Morning Folks!!
Below is Part 1 of a 2 part video that was shot live at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. just exactly one week ago today. Almost to the hour. Whichever side of gTLD's you come down on, you will love it! At least I think you will.
I think you will see it is candid, passionate, respectful and displays the best of our industry debating a true unknown. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed participating in it and I want to thank Frank for agreeing to do it to begin with. It is great theatre and it was sorely needed to give some clarity to what is coming.
Team Schilling was made up of Frank Schilling, Monte Cahn, Jeff Saas, and Tim Johnson. Team Schwartz had Lonnie Borck and yours truly.
Gentlemen, thank you for agreeing to participate in this panel. It is helpful to all. The proof will be when you see the comments and overall reaction throughout the industry and beyond. I hope you will join me again in Las Vegas in May so we can do it again because we are a long way from knowing what is to come and in May we will be closer to finding out.
Now I am going to sit back and watch it for the first time myself. History in the making. We will look back at this in a few years and we will see. Enjoy!!!!
Part 2 will be out next Monday if all goes smooth or sooner if we can. If you can't load on your mobile device, try
Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/77963554
YouTube link: http://youtu.be/bSSq_9rYWY0
Rick Schwartz
Harry L Shields
Four against two, even with Rick on side two, is not an even debate. The four did exchange differences which helped balance the debate somewhat. I personally believe that it would require $5-$10 billion to take anyone of the new gTLD’s and secure a half of one percent market share that even .net now enjoys, dot.com impossible to figure. I believe that it would take the reincarnation of Elvis Presley, live on international television, proclaiming that he was supporting .graceland before any .whatever would ever come close to the world’s most recognizable extension, dot.com. I find it really hard to understand why a businessman such as Frank, with over 300,000 domains, would even take on such an endeavor?
Observer
Thank you for the great video. I am still curious why somebody thinks some whatevers will be more successful than .cc. If that is simply because of their marketing/promotion activities of millions of dollars, they are doomed.
Samit
Brilliant arguments from both sides.
From my perspective with the world going mobile and the demand for shorter domains increasing, ccTLDs will actually ‘win’ due to all the marketing $$ that come in with new gTLDs.
To read the post I did about this, click my name above.
UFO
I think the registries will make money and thats why they are going for the new TLDs. I think some of them definitely have enough scale with all the TLDs they are chasing to get economies going and thus make the profitability hurdle quite achievable.
Lets assume everyone across the US eventually has at least 1 domain name, for their personal online info,contact etc… thats a shed load of more potential. Why have tele numbers when you can have a URL? Why not have an easy to remember URL and ditch the mobile number and have forwarding off the URL … all this sort of technology is buildable and must be around the corner and coming. People have avatars to express themselves for contact and representation purposes so obviously a URL would be equally good.
Anyway, as far as domainer investments, these URLs are fools gold because 1) anything worth having will be fully priced at issue by the registries etc and 2) Anyone wanting these TLD addresses will be looking for a lower cost entry than the equivalent .com. 3)Much higher risk attached to any probable future sale of the domain. And as I have mentioned before portfolio profitability is a function of margin and turnover.
For developers, these TLDs can offer some cheap building ground for SE traffic. But it will be more for informational content rather than commercial physical type businesses that rely on consumer perception and confidence.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Who will possibly make the most money from .Whatsthis ??
Who is the driving force behind the .Whatsthis ??
Its spelled G O O G L E .COM
Why you say ?
If you are successful at destroying any Brand Memorability, you need S.E.O. supported and distorted propoganda supplied by you know who.
There is a well financed effort to destroy ALL Brand memorability. Guess what is the Worlds Strongest Brand ??
P.S. .Whatsthis will be viewed by consumers as Sales Pitch Entrapment Devices
Domenclature.com
I own
SearchAllgTLDs.com
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
The biggest resistance and backlash to .Whatsthis? will ironically come from Madison Avenue. Madison Avenue has spent centuries building Brands,and once they get the picture that the .Whatsthis? introduction is for Brand Annhilation the .Whatsthis experiment will be over. Without question this will happen. JAS 10/28/13
UFO
@Jeff
That’s what I have been saying; basically Google wants a confused user that needs its search facility. They want to control eyeballs. Sooner or later (and it will likely be instigated by the EU) Google will be forced to give up market share of search.
But you know, stupid is what stupid does. You only need to look at large corporates that when you search their name on Google they have a Google advert above the number 1 slot. So users click on that. Its nuts.
