Domisfera

 Domisfera wanted to know more about Pool.com, so asked for an interview with Richard Schreier.

(1) What is your full name? Where do you come from?

Richard Schreier, Ottawa (Canada).

(2) What is your position and daily work in Pool? How is any day for you in the firm?

As chief executive officer, I oversee strategic initiatives for Pool.com and manage day-to-day operations.

(3) When was launched Pool, How did this idea come up?

Pool.com was launched in 2003 as part of the Momentous.ca family of online enterprises, which includes registrars such as NameScout.com and Internic.ca, as well as Canada’s largest online DVD rental service, Zip.ca. Working with an experienced team, Pool.com chairman, Rob Hall, adapted the popular proxy bidding system to domain names. Using this model, multiple customers could now backorder the same domain name and participate in an online auction for a chance to obtain the domain.

This concept proved to be so successful that it was adopted by the larger Internet community. Complementing this success, Pool.com also developed the Domain Marketplace as a result of customer feedback to provide users with a high-quality, high-value marketplace to buy and sell domain names.

(4) Obviously everything is automated, but could you tell us how is managed internally by Pool the backorder process?

The process is mostly automated and requires little manual intervention by Pool.com staff

(5) How may customers has Pool so far?

Pool.com currently has more than 70,000 user accounts.

(6) Pool has a lot of years of experience in this business. Could you tell us exactly how many domains have been seized by Pool until now?, and How many have escaped from Pool?, What is your percentage of success now?

Pool.com offers its customers access to more than 20,000 deleting domains daily, as well as a Domain Marketplace where customers can buy and sell domain names in auction or fixed price formats.

(7) Is the Pool system of backorders fully developed or is it in continuous evolution?, Is it possible to improve it?

Since 2003, Pool.com has been an innovator in the domain name marketplace. At the very beginning, we spent six months developing our acquisition engine, which provided us with a high-performing, reliable product to launch our business. Using this foundation, we continue to enhance our services and provide the most innovative solutions for our customers.

(8) If you have more agreements with Agents of ICANN, you have more chances of catching domains, Why is this so influential?

The management team at Pool.com and Momentous.ca holds deep and diverse expertise in the industry. As the only registrar group simultaneously accredited by ICANN, NeuStar, CIRA, auDA and the Global Name Registry, our long-standing relationships in this space have helped us provide unique and innovative solutions. The use of multiple partners increases the successful performance in the daily drop.

(9) How much money do you pay to the Registrar for the slots leasing to catch domains?

Pool.com was the first backorder business to pay registrar partners a significant portion of our revenue. Previously, our competitors had been paying registrars a small percentage for domains registered. Leveraging this model, Pool.com continues to cultivate great relationships with registrars.

(10) What opinion deserves to you the Domain Tasting?

We closely examined the market and discovered that there is a huge market demand for domain tasting and innovative acquisition tools to help customers maximize their investments. Answering this customer demand, Pool.com developed Catch & Release, a new service that enables users to evaluate currently available domains in advance of having to make a decision to register them. With Catch & Release, Pool.com is the first company to provide performance evaluations for pre-ordered domains at competitive pricing.

(11) Many people say that you have the best system of backorders. Which are for you your most direct competitors?

Pool.com is a leader in domain name acquisition and secondary domain sales, with the industry’s most comprehensive set of acquisition, direct and auction sales, domain security and DNS management tools. Although there are other companies in the market like SnapNames and Enom, none of these competitors offers Pool.com’s full spectrum of products.

(12) You are focused in few extensions (.com, .net, .info, .biz, .org, .ca and .co.uk), will you expand your offer, and will you translate your interface into another languages?

We are always looking at other TLD’s to examine their potential for aftermarket sales. With regards to translations, we have not planned any Web interface translations at this time.