> > It would be
> > interesting to see responses to such questions as:-
> >
> > Do you know what a domain name is?
> > Are you aware of .biz or .name or .id.au?

How would you make any constructive use of such data?
Perhaps those who think this is a good idea could give us an example of how
the data could be useful, please.


> A little market research to assess demand for new
> 2LD's would surely be money well spent.

Or more likely be money well wasted.




Awareness isn't the issue.  What we're talking about is "intent to
purchase".  "Intent to purchase" research is done by companies before they
launch products.  Get a sample of the product, give it to the User, ask them
whether they would buy it, etc.

Can't be done at the moment for new .au 2LDs because we don't yet really
know what the product will be.  You'd effectively be asking the User:

 "would you would buy this product (we can't yet tell you what the product
is, but please answer our silly question anyway), thank you ever so much".

A word of warning on the effectiveness of 'intent to purchase' research.  I
worked for 20 years in Sales for major consumer goods companies (e.g.
Unilever, Coca-Cola) who have a reputation as being reasonably successful in
product marketing.  I participated in countless product launches.  All the
product launches were accompanied by market research carried out by
reputable research companies, and for each product the research said:

"more than 70% of Users expressed a positive intention to buy" (not that
surprising - I mean, if the research showed only 35% of the target market
"expressed a positive intention to buy" then we didn't bother trying to
launch the product OK?)

The point being that some of those product launches were flops.  We're
talking 'total turkeys' here.  But note that the research still showed "more
than 70% of Users expressed a positive intention to buy" those products.


With a product launch costing heaps, it was worth spending marketing bucks
on research even if the accuracy as a predictor wasn't great.  With a very
low cost product launch (as would be the case for a new 2LD), you wouldn't
waste bucks on market research of dubious reliability.



Regards, Mark

Mark Hughes
Effective Business Applications Pty Ltd
effectivebusiness§pplications.com.au
www.pplications.com.au
+61 4 1374 3959