Morning Folks!!
The chart below was written about by DomainIncite. These are for September registrations of current gTLD's. So let's compare. But just at first glance .com at 475,000 had 3x as many registrations as all the 17 others combined. Damn numbers!
.Com 475,000 for September were more than the combined TOTAL registrations for .Post, .Museum, .coop, .aero, .travel, .jobs, .cat, .xxx, .Pro, and about 20% of .Tel. When we only had 18 horses in the race.
Now as far as just registrations and numbers and no noise. .Biz is emerging as the alternative. They were second only to .com. No wonder you hear so much trash talk about .biz lately. Another THREAT to gTLD rollouts. A bigger threat than .com to THEM.
.mobi beat out .org for the number four slot. With .Mobile coming out, could give new life to .mobi. But still not anywhere for a domain investor to piss away their dollars on. Why bet on a losing horse?? And it seems I can list a lot of losers. A lot of losers that are better than what is coming.
Numbers don't have emotions. They contain facts and they contain secrets. visible secrets for anyone with the courage and guts to look.
.Museum, .Tel, .asia, and .info actually lost registrations. But the tidbit here is those discounting .info should not. with over 6 million active registrations, they are number 4. And if you care to drill down just a bit further, they are the only gTLD that came after the .com, .net and .org that has respectable numbers other than .biz.
So even if we get to the point that they sit in boardrooms to decide their "Domain Strategy" (must be a recurring wet dream of mine) they all still have to consider the more established ones FIRST. And then they will start the meeting with .com and they will end their meeting with .com.
What they decide to do inside those .com boundaries are likely to only support their .com efforts. One way or the other that is the END game for each one. If I want to impress you with a list of current companies that own .mobi you could give a rats ass. It's meaningless to you and me. It has no meaning to them either. But they have it. So is there a commercial value? Well if there is one for RickSchwartz.mobi, it is probably pretty low. Type in most BRAND.mobi and most are owned and inactive or point back to the .com.
And of course just because I don't talk about much country codes does not mean I don't understand or respect their place. It is not my focus but surely that is much less risky than what is coming. Surely folks can see that. Given a casino, I would be much more interested in that table. Those are also based on numbers and the variables are population and buying power. So not all are the same and as you have seen, certain country codes are quite valuable.
I am a fool for the numbers. I read them like a detective reads a murder mystery. I read things into them. I drill down on them. I NEVER fear the answer. "Numbers don't lie. People do." I have that thought written on my personal checks. "Trust Numbers Not People". That is the way for me.
The numbers tell a story. They guide you in different directions. They assist you in every single thing there is in the universe. Most people are scared to death of the numbers. I have seen it throughout my life with endeavor after endeavor always different people but always allergic to numbers. When they count cost they count at the lowest variable. When I count, I will add 20% because that is closer to reality and then there are no surprises.
So none of us own the numbers but each of us gets to interpret the numbers. I have many different ways to interpret numbers because I can look at the same set of numbers from all sides. Even change one variable to see what could or would happen.
So what do you think happens when you add 900 to the list above? Some will say that it splits it all up 900 different and equal slices. In their DREAMS! That of course is an impossibility. Some extensions will be more equal than other extensions.
Please don't just look at the chart. Study it! Ask yourself how long have they been around? How much competition did they have? Why are they not growing? Why are some shrinking? How important are they to you? To anyone? Some are, some are not, some you just .laugh.
This is not a roadmap? A peek inside? You can do it by quarter or by year. And see the difference between a Registry success and a domain investor success. If you are coming at all this from an emotional position, at least put on your math cap and come at it from a number standpoint. A risk vs reward standpoint.
I think the two extensions we will see up here are .web and perhaps .shop. Out of 900. Most will never get past .aero at 8868 and we all know how meaningful that extension is to your flipping and investment careers. .Mobi at over 1 million. Is that one important to ya?
I am just searching for answers like you and I am sharing exactly how I come to the conclusions I do. Right or wrong. It isn't like I put a finger in the wind. Spent a year looking at this from every side imaginable. But numbers never lie as long as the numbers are true and factual. The way I look at it, I would rather save up for the winner than tie my dollars up. I have learned that when I buy the best, I am rewarded. I would rather overpay for quality than get a bargain on anything else. Not everyone thinks that way. In fact, most don't.
Rick Schwartz
Kevin Murphy
Should be pointed out that the .biz growth in September was highly unusual. I have no explanation for the spike, but it’s out of character for the TLD compared to every other month in 2013, where you’re looking at more like 30-40k adds.
