i was at the melbourne auIGF yesterday, other dntrade members were there so they may want to harp in on my commments.
disclaimer: this is just my opinion and also opinionated, i'm ONLY detailing this so others don't have the same issues i have had + for the benefit of people who could not attend.
i went to the " .melbourne " seminar , so i thought my feedback would be of interest to members.
Adrian Kinderis from ARI spoke mostly and overall i felt it was a sales pitch
rather then an information session, mingled in with some statistical data from other worldwide gTLDs successes and failures.
it seems that overall they have a good view on how to handle the new gTLD with the victorian government basically handing it over to ARI for their current knowledge and partnerships with melbourneIT and crazyD for registrations.
there was question time at the end and i did manage to get a couple of questions in ( surprise surprise )
my first was " why does MIT show domain available and CD show domain taken ?
the answer was " teething problems", but given we are now in "priority phase till 27/9/14 and it started on 29/7/14 i would have thought "teething" would have been sorted by now.
it was politely suggested that i shouldn't be concerned to which i replied " try to tell my client that "
MIT guys talked to me after the session and here's what came from that:
firstly, nice guys willing to help and i think a little embarrassed by my questions and the failure for thier system to work as i opened my laptop and even the MIT guy struggled to place an order !!!!
the bottom line EVENTUALLY came to be that everyone can try to register a
.melbourne during this current period and if you and someone else wants the
same name then its going to be an auction between you 2, 3, 4, 5,6 etc
the actual auction process was described like the other gTLDs like .web .sex process where the winner pays the underbidder but the winner gets the extension ( PLEASE correct me if i am wrong )
ALSO names have been allocated as unregisterable eg: collingwood would probably be one , then others have been classed as premium eg doctor.melbourne and a price has been placed on them, ......price unknown ?
so if you think you can get a good generic for $65/$133 a year i think you will be disappointed as it was staed that the premium price of the domains was to prevent cyber squatting and also in my opinion the premium keyword names have been allocated for later sale just like they did for "hobart" , "sydney" etc.
although my personal view right now is after the session is they are thinking " wholly sh^t we need to justify the purchase + all the extra costs we didn't
know we would have so the sooner we break even the more chance the people in the government who made the decision have of keeping their jobs "the government has taken many domains out eg: travel. , art. ,springcarnival. etccccccccccccccc no doubt, accommodation, hotel, tours, visit bla bla bla ???? how many are there ?
but dig this ! if you go to register dentist. at MIT it shows available, at CD it shows registered. which means you can not register at CD which is $65 p/a with a minimum 3yr rego, so your ONLY alternative is to enter the "ballot" at MIT which is $400 total for 3yr minimum.
BUT you can register at MIT casino.melbourne and pay, then you can come back again and register it again and pay !!!!!! as its all going into the ballot.
teething problems !
it seems trademark holders RULE, which i think is fair.
But small business is going to be a problem as someone else bought up in question time with an question about "theatre." being TAKEN already by marrineer ( ambassodor ? ) where there have many theatres in melbourne ( by the way theatre shows as available on MIT )
.melbourne isn't going away, its here to stay, they have put themselves into a position of no return, they just have to go forward, doing "my numbers" it will make profit, i think its going to take at least 5-8 years though.
ummmmm, sorry, didn't count in loss of interest so 8-10yrs at least
problem is 10 years is a longgggggggggg time in the internet these days.
thats just a quick over view
tim