Hello, --- Chuck Hatcher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > money for nothing. It is inevitable that the secondary market will > become > legitimized, and that more efficient methods of distribution than we > have at > present will become available. This will surely benefit everyone > involved.
Afternic folded (domain name was sold to NameBuySell.com). Verisign has been unsuccessful with GreatDomains, and is shutting it down in a month. Verisign also tried selling domains on eBay (on their own account, i.e. for "premium" .cc, etc.) -- that failed too. Now they think they have a 'winner' in their "Domain Store"? Perhaps, but: 1) there are listing fees for inclusion -- it's not free! 2) who knows how many "impressions" one is getting for that listing fee? 3) it's a fixed price listing. If you want to sell at $500, and the buyer would pay $300, there's no negotiation mechanism. Most sophisticated buyers would use the WHOIS database to directly contact the buyers, and negotiate a price, bypassing the entire "Domain Store". If the names are valuable, they'd transfer and settle via Escrow.com, and don't need or desire Verisign's participation and "tax" on the sale (they don't list what their take from a transaction is, either, or what happens if there's a chargeback, or other bad outcome...). If the Domain Store does flourish, OpenSRS can always rethink their decision, but right now it's probably best to wait and see. Verisign seems to want to force features into the registry (Domain Store, WLS) that truly don't belong there, as an abuse of their monopoly....registrars would be shooting themselves in the foot if they allow such "feature-creep" to go on, at their expense. If OpenSRS did want to "experiment" with things, one thing they might try is special promotion pricing for transfers into OpenSRS (other registrars have been doing that). E.g. $7/yr or something. offer it say for a week or two, and see what happens (i.e. whether the extra volume is worth the temporary decrease). Over the long run, it might make more money, with renewals at $10/yr for those additional transferred-in domains. Sincerely, George Kirikos http://www.kirikos.com/
