For Sale Ca pump _n_dump

[ianccc]

I am seeing lots of CA's promoted in Print+Television, Yea………!
Most if not all of the names I am seeing are obscure high character count
domains to say the least.

So who is to blame for that!

My take on the CA:
- we speculators are doing a TERRIBLE JOB (me included) promoting to the media houses and decision makers of the available names.
- the majority of top-tier names being held by only a select few.
- the public’s perception that we will gouge/screw/extort them over price.
- we have not created URGENCY, yep there is no genuine need for the small entrepreneur to run out and get a CA domain name before they’re all gone.
- our elected leaders do not embrace the CA brand, on election signs I seen lot’s of candidates promoting the xxx.COM.
- and the #1 problem as I see it is CIRA bureaucracy for Joe Average to become a registrant and to push the most patient Canadian resident into a raging lunatic when trying to navigate the idiocy.

So what I am suggesting is this, we all say our new MANTRA

WE ARE ASLEEP NOMORE
WE WILL TAKE OUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL
WE WILL FORGET GOVERNMENT INABILITIES AND GO DIRECT TO THE MEDIA
WE WILL PUT THE 1,000,000 DOMAIN SOLD IN FRONT OF EVERY CANADIAN
BECAUSE WE ARE CANADIAN DOMAINERS

So this is my take, you now have the soapbox

~

 

[DOTCA]

Go Ian Go !!!! Very well said.. thanks for the inspiring thought to begin the day Ian.

 

[revolution1]

Agreed with your stance on the push and the difficulty to purchase/keep a dot ca. We have however what i think is a cctld that is being embraced however a little slower than you or i who have a vested interest in this extension would like. I think that if we give it time and hang on to our names/develop them dot ca will see its day within the next 2-3 years.

Regards,
Christian.

 

[ianccc]

I invited a newly elected Board member of CIRA to this thread, hopefully he will participate and instill confidence that YES CIRA does have a plan to promote our

MILESTONE 1,000.000

So what is your guess as to the 1,000,000 domain name
www.PamAndersonforPrimeMinister.ca

 

[Namefox]

?

 

[hugegrowth]

I'm pretty happy with the steady growth and use of .ca, I see/hear many .ca domains each day through radio, tv, internet, signs, etc. There won't be an overnight change, it is happening slowly every day. Remember we are only a population of 33 million with restrictions on who can buy .ca domains. In relation to how well .us has been adopted in the USA, we are doing much better.

It takes the big news stories, like the emall sale to Yellow Pages, to make the big steps in .ca awareness. Maybe we are lucky there isn't huge awareness yet because it still allows those of us in the know to reg more good names. The major buyers of .ca are still buying fresh names, so that is a positive sign. We all know that forecasts for internet use and online advertising are very positive, and this bodes well for all domains. It's hard to see any downside.

I still rarely hear anyone in my everyday activities talk about domain investing. I bet most people are still unaware of the investing side, and wouldn't even know how to go about registering a .com or .ca - what would be nice is if one day there was a reason why everyone had to have a domain name (like a phone number) due to some killer application or whatever. That would be nice.

For now, hold onto your best names, buy some and sell some, and watch as the .ca market grows over time.

 

[ianccc]

hugegrowth quote: Maybe we are lucky there isn't huge awareness yet because it still allows those of us in the know to reg more good names

Bingo - this is our major stumbling block, thanks for just in one sentence
summing up the problem.

keep everyone UnInformed till it suits us, go back and read the MANTRA

~

 

[hugegrowth]

I know it doesn't sound nice, but if you are a domainer still looking for new names to reg do you really want more competition? I bet most of us have a list of names we'd like to reg if we had a bigger budget, and not all those renewals to worry about every month.

 

[ianccc]

reg what? The TBR is a wealth of good names ? - agreed a winner ends up there once in awhile. Hand reg a winner for your company? - slim pickins

Joe Average is going to have to go to the Aftermarket to get what they want, why not pave the road instead of setting up roadblocks!

 

[hugegrowth]

Cira could make the process a little easier, but it's not that hard to figure out the way it is. We're not talking rocket science to reg a domain if you meet the requirements.

I'm all for .ca use by everyone Canadian, but I see it's already happening. I see .ca everywhere. If you see people using the .com it's because it was available, in most cases it's not. If the .com is available for the domain you want, you'd be foolish not to reg it, but probably smart as a Canadian business to reg the .ca too.

Many people still don't see the value of owning a good .com - look at the Dallas Cowboys fiasco over Cowboys.com - so this isn't just a .ca problem.

If anyone asked me about regging a name for Canadian activities, I'd say get the .com or the .ca, or both. I think they are the top two extensions to have for Canada. Sure you see a lot of bad, long, non-sense type .ca's used in advertising, but there are many reasons for that.

What are you exactly proposing that domainers do, in terms of time and effort?

 

[ianccc]

Hugegrowth Quote: What are you exactly proposing that domainers do, in terms of time and effort?

Setting a date to tip the scales from "protectionism to freeforall" and it should happen at the 1,000,001 domain, Need to make a big deal ot of the MILESTONE with the "Aftermarket Front and Center"

Telling the Public "We are the good guys" "We have the goods"
doing what is right for Canada and not ourselves will lead to better
profits in the long run

 

[DomainsInc]

lol yeah i hear some funny .ca's on the radio sometimes. kickatire.ca

 

[revolution1]

The major buyers of .ca are still buying fresh names, so that is a positive sign. We all know that forecasts for internet use and online advertising are very positive, and this bodes well for all domains. It's hard to see any downside...

