Hi all,
Elliot Noss suggested I begin a thread on the discuss list regarding
RealNames. Before I do, let me disclose that I am the founder of the company
and I have the goal of finding out more about how we might work with the
TUCOWS channel to help you service your customers in a manner where
RealNames, TUCOWS and the TUCOWS resellers all make money.
I guess my main goal is to clarify the best way forward so I'll start with a
few facts and then ask some questions. Then I'll wait to hear feedback.
So.... some facts:
1. The RealNames system is a naming system for URL's. It allows natural
language names - in any language or script - to be aliased to any URL. This
allows the natural language name to be typed into a browser and for the user
to go directly to a web page. 2. The primary customers for the names
typically buy several names for a single web site. An example might be
Toyota buying "Toyota Camry"; "Toyota Corolla" etc for its web site. The
URL's for those products would typically be several slashes deep on
Toyota.com. 3. Like the original DNS, RealNames has architected the system
to be country-specific. There are therefore no "global" names. The only way
to be global is to buy each country in a bundle.
2. RealNames has 3 products aimed at different customers.
(a) Basic Keywords. This product has a typical street price of $50
per year per country. RealNames has used search log file analysis to
identify almost 100m terms that qualify as Basic Keywords. They have in
common a low number of searches per month on search engines and are sold on
a first come first served basis. There is a dispute policy run by WIPO for
ownership conflicts. The typical reseller price would be between $30-35, so
the margin is about 30-40%, based on volume discounts.
(b) Keywords Plus. This product contains about 1.5m known terms and
is largely made up of well known brands, company names, product names,
people, books, movies etc. These names are not first come first served. Due
to the high incidence of searches against them in the search log files they
are assumed to be more valuable terms with IP concerns that need to be
addressed before sale. RealNames has therefore put in place what can be seen
as a permanent sunrise period for these names. Human Beings approve an
application and will only give the name to the appropriate owner. Generic
terms are not allowed as Keywords Plus unless they are well branded and the
brand has a higher user expectation than the generic term. An example would
be Amazon. The approval policy is typically run by the Keyword registry for
the country in question. Decisions can be overruled by WIPO if a KDRP
dispute is triggered. Keywords Plus are typically $500 per country per year.
The reseller price is typically $300 - 350 based on volume. Margins are
between 30-40%.
(c) Typical sales breakdown between these products is 15% KW Plus;
85% Basic Keywords. One registrar that has implemented the RealNames API in
an integrated way - so that domain name customers are offered Keywords in
the list of available names - is seeing a 12% take-up rate among new buyers.
(d) Keyword Name Spaces are a third product. This is aimed at the
largest customers. It consists of a prefix, dedicated to the customer, on a
country basis. An example is "NASDAQ ticker" where any stock ticker can be
typed after the prefix NASDAQ. A stock quote is returned instantly. NASDAQ
is the customer in this example. Think of this as similar to a gTLD
purchase, except it takes the form of a prefix rather than a dot delimited
suffix. RealNames already has several customers for this. The prefix cannot
be a generic term. The typical street price is $70,000 per country per year.
There is a first year $80,000 engineering fee. The reseller price is between
$40,000 and $50,000 depending on volume. Margins are lower but absolute
amounts are high.
Some other examples of Keyword Name Spaces are "rfc rfcnumber";
"eBay anything"; "FedEx trackingnumber"; mskb MicrosoftKnowledegBaseNumber".
In each case the second term is a variable. You can try them in your IE
browser.
(e) All products are sold by the reseller to its customer, and
renewals are processed by the reseller for continued annual revenues.
3. Keywords are beginning to show signs of mass adoption and acceptance:
(a) In February 2002 there were 170m resolutions of Keywords. This
points to a Q1 total of over 450m. These successful resolutions are unlikely
to represent more than 5% of the attempts by users to type Keywords into
their browser. The other 95% of the time the Keyword has not yet been sold
so the user gets a search result instead of a Keyword resolution.
(b) RealNames had no registrars at the beginning of 2001. It now has
51. These registrars account for more than 60% of sales now - and that is a
rapidly growing percentage. To date more than 1.1 million Keywords have been
sold.
(c) VeriSign has built Keyword Sales into the VGRS and made it
available through EPP. 31 additional registrars have signed up to sell
Keywords through this channel.
(d) RealNames has entered the Media Metrix top 50 in the mid-30's
with almost 10m unique users a month on realnames.com - a name sales site
for our own registrar. The actual number of unique users of Keywords is
likely to be many times higher than that. No other name sales site is in the
list - including VeriSign.
(e) At its Accra conference ICANN made 2.5 hours available for a
discussion of "Higher level naming systems, Keywords and other non-DNS
identifiers". RealNames played a major role, along with John Klensin of the
IETF, and CNNIC of China, in the presentations.
I'll leave the facts there for now. I'd be happy to answer question to the
list also.
So here is my question. Does the TUCOWS channel feel that there would be a
market for Keywords now?
If so, would you rather TUCOWS built Keywords into OpenSRS or would you like
to deal directly with RealNames and its API's?
How would you rate the prioritization of Keywords over, say, another gTLD,
in terms of the likely sales potential?
I guess that is about it. I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Best Regards
Keith Teare
CEO/Founder
RealNames Corporation
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Keyword: The Big Wazoo
