racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Okay, so there were some questions on the free . com . ph offer, and I got to provide a few generic answers to some of the inquiries. Sorry I have to add to the “conditions” (but we still don’t ask for any big thing in return). Giving something for free isn’t all that easy, I’ve come to realize.

Here are more specifics on the deal.

I’ve been making teasers and pitches on our offer for free .com.ph domains for Filipino bloggers. Well, it’s all about establishing our own Philippine ccTLD as an ideal place to be for Pinoys, and we would be shelling out our own funds just for this.

What’s the catch, you say? Well, nothing much, really—we just ask you to be active at blogging. We don’t even intend to monetize the domains, at least in the short term. Let’s just put it this way. Domains (and TLDs) are like real estate. You develop them and the value grows over time—not only the value of the specific xxx.com.ph domain, but of the com.ph namespace itself. I think you’d be pretty tech-savvy enough to understand these concepts (especially since you’re reading my blog!) by now.

Recently, I’ve been explaining that the .com.ph domain and web hosting would be free for at least a year. People have been picking up on the idea (i.e., Manuel, Yuga, Erwin, Raymond) and some are quite concerned about sustainability and continuum, in that a user might be expected to pay up in the second year. Let me clarify that it would be for at least a year, and the deal will not necessarily end there.

So actually there is a small catch, but it’s not really a condition wherein we will be asking for you to give us something in return. The only condition is that the recipient would be using the domain actively—that is, you would continue to actively blog on the com.ph domain given to you (say, a couple of times a week would be great, but there’s really no set frequency or number of postings). In that case, we will continue to provide domain and hosting for free, for as long as the sites are active (I’m going on record on this)!

I’ve already got a handful of inquiries. If you are interested, please do send me an email at jangelo (at) racoma (dot) net (yes, .com.ph will work, too) with your blog URL and a few summary stats, such as how long you’ve been blogging, and your uniques, visits, and pageviews for the past couple of months—we’re interested in knowing a bit more about your blogs and blogging activity, of course.

Update: Check out this post for further details. We’re just about to set up the initial set of bloggers. If you’re interested, again, do send me an email.