Still can’t understand why MS via IE doesn’t put a search box on IE which beats Google as it’s presented before they even navigate to a webpage. Ideally they would make the taskbar the search box but they’d need to make it clear by having directly on the left of the task bar the word ‘search’ and perhaps with a ? Mark near so people could learn. Or have a ‘learn something new’ icon on the pane and teach users some new tricks. Don’t know why MS via IE doesn’t have its Skype icon on the task pane… sheeze you’d think they’d be looking for some synergies with their acquisition.
Nuts, big corporates that are stupid.
Jonathan
Very Good, Good Debate, I still think the new gtld’s are nothing more than a classified ad listing without a brand. = cc or com = brand.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
I am agreeing with you UFO.
From a trained Market Analysts perspective, it becomes very clear that ALL search Engines will profit greatly from the .Whatsthis rollout. Why ??
Because ALL search engines profit goals depend on confused consumers looking for things to buy. Therefore any strategy that destroys Branding recognition as a solution to meet their needs, plays into their deceptive strategies.
Destoying ALL Branding Recognition creates a fertile ground for SEO misinformation and propoganda. This confusion, which they facilitate quite happily,misleads consumers and at the same time pads their Bank Accounts at the Consumers Expense. They make Billions by leaving consumers misguided and confused and totally dependent on Search Engines. Quite a lucrative Grifting Operation.
AlanR
Looks like you won Part one Rick! Your team made a lot more sense than they did. You have the past history of all the “dotcom wannabe” failures to back you up where they only have hope on their side. Yeah, it all looks good on paper and by their calculations, each new gtld looks like a winner but you just can’t back it up with anything as a sure bet like you can with the history of dotcom
.
The one major thing that these guys are not figuring in is human nature. They keep forgetting that we are not robots that can remember thousands of extensions and everything left of the dot and their relevance to the search, all at the same time. Humans like things as simple as possible, especially since we are usually running on brain overload with so much going on in our lives these days.
At best, the average person will remember a few extensions outside of the extension that is the default in their locale. Here in America, dotcom has pretty much got things wrapped up. How many times a day do we even hear or see another extension? I doubt I see more than one or two a week and I instantly forget about them. If I do think of the name again a day or two later, I won’t remember which extension it was and will eventually type in dotcom to see what’s there. There was no need to bring out these new extensions. This is all about money, not about making the internet more simple!
Mr. T.
Wow!… mind blowing session!
That was a very unique look into our industry’s future landscape.
As well as a lot of wishful thinking.
Amazing to see the “needs, wants or desires” for there to be an inventory issue instead of the “needs, wants or desires” from the people on the street.
Guess we’ll see how expensive to keep a new gTLD alive a generation or two.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Its going to take more than the DNA to save the .Whatsthis?, from its Waterloo.
I wonder if the DNA, realizes, in their arrogance, they are firing a shot over the Bow of all .COM Institutional Holders, who are currently the Foundational Backbone for the Webs Infrastructure?
Gratefully, Jeff schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Frank Strauss
So what? That name sucks. It is a big pet peeve of mine when people jump into threads and mention their crap names. The names usually suck, just like your incomprehensible names. Go whisper that name to some stranger on the street and he might call the cops, since he would think you were insane.
Kevin Davis
Awesome bring on part 2
UFO
@Domenclature.com
Must admit I did think WTF when you mentioned SearchAllgTLDs.com like Frank Strauss (I believe) makes reference to.
It fails the radio/recollection test, and if you deconstruct it, it fails on other aspects as well. 1) Google SE will cover all TLDs so why search gtlds anyway .com? Why the need for a new service on a third rate domain? 2) Someone would need to use a SE to find your website, 3) By implication you are indicating that your website would have a SE on it, which then throws up the notion that is a multimillion undertaking and they’d go for a short succinct .com like search.com find.com etc etc etc.
You need the right horses for the appropriate courses.
rick is duhhh winner
Shame on you, Mr. Schwartz. You took advantage and beat up a bunch of mental midgets. To think that you actually found four people dumber than dirt to be on Team Schilling is totally amazing to me. Cannot believe the utter stupidity that came out of Monte’s mouth. It is .mobi all over again and he is too ignorant to realize it. The best part was when they all disagreed with one another. Good luck with your .crap gentlemen.
