As I mentioned last week we sponsored this year’s IIA Internet Congress. The event was held on Monday in the regal surroundings of Clontarf Castle in Dublin.
I hate travelling to events the same day as the event itself, so I went up the night before and had a very pleasant evening with some of the other delegates and speakers.
The actual congress itself started officially at 9.30 am on Monday morning, but people were arriving in the hotel from around 7 am onwards to setup stands and have breakfast.
The turnout was impressive, with over 150 people travelling to the event from the four corners of Ireland. The Cork contingent included Tom Raftery, who I hadn’t met in more than a year, while our guests for the day included Alan from Spoiltchild
Other companies that were present included OSD, DEG, Realex and many more.
The talks I was more interested in were those related to domains, email marketing and the IIA domain guide.
One of the email marketing sessions was held by Denise Cox from Newsweaver, who gave a very informative talk on newsletters citing examples from their client portfolio.
Her talk was followed by that of David Curtin entitled “Domain Developments Worldwide”. Curtin covered a number of interesting developments in the domain market, while also discussing the IE space within the international context. He also mentioned a number of the IEDR’s plans for future development.
One of the areas that Curtin talked about in relation to IE vs .com was the usage statistics. As Curtin admitted, accurate stats are hard to come by, however trends can be identitified with some degree of accuracy.
Unfortunately some elements are still trying to put a spin on the IE domain pricing which is nothing short of hypocritical. One of their staff was overheard to be telling delegates about their “crusade” on pricing. Considering that they still charge more than most IE domain resellers who gives them the right ?
Until such time as the IEDR introduce an RRP (recommended retail price) or something similar the pricing debacle will continue. However, as was to be expected, Curtin announced that there would be another pricing cut on the wholesale (reseller) pricing of IE domains in January 2006.
What does this mean?
In essence the IEDR will charge companies, such as ourselves and Novara, Hosting365 etc., lower rates on registrations and renewals. It is a basic element of free market economics that each company reserves the right to either pass on that saving to their clientele or use it to amass a higher profit on sales via a better margin.
If you want to champion pricing then you should pass on the savings to your clients. We did earlier this year. Costello seems to be very good at “talking the talk”, but I didn’t see any drop in their retail pricing.
The afternoon saw the launch of the IIA’s guide to domains which was prepared by the IIA working group on domains and hosting. I was involved in the production of this guide though I have since left the working group.
In light of the increasing number of domain scams the publication of such a guide is timely.
After the afternoon sessions delegates adjourned to the bar for a complimentary drink before going their separate ways.
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