Originally posted by Maggotman
Reality check moment.
1) As long as it is fresh in people's memories that these names were registered for pocket money people will resent and, refuse, to pay $500 plus.
2) If too many .us extensions are held by speculators this will seriously restrain their use, growth and value.
3) Established businesses already have their domain names. The main market for these names is business start-ups. This market is smaller than you think. Most start-ups are short of money and are often happy to make-up a business name.
4) Everyone wants a bargain. Either, a bargain in terms of not paying much or, a bargain in terms of paying a high price but getting a key to a new world of respectability, influence, etc. At the moment only .coms can provide this key.
Hi Maggotman Thanks for your post. You did raise some interesting points that I'd like to comment on. I'll address them each as per your numbers above.
1)Not only have I sold U.S. names at much higher prices than your $500 example, I've paid over $1k for many on the secondary market that I consider a bargain. Only newly registered names are registered for "pocket money" as you say. Most Tier1 "premium" names were taken in the land rush at great luck or substantial cost in capital, credit, time and effort, and significant strategy and timing. That includes the U.S. extension. Competing for these names required monitoring and pre-registrations at multiple registrars. (In my case at about 50 registrars) with either pre-reg fees of $5 to $10 each or the commitment of credit (to assure purchase) of the cost of registration (for two years each) plus interest. The math works something like this. 20 names at say an average of $20 per year times 50 registrars requires a credit commitment of say $40,000 plus interest. Add in pre-reg fees of say $7.50 (average) at maybe 20% of the registrars (10) and you have out of pocket fees of $75 per name before you even know if you got the name, totaling $1500. If you were lucky enough to get 45% of the 20 names (9), your cost would be around $175 per name plus interest costs, plus time and effort. If you paid someone to spend the mutlitude in days and hours to "catch" the name for you, the cost per name goes up significantly.
2) All my names were purchased for planned development. But the names held in the secondary market will gravitate to the end-user market eventually. The land rush was good for the extension to encourage purchase and establish interest.
3)I disagree. The main market (for U.S. names) is established businesses that either want a 1st or 2nd tier keyword to help them with SEO rather than a 5th or 6th tier .com. For example, Joestrucksonline.com may wish to have the one United States site for Trucks.US. If Joe wants it, Ford or Dodge may want it too, and at much higher prices.
4)I agree everyone wants a bargain. But if you're saying that the U.S. extension does not provide any respectablility or influence, I say your view is looking too much to the past and not to the future, and gaged only on the existing secondary market for .coms. In fact, respectablility is one of the key motives of interest in the extension (imho).
Bottom line is don't sell the U.S. and it's influence short.
