The MediaWizard’s Blog | mwzd.com

ICANN’s Paris conference has thrown up some interesting ideas and questions, chief among them has been the possibility of introducing thousands of new TLDs on a pay and play basis. This BBC News Story has the crux of the issue.

What they’re essentially saying is that anyone willing to fork out between $39,000 - $390,000 for a TLD could possibly buy their own! What this means is that if I had the money and the inclination - I could buy and promote .mwzd (not really, merely an example ) and Coke could get .coke and Ebay could get .ebay, ad nauseam.

My first reaction was probably what every developer thinks - “Wow, thats great! it will future proof the web for a trillion trillion trillion names, just like iPv6 is doing versus iPv4. You want a good domain name, get it in one of the new TLDs instead of springing millions for an aftermarket name.”

But when you see this from a domainers perspective - its a clarion call. Would domain values tumble? Will all extensions become worthless? What will happen to parking income? Who would buy our precious names? Will the aftermarket crash? What will we do? I’ll try and answer these questions based on my knowledge and experience.

1. Would domain values tumble?

Not that I can see, when there are too many players in any field, the 80:20 rule comes into effect. In advertising and marketing one of the first things you learn is the 80:20 rule - 20% of your clients will generate 80% of your business and vice versa. For your clients - 20% of their brands will generate 80% of their turnover, and vice versa. For the average individual - 20% of his investments will give 80% of the returns and vice versa.

That is why people try to get into the top 20% for any field - those are the guys who make 80% of the revenue, quite simple. Once in this league the company’s aim is to raise the bar so high that most people wouldn’t think of entering the field without substantial funding and experience, but then thats another blog post.

Which essentially means established TLDs will continue to do well in the near future… say for the next few generations at least. Till this generation and probably the next will have come and gone.

2. Will all extensions become worthless?

No. Simply launching a new extension does not guarantee success, much like launching a new brand of soap does not guarantee sales. After all brand value does count, a whole lot, thats what domainers have been saying all along. .Travel only increased the value of Travel.com or even Travel.mobi - why would it be otherwise?

.Com still has the most recall and probably will for the forseeable future, too many people have invested too much money in it for it to be otherwise. Likewise any other existing TLDs that have substantial development. All the other TLDs launched for the next 50 years, combined, probably would not match the investments various stakeholders have put into existing TLDs - its just simple economics really.

People will tell you ‘Oh, if thousands of TLDs are launched, .com will go up and .mobi will go down” - this is nothing but hogwash, it is best taken with pinch of salt. If .com continues to go up due to a global acceptance, so will the ccTLDs and other gTLDs like .mobi, .pro and even .travel over a brand new TLD.

3. What will happen to parking income?

Aside from the fact that parking income is its at its lowest and the smart money is already moving to development, parking as we know it is going to morph into instant development platforms.

Companies like WhyPark, GridParking, EVO, and even BANS are already showing the path forward, not to mention 100,000s of ‘white label affiliate sites’ floating around the internet. Even existing parking companies have realised content is king, without which you can just about kiss your long term traffic goodbye. Parked has a method to add content, Bodis does too… eventually all the others will as well.

4. Who would buy our domain names?

Domains are like real estate. Only the biggest players even bother owning their own. Restaurants lease the space because they make more money from selling food. The landlord rents it out because he makes more from multiple properties. Microsoft has its own facilities because it needs it due to the thousands of local employees who will permanently be located there.

The simile here is that while some people will launch their own TLDs as a viable business, an end user would always prefer a good domain in a known extension. He wants to make money from his venture, his primary motive will never be to popularise the TLD itself.

Its relatively easier to become a Domain Name Registrar today, however currently ICANN only lists about 944 Accredited Registrars. Not every domain owner or even portfolio holder is interested, or able to, launch their own registrar inspite of the fact that some companies hold hundreds of thousands of domain names.

5. Will the aftermarket crash?

Because of reasons outlined above, not at all. In fact I’ll go the other extreme and say - the aftermarket is going to be thriving like never before. Volumes and price points will continue to rise for those extensions that have already carved a niche for themselves in the popular mindscape.

