OK, I am going to do something I have not done up to now and that is vent a little.
I was interested in one domain name from the new .asia domains because I had a generic name across a range of extensions and a significant Asian cohort of visitors. It wasn’t essential to me but i thought it would be a nice addition especially to refer my Asian visitors to.
So back in February, I register the name and wait. It turns out more than one person bid on the name and it will go to auction. Then there are several weeks of silence during which the registrar and pool.com who are handling the auction cannot shed any light on whats happening.
finally I am notified of the auction and I bid $10 when it opens. A few days into the auction and no other bid and I receive an email that the auction is extended to what was almost a month because of vacation etc. Over the whole time, no one else bid and the auction closed a few weeks ago with me winning the name for $10.
Now the waiting begins again. Details will be sent to me on how to pay, I am told. Today I get an email telling me to pay the $10 which I do and now I am waiting for that to be finalized and ownership transferred to me.
Why has it taken from February to May to go through this simple process? I have seen many complaints about this horrible process scattered around the web. When there is already some doubt about the value of the .asia domain to start with, why would you further devalue it by badly messing up the registration and distribution?
There are less popular extensions that hold some value because they are well managed. Clearly .asia is not going to fall into that category. Still when I eventually get my hands on this domain, I will continue with my development plans and am not worried about resale value.
I do pity those that speculated on .asia though. Unless there is a much better management system put into place, this tld will fall by the wayside.
OK, end of my rant. I haven’t been posting much lately because I have been out photographing the spring migration of neotropical birds and i can thank domaining for paying for my equipment.
Anyway back to regular topics coming up soon.
Good to hear from you. .asia does seem a little speculative and now after hearing your delays in the registration process I’ll definitely wait to see how the aftermarket handles this extension before raking up a collection.
It’s always important to step away from the machines for a while. Do you share your neotropical bird photos anywhere online? I’d loved to check them out.
Thanks Jamie for your comment. You can find my photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/33939595@N00/
These are wild birds that are passing through migrating back for the summer.
Intersting poit you make about .asia