Rick Schwartz
Thanks for the clarification Kevin. That is why the annual numbers are much more important and telling.
M.R.R.
The 3 letter extensions are imho the most promising [if even them]. At least they conform to the grammar of the interwebz that has been laid out already. Dot med could be an extension but dot hospital, dot healthcare, dot health etc are just confusing.
Rick Schwartz
I think that is a very valid point. Personally i would only look at 3 or possibly 4 letter extensions. I reject the others out of hand. Sorry to those others. But i would be lying if i said anything different. You would think that would be a given.
Barry
Yep once the razzamatazz has blown away and the dust has settled truth will tell.
Good luck to everyone who hasn’t tried to con people; fortunes made & lost lol but the early figures are starting to indicate trends like the early poll counts after a nation’s election.
I think it’s interesting to compare the promotion & hoo-ha of these .everythings to the quiet stirrings of the first tld’s.
Finally I love this quote “And see the difference between a Registry success and a domain investor success. If you are coming at all this from an emotional position, at least put on your math cap and come at it from a number standpoint. A risk vs reward standpoint.” Too darned true !
Seb
Is there a place where we can download the .MOBI zone files.
Looks like there is some gaming in this extension to artificially keep total number of domains above 1 million.
.MOBI typically adds about 500 new registrations per day and strangely some days it skyrockets to 5,000
.MOBI also deletes about 500 -600 domains per day so the total number should be slowly decreasing, not increasing.
I’d love to see the list of new domains registered (and who register them) on days when numbers are that high !
Garth
Here’s a graphical representation of the numbers.
http://labs.domaintools.com/tld-stats/charts
No chance! (in my lifetime).
Mike Sullivan
Dot INFO is respectable at #4. It will be interesting to watch how/if that changes as newer TLDs roll out.
Domains
Rick you got the data for .me and .co? .mobi is still very successful from a registration owner perspective. I would think 50k new registration in .cluster will be a major success IMO if the over head costs and marketing can be managed IMO. 50k registrations a year x 10 bucks thats 500k a year rolling in minus expenses. From a cashflow perspective and owner view, not bad IMO. I see my parking numbers continuing to go down and I am done building up type in traffic I think. I think this makes perfect sense to some degree with somewhat a decent extension and better rate of returns running one?
Wont impact .com one bit. Rick its your friends that is saying all this bullshit, keep that in mind. Heck even brokers are pumping up some. Dont blame the newbies in things, I would say its your friends doing most of this damage Rick, the guys worth millions. Used car sales people IMO and new direction.
Rick Schwartz
Jeff,
They see what they believe is a gravy train and they are hopping aboard.
I can’t stop that and I am not responsible for that.
My positon is pretty clear. But I will never tune out new info.
Problem is all the info and data I have been able to find does not lead to that train.
Leonard Britt
Yes the numbers do tell a story. .Net is the #2 extension by registrations and has some recognition due to having been around for so long. Yes, renewals are a mere $8 at Godaddy but in my experience over the last several years, sales are generally in the low to mid- $XXX range. Several years ago I had about three times as many .Net domains as I do today many of which were protective registrations to prevent someone from registering the .Net instead of paying for the .COM. But I discovered over the years that buyers rarely wanted the .Net even if it were available for reg fee. They wanted the .COM. So with the .Whatevers my view is that the only end user price will be reg fee or low $xxx which just doesn’t justify holding a portfolio of them as an investment when renewals are much higher.
Konstantinos Zournas
@domains
“50k registrations a year x 10 bucks thats 500k a year rolling in minus expenses.”
This registry would be losing a lot of money each year. This is no one man show with no overhead. There is significant overhead. Only a registry with 100+ gTLDs could operate such a registry.
DonnyM
Agree 100%, if using numbers what extensions have made it on a big scale. .com, net and org… all 3 letters. Why buck that trend.
>co is making it work because it is short simple and similar to .com. But if you have a generic in a .co you may make 1-2% of a .com that’s it, and that is being very generous. What does this say about the new extensions coming out. How would numbers be different if not much worse than 1-2%.
Like you say can’t afford to tie dollars up.
Robbie
The .biz growth can be attributed to the deep discounting neustar gave the registars, probably many Korean/Chinese etc… portfolio holders registering the more generic terms… The same can be said for the 99 cents, and 1.99 registrations .info used to have, and now with regular renewals you see almost 100,000 drops… So you will see big drops on the .biz at regular renewals…
I own one 3L .biz which is my initials, which I was able to purchase for $200, and I just bought it for sentimental reasons as the other extensions are owned by billion dollar corporations…
s. mugavero
@Domains Re: Friends: A great reputation on the web takes some time to establish… A couple of weeks to lose. You own what you say on the web forever,
And your only as good as your last deal.
