Roll up! Roll up! Theres hope
yet ... see below:
(NB: Note esp. the candid remarks about litigation!)
Article
from LA Tribune (IT Pages) 4th Feb 2002
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NOMAD
GROUP TO BRING GREATER COMPETITION TO NAMES MARKET
Cistirn, Nevada
The Nevada
based Nomad Corp announced plans today to introduce an "all-encompassing domain name
sales and marketing system" to "break the stranglehold" of the existing players.
Donald
Bidstrup, vice-president of Sales, announced "After lengthy examination of the current
operating environment in the domain space, we have made the decision that there is
great potential for managed growth in this area." He claimed that, on conservative
estimates, over $20 million annual returns can be expected simply through broadening
the reach of new domains.
Mr Bidstrup outlined a six point strategy, centered around
the concept of "Intellectual Property and the Desire to Gamble". He claimed that
the driving force in domain name allocation and hence disputes was the "eternal battle
between established and speculative wealth". "Established forces - generally larger,
well-known corporations - are willing to spend great sums on protecting their claims
to Intellectual Property. Of course, in order for players like us to achieve maximum
profit levels, we must encourage the large entities to sufficiently broaden their
conceptualization of their I.P. to cover not just all variations of trademarks, but
- ideally - anything remotely connected to the company or its products."
"On the
other hand, the small speculative players must be given the belief that they too
can obtain obscene profits for their efforts. Through the results of previous landrushes
by our competitors, we have learnt that there are vast numbers of gamblers willing
to invest in any speculative arena in the hope of great wealth. We now have almost
an entire generation of people who have had their natural greed tweaked by decades
of all-pervasive marketing. Its almost as if there were a new class - 'slack but
greedy' - and its these people who we are keen to target."
When quizzed on the
subject of litigation, Bidstrup stated "We actively encourage it. Far from being
a problem, it helps us immensely. Remember the famous .com litigations? They helped
bring a previously little-known field into the glare of the entire world media. Many
made fortunes, as you well know, out of that period. Furthermore, litigations generally
allow us to remarket, resell and reposition product time after time... what other
industry allows one to sell the same product repeatedly - without controls or responsibility?"
And
here lies the source of some considerable public concern. Just who regulates the
domain industry? "Well, to be frank, its pretty much self regulated at the current
time," Bidstrup noted, "and that has to be good for the players."
The Nomad plan
broadly consists of these 16 orderly stages:
1. Preliminary Marketing Stage (media
releases to alert entry of new player)
2. Open "Speculative Bids" Registry
3.
Open "Stage 1 Challenge" Database
4. Re-open "Speculative Bids" Registry
5.
Open "Stage 1a Challenge" Database
6. Introduce "Level Two" Registrars
7. Open
"I.P. Pre-bids" Registry
8. "Level Two" Registrars open "I.P. Bids" Registries
9.
Registry Consolidation Period
10. Open "Initial Round-Robin Pre-Bid Auction"
11.
"Level Two" Registrars open "Round-Robin Pre-Bid Auctions"
12. Introduce "Level
Three" Registrars
13. All Co-Registrars open "Public Land Rush"
14. Registry
Consolidation Period
15. Database update and replication
16. "Real-time Go-Live"
Mr
Bidstrup asserted that "The 16-stage process allows an orderly roll-out of the entire
system - acting, as it were, in the form of an extended 'Proof of Concept'. Further
releases may add extra stages to the process to 'iron out the glitches'."
It remains
to be seen whether Nomad's roll-out can match the efficiency and smoothness of those
of its competitors, Afilias and Neulevel.
Nomad Corp is part of media magnate Richard
Ritstih's growing New Technology empire.