Evening Folks!!
Quite a day it has been in domain land. No matter where you come down on things, it has been interesting.
The most surprising to me was the one company I had my eyes on. I knew they would grab one, but I was not sure about the others. When I saw that they did not apply for .Mac, Apple did what was expected and got .Apple.
No confusion there! Simple! Reinforcing. Clear.
I was surprised that so much crap was revealed. Some looked more like domain names than extensions.
3 parties are going after .Property and one for .Properties. So I have nothing to complain about. There will be dividends to the .com and money to be made as this unfolds. Just not in the way domainers make money.
I had a supplier in the 1980's that taught me about making money from the 'Hole in the Donut.' How you sell something you got for free for a lot of money and make infinite profit because your cost basis was $0.
So there will be money to be made, just not in the traditional way we think of in terms of domain investing. There will be a lot of entities hiring new people. Experienced people. But nothing will happen overnight. 2013, 2014, 2015.
Can you imagine the intensity of the marketing when hundreds are out there all pointing out the benefits of their extension? Some we have heard before and some may be new. It will be a WAR! The brands will all be fine and useful. I have no doubt there. But the experiment will be consumer adaptation or it could become an internal platform for a company.
As for the generic gTLD's again, the consumer will decide. When was the USA scheduled to go on the metric system??
This is not all black and it is not all white. But as always, time will tell. First we are going to see some of the highest stake poker games the public has EVER seen before. Amazon vs Google for one. This is a heavyweight match and there will be a number of them unfolding. One thing for sure, it won't be boring.
Rick Schwartz
Juegos
Agreed, it will not be boring. Rick, do you own more coinciding domains apart from properties and property.com? Its pretty clear that the value of those coinciding domains will increase substantially. The example of xxx.com is a great one. Doubling its traffic since the sunrise of the .xxx extension. I hope the same occurs to your domains Rick.
Paul Stahura
“making money from the Hole in the Donut.”
I like it
Chris
I think 95% of the .brands are purely”what-ifs”. They’ll likely never be used, but they’re big enough companies that they can take the gamble. Some may have been duped into defensive registration thinking that someone else might grab their brand. Of those that will be used, they’re of little value unless every major company has a .brand. Consumers will quickly tire of trying to visit .brands that don’t even exist and the behaviour will trail off. What’s the payoff for Canon? Is cameras.canon better than canon.com/cameras? Not really. YouTube might offer second level domains to their users. tedsfavoritevideos.youtube. Not really a money-maker, just a distraction.
Some of the .categories are defensive also. Amazon will probably never use .book, they just don’t want anyone else to have it. What are they going to do with it anyway? harrypotterandthephilosophersstone.book? What’s the point? Where’s the payoff? They haven’t been a bookstore for ten years anyway.
The .category applicants are pointing to the .brands as proof that they’ll succeed. If Canon are going to promote .canon it will bring these new TLDs into the publics’ eye. The problem again there is that the public will tire of trying to browse to extensions that don’t exist, and the behaviour will fade.
Another interesting example is .bank; it’s telling that no actual banks applied to run .bank. So what’s the applicants’ business plan? Sell banks their own trademarked name? Not going to happen. You’ll have to hand those over for free. Who else is going to apply? Perhaps their plan is to wildcard the second level, but if they think they’re going to earn money from people visiting citi.bank or citibank.bank without a fight from Citibank they’re going to have to think again.
.africa; because .asia and .eu were such huge successes.
The two extensions I point to are .biz and .info – both are perfectly functional, simple, they say what they do, have been around for years, no registration restrictions, plenty of available names especially for end-users, and yet no traction either. Some people point to .co as a success but, again, there has been no real end-user traction. The .co registry made a buck, mainly from speculators, but those dollars are going to be thinly spread this time around. A few speculators may have struck it lucky, but the average is a loss.
.travel; yes there were restrictions early on, but they were lifted years ago when they were on the edge of bankruptcy. A prime candidate for success. Ever visited a .travel site?
