If the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu could make money from its country code top-level domain (cctld).tv and Montenegro from .me, can India be far behind? Administrative arm for .in domain names, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is working hard on catching the world?s attention and turning .in domain extension into a hot property. It seems to be gaining traction this year. The World?s largest domain name registrar, GoDaddy has jumped on board this month and is now flogging off .in domain name, billing it a ?catchy domain extension.?
As GoDaddy touts it as ?the next in thing on the Web?, NIXI officials are in talks with 20 biggest registrars of the world to promote .in domain. Six new registrars, including three in the top-10, have been added in the last two months. This takes the total number of registrars to 60.
Having tasted success during a promotional offer last year, NIXI is also toying with the idea of another promotional programme. More than two lakh domain names were registered in five months, when NIXI slashed registration prices to a fifth last year. A similar offer is now on anvil. ?We are currently evaluating options and we will come out with details in a couple of months,? confirms NIXI CEO, Rajesh Aggarwal.
According to NIXI, over five lakh domain names ending with .in have been registered, but registrars are convinced that there is scope for more. Net4India CEO Jasjit Sawhney, for instance, feels that registrations can grow to two to three million in the next two to three years. ?There is a direct correlation between the online population of a country and its domain registrations,? he says, pointing out China, which has the largest online population today. The number of Internet users, according to Internet World Stats, is currently 253 million in China, 220 million in the US, and 60 million in India. ?It?s only a matter of time and pricing equation for .in to grow big. Indian tld can be in top-10 country level domain names. India has a sizeable population both inside the country and abroad, and most companies abroad would like to register a .in domain name to appeal to this huge population,? agrees Bhavin Turakhia, CEO, DirectI.
GoDaddy seems to agree and is excited about .in?s association with India and the burgeoning economy?s appeal, especially as the world faces a slowdown. It is counting on ?60 million of India?s more than one billion residents who are avid Internet users,? pointing out ?only three other countries have more people online.? While other domain names are being promoted to unconnected industries, like .me to individuals and .tv to appeal to couch potatoes, .in could ride on India?s rising clout globally, according to GoDaddy. SMEs are adding to the momentum by hosting their Websites. ?It?s becoming easier and cheaper to set up Websites now. Most SMEs like to host their mails on their domain names,? says Sawhney.
Interestingly, vanity use of Indian cctld could swell registration numbers much higher, if it is used in creative ways. Already, Indian registrars like DirectI and Net4India have used it for social networking sites (where .in could denote ?come in?) or for Internet (where .in fits perfectly) or as a slang for ?ing?. Net4 India advertising, for one, has been promoting the suffix, asking if your domain is ?in? or ?out?. The me domain names?the country code of Montenegro?are a case in point. Promoted by GoDaddy, about two lakh .me domains were registered last year.
Once a domain name extension starts getting popular, it is normal to see companies rush in to protect their brandnames. As growth in the domain registration industry is expected to slow over the next three years in the US and Europe, developing markets like India and China are expected to grow. The majority of the growth in domains name sales will come from Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), according to the latest report from Melbourne-based Map Research. It forecasts the domain name industry to grow to $5.3 billion by 2011 from $3.6 billion last year and number of registered domains to grow from the current 185 million to 300 million by 2011.
Interestingly, hundreds of top level domain names are expected to be released later this year, as the US-based Internet governing body, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) says current top-level domains such as .com have reached a saturation point, resulting in long and unwieldy internet addresses and creating the need for new releases. Obviously, companies will have to spend much more on protecting their brand names by registering new addresses on various domain names.
Domain valuations in the secondary market, where domain name holders sell them at a premium after parking for sometime, will obviously see big changes as new domain name extensions come in. Today, a generic name like business.com could sell for $5-10 million, compared to $1,00,000-1,50,000 for a business.in, according to Turakhia. For a second-tier domain, .com would command only about three times .in, he adds. According to a study by ABC Namebank, there will be some 1,00,000 business names worldwide that will have to respond to the new changes being proposed by ICANN. They will have to re-evaluate, modify and create new iterations for their domain names and this could see big changes in the cyber branding platforms.
Fresh dimensions will be added to the new name economy as language domain names come into the picture. It will create new potential for those in domain business as as language specific domain names will also need to be protected. ?Language domain names will expand the universe much bigger but the action will start only in a year or so. In the long run, they could have could have an immense potential,? says Sawhney.
As Internet audience expands in size and across global communities, Indian country domain name .in and language domain names could ignite fresh action in the global cyber branding war.