On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 12:06:12 +0800, Kim Davies wrote:
> Quoting Patrick Corliss on Friday January 18, 2002:
> |
> | IF "many people *think* they are valuable" (and are prepared to pay good
> | money) THEN they *are* valuable.  That's just supply and demand.
>
> I agree, but the argument here is not whether they are valuable in
> terms of people paying a premium for them - clearly they will. It was a
> question of whether they are valuable to the business that acquires
> them by positively impacting their business.

Hi Kim

Very pithy explanation, thank you.  I agree.

Whilst it doesn't really matter why people would pay a premium, the fact is
that there is clear evidence that they will.  In view of the Names Panel
recomendations, auDA needed to devise a system that would release them to the
public fairly.

Whilst some people have suppose that it would have been better to go back
through historical records, I have argued that this is not feasible.  In my
view, the proposed system is "the fairest that is practically possible".

Of course, some people have argued that generic words are more memorable.
However, this is more about branding.  For example, the word "Ford" as in
"Ford motor car" is pretty "memorizable" as is "Hilton" and "Intel".  In fact,
one of the most memorable words on the planet is the made-up word "Microsoft".

So there are several reasons why people are prepared to pay a premium for
generic words.  All of these are based on perceptions rather than reality.

> question of whether they are valuable to the business that acquires
> them by positively impacting their business.

There are two ways that people can prove that there is an underlying value to
the business that acquires them.  One is to carry out empirical analysis of
search engine data in the way that you have recommended.

The other is to look at the success of generic names in the gTLD domain space.
Mark Hughes has suggested this is a useful indicator (and I agree).

Whilst I do think that there are other factors involved, the truth is that
dictionary words are more "user friendly" as can be seen by their use in
ordinary business.  I would point out, for example, that many newspapers and
magazines use such words as their title.

A few examples are "Time, "Mail", "Mirror", "Sun", "Insight", "Express",
"Herald", "Digest" and "Truth".  Other industries have displayed similar
thinking.

Best regards
Patrick Corliss