TB
Imagine a world with 50 Million TLDS. Don’t Laugh, could happen
A new 20 Year Business Plan for the early adopters.
It may take 20 years and be as cheap as 10 bucks to register then
.COM will be .RIP…. but for next 10-20 years, its safe…..
Gnanes
It’s going to be an interesting battle. I read some comments on few articles that covered the big reveal and some people were not happy about new GTLDs.
Dean
With all due respect, .blackfriday as an extension!? Most will be abysmal failure, some a success. I am putting my money on .app, .cloud, .gmbh .game and a couple more. The rest are slated for the domain extension trash heap IMO.
Philip Corwin
Well said Rick. Good post.
Trico
“Can you imagine the intensity of the marketing when hundreds are out there all pointing out the benefits of their extension?”
All such marketing for new gTLDs should include a free memory course.
:)
@Domains
It just struck me today how big a change this will be to the internet, and that this is a one time window to go after any extension you want. Once a company has control of it, that’s it. So, although I still think many or most will fail or be marginal, you never know if a few will cick with the public or work out well over time, as the internet grows. Still remains to see who gets which extension though.
Ray Marshall
I believe the .brands and .cities will do well. Not sure about the generics with the exception of .web. Companies with deep pockets will support their domains and won’t be dependent on selling domains to keep their domains affloat. They’ll be using their domains for their own use. Cities will be able to tap their existing infrastructure to market their city TLD. Also assisting the cities are the unique relationships they’ve established with companies that will run the back end of their TLD. City TLDs will offer societies the opportunity to become more local with social. Another interesting observation are the big public accounting firms that have applied for their TLD, i.e., Deloitte, KPMG, PWC. Also noticed that the AICPA applied for .cpa. Perhaps .cpa will be used by its members should the AICPA prevail in its bid. Glad to see that the City of Los Angeles didin’t apply for .losangeles. Should help the .LA domain space. Curious if .LAT will be contested given that it’s similar to .LA. I agree that this is a game changer and will certainly be very interesting over the next several months.
jonathan
For established brands it will not make any difference and that includes the com brand. Media giants / networks can & will change public habit’s with dot brand name the rest is about selling verticals to the masses.
turtle neck
seems painfully obvious to me that all of today’s announced gtlds will fail. they ones who will do well are the guys like rick who own the .com counterparts. no brainer.
geegky
Many on the gtld list reminded me of .coop — and we know exactly how that story ends.
Thor
@Rick:
It’s funny that the applicant’s will never see a return on their investments yet you will get thousands in traffic and exposure from someone else’s attempt. Hey, does that mean they can sue you like your friends in Brazil tried? Good luck with your .com equivalents and with your frivolous saveme.com arbitration defense.
I think we just witnessed the largest .com price increase ever take place.
steve cheatham
Just watching the side show. All the new”billionaires”. lol
Bill W
664 of the applications were for”Brands” ie Apple, Walmart, Airbus, Barclays, etc.
Most were probably defensive registrations IMO, but also a bit of insurance on the marketing front if they find a strategic way to use for implementation. I don’t count them out, but I don’t count them”in” for the shorterm.
Modern Franchises
I get certain aspects of this whole gigantic release of GLD’s but I have to wonder just what affect it will have on the state of the Internet. Will it make the Internet a better and more useful tool? I suspect the answer may not be as rosy as many might believe.
Total Joke
Just another pump and dump. It is a non-factor. Dotcom is just too strong. It is synonymous with legitimacy on the Internet.
If you took ONE TRILLION DOLLARS and started a news extension from scratch, you could not replicate what dotcom had. You couldn’t even get close.
How much money do you think you would need to overtake Coca Cola if you started a soft drink company from zero? You have to replace sales, AND the mindset of legitimacy. Think about how people order soft drinks. They ask for a coke, and the person serving them says”is Pepsi OK”? You won’t see that happen the other way around…they don’t ask for Pepsi, and then asked if Coke is OK.
So, Pepsi could spend billions and billions and never overtake coke in the consumer’s mind.
And people think that these new scams will take away from dotcom? Please. It will never happen. Dotcom just rolls on.