MarkA
I wish Monte wouldn’t have talked over Frank so much. Lot of good moments I wanted to hear more where he was cut off. Can I get a re-do
Domenclature.com
@Schwartz,
Virtually all the points made by the Schilling team defied what we already know about introduction of gTLDs after IANA, and the dawn of ICANN, and they made no attempt to tell us why the consumer will behave differently this time; Domainers are tapped out, just like one of the prominent audience members indicated, “there’s no liquidity” in the after market, from domainer to domainer sales. Further, there was no interest from the public or small business outfits to come and hear Schilling, Monte Cahn, and .Club speak at TRAFFIC (these are heavy weight personalities); that is scary! Everyone I see at the venue came because of .com and Traffic. If I recall correctly, even .mobi attracted a huge audience prior to it’s launch.
@Frank Strauss
What is your qualification to decide?
@UFO,
Not all domain names are meant for radio, or for recollection, or for Google. For example, 1and1domains.com fails the radio test, because on the radio, it may sound like one or 1. Plus, they took their campaign to television; Google is not a panacea.
The name I mentioned is a small utility name for a specific task, and I mentioned it for a reason. It’s one of several tens thousands in our inventory.
Stu
Great discussion Rick, loved how Howard had to say the shops were great before interviewing them!
Rich
Thank you for the debate.
I just did not get the guy that bought e.co.
He said that he made profit on it, then he said he will never do it again.
WHAT !!!
You made profit and you will never do it again? WOW ! Now that is plane stupid,and you expect us to take in consideration your thoughts?Please
After this debate i intend to think that there will be handful of gTLDs that will make it.
What does it mean “make it” ? gTLDs that 5years later after they open their doors will have more then 500,000 names registered.
From the 700 generic Gs about 10 will surpass that number mentioned.
.com WILL get more expensive.
This is my prediction
Domenclature.com
Most ‘domainers’ are noise makers. They simply take phrases coined by Schwartz out of contest. They are either kissing the domain king’s ass, or they are insulting him. There’s a third option: have robust discussion, challenge, debate, and make up your own mind.
Schwartz and I agree on almost everything. But, we also disagree on certain things. I said it before, I regard Schwartz as domain king, not God. For example, Schwartz bought a lot of .CO domain names, relatively speaking, compared to mere mortals; therefore he made a bad call there. I only bought a few dozens.
Schwartz believes that domain names should pass some kind of radio test, I don’t. And so on…
it’s funny, even in the discussion about new gTLDs, all the prominent actors that domainers talk about daily, do NOT have one word, memorable, radio passing names, yet ‘domainer’ remember the names, such as 1on1domains.com and so …
Bottom line is this, if you are in domaining to earn Google’s PPC, and depend on search engine bullshit, just remember, that is not what most businesses are thinking about. Peace. ;-)
Domenclature.com
correction:
contest >> context
Kassey
Interesting to see .kiwi to be promoted. I have recently moved to .com, after using my .co.nz for over 10 years. I gave up my .co.nz domain because (1) it’s expensive — costing me about US$50/yr via my ISP, (2) making Whois changes was almost impossible (requiring me to email the ISP’s support staff who still failed to update my info after months), (3) the Internet means global, so why limit my opportunities to only a specific country?
Rick Schwartz
3 says it all.
DrDomainer
AlanR made an excellent point that most people are not robots
and the gTLDs panel have not thought outside the box they are
completely stuck in tunnel vision. This is the problem with lots of
system stuck Intelligent people they don’t get into the mindset of the
real world like Howard’s video. They make their own world and slowly
with time they forget that lots of people don’t think like them and their
energy field is like a drop in the ocean.
Look at the type of subjects that bring in the crowds and lots of these type of people are not robots. List of most watched television broadcasts
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts
SIMPLE SELLS
Simple sells and as Rick mentioned com is the Biggest and Largest Franchise
in the History of the World. I agree the Tsunami will hit some places but its not going to effect the ocean and the places it hits will slowly change back to the old
ways with extra business for the com Franchise. This list of new species entering the ocean will get washed away! They are going to be like door salesmen trying to convert the owners of the large corporations and properties to change.
Dot com is family of the world and it’s too late for change.
UFO
@Kassey
Use 1stdomainz.co.nz their rego for .co.nz is $21.50 Pa. Its pretty good never had an issue.
