.NAME at a Crossroads

An anonymous reader writes "It seems the .NAME registry is at a crossroads. They say that things are going far from well, and so they have started their own registrar that is going to try to market .NAME domains to individuals, unlike all other registrars. If they don't manage, this will be the first gTLD to go bankrupt. I guess that will put a damper on any plans to introduce more new TLDs."

Comments

Re:Who wants anything but .com?

[LordWoody]

Me. Some of us still follow the distinction that the original tlds had (.edu for schools, .com for commercial, .net for networks, ISPs, etc..., .org for organizations such as community orgs, non-profits, etc..., and so forth).

While I think the whole tld was a terrible idea applied in an even worse fashion, I still register my domains based on what general tld they best fit. I have no interest in leading people to believe that our LUG is a commercial interest or that my business is some community group or non-profit. Although I am not above availing myself of the .us tld if that is the only non-misleading tld left for a given name.

With the advent of search engines like Google, the whole "what cool FQDN is your site?" is becoming irrelevant anyway.

A BIG warning

[Gudlyf]

I signed up for a .NAME domain, stupidly through Network Solutions, for a fairly high price. This was because other registries such as Go Daddy weren't registering domains under .NAME at the time (I hear they do now). I was being all hasty about things, and decided to nab my .NAME ASAP with NetSol.

The price NetSol charges, like with anything else, is outrageous, but that's not the worst of it. When I tried to have the domain transferred to Go Daddy (much, much cheaper), I found that I can't! In fact, what I believe happens is that once you apply for your .NAME domain (i.e., john.smith.name), NetSol takes ownership of "smith.name", and you're given the right to use the "john" subdomain -- it can't be transferred! (or, at least, they're not allowing it)

NetSol also makes you purchase email hosting with the domain, and tries to tack on some web hosting. Simply put, DO NOT go through NetSol for this service. (I can hear the collective, "Well DUH!" now)

This is why I'm letting my .NAME domain dry up and die, and will continue to handle my email the way I always have. There's no way in hell I'm paying NetSol's outrageous prices until I'm able to transfer to some other registry.

Re:A BIG warning

[vidarh]

Luckily, you're wrong. The second level (smith.name) is NOT delegated from the registry. You have a right to transfer your name, unless your contract with Netsol says something else.

I suggest you contact GNR (the registry) and talk to their customer service people to get help in getting it resolved.

(Disclaimer: I work for Personal Names, the registrar mentioned, and we're a competitor to Network Solutions)

This has been tried before

[madstork2000]

I worked for a startup that was selling "third-level" domains to doctors under the .md domain. The company purchased severalthousand .md domains that represented "surnames". So we owned "smith.md", "wilson.md", etc.

We provided web hosting (http://www.john.smith.md), email (john@smith.md), easy to use templates, for non tech savvy doctors.

Several issues worked against us. First the company controlling the second level domains (i.e. the "surnames") that we had to purchase, charged too much for the business model (upwards of $300 /per year for a single second level .md domain).

The other issue was we couldnever have all the names. so we could not do large "instatutional sales" effectively.

these first two issues shouldnot effect .name, but the other issues we had problems with would:

1. Name Overlap -names are not unique, we never achieved a large enough user base for this to be much of an issue, but it did come up occasionally.

2. SPAM- the addresses are pretty easy to guess, since first@last is pretty easy to guess. the other SPAM issue was that more and more ISPs require the outgoing mail address to be on their network, and sothe users needed to configure the IMAP/POP accounts to use our sevrers, rather than their local ones.

3. User ignorance, the way the email was/is built of the second level domain (john@smith.md) and the website is off the third level - john.smith.md confused the users, the sales people, and management. We never effectively explained the subtle difference to non savvy users.

4. Long names. http://www.john.smith.md is an ok sized domain name,but if you had a long orhyphenated name, the email address and domain name become excessively long, and awkward to work with in "real world" applications,likeputting on business cards and letterhead.

In short it sees the .name folks are making some of the same mistakes, and not addressesing the inherent problems needed to overcome the issues.
In retrospect there are several more trouble issues that both our .md plan and .name share,
but no sense in beating a dead horse, they definately need some help, some luck, and cash if they expect to succeed.

I wish 'emluck cause I think they will need it...
-MS2k

Re:They aren't doing it right.

[FTL]

> They don't offer traditional DNS services, where someone types in a name and the resolver returns the IP address of your name server, they are offering only email and web redirecting services. Nothing else.

I'm sorry, but Slashdot really needs a '-1 Wrong' mod point.

The .name TLD will sell you any third-level domain that you want. Just like *.co.uk or *.ny.us does. The DNS lookups are perfectly normal. The email is perfectly normal. What more can I say ... what you stated is completely untrue.

And yes, I do know what I'm talking about. I'm a sysadmin, and owner of my own .name website. Go ping it.