Plus the aftermarket will grow exponentially in sheer numbers - more TLDs means more sales, maybe not in the short term, but eventually, as more and more of the ever increasing six plus billion inhabitants of the planet come online.

6. What will we do?

If you’re not developing, you’re already missing the boat. I would use “dead in the water” as a long term perspective of your portfolio. All the big guys have been saying this for the longest of times. They have also been busy going about doing exactly that with their portfolios. It not only generates a higher return short term, it also enhances the value of domains themselves.

I recently gave an interview to James Murphy for LonelyDesigns.

If you want a little in-depth info on who I am and what I do, do take a minute and read it.

The Interview for LD

Rick Latona has written a great series of articles on his site entitled “What makes a domain name sellable“. Its a very interesting, straightforward insight into the mind of one of the most successful domain sellers out there. His approach is hard core business minded which is perfect for this trade, which can lead people astray at times.

It’s a four part article that lays it out -

Part 1 -

I have one question that I ask myself that is more important to me than any other question. What sort of website would be put on the name? When buyers buy a name from me, more often than not they want the name because they have some sort of vision for it. What’s the obvious vision?

1. What’s the brand value of the domain, as in, would you start a business based on that name?

Part 2 -

It isn’t easy to appraise a domain. When someone asks me if I want to buy a name, I often reply simply with “I’ll pass”. Inevitably, they’ll send me back an email asking my why I’m passing. Well, that’s an impossible question to answer.
…
Perhaps you can compare it to “curb appeal” in the real estate world. Some houses just show better than others. How does your domain look from the curb?

2. Does it have recall value? Does it have appeal. Can you brand it to make it extra special?

Part 3 -

Does it have legs?

3. Well, does it? :p Possibilities is whats being discussed here. Keeping in key with my own thoughts mentioned in The LLLL.com Conundrum

Part 4 -

Revenue, makes a domain sellable but tread carefully or you can get burned. For the buyers I have this one strong piece of advice. Unless the name has other intrinsic qualities i.e., has legs or is some obvious category killer, you can lose your ass.

4. Revenue is important, but is it realistic or just a smoke and mirrors short term play… thats the crunch factor.

All in all, well worth a read.

I’ve been watching the LLLL.com or four letter .com scenario, fairly closely, for the longest of times. I started using DomainTools (or whois.sc as it was known then) to harvest these lists for a while in 2006. In fact, thats what got me interested in domaining in the first place. Well that and the fact that our programs were churning out domains that were nice seo-wise but terrible viz brand value, but thats another story.

In the beginning, around middle of 2006, there were hundreds of LLLL.com available for hand regs, even then though, single words were gone, so were popular acronyms and even major country code + LL. You could still find gems but you didn’t see them as that then. I got a few time and again, some for projects, some for putting turnkey sites on to resell and some for a private collection. They were short, easy to remember and .com, sold pretty well with ready-to-go sites even then.

Towards the end of 2007 there was a rush of registrations, now people might argue here that monthly regs were only slightly higher, but fact of the matter is that they were going… fast. Sites came up with countdowns - most have since been turned into parked pages. There was a general rush of registering these, even the worst ones, since nobody wanted to ‘miss the gravy train’.

To be honest, the price hike at the beginning of 2008 took me completely by surprise and I dumped almost all my 4Ls then for $35-$300 each. People jumped head first into short domains, prices went ballistic. Propagators of this philosophy became the new messiahs (A few are in my blog roll* - Michael Goldman, Reece Berg, Richard, Yofie and Italian Dragon). Every word they spoke was treated as god’s own truth. Partially they were right. If you bought a crappy 4L.com in oct 2007 for $7, or reg fee as its popularly called, you could easily ‘flip’ them for $30 or so in bulk. Which basically meant you quadrupled your investment value in 4 months or so, unbelievable returns as any investment manager will tell you. [*Edit-k, I messed up here, forgot a few important names - which I've added now, very embarrassing, apologies to MG & Y]

Prices continued to rise, soaring to $60 ‘for the worst ones’ on any forum or sales venue till the middle of feb ‘08. Then came the pause, it sent prices for the worst ones came crashing down to more logical levels and those for the best ones went through the roof. This is where the conundrum actually comes in… What really makes a 4letter .com valuable? Why have the prices suddenly gone ballistic? Why are priced dropping in the reseller market? A lot has been said about this by various people, I’ll give you my take.

