, that would make things very difficult for RegistryPro to continue managing .pro.

 

[gpmgroup]

Premium pricing is fine as a marketing strategy, I would have no problem paying $99 a year to reg a .pro if people regarded it as superior to .com or if it was an internationally recognised domain brand. What I object to is paying a premium for something that isn't being marketed affectively, isn't getting registered, and doesn't provide a viable development opportunity

Hmmm.

Are they telling you how much you have to sell your domains for? Or telling you how to sell your names? Or even calling for you to loose the right to sell your names in the future because they don't agree with your current business model?

 

[akcampbell]

Are they telling you how much you have to sell your domains for? Or telling you how to sell your names? Or even calling for you to loose the right to sell your names in the future because they don't agree with your current business model?

Of course not, but that's because I'm a stakeholder in RegistryPro, not the other way round, I pay them money, they don't pay me money.

If .pro domain registrants banded together and said enough is enough, RegistryPro have had 4 years to develop .pro and they have made no headway, it's time to give somebody else a chance, it would influence any decision ICANN made on renewing their management contract. ICANN are consultative, they asked for opinions from .pro registrants when RegistryPro applied to change the conditions for registration.

You follow .info closely and update people on total .info domains registered, I think your last update was 5m. It's not unreasonable for .pro registrants to question why their registry have had 6,500 registrations since March 2005 in spite of 3-4 boom years for domain industry.

 

[Hurley4540]

.ASIA pwned .pro :p

 

[Ben42]

The July 14th "Landrush" was officially moved by the registry to Sept. 8th well before July 14th.


From the registrypro homepage:

Due to unanticipated levels of interest in the .pro re-launch and requests from nearly all of our registrars, we are going to move our 'go live' date from July 14 to September 8.

Don't count them out yet...with more registries there will be more interest and lower prices. (Hopefully)

I believe the current sale at Encirca is to drum up as much $$$ as possible before any serious competition enters the game.

Sept 9th we'll know for sure...the whole thing could crash and burn, and then thats when I throw in the towel.

 

[gpmgroup]

If .pro domain registrants banded together and said enough is enough, RegistryPro have had 4 years to develop .pro and they have made no headway, it's time to give somebody else a chance, it would influence any decision ICANN made on renewing their management contract.

It’s an interesting conundrum. Do you sell domains cheaper so domainers/speculators can pile in and fill their boots, sit on the names until an end user wants the names to develop? Or do you sell the end user directly?

Even $99 a year to someone running a business is minimal say compared with the cost of a shop or an office rental. But domainers looking to sell the “prime [generic] real estate” possibly for $X,XXX considered it expensive.

 

[akcampbell]

It’s an interesting conundrum. Do you sell domains cheaper so domainers/speculators can pile in and fill their boots, sit on the names until an end user wants the names to develop? Or do you sell the end user directly?

Even $99 a year to someone running a business is minimal say compared with the cost of a shop or an office rental. But domainers looking to sell the “prime [generic] real estate” possibly for $X,XXX considered it expensive.

This mispricing logic is the root cause of .pro's failure. If Catherine Sigmar could understand why what you said is wrong, .pro could have a bright future.

The problem is when you have 6,500 registrations there are virtually no end users to sell to directly. The demand doesn't exist. Whether you charge $99 $999 or $1 you are not going to sell many .pros to end users.

Why would an end user choose an unheard of extension over .com or their ccTLD to front their bricks and mortar business? That would be completely irrational.

Registries start from a position of having no end user demand, the challenge is to create it. There are 2 ways to do it, spend millions of dollars on advertising or use the domain industry.

Being loss-making, RegistryPro's only option for creating end user demand is to use the domain industry.

If an extension has 1m speculators, the registry has 1m PR Managers talking up the extension on forums, websites, and newspapers, 1m Salespeople listing the domains for sale on Sedo, eBay, negotiating away to get the price up and turn a profit, and 1m Marketing Managers trying to convince end users to buy .pro.