Anand
Once the general public becomes aware of Google’s entry into the Registry / new TLD business, the US DOJ / FTC might step in and attempt to break up Google into 2 or more companies (with Charleston Road Registry having to be partially / fully separated out), a la the break-up of AT&T into the 7 ‘Baby Bells’ under the Reagan Administration in 1982 and the Clinton Administration’s efforts to force Microsoft to ‘unbundle’ / separate Internet Explorer from Windows, post Netscape’s creation, and then, its IPO in 1995)
Brussels, too, may step in.
UFO
One angle though I would take on the .com v new TLDs is that new developing nations and laggards in the internet space (esp those with cctlds) MAY be potentials to adopt .web
Take China or Brazil. All the top .com’s are already owned by Americans. Just maybe they will adopt say .web because its affordable, available and enough of them buy it recognisable.
Some of these TLDs could benefit from concentrating marketing and allocation of their names in geo focused regions. No matter how much cash for marketing they have its not enough and would be better focused somewhere where they may get sufficient scale and clustering to make a worthwhile recognition impact.. esp in a high growth market.
In NZ the .kiwi is an example of this. Geo centric in a cctld environment and in an undeveloped market. The only downside is that the population base is low so the potential takeup can never be nominally high.
Poll: Are you Team Schwartz or Team Schilling? - Robbie's Blog : Robbie's Blog
[…] this is one of the best debates I have seen for a long time and I would highly recommend visiting Rick’s Blog and watching the video and then cast you […]
Nancy Badillo
Thank you for the informative video! Great information provided!
Will be sharing with my blog community.
NEIL
With all due respect, only Rick knew what he was talking about…and Frank, of course.
ICANN are the chosen ones? They cannot make a huge mistake? They will start a new economic crisis flooding the Internet with nonsense and confusion.
DotComKingdom.com is the most organized at this time, I think.
Simple, the business wants to sell, the customers to by, no place for fun.nonsense, especially now.
Just the one’s man opinion…
Danny Pryor
I think we’ve struck a nerve! I mentioned to Howard and Barbara that this was the best debate at TRAFFIC since Madison Avenue came to Florida in 2006. Madison Avenue didn’t learn anything. And if I may be a bit of a tease, you’ll love the way Part II starts. OOoooooohhhhh!!!
Kerry
good stuff. Thanks for putting this together and sharing.
Winner Declared
Hi Rick,
I, too, am impressed that you found four “domainers” who think the gtld plan makes any sense. Even though you had to have one of them fly all the way from New Zealand, I would not have thought it could be done. How can anyone really think that selling a .pigeonsh*t for $50-$200/year is going to have a snowball’s chance in hell? What’s that you say, it will be the same price as .com? In that case, gimme the .com. What’s that you say? It’ll be free? Well, that will open the floodgates for the spammers (ala .info) and I don’t want to be associated with them so I will just stick with ol’ reliable .com, thanks.
If I was looking to pay more than $10/year, I would have kept my .co domains.
Winner of Round 1 =Rick Schwartz
Dan
Thought you were an Apple guy, Rick. Why can’t I watch the vid on my iPad..
LSM
“You made profit and you will never do it again? WOW ! Now that is plane stupid,and you expect us to take in consideration your thoughts?Please”
——————–
Its because he’s profoundly more intelligent than you are and grasps the basic concept of avoiding ‘results oriented thinking’ even in the face of an otherwise favorable outcome. Example: Recently bet on (UFC Fighter A) to win his fight and I won the bet. The bet was a terrible decision, the fight was razor thin and I had to lay out a premium to take him. Likewise, same fight card, I placed a bet on (UFC Fighter B) to win his fight by decision and was given a huge premium. The fight indeed went to a decision and it was razor thin, but I lost the bet. That turned out to unquestionably the best bet I made that night (being laid 9-1 on what essentially turned out to be a coinflip), even though I lost. What he said is a concept that demonstrate he’s thinking on a higher plane than you’ll ever know..
Nic
.Kiwi is going to die a thousand deaths, its got novelty value but that it, .co.nz is entrenched and the only thing that could touch its dominance is a .nz extension.
J mcbride
he forgot to mention that there is a .kiwi.nz domain – been around 9 months – only 3000 domains registered. .kiwi = fail
Drewbert
Actually it was ~9000 domains, BUT it’s been around just over a year now, and the renewal rate has come in at about 70% so it’s not looking good in the long term.
