What is in a name? May be something Capital

Pratima H

INDIA: The landscape of nTLDs (new top-level domains) is visibly generating a lot of steam; as Cloud, entrepreneurship, innovation burn away conventional constraints or the very way business, as we knew it, is done. For Asia’s major nTLD registry, Radix FZC, these factors condense into a huge mass of hope and ambition, unless they do not evanesce away across walls of pragmatic challenges. Think scalability and speed, and it’s not hard to conjure how high and relentless can such walls be.

Owning the registry rights to such popular domain names as .website and .host, while also operating at a good level of growth, can be quite a headstart and foothold but that can lead to a sprained ankle too if one slips on the basic floors of awareness or around the ability to scale infrastructure quickly and ensuring delivery of rock-solid and super-reliable service to your customers. There’s more that Karn Jajoo, Global Communications Manager, Radix tells as he shares the journey of fixing snags proactively and propelling the nTLD wave in India.

Along the way, Jajoo also lets us in on how and where technology plays a role either ways as Radix tiptoes around spots like app-only threats, IP litigation worries and general awareness gaps. He also observes how cloud and other technology pillars will play out when it comes to personalized domain names.

But first, Could Radix and Dyn re-christen the major challenges into well, the ‘done and dusted’ domain?

Tell us something about your core model first and why is it relevant in current times?

We are associated with the largest gTLD (generic TLD) platform and have seven extensions live. Generic legacy domain extensions like .net or .com are not apt as first-choice or memorable domains as people are shifting towards personalized and well-categorised domains.

What was the key challenge you confronted as you leaned towards Dyn?

Dyn is a cloud based internet performance company which controls, monitors and optimizes online infrastructure. Post working with Dyn, Radix smashed all gTLD records with 28,000 registrations at the launch of its .online domain in first 30 minutes and has above 60,000 registrations till date. With over 70,000 .online domains registered with Radix that is having over 300,000 domains under management, it was crucial to ensure that a customer's domain is resolved quickly and has high availability and low latency, without of course, letting them face any downtime.

We have hundreds of thousands of domains that are dependent on Dyn and adding them on as our secondary DNS provider was seamless, and the support received became a significant factor. It has delivered well on both a technical and commercial level, and has been an awesome experience.

What makes use of analytics or technology here less of a hygiene factor and more of a secret sauce?

Optimising DNS for performance across global networks is possible. We have partners like Dyn at the back-end, and channel partners like BigRock or GoDaddy. The entire hierarchy is based on technology and we are data-driven when it comes to details around geography, quality of registrations and even spam or parked registrations. Our system is very proactive. Next we plan to take awareness to new levels with more active users and there, technology will play a parallel role. We need the support of the likes of Dyn to deliver everything smoothly.

What can Cloud do in a TLD world?

You do not have to be in a Fortune 500 list to make your mark. A one-person model can still leverage cloud and so many start-ups and entrepreneurs are using that force. This has made the space a level-playing field and now a new-age enterprise does not necessarily have to be someone with deep pockets.

The recent e-commerce fancy towards app-only models may cause a dent in domain-name adoption. Or wouldn’t it?

Some India e-tailers are going along with that idea because they believe it is effective. But it is a niche space and not a real threat. There is still skepticism as to whether it will work or not.

Would the category face the same patent-troll issues as general IP space has been confronting?

It is unlikely here as at this stage the intention of registrar is to build awareness and there are so many ways of personalizing or distinguishing one’s niche. The clearing house and bodies take care of brand protection and trademark or IP issues in a reasonable manner.

Which are the most common verticals which are opting for TLDs?

Some of the common verticals that have opted for new TLDs in generic extensions like .website, .online, .space and .site are: Technology, Finance, Fashion, Broadcast and Entertainment and Home Products.

Are the domain names mostly taken up by big businesses?

They've been taken up by big and small businesses and even individuals for their own portfolio websites. If we look at some interesting stats on .website after it completed 100k registrations we see that domains were registered across 177 countries. Some examples of small businesses on .website: unicorn.website , eduplus.website, tshirtshop.website, holdmail.website. There are examples of portfolios: dustinjones.website, davidklatt.website, jolynntan.website and even non-profits using .website: helpnepal.website