The .md Domain Explained

SERVICES PROVIDED WITH A .MD WEB ADDRESS

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.Md is a new top-level domain. How can you get your own and how much will it cost? What are the benefits, if any, does this service offer? You are listening to ReachMD, the Channel for Medical Professionals. I am your host Dr. Michael Benson. Today, we will be discussing the services provided with a .md web address with our guest, Mr. Scott Finlay, Chief Executive Officer of MaxMD. Scott is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. After leaving the army and before starting MaxMD, he served as a managing director for both the North American Equity Trading and Global Equity Finance Divisions of Lehman Brothers.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

So, Scott, what's up with MaxMD? It is a sole licensing agency for .md web addresses.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

That is correct. MaxMD owns the exclusive marking rights to the .md domain in over 90 countries around the world and although we own the exclusive rights, we have created partnerships with organizations like DraftFCB Healthcare, New York City Advertising Company that has a closed-loop marketing business for healthcare; Answers Media Inc, which is an interactive media company, which has the specialty in healthcare; also partnered with the Southern Medical Association, which is an organization in the Southeast United States, which has over 35,000 members in 17 southern states, and we also have a partnership that we are developing with VeriSign Inc, which is registrar of .com as well as registrars in Germany, the UK, Australia, and Japan. So, we have licensed some partners, mostly their organizations, that focus on healthcare and they have a healthcare orientation.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

So, let's assume that, I think this .md top-level domain name is actually pretty cool and let's assume that I actually want to get one for myself. How much does it cost, what do I get for my nickel, etc., etc.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

Good, you asked the question about how much it costs. First of all, you go to Max.MD to register a .md domain name. Let me just sort of explain the history. We created a prize point of 150 dollars for a registration about 4 years ago with the intent of preserving valuable Internet real estate for healthcare market participants and what we have done is that prize point we started to back-fill the value proposition. Our intent again was to just weigh its speculators. We are aware of the domaining industry, you know domaining in essence is a practice of buying up valuable Internet domain names and arbing the adsense campaigns of the search engine. So, what we did was we tried to create a prize point and then we started the back fill, the value proposition so what you get when you purchase a .md domain name. Well, you receive 1 secure .md e-mail account, which allows you to communicate securely anywhere on the web. You also receive 1 secure web mail account so that you can access your e-mail when you are away from your desk and you receive a .md secure instant messenger, which basically creates a networking capability domain-wide where you can communicate with any other .md domain name holder securely. In addition to those tools, we also provide you with a free website. It's a simple website with 10 megabytes of free storage and up to 5 links or documents can be placed on that or a photo. It basically establishes a simple Internet presence for those that don’t have the budget or the inclination for a more detailed or expensive website. We don’t think doctors need e-commerce sites. Doctors need a simple website so that they can be found on the web. We have also created a .md verified physician batch, which is an interactive batch that improves the search engine optimization of your, score of your website and we also do some search engine optimization work so that you can be found and at end of the day, if you already have an existing website, we provide you with free URL forwarding because some times we hear doctors say, "we already have a .com, so why should I own a .md." We particularly believe doctors should have their own name .md because doctors are in fact a brand, if you understand how people find doctors, I mean when a new mom is looking for a doctor for her baby, she goes, you know, go down to the community and she finds out who is the most trusted doctor. They don’t say go to the east-side clinic, they say oh go see Dr. Benson, he is a good doctor. So, we think of doctors as a brand. We want them to reinforce the brand. We think that all the tools reinforce them as a brand, secure e-mail for using you Dr. Benson's example if your domain name was michaelbenson.md, your e-mail address would be DrBenson@michaelbenson.md, very little chance that that would be mistaken for spam or anything else and very unusual that it would be deleted or is unread.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

What if the doctor wanted a more elaborate website? Is that something you also offer?

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

What we have done is we have partnered with some organizations, who specialize in building websites and we can give doctors or point them in the direction of some companies that we feel are very reputable. Swarm is a great company. Their actual business is they produce animations as well as websites for the healthcare community and we have new clients coming on all the time. Cyrus Online has just recently created a relationship with us, but that was in a range, so we can give you a range if you want to spend X to create a website, but if you really want to go all the way up the scale, we have many options for you to do that.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

If you have just joined us, you are listening to ReachMD, The Channel for Medical Professionals. I am your host, Dr. Michael Benson and my guest is Mr. Scott Finlay, Chief Executive Officer of MaxMD. We are discussing the services provided with a .md web address.

What if there are several physicians in my practice. You said its 150 dollars just to get a domain name for 1. What if I have several physicians?

