Happy Birthday Australia – .com.au Market Turns One!
June 2, 1 Comment
Its been a year since auDA changed the rules to allow people to buy and sell Australian domains names.
So, what’s happened since then? My friends at Netfleet clocked up 30,000 domains, 1,500 offers and 105 transactions. Not bad when 99.9% of the population doesn’t understand the basic concept that you can buy/sell these things.
Just to put the icing on the cake; this week mortgage.net.au apparently sold for $13,500! I nearly fell off my chair when I read this – FOR A .NET.AU ? What the? Others include jeweller.com.au for $14,767 and freestuff.com.au for $18,700.
So, at least we are off to a start. It certainly wasn’t the big bang that people said it would be. Why am I not surprised? Despite being an Aussie, I personally haven’t been a fan of the .com.au namespace, but I am warming up to it….
Of course things would be better if the Australian government changed the backward, dysfunctional, judge, jury and executioner, “regulator” who is continuously in the media for all the wrong reasons, making Australia a complete joke on the world stage. Here are a few quotes from recent articles:
“Cheyne Jonstone, of Cove Business Technology, has also called on Senator Conroy to sort out the mess….Senator Stephen Conroy needs to act now and act quickly. The government appointed this body to implement policy and regulate the .au domain name space, but their actions of late demonstrate that they are failing to do that adequately, or more importantly, the actions of their CEO, Chris Disspain.”
“Larry Bloch, CEO and co-founder of Netregistry says Chris Disspain of auDA has acted as judge, jury and executioner by cancelling Bottle Domains’ accreditation so suddenly, here he talks to CRN about how this action is now proving to be grossly negligent.”
“auDA chief Chris Disspain gave iTnews a categoric “no” when asked if the regulator would consider settling the case before it goes to trial on 24th June….. He also said the regulator had a strong enough cash position – some $4.3 million in reserves – to back up a further unfavourable ruling from the Victorian Supreme Court.”
Should auDA exist in its current form? Should there be protests at ICANN’s 35th meeting in Sydney this month, calling for the Australian government to step in, use their reserve powers in relation to domain names (under the Telecommunications Act 1997) and remove auDA? Perhaps transfer it to ACMA or another body, with more experience, that’s truly representative of the industry.
Post and let me know what you think.
Aussie Registrar Partners With Auction Site = A New Force In The Domaining Industry
December 29, No Comments
This one is hot off the press and will be of interest to all those Aussies in the .au space, as well as those wanting to diversify their portfolio. Both Netfleet (new .au marketplace) and Netregistry have formed a joint venture. Here’s what they bring to the table:
- Netfleet reports that it has 7,500 quality domain names and has sold more than $40k of domains in the few months its been operational. That’s quite good for a new site – especially in the .au space.
- Netregistry has a customer base of 250,000 businesses. Its privately owned and has 80 full-time staff including developers, engineers, service and support specialists.
CEO of Netregistry, Larry Bloch made an interesting comment that resonated with me – “most people do not even realise that domain names are now tradeable assets so it’s a question of creating the industry as well as satisfying the demand.”
The other comment that reflected both the infancy of the industry and the opportunity, was made by David Lye, GM at NetFleet “its not enough to have hundreds of thousands of listings, but we also need to have a steady stream of transactions which will in turn help the market find a footing.” Its good to see some real business logic being applied to the domaining industry.
If you haven’t checked out the Netfleet marketplace, go over and take a look.