I remember when the Internet and dot-coms died circa 2000. I picked up some of my most valuable .coms as folks where jumping ship.
** The period was marked by the founding (and, in many cases, spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms. Companies could cause their stock prices to increase by simply adding an “e-” prefix to their name or a “.com” to the end, which one author called “prefix investing” from wikip.
I have to say from knowing him for more than a decade.. Ricks notorious for NOT buying into Bullshit.. Regardless what main street is pitching. Fuc* he would have been a million+ down this year, had he believed the (e) prefix crap 13 years ago.
Robbie
@ s. mugavero
I think from what we have read Rick has invested quite a bit in new extensions in the past, and what he has stated is that the good majority of the time, it has been a bad investment, and now he is using that knowledge to share with others what he expects fromnew gtld’s based on his first hand accounts with his own small investments in these niche’s. I mean yes, if we have done well in one industry, most people like to dabble in a somewhat similar business plan, but in most cases it does not pan out as the initial gold rush. In terms of an investment, we had guys crying because they were not able to purchase music.mobi for $611K, as it went higher in auction, now the same person who made a not so smart business call many years back is trying to sell .music…. etc… There are many guys here who made money in the .com rush, who have parlayed some of that money into new gtld’s… let me tell you once you buy that race horse ticket, and all bets are closed, and the sure thing, doesn’t seem like a sure thing anymore, you will do anything, and everything to convince yourself otherwise… don’t be sold on the fool’s gold.
s. mugavero
@ Robbie
Exactly.. most of us have dabbled. However, way Up is Way up and upside down is just that..
I’m with you on the new gtlds thinking. In fact I’m buying .coms from folks who have bought into the smoke.. Helping them get liquid to pony up on this new gold rush ;)
Patrick Hipskind
Success for the gTLDs as defined by the registries will simply be meeting their margins. Success for the gTLDs will be defined by domain name investors as being able to earn a decent ROI on our investment. The registries do not seem to have a plan in place for end user adoption, and parked pages do not constitute end user adoption. Without end user adoption domain investors will drop all but the best of their gTLD domain names, because they won’t be able to sell them for a decent ROI. When that happens, the gTLDs that did not die on the vine will not meet their margins and the VCs (venture capitalists) will want their money, and that’s not a party I would want to be at.
Any registry that I see that is overly optimistic about its projections is one I am going to steer clear of as a domain name investor. Personally, I don’t see .club selling 300 to 400K on or about week one of general availability, and I do not see it selling 1 million by the end of year one. And since venture capitalists like to see a profit margin of around 50% in the business plan before investing, I personally just don’t see the margins being realized. When that happens the investors are losing their money, and they aren’t going to be happy about it. The internal conflict that results often causes the closing of the firm. The registries need to be realistic about their projections and the timeline that it will take to meet their projections, and they MUST have a plan in place for end user adoption if they are to be successful. They must assist in building the aftermarket for their gTLD.
patrick
I would bet on the#2 .net over every other minor gtld. other than .web .shop but they are still an unknown entity, i personally own very few .nets, defensive regs, but seeing the sale of two generic .nets at $23,000 and $63,000 over the holidays is making me take a second look.I cannot remember who had done a market survey among businesses but the respondents 54% roughly, said they would choose the .net if the .com was unavailable,or beyond there price range.
I like to know what the end user wants, not what promoters want you to buy. like Rick said the numbers don’t lie.
Robbie
Domainers tend not to support extensions that cost more than $10 plus, I can see very little support with thousands of extensions popping up and asking $20+ per year for registrations… there is simply not enough domainer money to go around… I can see guys like Mike Mann, Adam Dicker etc… maybe putting $100K into these type of gtld’s, but they have enough .com security to hedge these bets,,, so if they lose, no harm done, they still have core assets at the end of the day…
It was funny the .club founder had to use his rolodex to bring in 20+ investors, I am sure he sold out of tucows for a nice chunk of change, so if it was such a sure thing, with 1 million reg at $7 dollars that is not a bad start, why not keep more of the pie for yourself if you are so sure… Saw the guys on sherpa, the one guy looked like Johnny Sack from Soprano’s… and the other one were humble… but they seemed to be convincing themselves at the same time… stay tuned…
s. mugavero
I’m a domainer, I’d support an extension at $20 per year, IF it made sense at most angles. Heck, I paid $75 to $100 a year on hundreds of them. I just don’t see the same lightning in a bottle on these new gtlds. Spend your energy and money on acquiring premium .com, .net and .org domains.