Lots of noob domainers jumped on board thinking they were gonna be rich, but not this time.
http://dnc.org.nz/content/oct_13_newsletter.pdf
g
Allow me to summarize everything:
Gtld = .Fail
Frederick (Freddy) Schiwek
RICK!
For the next conference I will bring a big poster how to spell my name. AND I do not work for Sedo!
Rich
LSM@
“Its because he’s profoundly more intelligent than you are and grasps the basic concept of avoiding ‘results oriented thinking’ even in the face of an otherwise favorable outcome.”
If he is so intelligent,why did he buy E.CO then? If it was such a bad investment…
Maestro
Boahhh , boring … what a bullshit …
TMan
http://www.ricksblog.com/2013/10/team-schwartz-vs-team-schilling-traffic-video-part-1/
UFO
You gotta read this, “In the event a Fortune 500 company network infrastructure fails to work because of collision, the damages that just one company could suffer could easily exceed all of ICANN assets.”
http://www.thedomains.com/2013/10/30/online-trust-alliances-gtld-domain-collisions-workshop-collision/
Just shows you that ICANN did virtually no audit of issues that might arise from these TLDs. All this sort of assessment should have been done before soliticing bids…
Remember, ICANN is supposed to be the authority on the internet. Not some layperson.
LSM
Because unlike you ever will be, he was in a financial position to buy something like e.co. He speculated, won but with the benefit of hindsight, is able to objectively comprehend it was a bad bet in spite of having a favorable outcome.
It’s a sign of someone with a brain. It’s rare. There’s a reason the scratch off lottery ticket business is so huge.
LSM
^ @ Rich ^
UFO
Admittedly, I didn’t realise that .kiwi is really .kiwi.nz which is a cctld and not a tld.
Not sure why .kiwi was even on the panel because thats arguing something different.
But, if you take NZ with population c4m with say 6300 renewals, then for the US that could be something like 3 quarters of a million domain names. Which would be profitable at a registry level but not at a domainer level.
The only way I see domainers making money on these is in the secondary market when someone having overpaid for one of these wants to get rid of it. Even then it would have to be a one worder.
Funniest domain in the secondary market for NZ was http://www.f*ck.school.nz
I’m sure it wasn’t aimed at the adult market and more likely registered by some disgruntled student. lol…
Kassey
@UFO, .kiwi is a new gTLD to be released, and .kiwi.nz is just a second level domain that someone is using to market third level domains. .nz is doing something similar to .uk where the second level is opened for registration too, in addition to the popular co.nz etc. So it may become a mess with 3 choices for just a small country of 4 million plus population. Some may like me even consider moving to com from .nz.
UFO
@Kassey
Ok, I understand now. .nz imho will take over and be the standard for NZ businesses. At least they are talking about grandfathering which is the fairest basis. .co.nz should have the greatest rights for migration as its the most commercially sensitive.
nominet here in the UK got a bloody lip because they were trying it on by not offering grandfathering and trying to make trademark holders auction for the domain with the proceeds being kept by nominet. I’ll join any class writ against them if they try to go through with that sort of thing. Will have to see what they’re up to now, bet they’ll be back trying it on.
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Anita
Its really funny to see how Team Shilling guys are still bent on saying that .COM is going to get overrun in registrations by the new GTLDs. LOL, are they really so naive?? The biggest question they should be asking themselves is “How on earth are we going to get everyone from .COM and ccTLDs to our GTLDs?” which is very similar to the story of the mice hitting upon and getting excited about their own fantastic idea of “belling the Cat so they know when it comes” but end up asking each other “Who is going to bell the CAT?”. They may eventually find their own niche customer base but its amazingly foolish to liken their registries to either .COM or the CCTLDs.
Altaf
Hello Rick,
Greetings and thanks a lot of arranging the first video. We enjoyed the debate with its fullest content satisfaction. However, the divider between your team and Frank obstructed the debate. Eye contact .
I am not sure how Frank still advocates new gTLDs will override .com. May be he got some clues. All depends upon the advertisers . How they accept so many new extensions over ccLDs. or .net, info, or biz even. I feel all new TLDs will see the same fate of .net. info,.or biz or even worse. Let us see how many end-users will know those for real use.
UFO
Ok, seeing as I enjoy spamming ricks blog so much I thought I’d better set up my own one. here -> StellarSpace.com
Perhaps one important point I make (imo) that global brand migration to TLDs make occur if as I believe browsers will eventually allow .brand to resolve to brand.brand landing page. I think this will happen.