Short domain values are based on applicability. What is or is not premium is directly related to the applicability of that particular domain to a function, the more the applicability the higher the value. Domainers on the other hand love to talk about premium letters.

What are and what are not premium letters are not subject to random statistics or studies. A company using that particular combination of letters will find that domain premium, regardless of what domainers think.

This of course does not take into account pronounceable names - these are more valuable as brands as they can be easily branded and promoted. Thats why premium cvcv’s have gone through the roof. If a domain sounds cool and is brandable (eg. xegg.com), it has great value, specially with new companies and brands being launched everyday.

So a domain that might be valuable for one end user might not be for another and vice versa. They are not going to make any new ones, the ones that are there are getting scarcer and scarcer as they slip into large portfolio holders’ hands. The worst ones might be dipping in value now, but eventually even they will be worth something to someone.

Some users emailed me of late to tell me how to monetize my blog and become even more popular. One even had the temerity to tell me that my blog was probably bad since adsense accepts even noobs’ blogs.

Thanks, but no thanks.

And its not coz I don’t know what to do. I do know how to monetize sites, do it for a living in fact. And have successfully launched a few hundred sites for various companies worldwide. Consider this fair warning, spam me with blog ads at your own peril.

But I don’t want ads on this blog.

Not because I can’t get adsense or TLA or whatever latest blog widget is introduced to up traffic and click throughs but basically because this is my personal space online.

I want it to be clutter free and a destination site for the 5 people who are interested and not another click gateway for the thousands (or is it millions now) clicking aimlessly from one site to the other. Its here for people who read and gain value, however little, not for making me a buck - have enough commercial sites for that.

I have no billboards in my bedroom either, in case you’re wondering.

I make no claim to writing this article or any part thereof. This post was found as a reply to a question on Yahoo! Answers. The ‘I’ mentioned in the article below is a a a who has actually written the post. To read the complete question and answer session please visit the following URL - http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070325065725AAH1eY4

This however, for me, makes riveting reading. As convincing an argument as I’ve ever heard against gun control in India. And an insightful commentary to how the Indian political setup views the average population. However, do keep in mind that, in India, states with a high proliferation of guns are quite violent and backward. On a lighter note - removing gun control restrictions could ease the population problem considerably!

So read on my dear friend, leave your comments on it if you would like to make relevant observations about politics, politicians, guns, freedom, right to self defense, etc.

=====================

Colonial Roots of Gun-Control
I live in India and I am a proud firearm owner - but I am the exception not the norm, an odd situation in a country with a proud martial heritage and a long history of firearm innovation. This is not because the people of India are averse to gun ownership, but instead due to Draconian anti-gun legislation going back to colonial times.

To trace the roots of India’s anti-gun legislation we need to step back to the latter half of the 19th century. The British had recently fought off a major Indian rebellion (the mutiny of 1857) and were busy putting in place measures to ensure that the events of 1857 were never repeated. These measures included a major restructuring of administration and the colonial British Indian Army along with improvements in communications and transportation. Meanwhile the Indian masses were systematically being disarmed and the means of local firearm production destroyed, to ensure that they (the Indian masses) would never again have the means to rise in rebellion against their colonial masters. Towards this end the colonial government, under Lord Lytton as Viceroy (1874 -1880), brought into existence the Indian Arms Act, 1878 (11 of 1878); an act which, exempted Europeans and ensured that no Indian could possess a weapon of any description unless the British masters considered him a “loyal” subject of the British Empire.

An example of British thinking in colonial times:
“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.” –James Burgh (Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses) [London, 1774-1775]

And thoughts (on this subject) of the man who wanted to rule the world:
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.” — Adolf Hitler (H.R. Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s Table Talks 1941-1944)

The leaders of our freedom struggle recognised this, even Gandhi, the foremost practitioner of passive resistance and non-violence, had this to say about the British policy of gun-control in India:

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” — Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth, by M.K. Gandhi, p.238)

Post Independence
India became independent in 1947, but it still took 12 years before this act was finally repealed. In 1959 the British era Indian Arms Act, 1878 (11 of 1878.) was finally consigned to history and a new act, the Arms Act, 1959 was enacted. This was later supplemented by the Arms Rules, 1962. Unfortunately this new legislation was also formulated based on the Indian Government’s innate distrust its own citizens. Though somewhat better than the British act, this legislation gave vast arbitrary powers to the “Licensing Authorities”, in effect ensuring that it is often difficult and sometimes impossible for an ordinary law abiding Indian citizen to procure an arms license.