Robbie
@ s. mugavero
I understand $100 back in 96 when everything was cloudy… but with the amount of information and options today I think a registry needs to be in the $10 range to have any chance… A domainer holding hundred of thousands of new domains that the public has no idea of, needs to budget a minimum of 5 years out, and at $20 a pop, with no guarantee of getting money back, that investment becomes more of a crapshoot.
s. mugavero
@ Robbie
Agreed, thats why Im 99.9999% out on the .whatevers.
In the words of Johnny Cash.. “It just ain’t nothin”
Steve
s. mugavero
And It was a hell of a crap shoot in 96, I would have taken less shit from family and friends on the money spent if everything was just “cloudy” , Cloudy in 96 would have been a fine day at the beach. That was pre goto.com, adsense, etc, fuc* it was Pre-Google.
Kassey
@Seb “I’d love to see the list of new domains registered (and who register them) on days when numbers are that high !” Me too. I like to know why .mobi is increasing in registrations.
Domains
And I agree with that Rick! I still stand by my comment. Newbies are going like they know what they are doing compared to some of your peers Rick. Simple as that.
Funny how times have indeed changed and how .com investors were protecting the investment.. Not today, its .cluster LOL.. Not sure where my first comment went..
UFO
As ‘domainers’ it would seem clear there is lots of risk buying into the hyperbole. So, just wait and see what the market settles at and then run the numbers again. There is definitely money to be made in new gTLDs by domainers, BUT BUT it must meet relatively comparable criteria to .com
The biggest issue I see, is there is a disconnect between what registeries want and need to be profitable and that what domainers need relative to their current holdings in cash flow and risk terms.
I’d rather own a domain with a .us extension over any of the new ones (except .shop in some situations)… and look what .us sell for.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
This gTLD gravy train is fast moving into the train wreck category. The gTLDs close connection to the TechCentric disconnect make this experiment highly volatile Kool-Aid, not recommended for safe consumption.
The .COM Traffic Vortex Model,is prefferable to Online Professionals and we will all be hearing more on this subject.
The gTLD hordes preach equality for the little guys, while peddling Traffic Inequality disconnects.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
John Poole
Kevin– Network Solutions (and perhaps other registrars?) gave away (for free) a bunch of dot biz domain names in September (yes, I was a recipient of one, without asking for it, and I really don’t want it even though it matches a dot com I own).
Nadim Ash
One important fact about .mobi registrations over the past one year. One day or two days per month spikes of 5000 or so were suddenly getting registered. Those one or two day spikes totalled about 100,000 registrations. I believe by one entity. The question is why. Can anyone help answer that.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Big Brother Google is watching closely ! They will not allow me to access my account to comment on MHBs Blog about Google. I wish I could post it here but is too long for your format.
P.S. of course they will deny this,but we know better.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
s. mugavero
@ Nadim “Those one or two day spikes totalled about 100,000 registrations. I believe by one entity. The question is why. Can anyone help answer that.”
Prob. Speculating on .mobile typos, etc. but what a speculation stretch.
Nadim Ash
Wow what speculation by owning 10 percent of ALL the .mobi registered domains and during thespan of one year. The systematic purchase of 5k twice a month tells me they are trying to “fly under the radar” maybe. I do not think typos is the reason. Too much money is being shoved in this case.
Can anyone suggest other reasons.
UFO
@Nadim
A good strategy would be to buy a whole bunch of .mobi and put them up for sale along with all the new gTLDs being issued.
For instance GoDaddy could have them presented as alternatives to .com when people can’t get the .com and or have them shown up with the new gTLDs…
UFO
Esp anything to do with mobile devices with .mobi as a gTLD.
Still think they are all building empires on sand….
Neil@InternetKing.ME
Thank You, Rick.
A lot of confidence in this chart.
Only one output:
DotComKingdom.com is the best!
The end-users will soon see that .menu, .intersection, .heavyrain do not help them at a l l.
So, jump back to COM…
If not, the customers will forget them forever.
Xavier Lemay
An extension should stay short.
Computers like it short.
.exe .jpg .png .ico .php .html .pdf .psd
Its not a tld if its a 8 letters word.
I bough some .biz and .info. I’ve dropped some .biz and .info. Why? They where cheap and some good domains where available. I realised that they can be great for little business but I could never ask more than few beers for these names.
petrogold
@Xavier Lemay
As an experiment I did the same to hand register some .biz & .info names. That IMO may be better than new ext. yet to show up in the radar.