The best thing about this extended workforce is that they are free, and better still, they only get paid if they sell a domain on for a profit to another domainer or an end user so they highly motivated and incentivised.

To hire this gigantic free pool of labour, you have to do one thing, price your domains competitively and RegistryPro haven't done this and consequently the burden of promoting .pro has fallen on 15 paid RegistryPro staff. Had they not turned up for work since March 2005, would total .pro domains registered by less than 6,500?

Whether you agree with my free pool of labour argument or not, the fact is .pro fees have been $99 or $49 since 2005 and end users haven't been regging. Conditions between 2005-2008 were more clement than they are now so it's about time RegistryPro changed tack on price.

It's clearly not restrictions that have been holding people back whether they be end users or speculators. In the first 4 days of "pre-registration" ie. landrush, there have been 5->66->7->10 registrations so about 87 in total. If I was Lucas Roh at Hostway, I would fire Catherine Sigmar.

 

[gpmgroup]

I don't think it was .pro's charter to become mainstream and compete against .info It was more to create a niche area for doctors and lawyers. So anything ending in .pro could be branded as a sign of a quality site through the existing reputation of the lawyers and doctors.
In that model its hard to see how domainers add value because they will sell to anyone with money rather than seeking out doctors and lawyers etc.

Knol from Google is a similar attempt to create a knowledge resource from people who have in-depth knowledge of their subject as opposed to the Wikipedia model where anyone can contribute and sometimes the info is a lot more dubious.

I'm not saying either method is better or worse just different!.

What people tend to forget is that all the new gTLDs were tests and the model (structures/regulations) for each varies immensely and I don't think it's right for anyone to call for a company to loose their franchise/business on the grounds that they are not allowing you personally to make enough money.

 

[Ronald Regging]

Akcampbell, I agree with most of your points except you seem to be missing a big piece of the puzzle. The extension was never intended for domainers, it wasn't even intended for the masses. It's a niche extension that is intended for licensed professionals. Aside from selling you a domain and the upkeep involved with maintaining those records, the registry doesn't owe you anything. They never stated that they would promote the extension to a point where you could easily make end user domain name sales... They sell you a domain so that you can create a website for your professional practice. Can you do that? Sure. End of story.

You can't invest heavily in an extension that was never intended for speculation and then get upset when the big pay days don't come through. That's the risk you chose to take. Calling for contract transfers and people being fired just seems a bit ridiculous IMO. It's a private company whose model was approved by ICANN every step of the way. Maybe they are losing money, maybe not. I don't know. But if they are losing a lot of money, I would think that at some point they would decide themselves to stop managing the extension.

If the extension is in as bad a shape as you claim, then change will come. If not, then you may wish to change your own position on .pro and minimize your losses.

 

[akcampbell]

RegistryPro shouldn't be criticised if domainers can't flip their domains for a profit, I agree with that 100%.

I disgree with you that RegistryPro have no obligation to their registrants beyond issuing them with a domain, I think they have an obligation to develop the extension. If you asked RegistryPro's CEO the same question, do you think she would say, no, our only obligation to registrants is to issue the .pros?

There is no right or wrong answer to this, it's a matter of personal opinion how far you think a company's obligations extend beyond its shareholders, ie. whether they have obligations to their employees, customers, suppliers, community etc.

You can take an individualist approach and say if employees don't like their pay and conditions they should leave, if customers don't like the way a business is being run, they should do business elsewhere. However, I have a vested interest in .pro so that's not how I view things.

All stakeholders in .pro would be better off with lower reg fees. More domains would get registered, registrars would make more money, RegistrPro would get more reg fees and be able to spend more marketing the extension, more people would hear about .pro, more .pro's would get developed, and more domains would get flipped for a profit if that's your bag.

What riles me, is RegistryPro are persevering with a premium pricing strategy that has been proven not to work. 87 .pro domains registered in the first 4 days of the pre-registration period is unacceptable, even for a niche extension.

I'm optimistic that RegistryPro will cut the price of .pro on 8 September, leaving reg fees at $49 will result in failure and they must realise that. I noticed RegistryPro have signed up Melbourne IT as registrars which is a positive sign.

