The benefits will be both many and diverse, to what extent depends on how we set it up - what our goals are. We are speaking as geo-generic domain owners who are part of the Association, at the moment the only ones but we have the same interests as anyone else who owners one or more geo-generic domains and so we feel that outlining what we would like to see this association become is somewhat indicative of what others would and will want as well.

Money would be nice, for a start. If Associated Geo-generics Dot Com offers me some money as an incentive for having a developed site as opposed to a parked page then that would please me. How much money we will talk about but in general money would make a nice component of the benefit package. What else?

If I’m expected to maintain a website of the standard that the association requires then I wouldn’t mind a little help with that - for a start software, support and content would be good choices to help get me enthusiastic about joining and to tell my friends. My wish list also includes getting some free publicity, maybe even some customers.

Further down the list comes the part where I can pool some money to obtain considerations that by myself wouldn’t be feasible - things like lobbyists, national advertising, legal defenses, etc. Finally, I would like to get better value for any money that I spend under normal circumstances, discounts at stores, etc.

Some of these incentives will not exist until there is a formidable number of website owners in the association but there are a few that we can start with like making software available for use that makes it easy to set up an operational site and the support necessary to overcome problems without any time wasted learning how to be a computer programmer.

The other benefits will be simple to realize when the association hits a certain “tipping point” - where there can be some solicitation of local, national and international advertising dollars. When the association has enough members it will be possible to negotiate with big dollar advertisors who will only buy from media that can provide nationwide exposure. That is one big tipping point to aim for.

When the domains reach a certain income level it should be possible for the association to fund various geo-generics in order to do what their domain name would suggest. “SeattleNews.com” might be paid by all the other geo-generics to provide news as content for the other domains for example, and “SeattleAdvertising.com” might be appointed to develop the advertising campaign for the association in Seattle. The idea being that all of us geo-generic domain owners will prosper when any one of us does. A rising tide floats all boats, that sort of thing.

The Associated Cities/Geos people are fond of saying that they aren’t in competition with each other and we think that that applies to us geo-generic domain owners as well. There may be some needed research done on what the split of the advertising dollar ought to be but we think that there should be enough to go around and for generousity to become a common theme.