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

The .md domain name comes with a 1 free secure e-mail account, but you can purchase multiple domain names, if you wanted all of those domain names to resolve to your website. Fact is that's a pretty common business practice. Microsoft as a company has somewhere around 20,000 domain names that all resolve to the same site. So, if you wanted to purchase more secure e-mail accounts, we have a practice package, which you could purchase in groups of 10 additional e-mail accounts. Each e-mail account comes with a secure IM and a secure web mail client, so every one of your doctors would have their ability to communicate using a secure e-mail. I want to talk really about the value proposition. When you consider that you get search engine optimization, secure e-mail account, secure instant messenger, secure web mail, a simple web site with 10 megabytes of free storage opportunity for lengths and let's just say a practice package of 10 e-mail accounts, that's 11 e-mail accounts for 330 dollars a year to communicate securely anywhere over the web, that is a quarter of the cost of anything available in the market place in terms of secure communication. If you just purchase 10 e-mail accounts, just 10 secure e-mail accounts, nothing else that generally runs anywhere from 1000 to 1250 dollars. So, our focus has again been to focus on doctors, focus on their practice, help them establish their online presence, and be able to communicate. The idea of communication isn't simply with patients, but be able to communicate with their insurance company, be able to communicate with the labs and the pharmacies that they do business with on a daily basis. This starts to make a lot of sense.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

What about the cost? You said it was 330 dollars.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

I said it will cost you 330 dollars to have a domain name, a secure e-mail account, a secure web mail client, a secure instant messenger, a free website with 10 megabytes of free storage, the verified physician's batch, search engine optimization, and then 10 additional e-mail accounts, 330 dollars a year or about 8 cents a user a day.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

What about that search engine, you've kind of glossed over that, but that might be important. What about search engine optimization? Can you explain that?

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

It is very important. This usually is the second question or the first question after someone gets a website built. They say well then how do I get found? We do some search engine optimization work and the best example I usually give is we have a physician out in the west coast, Randy S. Harris. If you google Randy S. Harris, he will come up number 1 out of 2.3 million returns. All that really is that we do some extra work. We create some links between your site and our site to help you be found.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

Yeah, but I thought on Google, you have to kind of slip in some money to come up number 1.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

No. There is actually 2 ways that you come up number 1. On the right hand side of Google, you can pay for your position, but on the left hand side, that's really a function of search engine optimization and some of the fees for search engine optimization are pretty expensive, but for a simple website like Randy S. Harris, we have a couple of needle tools and it seems to work very, very effectively. We get most people up on the first page of the search engine results. It has to do with basically being specific.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

So, in other words, you have some program as you know the search engine algorithms.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

We have figured out some unique tools to, you know, actually get some people up in the search results and you know it's pretty powerful. Perfect example is, you know, Randy's website is very simple. It has a picture of Randy, it has his address, it has his contact information, his secure e-mail address, has a verified physician batch, but you know the results speak for yourself, 1 out of 2.3 millions. It is not like his name is pretty unique.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

No, it's pretty common.

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

Pretty common, so 1 out of 2.3 million is a pretty good result.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

Then, if I do the package for the 330 dollars and get 10 secure e-mail sites, will each of the doctors have their own little website or it's just 1 website for however many doctors you have?

MR. SCOTT FINLAY:

If you buy additional e-mail accounts, they go to that domain. So, for example, we would recommend let's say michaelbenson.md, your e-mail address would be drbenson@.md. We would also recommend that you create an e-mail account called claims@michaelbenson.md. We have done a lot of learning around this. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield, New Jersey. Their only ability to communicate with doctors in New Jersey is through phone or fax. It takes 36 days on average to settle a claim with Blue Cross Blue Shield, New Jersey and that's 6 days inside the insurance company and 30 days planned phone tag. By creating that, claims@michaelbenson.md, now you can put anything in there. That is PHI and relative contents of the claim. The fact pattern if you will, send it to them and then only information that comes back in that account is claims-related data. I have a good buddy, who runs a practice out here in New Jersey. He has 4 people that track down claims. They all work part time. These are sort of productivity gains that you could generate just simply by intelligently using your 10 accounts. If you want to create 10 specific, we would tell you to buy a domain name for each doctor, that that domain name is permanent and portable no matter where he goes for the rest of his life. If he is a young doctor and he comes out and he goes to a hospital and he goes to another hospital, and if he goes to a big practice from a small practice, michaelbenson.md is going to be his domain name and the basis of his e-mail. We call it a permanent and portable address and it's a professional address. The chances of that being misunderstood are little to none, but the fact is, you know, who would delete an e-mail from their doctor.

DR. MICHAEL BENSON:

I want to thank Mr. Scott Finlay, Chief Executive Officer of MaxMD, who has been our guest. We have been discussing the services provided with a .md web address.

I am your host, Dr. Michael Benson. You have been listening to the Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD, The Channel for Medical Professionals. We would really like to hear from you, for comments and questions about this program or suggestions for other shows, send your e-mail to xm@reachmd.com. You can hear podcast of this and other programs as well as get show schedules on our website at reachmd.com. Be safe, be informed. Thank you for listening.

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