Immediately following the presentation by Apple's Douglas Brooks, Adam Eisner of Tucows gave a presentation on "Domain Names and Web Hosting in 2009 and Beyond."
I must stress here that he was (admirably, sure) talking a mile a minute here to get it all out in 18 minutes. So I’m going to assume that I missed more than a couple of points. It’s basic math, really. A man talking as fast as he can is saying more than I can reasonably be expected to type in that time.
More than usual, I will be mining for raw gist in this post. I’m also going to stick more with the domain-related stuff, even though he went into some product-positioning advice for hosting providers near the end.
The session was generally an overview of domain and hosting market trends, from the interesting perspective of Tucows and OpenSRS, looking mostly at the trends from the ecosystem of value-added services around web hosting and relating particularly to domains.
Eisner began by discussing the significant impact recent legislation on “domain tasting” has had on the domain market. It has created losses in overall valuation of the domain market, but that’s not necessarily something that would be reflected in the market for new domain registrations, because it applies more directly to domain investors and hasn’t necessarily hurt the appetite for domains in general.
Products he’s particularly confident in include a lot of the country-code domains. First among those are .ca and .uk, but there are plenty of growing domains in Europe, including the .eu domain (which has reached 3 million registrations). The .me domain is a promising product, with the biggest domain launch ever, too.
Not so promising, maybe, is the .cn domain, which may have artificially inflated numbers right now, based on a real push by the registry to create interest.
His predictions for 2009 included new influences based on the growth of new domain extensions opened up by new rules. Anyone with $185,000 can now apply to introduce a new TLD, and there are currently thousands of applications in for things like .sport, .quebec, .ebay and so on.
This is something that’s definitely going to shake up the market. But .com and .net are going to stay on top, he says.
Part of modernizing your domain offerings, he says, domain providers might consider offering something like .info along with your .com or .net registrations. Think about the Go Daddy registration process. They prompt you constantly with upsells.
The potential for hosts to become registrars is interesting, but he says there are a lot of headaches and issues involved in operating a business like that. It may be (it is, in his opinion) not worth the effort for a hosting company to set up its own registrar when there are outsourced options available.
Another interesting note – SMBs, he says, are driving the domain name aftermarket. Small businesses often do have the resources to buy something like (his example) sanjoseplummer.com for $2,000. They realize the branding value of something like that. So building an aftermarket offering into your hosting platform is a great product for people serving the SMB market.
That’s about everything I managed to get down. Do with it what you will.
It was a blur, I’m telling you.
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