M
@Total Joke
Exactly. And every single day that passes between now and when the first gTLD’s go live (which could be a year, 2 years, or more for all we know) … .COM just further gets entrenched into society. Every single day .COM’s exchange hands for big bucks to end-users, and content continues to accumulate on them. Every day that goes by only makes it stronger.
Also, these big fortune 500 companies (that might use .BRAND) may have the biggest market cap/ reach globally, but they DO NOT MAKE UP most of the internet. I own Apple products, I drink Coca cola and own a Canon printer …. but how often do I visit their website ? RARELY. I visit smaller startups, blogs, other informational sites and ventures, which will not have any .gTLD- they run on a solid .COM. Grandma and grandpa may stick with Fox and only shop on Amazon and visit NBC/Universal to read about a TV show and other fortune 500 companies, but the younger generation doesn’t. The new age of the internet runs on smaller operations.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
When the war is over and the smoke clears, and the public is so confused, and they have watered down their Brands effectiveness, Ultimately all the dots will lead back to dot.COM . Count on it !
Also the stingy multiples being paid for even GREAT .COM” Virtual Business Foundations” in todays Secondary Markets will explode. The days of paying SILVER Valuations for the .COM GOLD Standard are over and will have the same spreads as in the commodity Markets, You can take this statement to the Bank.6/14/12
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Speculate
If a telvision/tv was to be renamed an ‘imagevision’ today how many people would continue to call it a television or a tv /// .com is safely im our minds for a long time to come yet
seculating
whoops make that a television !
Chris
As was previously said, greatest overall increase in the value of .com domain names the world has ever seen. Hold on to them tight and price them high because there is no coming back down from here brothers & sisters. If you got in early, God bless ya! :)
Zombie
Has Frank been taking bath salts?
I’m serious
LOL
Zombie
Frank has been very quiet. I can imagine a 60 million $ hangover really hurts!
Aaron Pace
Great article and interesting comments!
Aaron Pace
Interesting. Do you know anything about .LES®? You might be pleasantly surprised to learn more about what this proposed TLD extension accomplishes.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Does anyone think for one minute that large corporate players will employ a gtld strategy that will affect and turn traffic away from their”Virtual Business Foundations” ??
Also when consumers are given too many choices they do nothing. The only people that will make money on this farce will be the dealers who play the MARGINS. This by the way is a perfect decoy to lead Domainers away from concentrating their efforts in .COM. The leming parade continues for those that are not already over the cliff. Do not drink the Kool-Aid.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Bill W
@ Aaron Pace and .LES®
OK, I’ll bite, go ahead and tell us what this new gTLD extension accomplishes.
Joao
It is interesting to see that 500 domainer Frank Schilling is after the monopoly of domain freebies. He is trying to register .free and .gratis, meaning the same in diferent languages.
I hope he gets it right…but, despite of the obvious .com talk, i would put my eyes on .inc
Its my favourite, not for domain investment but for long term success and recognition.
owen frager
Quoted from you in this- since it’s by subscription at FT I give u my link
Financial Times: Companies Could Care Less About New TLDs
http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/2012/06/financial-times-companies-could-care.html
Web Wise Forum
I like the optimism!
It’s a great time to be working in the industry and I’m excited to be a part of this next phase of the Internet.
My concern is that, as has already been said, most of these TLDs won’t actually make it public.
I read somewhere that Amazon’s applications contains a clause which means the second level domains are only registerable my Amazon themselves. This is such a waste! Plus a great disappointment in my opinion.
Anyway we will see how many make it through. Hopefully Frank gets some and gives us all something to shout about. :)
Softechebs
If a telvision/tv was to be renamed an ‘imagevision’ today how many people would continue to call it a television or a tv /// .com is safely im our minds for a long time to come yet
Aaron P
@ Bill W. Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. I just found this post while doing some reverse searches. If you have not been to my web, AdvertisingStandards.org or DotlessWebsite.Domains please check them out. It will explain everything to you there.
Best,
Aaron Pace