 

[Kate]

The extension was never intended for domainers, it wasn't even intended for the masses. It's a niche extension that is intended for licensed professionals.

Yes, there is a difference between .pro and other 'community' extensions like .aero or .coop that are more or less managed by their respective industrial bodies. We dont have that with .pro, the registry is not an industrial body.

 

[Hurley4540]

Mjs has some VERY good .pro's though..

 

[zuriko]

I don't think it was .pro's charter to become mainstream and compete against .info It was more to create a niche area for doctors and lawyers. So anything ending in .pro could be branded as a sign of a quality site through the existing reputation of the lawyers and doctors.
In that model its hard to see how domainers add value because they will sell to anyone with money rather than seeking out doctors and lawyers etc.

Knol from Google is a similar attempt to create a knowledge resource from people who have in-depth knowledge of their subject as opposed to the Wikipedia model where anyone can contribute and sometimes the info is a lot more dubious.

I'm not saying either method is better or worse just different!.

What people tend to forget is that all the new gTLDs were tests and the model (structures/regulations) for each varies immensely and I don't think it's right for anyone to call for a company to loose their franchise/business on the grounds that they are not allowing you personally to make enough money.

bla-bla-bla!!!! and how many doctors and lawyers have .pro domains?????

 

[Ronald Regging]

All stakeholders in .pro would be better off with lower reg fees. More domains would get registered, registrars would make more money, RegistrPro would get more reg fees and be able to spend more marketing the extension, more people would hear about .pro, more .pro's would get developed, and more domains would get flipped for a profit if that's your bag.

I agree with your point that a company shouldn't take an individualistic view. I also agree that the extension could grow if the prices were lowered. However, the point I am making is just that the extension is exactly as it's been advertised as since the beginning, a niche extension for licensed professionals. They never portrayed it as anything more than that. In fact, their initial restrictions on which professions were included made it widely restrictive even for it's intended purpose. Now they are trying to relaunch it, opening up the restrictions to include all professions and offering a 50% price cut.

To me, from a business perspective, that sounds perfectly reasonable given the business model they have been following to date. Do you agree with this business model? No. Me either. But we aren't running the company. The "shares" that you speak of are non-existent. You don't own stock in the company, legally, you're actually only leasing property from them.

Go back through my posts and you'll find that I'm usually anti-corporation in a lot of my sentiments. However, in this case, the company has continued doing exactly what they said they were going to do from day one, which was to build a niche extension for licensed professionals with restrictions to boot.
The extension was never intended to be cheap enough to be speculated on or acquired by the masses.

Don't get me wrong, I think you have some terrific .pro domains and I think you'll be able to sell them for a nice profit. Unfortunately, I think it's just going to require more effort on your part, because the extension isn't popular enough to sell them for you and I don't think it ever was meant to be.

However, that's where the problem arises... You see potential that is ripe for exploitation and you want the registry to move to grab it. But the registry doesn't seem to want to do it, so you want to make them do it, either by petitioning ICANN or having people fired, etc... But what if the registry just always wanted to create a niche extension for licensed professionals and not whore it out to the highest bidder? I mean that is what they've been saying the entire time... That is the image they have portrayed, as a respectable operation that wanted to ensure quality registrants. I mean who the hell does that? No one. The entire extension has been different from day one. But in all of this time they have stuck to the original plan so I intend to believe their intentions.

Personally, I like to live by the philosophy that if you have to tell people you're a professional, you're probably not. :lol:

 

[gpmgroup]

how many doctors and lawyers have .pro domains?????

What's that got to do with the price of fish?


Think about it... If .pro was like .info how many good .pro names would you be able to go out and register today? Such good names being free are a great opportunity even at $99.

It's just a different game but you need a bigger brain to play it thats all. You can't just register 100s or 1000s and sit there unless you are very rich.


Anyway it's a bit of joke in a capitalist/speculator domainer forum calling out for a socialist "Professionals haven't fully exercised their rights so we need to change the price so the proles can jump in lol