Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] WT-2 who/what

[Andrew Mack <amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To Richard and Elaine's points, what can I say.  I agree.  Especially think the 
point about the use of mobile devices is a good one.

The idea of setting a floor was to create some sort of minimum number for 
financial viability, but especially if we're using alternative back-end models 
(e.g. pooling resources for smaller applicants, standardization) + some sort of 
assistance, I think it would be hard to say what a floor number is.

That said, I'm not that familiar with .ki, but the idea of $1000/domain strikes 
me as pretty steep.  Who buys the .ki's?  I know there are some concerns about 
a rush of new gTLDs creating a need for indefinite defensive registries (e.g. 
cocacola.new-gTLD).  Would our group see this as a kind of gaming as well?  

Perhaps this won't be an issue, but if we're planning to subsidize/support 
(temporarily) needy applicants, I'd want to make sure the benefit was captured 
by the community first and foremost.


 
Andrew A. Mack 
Principal
AMGlobal Consulting
+1-202-256-1077  
amack@xxxxxxxxxxxx  
www.amglobal.com




________________________________
From: Richard Tindal <richardtindal@xxxxxx>
To: soac-newgtldapsup-wg@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, May 24, 2010 12:34:38 PM
Subject: Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] WT-2 who/what

i agree that a minimum number of eligible community members will be hard to 
define,  and may not be relevant.

RT



On May 24, 2010, at 9:25 AM, Elaine Pruis wrote:

The question "-Is it ok if the applicant only serves a very small part of the 
public?" was posed and the responses so far:
>
>
>Andrew:  The answer depends on what we might describe as “very small”. Denmark 
>is small in population but has a relatively larger footprint on the web than 
>the Hausa community which is much larger in terms of population.  Absent a 
>very compelling reason to carve out a specific small TLD (and an 
>organizational structure to support it), for viability I agree that there 
>would need to be some sort of “floor” number of say, arbitrarily 500,000 
>community members, before an application is considered.  (This is not a 
>proposed number, just a guess). 
> 
>Avri: One data-point on community size.
>>
>>I have been working on infrastructure projects for the last 10 with the Sámi 
>>people years who are an indigenous semi-nomadic population that lives in the 
>>northern most regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in 
>>Russia.  
>>
>>This community is estimated at 80,000 - 135,000.  I always assumed that they 
>>were a large enough 'community' to apply for a TLD.  I think they assumed 
>>that as well.
>>
>
>
>Andrew: To the second (implied) part of the question, what is the public?  If 
>nearly the only people interested in the TLD are its members, is that OK?  I 
>would argue yes, since the community building function is a positive good in 
>most cases, even though the “general public” might not care much about Hausa 
>literature for example.
>
>
>After some thought it seems to me that we should not require a floor nor a 
>minimum projection of registrations in our criteria. For example, ,  .ki ccTLD 
>has less than 1k registrations, yet it serves the 96,558 people of its 
>community, Kiribati, and is commercially viable (at $1k/domain).
>
>
>Another reason is that we are seeing significant growth of mobile users in 
>'developing countries'.  Even if there is limited projected demand for domain 
>name registrations today, by 2012 when new TLDs are launched, entire 
>populations could be using domains through mobile technology,  leapfrogging 
>the required infrastructure for 'traditional' domain usage.
>
>
>Elaine Pruis
>VP Client Services
>elaine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>+1 509 899 3161 
>