“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.” — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Also the policy of throttling private arms manufacturing was continued even after independence. Limits on the quantity and type of arms that could be produced by private manufacturers were placed - ensuring that the industry could never hope to be globally competitive and was instead consigned to producing cheap shotguns, of mostly indifferent quality, in small quantities. A citizen wishing to purchase a decent firearm depended solely on imports, which were a bit more expensive but vastly superior in quality.

More Recently
This changed towards the mid to late 1980s, when the Government, citing domestic insurgency as the reason, put a complete stop to all small arms imports. The fact that there is no documented evidence of any terrorists ever having used licensed weapons to commit an act of terror on Indian soil seems to be of no consequence to our Government. The prices of (legal & licensed) imported weapons have been on an upward spiral ever since - beating the share market and gold in terms of pure return on investment. Even the shoddy domestically produced guns suddenly seem to have found a market. Also since the Government now had a near monopoly on (even half-way decent) arms & ammunition for the civilian market, they started turning the screws by pricing their crude public sector products (ammunition, rifles, shotguns & small quantities of handguns) at ridiculously high rates - products that frankly, given a choice no one would ever purchase.

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” — George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984, himself a socialist
Why Citizens Need to be Armed

Curtailing gun ownership, to curb violent crime, through denying licenses or making legal arms & ammunition ridiculously expensive is based on flawed reasoning. The fact is that licensed firearms are found to be used in a statistically insignificant number of violent crimes, motorcycles & cars are far more dangerous. The certainty that a potential victim is unarmed is an encouragement to armed criminals. Less guns, more crime. Most violent crimes involving firearms are committed using untraceable illegal guns. Terrorists or the mafia are not going to be deterred by gun-control laws, they will be willing and able to procure arms of their choice and use them to commit crimes irrespective of any laws. Ironically in India it is cheaper (by several times) to buy the same gun in the black market than it is to buy it legally!

“Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I’m a bad guy, I’m always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You’ll pull the trigger with a lock on, and I’ll pull the trigger. We’ll see who wins.” — Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, Mafia hit man

“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside…Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them…” — Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War in 1775

And from the world’s gentlest human being:
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” — The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times) speaking at the “Educating Heart Summit” in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate

It is, of course, no coincidence that the right to have guns is one of the earlier freedoms outlined in U.S.A.’s Bill of Rights. Without guns in the hands of the people, all the other freedoms are easily negated by the State. If you disagree with that statement, ask yourself if the Nazis could have gassed millions of Jews, had the Jews been armed with rifles and pistols–there weren’t enough SS troops to do the job. Lest we forget, in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1944, a couple of hundred Jews armed with rifles and homemade explosive devices held off two fully-equipped German divisions (actually about 8,000 men) for nearly two months.

Closer home take the case of the Godhra carnage and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. Would wanton mobs have slaughtered so many innocent people with such disregard to consequences if their potential victims had been armed and ready to defend themselves? A serious consideration should be given to an armed civilian population as a solution to religious and racial riots as well as other crimes. Since all criminals are instinctively driven by self-preservation allowing legal ownership of firearms by law abiding citizens would act as a serious deterrent. This will make sure that if the Govt. fails to do its duty to protect the life and liberty of its citizens (as it has so often done in India’s recent past), citizens will be able to protect themselves. I’ll take some potential objections and try to answer them:

