I thought I would add to this thread with some facts. Firstly I will preface this by stating that my position at AusRegistry is that of General Manager, Registry Services Australian Division. In short, I am responsible for the management of the .au ccTLD, .melbourne, and .sydney.
I am also a Director on the auDA Board, recently elected by supply class for my third term. Some may know me from the old days, and will remember that I played a pivotal role in opening up com.au to domainers, and the drop market - But that is a story over drinks amongst old friends who I hope remember my contributions to the industry.
So, some facts about .melbourne and .sydney
On the question of auDA involvement, the article is not accurate. auDA will not be involved in policy development, ongoing management, and nor will the have a financial interest. I won't go into detail about how the namepaces will be managed, but my division will feature prominently in this activity. The aim is to keep open communications and cooperate with auDA, because the general interests of all Australian Internet users is of paramount importance to all stakeholders.
On the question of success, I will answer by posing some questions for you all to consider. How many domains under management constitutes a success? What is the magic number? Is it volume or utility? Would you consider 250,000 domains after 3 years a success? Higher? Lower?
On the matter concerning benefit and utility, I would like to pose the following scenario for consideration. You are looking for a plumber, and you live in Melbourne. You see the following domain names in a call to action online ad, or in a newspaper ad.
plumbers.com, plumbers.com.au, plumbers.melbourne
Of the three, what is likely to be the most relevant to your needs? In reality the first two may not even be melbourne based businesses. If it is an online ad, you likely try all three and find out. Whats a few clicks? If I read the call to action in a newspaper though, then I personally think I would remember plumbers.melbourne. (Caveat, it is three years into the future and I am familiar with the diversity of the right side of the dot, just as I am now with the diversity on the left side of the dot.)
Who will type .melbourne? Sooooooo many characters. Well it is actually just 3 key strokes more than .com.au. Count them.
What is a better domain for a Melbourne based plumber? plumbers.melbourne, or localplumbers.com.au (18/20 char)
Interestingly, .sydney has the identical keystrokes to .com.au (7/7)
And here is one final point you will all need to take my word on. I ran a query in .au and found approx 23,000 domains with the characters "melb" in the domain name string. So of those how many had extrapolated to the full word "melbourne"?
Drum roll.....
22,200
That's right, of the 23,000 domain names, only 800 used the abbreviation "melb". 22,200 elected to use the full word. Why, because "melb" means nothing, and therefore retention is more difficult. Remembering a domain is critical to online success. It is easier to remember, CheapMelbournePlumbers.com.au, than it is to remember "CheapMelbPlumbers.com.au". Similar results were found with "syd" and "sydney", of the 26,000 domains the variance was just 700 domains electing to use the abbreviation 'syd' instead of the full word "sydney".
I could speculate here and suggest that those who chose "melb" over "melbourne" either had the "melbourne" variant already, or could not get it and opted for "melb" as a second choice. I could find out based on domain age, and cross reference registrants, but too much effort for an insignificant number.
My personal belief, plumbers.melb needs to be explained to people. plumbers.melbourne says it all! it is a plumber, and they service Melbourne. You don't even need to add a descriptive line beneath such a domain.
Well, I hope you all found my post informative or at very least entertaining. My ambition is to continue to make .au a success, and I think we have a great namespace that we can build on an improve. I want .melbourne and .sydney to launch successfully and help deliver value to their respective markets, NSW and VIC residents. My ultimate ambition is that all three form symbiotic relationships.
Say what you want about new TLDs and .au for the present, there is one thing I know for certain - there will be change ahead and interesting times for all.
My all time favourite quote is by Louis Pasteur:
"Chance (Fortune) favors the prepared mind".
PS: Happy to hear constructive ideas or suggestions, but there is a lot going on that is simply to early to share all the plans. If you do post to me, you may not get a response from me because of confidentially considerations. Please don;t take offence
