High-Tech: Dot-ws Stands for Western Samoa; Sold as Web Site
CARLSBAD , A local company with unique alliances is working to make the dot-ws suffix to Internet addresses as common as dot-com.
WebSite.ws is selling Internet addresses with the suffix dot-ws, marketing that combination of letters as “Web site.”
It’s targeting companies that have been unable to get the address they want with dot-com on the end. It’s also working to sell individuals their own personal Web addresses , something company co-founder and president Alan C. Ezeir said people will eventually need.
The Carlsbad company gets to hook people up to dot-ws Web sites because of an agreement with the tiny Pacific Island country of Samoa. Samoa was assigned the Internet domain dot-ws (for its former name, Western Samoa) when Internet extensions were first divvied up more than a decade ago.
The company reports 60,000 people have signed up for dot-ws names since March. Generally the price for a dot-ws name is $70 for two years. The company advertises higher prices for names of very few letters (a three-letter name with a dot-ws suffix goes for $250 per year; a two-letter name with a dot-ws suffix goes for $500 per year).
A portion of those fees goes to Samoa. Ezeir declined to say how much.
“It’s not at all an insignificant amount,” he said.
It took a year of waiting to see Samoan government officials, he recalled, then another year to seal a deal to market the dot-ws extension.
The company is now working to market the dot-ws suffix with newspaper, national magazine, direct mail, E-mail and radio campaigns, Ezeir said. He declined to say much else about the company’s marketing strategy.
The company also has an alliance with Register.com of New York City. That company has its own Web site that signs up people for Internet addresses. Its site highlights four main choices, dot-com, dot-net, dot-org and dot-ws, but provides several other choices as well.
WebSite.ws officials note the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers has been contemplating new suffixes for Web addresses, like dot-shop. That will get people to consider broader options for Internet addresses and “kindle the fire of discussion,” said Robert Blodgett, vice president of corporate communications with WebSite.ws.
“For us that’s great news,” Blodgett said.
WebSite.ws has changed its marketing strategy in the past month or two, Ezeir acknowledged. Until recently it was marketing its suffix as “world site.”
The company’s original thrust was getting people to realize the dot-ws suffix was “global,” Ezeir said. “Web site,” though, is easier to remember, he said, and customer surveys confirmed the choice.
WebSite.ws is part of Global Domains International, a company founded by Ezeir and WebSite.ws CEO Michael Reed. The company is privately held and, according to Ezeir, has no outside investors. “All the equity is in this building,” Ezeir said.
WebSite.ws was founded in late 1999 and has about 35 employees. Based on monthly sales figures, it expects $20 million in sales this year, Ezeir said.