Arguments & Counter-Arguments
Q1. Won’t legal owners of arms use the firearms to kill and murder others?
Ans. When a man holds a rifle, he becomes almost godlike: suddenly, he has the ability to deal death and injury to another over a considerable distance–to send, as it were, a thunderbolt of Zeus. For some men, unquestionably, this power is going to be abused, just as some men will always drive a fast car at reckless speeds. For the vast majority of men, however, this power produces precisely the opposite effect: they are humbled by the power they hold, and they become more responsible in its use. That is why, in a nation like the United States with well over seventy million gun owners, only a tiny fraction, less than half a tenth of one percent, use a gun to commit a crime each year. Also since the firearms would be registered with the Govt. along with the owners address, the type of the firearm, its serial number etc. Those (the criminals) who want to commit crimes will not and DO NOT bother to purchase firearms legally and register them. They can and do buy them from the black market (at a fraction of the cost of a legal firearm, I might add). Legal ownership will allow law abiding citizens to protect their and others life and property.

Q2. Won’t there be a free for all during riots?
Ans. By definition riots ARE free for all. However, very few people will participate in riots knowing that a large number of law abiding citizens own firearms in the area. This will actually prevent riots. Riots are mostly started by miscreants (unscrupulous politicians?) who want to benefit from the chaos of riots. However, the risk (loss of life or limb) for the miscreant in starting and/ or participating in such riots, when a large number of the general civilian population owns legal firearms, is significant. Therefore in most cases miscreants will not dare to start riots in the first place.

Q3. What about domestic violence and firearms?
Ans. Domestic violence has nothing to do with firearm ownership. Firearms are merely a tool — not the cause of violence, to quote a famous NRA slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Women in India face domestic violence even today with very limited legal gun ownership. If anything, legal firearms in the hands of women might help even the odds — by removing the physical weakness of women from the equation.

Q4. What about accidents?
Ans. More people in India get killed in automobile accidents than firearm accidents. In countries where gun ownership rates are high like the United States (which has a firearm to population ratio of approx 96:100, i.e., almost 1 firearm for every man woman & child), Switzerland, New Zealand etc. several times more people die in road accidents than from firearm accidents. Firearm accidents can be further minimised by making a gun-safety course mandatory before a permit is issued - so long as this is not used as another excuse to delay or deny permits.

Q5. What about firearm assisted suicides?
Ans. A suicidal person has many different available ways to end his/ her life. Firearms are just another means for him/ her. Statistically suicide rates have little correlation with firearm ownership patterns. Many countries with strict anti-gun legislation have high suicide rates and vice versa.

Q6. Are there any working systems and what are the results?
Ans. Yes, for example in U.S.A., Switzerland, New Zealand. One must note here that different states in US have different degrees of gun ownership and firearm restrictions. Interestingly the states with more restrictions on gun ownerships have a higher crime rate than those that are less restrictive.

I do not condone violence or a violent solution to problems, but there can be no justification for not letting people be prepared to defend their own and their families’ lives and property. When one is surrounded by mobs bent on setting you on fire and the like, in a country where policing is non-existent, owning firearms by people will have a great deterrent effect on mobs. Of course, if I could sue the police for not giving me complete protection, then I might feel differently (but don’t count on it). But by law the State cannot be at fault for not protecting its citizens — so if the cops take 25 minutes (or several hours) to respond to your call, and in those 25 minutes a criminal kicks open your door, shoots you and your wife, rapes your 11-year-old daughter, and beats your baby to death, that’s just tough luck. What about incidents like 1984 and Godhra, where the local administration and police wilfully neglected their duty to protect the citizens of this country?

Please also read the entertaining Parable of the Sheep for an explanation so simple that even a child can understand it.

As the Indian Law stands today a citizen of this country cannot even own a stick without inviting a penalty of 7 years in prison. We live in a country where we have still not cast off the yoke of antiquated laws made by our colonial masters to keep us oppressed and at the mercy of the government, notwithstanding the lofty vision of the first page of our constitution.

Harping on the few who unfortunately misuse firearms unfairly ignores those millions of us spread all over the world who own and use them responsibly. Dreaming romantically about a world where everything has been made perfectly safe “for the children” is just that, dreaming. I’ve tried visualising world peace until I’m about ready to have an out of body experience, but as soon as I open my eyes, they’re bombing civilians in the North East or gunning down innocents in Kashmir. Welcome to the real world.

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”– Patrick Henry

- Answer to a question on guns in India by a a a here : http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070325065725AAH1eY4