Nb: Stellar Space was regged as a brandable for internet advertising. Ideal for PPC and advertising agencies in digital media.
creditcardsclubbippy123
This was not even close. Rick destroyed them in this debate. I just dont see what they can come up with to convince us that the public will react differently with .club then they did with all the other extensions.
.COM is here to stay and its only gonna get stronger.
NEIL
Rick, I hope everything is OK with You, no posts…
If you or a member of your family is sick, Feel Better! Kind regards, N.
Jeff Schneider
Hello UFO,
To resolve or not to resolve, this is the big question?
What can you point to in the past that caused all the other extensions, in actuality, to resolve more frequently than the .COM Extension?
If you can honestly, answer this question you will have the answer.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
UFO
@Jeff
Well, I’m not sure you’re thinking enough on this.
I’ll think of a large financial institution here in the UK as an example. Lets pick Lloyds Bank.
Now the marketing people there would definitely like to use .lloyds on all their branding. It looks far better than lloyds.co.uk. The cleaner the better. But in order for users to fully get the configeration of the expression it needs to be enetered into the browser as is. Simply as .llyods as once you start putting anything to the left then it becomes too similar to traditional URL usage and leads to mistypes.
The advantage of global multinational brands using .brand is they then can advertise more efficiently, take the case with .lloyds they could advertise mortgages as mortages.lloyds, pensions.lloyds rather than some radio adverts I hear with these companies as http://www.lloyds.co.uk/mortgages
See? They can also do a geo clean up with IP recognition.
So yes, more than convinced certain large players will adopt the TLD as their web address so long as the browser resolving issue can be overcome.
It should be noted that these large corporates already own the .com so there won’t be any leakage, or brand confusion as .brand is actually closer
My guess the second round of TLDs in approx 5 years will be heavily fought as all these corporates will start getting up to speed, in the example lloyds. Well, there’s lloyds bank and there is lloyds insurance so the potential for this one globally definable name could be more than fierce.
UFO
@Jeff
Did you read my piece on what I think a Break even point is on these new TLDs. Its actually very low. I hadn’t been aware that ICANN only charges a transaction fee of $0.25 for new domains and renewals. I’ve come in around c37k domains would be break even +/- depending on some factors that would need better analysis. Which would make all prior TLDs irrespective of their perception actually profitable at a registry level.
Altaf
@UFO,
Thank you for your continued feedback. But how many staff/customer of 7.5 bn knows .lloyds or will type ins? all guess then .com will never shine…
UFO
@Altaf
Not sure exactly what you are meaning. But you only have to look at those large international companies that have the strongest brands and advertise most to know they have the most to gain.
If you took the worlds 200 most recognisable brands and they follow my approach (assuming browser compatibility) then .com would lose perhaps 50% of its advertising in one go.
An interesting point follows that rather than a 2 char .com some large corporates may wish to rebrand to a single short name.
Like I say, it only takes a small change in browser settings and everything changes. Said that, it only takes a small change in browser settings and private networks could completely change URLs by making anything possible.
Jeff Schneider
@UFO
Our 40+ years of Marketing tracking and analysis, leads us to the conclusion that the introduction of the gTLD Experiment will default More, not less, traffic to the .COM franchises. JAS 11/3/13
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Boo Hoo, Woe Is Me
The gtld’s will simply be a flash in the pan, just as the other “exciting” tld’s that have been tried in the past. A lot more money will be lost this time around, but boo-hoo — the suckers have been adequately warned. Got to give the points to Rick for this half of the debate. Team Schilling needs to go back to the Caymans and/or New Zealand to learn some history.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Our guess is that right now ICANN is choking on the can of worms they have opened with this whole gTLD Derivatives Experiment.
They, by now, are realising the very real danger of upsetting the DNS system and all the liabilites that may come from this gTLD Derivatives Debacle they have created. JAS 11/3/13
Gratefully, Jeff schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
UFO
@Jeff
Well, the .com hasn’t been online for 40 years.
All these world class brands ALREADY own their respective .com so any confusion, mistype or whatever simply does not matter.
They can cover off any advertising confusion with appropriate redirects off their subdomains.
I’m coining this term the law of entrophy where large corporates will migrate closest to their brand in any expression .brand is the closest by showing the . as meaning internet followed by their brand. Bit like # that is used for pics.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
The BIG question for Corporate boardrooms ?
