3 ms·

It's expensive to squat though, isn't it? I read somewhere that just the application fee is 150,000 USD. Wonder if they will really recover that kind of spend.

It's expensive to squat though, isn't it? I read somewhere that just the application fee is 150,000 USD. Wonder if they will really recover that kind of spend. Interesting to see a few TLD's in Chinese, Japanese, even Arabic and Hindi.

brownbat 12y ago
I thought it was even more, $185,000? Winners of the auctions compensate the losers, so it may be possible to game the bidding and lose several auctions, then buy some domains for almost nothing out of pocket. But I'm not sure if payouts from lost auctions can be used to reduce the entry fees... it's probably still a pretty controlled game. http://icannwiki.com/index.php/GTLD_Auctions http://icannwiki.com/index.php/GTLD_Auctions
Narkov 12y ago
$150k isn't really that expensive. I know it is simple math but I think it would be pretty easy to find 1,500 companies from around the world that would pay $100/year for a domain. Change that 1,500 one order of magnitude and there's a lot of profit to be made. 15k registrations wouldn't be that hard.
- larrys 12y ago
  "I know it is simple math but I think it would be pretty easy to find 1,500 companies" Not really true (I'm in this business for a long long time). First you'd have to market to a much larger pool of companies to end up with 1500 buyers (I'll take your math to be correct for the purpose of my comment by the way..) To market to those companies will cost big dollars. How are you going to do it? Direct mail? Web ads? Pay per click? In order to sell TLD's you have to be in the path of existing registrars that control the market. One of those of course is godaddy for example. Not easy to get shelf space there.
  - petercooper 12y ago
    You got me thinking.. what about Kickstarter? For example, let's say we wanted .hacker. Someone with some rep in our community could start a Kickstarter to do this, no?
    - icebraining 12y ago
      If they deny your application, people will probably get pissed about losing their money, though (the $185k are non-refundable).
      - petercooper 12y ago
        Ah, that sucks. I thought I read elsewhere on this thread about losers being "compensated." That said, if it was just $10-20, I'd be up for contributing to such a Kickstarter even with the proviso it might not work out. Getting 15,000+ people to feel the same might well be difficult though..
        icebraining 12y ago
        It's not just the one time fee, though, I believe you must demonstrate financial viability to keep it running.

brownbat 12y ago

I thought it was even more, $185,000? Winners of the auctions compensate the losers, so it may be possible to game the bidding and lose several auctions, then buy some domains for almost nothing out of pocket. But I'm not sure if payouts from lost auctions can be used to reduce the entry fees... it's probably still a pretty controlled game. http://icannwiki.com/index.php/GTLD_Auctions http://icannwiki.com/index.php/GTLD_Auctions

Narkov 12y ago

$150k isn't really that expensive. I know it is simple math but I think it would be pretty easy to find 1,500 companies from around the world that would pay $100/year for a domain. Change that 1,500 one order of magnitude and there's a lot of profit to be made. 15k registrations wouldn't be that hard.

larrys 12y ago
"I know it is simple math but I think it would be pretty easy to find 1,500 companies" Not really true (I'm in this business for a long long time). First you'd have to market to a much larger pool of companies to end up with 1500 buyers (I'll take your math to be correct for the purpose of my comment by the way..) To market to those companies will cost big dollars. How are you going to do it? Direct mail? Web ads? Pay per click? In order to sell TLD's you have to be in the path of existing registrars that control the market. One of those of course is godaddy for example. Not easy to get shelf space there.
- petercooper 12y ago
  You got me thinking.. what about Kickstarter? For example, let's say we wanted .hacker. Someone with some rep in our community could start a Kickstarter to do this, no?
  - icebraining 12y ago
    If they deny your application, people will probably get pissed about losing their money, though (the $185k are non-refundable).
    - petercooper 12y ago
      Ah, that sucks. I thought I read elsewhere on this thread about losers being "compensated." That said, if it was just $10-20, I'd be up for contributing to such a Kickstarter even with the proviso it might not work out. Getting 15,000+ people to feel the same might well be difficult though..
      - icebraining 12y ago
        It's not just the one time fee, though, I believe you must demonstrate financial viability to keep it running.