Musings On Jobs and .ph
It’s been a busy Saturday already and it lacks being 9 am yet. That’s ok, because I like being busy much better than being bored.
There’s always quite a bit of interest in Philippine jobs here, both from regular readers and search engine traffic. I’ve recommended a few sources in the past, such as Mindanao Bob’s Job Listings, IpsoJobs (I’m one of their ‘city managers and we need more managers for Philippine cities, earnings are possible) Patrick’s Cebu Job Listings, etc.
Today I came across a nice looking resource with a number of good features called "Career Club". I haven’t explored all the features of the site but it’s likely I will be using them in the future for some article writing and editing talent. Recommended.
My friend Yuga has got another discussion going on at his YugaTech blog regarding the (IMO) flawed system the Philippines has going for the control of the Philippines’ own TLD (Top Level Domain) the .ph extension … this is also known as the ‘Country Code’.
The Internet governing authorities quite rightly gave the control of each country’s own TLD to the government of the respective nation. Most nations are quite reasonable … in some cases anyone can register a country code TLD, in others there are restrictions like a connection to the country, doing business in or getting set up to do business in the country and so forth.
The Philippines is wide open in that sense, anyone with the funds can register a .com.ph or .ph domain … but funds they had better bring … berceuse except for occasional promos or large quantity ‘one-time’ deals, .ph country code domain names cost $35 USD per year … often more, I see them advertised for as much as $75 USD per year.
Folks, this is the year 2008 and this situation just is not right. I know a lot of the history as to why the current system is the way it is, and I won’t go into it here … you can fins more than enough history on-line, but I hope that rational men and women can correct this inequity. Plenty of companies make a very healthy profit (I am for profit, BTW, it’s essential to the growth of the Internet) selling domain names for $10 USD or less, there’s no rational reason for .ph’s to cost so much.
All that being said, do you really want one?
I’ve been watching this issue for a long time now … I’ve been a frequent visitor and been doing business in one way or another in the Philippines since 1999. I hear a lot of Filipinos, especially bloggers complaining about the situation and I certainly see the point of my colleagues online. If you are ‘Proud to be Filipino’, I fully support you (although I question why any self-respecting native of these pleasant islands would care to wear the ’slave name’ of one of the island’s oppressors (Google maharlika someday and let me know what you think), but that’s a debate for another time). You should certainly use the .ph country code for your website if you want to.
Now if your purpose in having a blog/website is e-commerce, however, I believe you should think twice. Nationalism and pride in your country is one thing, making money is something entirely different. The TLD of commerce on the Internet is .com … there is no question. At least 10 times a smany people type a product or company name and then .com as do a name and then a country code TLD … it’s not about respect for a country or heritage, it’s about the way the ‘Net works. The exception is smart companies like Falcon Waterfree (yeah, the signs you see over the urinals in SM 
) the main company site is www.falconwaterfee.come (can you say ‘keyword-rich domain’, boys and girls … thought ya could) and they have many country-code specific ‘feeder sites’ that channel specific country traffic to the primary site.
If you feel your market is Pinoys and Pinoys only, go ahead with your .ph or .com.ph dreams, but if you want to make money I strongly advise the .com … non-Pinoys and even many Pinoys are not going to stop and think about the niceties of the two letter country code … or so I opine.
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