John Payne writes: "Not the kind of discussion you're after, but I would like to know "a) Why this is not on biz-ops rather than discuss-list "b) How snapback avoids abusing the registry, but can still scale to the volume you need to remain a viable company. (and simply spreading the load across various registrars does not count as avoiding abuse, as it won't scale)" a) To my knowledge, we are on this particular part of the list because Elliot Noss, who was kind enough to let us begin this discussion, asked us to post to this part of the list. If you think this discussion should be posted on the biz-ops list, please let us know. We'd be happy to take the conversation there if it's appropriate. b) The way we have remained a viable company is by, among other things, (1) never abusing the Registry, (2) never, in 9 months of operation, even receiving a warning or any other negative comment from the Registry on our methods, notwithstanding very frequent contact we have with them. How do we avoid abuse? We always stay within the number of connections allowed. When our understanding was that there was an unwritten rule of 250 connections per registrar, we stayed at 250, even when some others were grabbing multiples of that (see June 11, 2001). When the Registry lowered the number to 200, we stayed below 200. And now at 50, we help each of our registrar partners run technology employing 50 connections. No matter what the maximum number is, our consortium of registrars will always have more than any registrar acting alone. This volumetric superiority does in fact scale, because our volume is always greater and it's always, by definition, within the Registry's guidelines at the same time. This will still be true even if more solo registrars try to get involved and the Registry feels it must lower the maximum number of threads for batch-processing to below 50. At least as importantly, no one uses their resources as efficiently as our partners. All other registrars who attempt to play this game solo do so on behalf of a few high-paying customers. It has not been concealed from us or our partners that ICANN and the Registry prefer our method of serving the maximum number of customers, democratically, per connection, rather than those who use the public good that is ICANN-granted connections to the Registry to serve a few (speculators). Because no other model is as efficient, no other model is as scalable or will be as capable of avoiding inviting further Registry regulation. Furthermore, some registrars have been competing only by violating their ICANN and Registry agreements (including by allowing third parties to run scripts through them; see related thread). As we continue to add legitimate partners, and build a technology consortium of all registrars, the competition will continue to fade. The consortium has more connections to the Registry than any individual registrar could ever amass, which pleases our partners, and uses its resources in a highly efficient manner, which pleases the Registry and the mass market of customers. Again, all this would merely be a competing theory if we did not have the numbers to back us up. Today we are on track to receive another 1000 SnapBack(tm) orders, at $49 each. These orders come to us at conversion rates (a measure of the value proposition to customers) of up to 9%. Efficacy on back-orders is historically 76%. And so our rate of repeat customers is very high and RPMS for SnapNames often exceed $3000 ($3 per click-through). There are very good reasons we weathered the simultaneous drop of the domain market and the investment market, and that we have the partners and interested partners that we do, and that, after due diligence by numerous major investment banks, we will quickly raise another round in coming weeks: there's a shortage of smoke and mirrors here. I look forward to continuing the dialogue to give you whatever information we're able to give in order to answer your continuing questions. Sincerely, Cameron Powell VP of Business Development and General Counsel SnapNames 115 NW First Avenue Suite 300 Portland, OR 97209 (503) 219-9990 x229 (503) 274-9749 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Connecting Registrars and their Customers to the Secondary Market in Domain Names -----Original Message----- From: John Payne [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 5:42 PM To: Mason Cole Cc: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: Re: ATTN: Resellers -- input requested on domain name back-ordering On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 09:52:32AM -0700, Mason Cole wrote: > Dear TUCOWS Reseller: > > Several substantive conversations with TUCOWS' Elliot Noss and Tim Denton, > specifically about the changing nature of registration services demand, have > developed into working ideas about what SnapNames can bring to registrars > and their resellers to increase conversion rates. TUCOWS has asked us to > forward our thinking and seek your input. Not the kind of discussion you're after, but I would like to know a) Why this is not on biz-ops rather than discuss-list b) How snapback avoids abusing the registry, but can still scale to the volume you need to remain a viable company. (and simply spreading the load across various registrars does not count as avoiding abuse, as it won't scale) -- John Payne http://sackheads.org/jpayne/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sackheads.org/uce/ Fax: +44 870 0547954 To send me mail, use the address in the From: header