Will the gTLD Derivatives Experiment foster Internet Commerce expansion?
Or will it cause a Train Wreck of Epic proportions that will cause collisions within the DNS system that will stop some behemoths operations in their tracks?
Gratefully, Jeff schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Kassey
@UFO ” . as meaning internet followed by their brand. Bit like # that is used for pics.” Excellent idea! People have learned to use # hashtag and @MyName on Twitter, aggressive marketing to give a new meaning to the “.’ is possible. So, as far as I’m concerned, .brand’s move is the one to watch.
Jeff Schneider
@UFO,
No one is better at Predictive Market Outcomes than was the Rockefeller I.B.E.C. Group. They hired me for counsel, as their Marketing Analyst, for their International Business Penetration Initiative.
Yes you are right the Internet has been around less than my 40+ year experiences.
Regardless , Market Fundamentals remain the same no matter the medium.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
UFO
Common Jeff S, this isn’t a p*ssing contest. Try opening your mind a bit and see what a slight change in technology can bring. (and its not even technology its just a bit of scripting.
If you can’t agree on the following example then you fail marketing 101.
Example: What is preferable for any brand assuming no prior knowledge of internet protcols.
http//www.brand.com
or
.brand
See, .brand is cleaner, clearer and has the minimum of difference to the brand.
Everything to the left of the . is redundant for user experience, it shouldn’t be included in any use of browsers. Everything to the right of the brand isn’t needed for global brands with geo location.
. = internet
# = pictures
@ = email
All is needed now is a symbol for VOIP / Telephone
Jeff Schneider
Hello UFO,
You are taking my reply out of context. I completely agree with your observation that a Strong Branded .COM will be the gTLDs that may work out of all the experimental Derivatives being cooked up by capitalizing on .brand. , Its just that the whole group offering of gTLDs will be definitionally categorized and associated with the good and the bad both.
Trouble is they will ALL be branded overall as gTLD experiments and as such will be effected by the whole groups acceptance level. This labeling or group association cannot be escaped.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
UFO
Jeff S.
I know the CIO for North America in a huge financial services company. I bet I could convince him to allow me to make a presentation and hear me out why they should take on their name as a .brand
However, the ONLY way I could explain and justify it is with a major caveat on how browsers could handle user type in’s of ‘.brand’. See, if browsers won’t resolve to what I’d call a Meta index page of say brand.brand from typing in .brand into the browser then I cannot see the adoption of .whatever.
I actually wrote a blog entry on it. If browsers adopt .brand and resolve to brand.brand then it’s seriously game on for these .whatevers and I think the major browsers will adopt it if they are shown the light. At the same time they may drop the http://www from task panel (Unnecessary for users like knowing an IP address) entries and also turn their browsers into search engine entry points.
In effect ‘.brand’ goes to internet, whereas ‘brand’ goes to search. The browser owners will like that. Plenty of users searching for secondary brands and being dumped into search results because those secondary brands don’t own the matching TLD.
Like I say, I see the future as mega brands on .brand, secondary companies on .com and all the small fry on cctlds and .whatevers
See, I’m not saying the .com will be usurped by some other TLD, its just not necessary as browsers evolve and the respective brands owning the matching TLD.
The large brands won’t instantly move to their TLD they’ll do small proof of concepts and have themselves covered with subdomains on their .com’s to redirect. But, it won’t take more than the worlds top 100 brands to adopt this and the landscape will start changing.
Like I say though, .com will still be powerful but not as powerful as a brands own .brand as a TLD.
Just some small changes in browsers required. And there are enough participants in the game that can benefit from it, so I see it as an irresistible force.
UFO
Nb: I see google as potentially adverse because it owns less of browser use than search. However if Bing struck deals with Opera, firefox and say even Apple, then Google might just have to accept the change as Chrome would look inferior.
NNb: With browser type in’s ‘.brand’ as an internet address, ‘whatever.TLD’ as internet address, ‘whatever’ as search request, ‘whatever.’ as unknown and dropped into search results.
Altaf
@UFO,
“May be” ,”if” “assuming”. Yes, I do agree many changes possible with those.Then I keep 3 letter. whatever. May be one day some corp. will demand it. You got a good sense with every changes that may occur tomorrow. Even internet/domain may not be there. A new concept may emerge too. I loved your “small change in browser settings and private networks could completely change URLs by making anything possible.”