www.3.biz) available to the public.
In a phased rollout, NeuStar will now make these highly desirable biz-domains available to the global business community through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, followed by an offering at auction of those domains not allocated to RFP respondents. Specifically, NeuStar will begin accepting RFP responses for the 36 one- character letters and numbers till July 30, 2009. Once the one-character RFP round is concluded, NeuStar will proceed to an auction phase for those names and will begin accepting RFP responses for the two-character domains.
"The decision by ICANN to approve NeuStar's one- and two-character marketing effort within the .BIZ domain represents an important opportunity for the .BIZ registry to generate greater brand recognition in today's TLD marketplace, particularly among the global business community," said Tim Switzer, NeuStar's vice president of Registry Services. "Through the initial RFP round, we will identify the candidates who present plans that best exemplify innovation, creativity, brand recognition and financial commitment."
"The hyper-competitive domain name sector is far from commoditized, with some bits of
DNS real estate having far greater values than others," said Daniel Golding, vice president and research director at Tier1 Research. "It isn't very often that precious one- and two-letter domain names become available. Tier1 anticipates heavy demand among content providers, software-as-a-service vendors, entertainment and social networking companies, retailers, and numerous others."
According to VML, one of the top digital marketing agencies in the United States, the new biz-domains present a unique opportunity for businesses to build their brands and open new revenue streams online.
"At VML, we increasingly employ innovative domain names as key ingredients for
inspired digital marketing," said Jon Cook, president of VML. "Single and double- character .biz domains open entirely new avenues for our creative process and the digital programs we deliver for our clients, which include many of the top global brands."
The 1,332 one-and two-character biz-domains were reserved for use when the biz-domain was launched in 2001. Today, .biz has grown to over two million names and remains focused on small and mid-sized businesses around the world.
Hans-Peter Oswald
http://www.domainregistry.de/...