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.

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It’s now online!

Of course, you still get this site (the J Spot) when you key in www.racoma.com.ph on your browser–it’s currently a domain parked on my host. I’m working on transferring everything (including the blog subdomains) here.

It’s all part of the free COM.PH package I wrote about previously.

Here’s another post in my series of articles on the .PH domain namespace. Those of you who are aware that I used to work for the .PH registry (nice people, btw) might be wondering why the heck I’m writing about .PH, and whether I’ll be sharing some juicy insider information on the issues the ccTLD had been, and is still currently, involved in. Well, I’m still not sure about the extent of my knowledge of the .PH issues, but from what I know, things are not likely to take a drastic turn in the near future. I mean this with reference to how .PH is run and managed in light of the Philippine government’s attempts to wrest control from the private sector.

The ccTLD (country top-level domains, like .PH) namespace isn’t exactly competitive, given the rock-bottom prices of generic TLDs such as .com, .net, and .org (or “CNO”). A .PH domain would cost about 500% to 1000% more than your generic .com or .net domain. So the ccTLDs usually lose out to the CNOs, in terms of market share. And the registrars and registries usually lose the business to GTLD registrars and registries.

That’s unless your domain spells out something cute or novel, such as Tuvalu’s .TV (for television) Micronesia’s .FM, Armenia’s .AM (for FM and AM radio, respectively), which media companies are snapping up left and right, or if your namespace can be used to spell words, such as del.icio.us, with the .US namespace (you can also have mal.icio.us, and other interesting names).

At around the turn of the century, the administrators of .PH (my former employer) marketed the idea of .PH being the domain for “Phone,” in a now-defunct marketing scheme called dotPHone. It’s an interesting play on words, actually. The registry’s name is dotPH, and the product was supposed to be dotPHone–you can dissect that into dotPH, PHone, PH one, Dot Phone, and probably other permutations. However, the idea didn’t fly for some reason, and perhaps one is the Philippine government’s (some bureaus in particular) did not seem to be too comfortable with offering .PH domains to non-Filipinos. Or maybe, the idea of a domain for phones just didn’t catch on too well with the telephone-using public (and that was the time of the dot-com boom, pre-bubble, and “m-commerce” was a concept yet to be developed).

Anyway, I digress.

I think it would be a great idea to start banking on popularizing com.ph or even .ph domains among the Philippine blogging community. I mean, majority of Pinoy bloggers are likely on blogspot.com, or even friendster.com. A small minority is on i.PH–a .PH domain, but not necessarily a “free” domain (as in free speech, not as in free beer), since it’s attached to a hosted blogging solution. I’m thinking of something along the lines of Manolo’s quezon.ph. Won’t you readers think a yourname.com.ph blog domain would be cool? And what if transfer were to be painless and hassle-free?

Of course this comes with cost considerations, but I think if the price is right (especially if it’s free or near-free), then Filipino bloggers would catch on to the idea well.

Any takes on this idea?