Re: [ga] PLEASE COMMENT: Suggested ALAC response to sTLD RFP

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

[My initial email, quoted below was a private email (off-list)....don't
become one of those people to whom private emails are considered
"public"...]

Anyhow, it would depend on the TLD in question. Off the cuff, a general
TLD like .info or .biz might be considered a success if:

1) It starts causing pricing pressure (or *any* pressure) on competing
TLDs (no sign of that; Verisign hasn't adjusted .com wholesale pricing
due to .info/biz).

2) Awareness amongst consumers. There are "Q ratings" used for
celebrities in the media. e.g. see:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/DailyNews/deepblue000826.html

What's the Q rating of .com, .net, .org vs .biz, .info, .museum, etc.?

3) How many domains are there out there with a .biz/.info address, for
which a .com is unregistered? Given a choice, does anyone really want
those TLDs? Or are they always 2nd best? How many sites are there where
the .com and .info or .biz are owned by the same company, and if so,
how many use the .biz/info as their primary domain?

4) How many "popular" sites use .biz/info? One "free" source is Alexa's
top 500:

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

I just checked the Global Top 500 (Ctrl-F, "find" is your friend) and
counted a total of exactly ZERO (0, nada, zilch) in the top 500.

If someone has a spare $1000 or $2500, they can get a larger list at:

http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/top_sites.html

(perhaps Alexa can be convinced to give a freebie version, for academic
research purposes; more Ben Edelman reports, lol)

Ranking.com provides similar data, free.

Using Alexa, as I write this, here's some relative rankings:

sex.com -- 1,353th most popular site (lower numbers are better)
sex.biz -- 278,131
sex.info -- 4.4 million

travel.com -- 18,422
travel.biz -- no data
travel.info -- no data

jokes.com -- 2,658
jokes.biz -- no data
jokes.info -- no data

health.com -- 30,045
health.biz -- no data
health.info -- no data

weather.com -- 55 (yes, one of the busiest sites on the web)
weather.biz -- no data
weather.info -- no data

Those are all off the cuff. I'd be open to consensus discussions over
what constitutes "success".

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/


--- L Gallegos <jandl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Define "success."  What are the criteria?
> 
> I've yet to see that done.
> 
> Leah
> 
> 
> On Thursday 28 August 2003 11:23 pm, you wrote:
> But, I'm free to be convinced that
> > any new TLDs are successful, given an objective metric.
> >
> 
>