For now, hold onto your best names, buy some and sell some, and watch as the .ca market grows over time.

I agree, it would be nice however to see some bigger sales. We know that they are going on, hell even i have purchased x, xxx in the aftermarket. When the 1 000 000 regs gets broken i think that we will see a quick jump to 1.5 mil and 2 mil, i am talking within a year after. So that being said, I guess it is still a good time to be acquiring i think i might do another 20-30 fresh regs. The reason the drop is so frustrating is b/c crap names get purchased for x,xxx and fresh regs stay untouched hell i gave a list of 10 quality dictionary words away and they are still not all regged yet. In the fresh reg section you see people listing there crap 2 and 3 word combos. I dunno but it really isn't hard to mine for names.

 

[hugegrowth]

keep everyone UnInformed till it suits us, go back and read the MANTRA

~

You could also turn it around and say "GET everyone informed so it suits us".

Keep the .ca profile low and keep buying - and benefit from market later when everyone catches on.

Spread the word about .ca's now and benefit sooner from the domains you already have.

doing what is right for Canada and not ourselves will lead to better profits in the long run

so it is about better profits for 'us'?

I'm all for a party when .ca regs hit 1,000,000

They already hit 1 Mil in Australia.

 

[revolution1]

Has anyone noticed the CIRA number of regs goes up and down quite ofter even on non drop days.??

 

[whitebark]

- we speculators are doing a TERRIBLE JOB (me included) promoting to the media houses and decision makers of the available names.
- the majority of top-tier names being held by only a select few.
- the public’s perception that we will gouge/screw/extort them over price.
- we have not created URGENCY, yep there is no genuine need for the small entrepreneur to run out and get a CA domain name before they’re all gone.
- our elected leaders do not embrace the CA brand, on election signs I seen lot’s of candidates promoting the xxx.COM.
- and the #1 problem as I see it is CIRA bureaucracy for Joe Average to become a registrant and to push the most patient Canadian resident into a raging lunatic when trying to navigate the idiocy.

I agree - most of the premium names are owned by the select few in .ca - but nothing can be done about it now. What's worse though is the vast majority of them are just parked. We are all guilty of that as well.

As for the government - every major party and even the minor ones all have their websites on .ca's. I can't remember seeing many if any at all, candidate websites being on anything but .ca - but that could just be my neck of the woods. (and me)

I think the air of urgency or lack of one is subjective. A good friend of mine is starting a new business. She said she tried typing away in a domain registrar domain find field looking for a domain name in .ca to suit her business but could not find one. This probably happens dozens and maybe hundreds of times a day. They probably just settle on what we would consider a substandard domain name because they can't find what they were looking for. She didn't know you could buy them in the aftermarket. If nobody tells you how would you know? I ended up getting her the ideal name via the tbr.(and paid a small fortune for it)

There are lots of positives though - most major multinationals doing business in Canada do so on a .ca. They advertise it in print, on radio and on TV every day. I even saw bowflex.ca on an infomercial last night. They didn't need to use a .ca but did because they know Canadians identify with it and in a way trust shopping on it.

And from the CBC: "Canadians are shopping online in record numbers and are on track to spend about $15.7 billion Cdn on goods and services, a new e-commerce study suggests." That's a tremendous number for only 32 million people! I know it makes me smile and more so, develop my .ca domains! k:

EDIT - forgot to add: If we want to pump and dump in the classic fashion we could emulate the mobi crowd. Flood the Internet with every single happening in .ca world. Every time you see a company on a .ca -start a thread. Everytime someone mentions .ca in the media - start a thread. A .ca is up for auction and it's a good one - start a thread. etc etc

 

[nametrader]

Roy your signature taught me a lesson to look around for savings

The points you mentioned and Ian mentioned are very true, I liked reading your views but one thing that all of us have to understand is as we are moving ahead and are in the open market we cannot complain or feel bad about all premium names are with select few. They've foreseen the market future and invested in them all we can do is negotiate, bargain and buy if a name we are looking for is on sale. This is never going to change and I guess is the only way. TBR list monitoring and back ordering is one way as you mentioned.

lastly there are many good .ca names still unregistered. May be we all can pool up and make a website where we can help Startups that are looking for nice .ca name for their business in form of advice. it will also help raise the awareness because we will put it in our signatures to begin with and later with team work we might help in many ways. Just a thought.

 

[DropWizard.com]

Many people still don't see the value of owning a good .com - look at the Dallas Cowboys fiasco over Cowboys.com

Thank god for the stupidity of Dallas :approve::approve:

 

[dcsun]

Personally I've been really impressed by the growth of the caTLD over the past year. The number of TV commercials I see now with a .ca at the end of it blows me away. As someone else mentioned, in many cases they are longer ones, but the effect is the same no matter what. Marketers and ad agencies are realizing the value of a short, memorable .ca over a longer, more confusing .com. And at the same time, consumers are being bombarded by advertising that uses .ca's, which can only help to strengthen the value of the caTLD as a whole.

.ca will never be anywhere near what .com is, and I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. I personally would rather be a big fish in the small pond than a small fish in the big pond, as the cheesy saying goes.

 

[nametrader]

.ca is Boooooming! I registered a short and sweet name that is Showcase related. I received an offer on that with in 3 days of registration from one of Canada's largest ad agency based in Toronto. They asked me for how much I would sell it for, I said I am looking for BIG AMOUNT, they replied that their client doesn't have big budget I said OK thank you and bye