As some of you may know, I used to sell email addresses off the back off certain domain names. This was a branded/customised service running out of
www.girth.co.uk.
When we moved servers, the signup code that I had written myself stopped working because we changed various elements of the back end system. I never got round to rewriting it. Still, the customers signed up back then continue to use the service.
The point is that, if you have a reasonable generic nice domain name (or maybe a surname or first name), some people will pay to have an email address there.
I'm going to be relaunching my Girth service and am paying a developer to write a nice clean front end interface and sign up script that will interface with a payment gateway and then setup an email address at the required domain name.
After discussing it with the developer we thought there may be an opportunity to provide this service to domain owners.
As a domain owner, you would provide:
- the domain names
- a price per year per email address
- a logo
- a domain name to run the service from, a brandname
- a PayPal account
We would be invisible behind the scenes and would provide a templateable skinnable system for the users. They would be able to:
- browse the domain names available
- search for their name@ the domains available
- buy an address
- perform admin like changing password, forgotten password, etc
- find out about the service, its limits, etc
As a reseller, you would be able to:
- list your domain names
- set your selling price
- view signups/traffic/etc
The email service itself would be run by a reliable established 3rd party email provider and would be (almost) invisible to the end user.
We would charge you a small setup fee and then a fee per email account per year.
Nothing is cast in stone but I'm curious as to whether any domain owners would be interested in this sort of thing? I know it's been mentioned on here before a few times.
The other added bonus is that this may be seen in a DRS as making fair use of a domain name - offering a bone fide service. But I wouldn't know anything about that
Thoughts / comments / criticisms please
