Back for another day with the Tucows list! I'll miss you guys when it's over. To summarize several of this morning's posts: SnapNames is not viable/acceptable/partnerworthy because SnapNames does not have 100% efficacy; but, SnapNames should never have 100% efficacy because competition is good. Naturally, in these mutually exclusive propositions, we agree with the latter more than the former. Competition *is* good, and a business can be very effective and profitable without being a monopoly, which is the implication of our not having sufficiently high efficacy to merit a partnership, notwithstanding that we get the most names for the most customers of anyone. It can't be had both ways, but the middle ground we and our partners have found has worked very well for us and extremely well for thousands of pleased, everyman and -woman customers who otherwise haven't a chance. There are no guarantees, either on our site or in business. ============================== When we refer to connections as a public resource, we might analogize them to airways, runways, and fish stocks. They need to be used efficiently; cooperatively; and for the good of the greatest number. Why "should" SnapNames get 50 connections from registrars? We "should" not, but the reason we do, and have, is that we strike a partnership with a particular registrar to follow each of the above principles on behalf of them and their customers, all without upsetting other customers, ICANN, or the Registry. I suspect that, among other reasons, the reason others may not get these connections is that others have not been able to promise these things. Typically, others want to use the connections strictly for their own speculation, which fails all three criteria. The same writer suspected that we "get the connections because [we're] paying registrars a premium for them (with venture capital money). That's fine, except that this noble talk of using connections democratically falls a little flat." Well, no. We survived for the entire first half of the year without a dime of VC money (or paychecks), and even after we received investment, it all went to internal engineering. We do not pay for connections; indeed, to do so would violate the Registry-Registrar Agreement, which is another reason most registrars are smart enough not to sell their bandwidth to speculators or resellers outright. Rather, we simply share revenue with our partners to serve the largest number of their customers, which is what we proposed doing when we joined this list. The writer continues: "But even if snapnames DOES have superior scripts/staff right now, advocating one company as an official backorder company seems to put a knife in the backs of the ones of us who would like to have a chance to get the name for someone, and who also may, in the future, out script, etc, snapnames. So, would there be a possibility in the future, of having a LIST of companies who are good at grabbing names?" That's pretty much what we have now: a list of competitors. There are perhaps a dozen now. Each one has a chance to get names for someone. You are free to throw your lot in with them, given the limitations of their access, various reputations, branding, pricing models, longevity, and how good their "chance," or efficacy, is. If you see a better deal, I urge you to take it. Although talk of "a knife in one's back" seems a bit extreme, if what we're talking about is first seeing the opportunity, first moving, and first developing the necessary partnerships and technology, then it would be disingenuous of me to make apologies on behalf of SnapNames. We're a business. Our partners are businesses. Given the choice between philosophy and what works, we choose to return investors' money by developing a long-term model that serves customers' interests. No one, certainly not Tucows, can force you into revenue. Finally, OpenSRS has neither "advocated," "promoted," nor "endorsed", "officially," SnapNames. They have simply asked us to inform their resellers and see if there was sufficient interest for them to go forward. Several of you have taken your comments and expressions of interest off-line to speak with us directly. I encourage further dialogue here as well as with us directly. We can also explain, or forward you early issues of "State of the Domain" on, our unique buyer-centric auctions, which are yet another powerful benefit of the SnapNames' network (there are others as well). And we can provide PowerPoint presentations for you to summarize the ideas for the benefit of others in your organizations. Yours, 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: CDale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 9:48 PM To: Cameron Powell Cc: 'John Payne'; Mason Cole; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: ATTN: Resellers -- input requested on domain name back-orderi ng -- John Payne & Rich Okay, it seems that some of my questions have been answered here, especially the one about snapnames having (or NOT having) more connections allowed. So now that I'm a -teeny- bit more informed, comments are below: On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Cameron Powell wrote: > John Payne writes: -snip- > 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. This is the perfect place for it, IMO. Most people who post here are OpenSRS customers who are interested in where it's going and how it will affect them. They are also, I've noticed, people who ask a lot of (and the right) questions. -snip- > 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). I think it would be more democratic to let each RSP deal with it as s/he pleases than to put this kind of service up, which may potentially take customers from the RSPs. This doesn't affect me, since people that I deal with mostly know I'm stubborn and persistent as ****, but it seems to me that if OpenSRS advocates and promotes this as an official thing, it is saying, basically, that your software/scripts is better than anyone else's, and, as I've seen so far, the question has been asked about the technicalities of this, and so far, I have seen no answer. Is that the premise the decision will be made on? If so, I guess we should all see the technical reasons snapnames would be the most efficient. If that's already been addressed in this thread, smack me and tell me to read the archives. I admit I haven't paid as much attention to this as I could have. But even if snapnames DOES have superior scripts/staff right now, advocating one company as an official backorder company seems to put a knife in the backs of the ones of us who would like to have a chance to get the name for someone, and who also may, in the future, out script, etc, snapnames. So, would there be a possibility in the future, of having a LIST of companies who are good at grabbing names? Hmm... > 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. > The phrase that worries me here is: "... the competition will continue to fade." Back to ECO101, competition is a GOOD thing. I won't go into Milton Friedman or anyone now, but I think you get the point. Now, if you were doing something similar to the RSA crack or something, and not profitting from it, that would be a different story, but this isn't a different story. The word "amass" bothers me too. I hope that someday large companies will realize what the word truly means. Evidence of it is here on this list, and, like, competition, it is also a good thing. > 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). > So you're doing well. Good. However, I think there is a better way of announcing your success than for a company such as TUCOWS to endorse you as a source for getting domains that are being currently used. The service you provide, and your success rate is admirable, so let your numbers speak for themselves. The more I think about this, the more I'm opposed to it. I will read further and see if I can find any merit in it. So far, I do not. > 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. And having TUCOWS endorse you would make your investors very happy, I'm sure. (: Again, if I'm off base, please let me know. Thanks, Cindy P.S. > Connecting Registrars and their Customers to the Secondary Market in Domain > Names What is the Secondary Market? "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed." (Christopher Morley)
