Morning Folks!!
The new gTLD's have a very tough road to cross. The sharp ones have already thought of this. Then many have not. So let me pose the question and see what the answers are. What happens to a new gTLD when all the domains that are registered are only to domainers and there is not an end-user in sight? What happens?? Tulip Festival?
The reason .com is a success is from the approximately 120 million registrations, probably 80-100 million of them are registered by individual end users worldwide. Tens of Millions of end users. Matter of fact, my prediction is .com will have more end-user registrations in one day than 700 new gtld's combined have in a day, week.......
My point is these gTLD owners must walk a very fine line or they risk collapse. Another risk of collapse I should say because I have shown pitfall after pitfall after pitfall. Huge pitfalls and a dynamic difference from what happened with .com. The pitfall is much deeper and more damaging if you have not thought of it.
I think some will get in trouble pretty fast when they don't see registrations flying in and when they do, it will be domainers. Which devil do you want to deal with first because they are both likely scenarios that many will have to deal with? How does an extension survive in the long run if 100% of your base is domainers? And on the other hand. How does an extension survive in the long run if your base is not domainers?
Worse than all this is many of these gTLD operators are not financially prepared to make a difference. They could not even afford to hire professional domainers to consult with. They have virtually no advertising budget to advertise with. It is stunning to watch.
So we know once this race starts some 20 new extensions will come out each week. That is 4 per business day. Really? I don't recall a "spectacle" like this ever to have happened before. Maybe they can create a frenzy. Maybe they can't. Chaos for sure.
Are they anticipating the elbows flying in this crowded field? I could come and make a list of so many pitfalls that have never been discussed internally by some of these companies. So when they go into battle the marketplace, they could get whooped! I see it less with the domainer based outfits because they have a knowledge base the others just don't have but the carcusses of the others has the potential to impeded and derail everyone. Like a train wreck. Like a multi car pileup and you just happen to be caught in the middle due to no fault of your own.
We'll see. But it's tough to win the battles you don't see and come sneaking up behind you. The battles some are not armed to fight. The battles and battles and battles before we even get to the main battle of Need, Want, Desire.
Rick Schwartz
Kevin Murphy
Nice piece Rick. I think you’re on the money here.
Edwin Hayward (@uk_domain_names)
It could really start to hurt registrars as well, because unsophisticated registrants only know the company that sold them the domain name (perhaps because it was splashed on the front page as new and exciting) and don’t have any awareness of how the actual domain name system works (and nor do they care).
If enough people get sold extensions that out-and-out fail, then the backlash will be against the “enablers” (the registrars) as much or more than it will be against the largely unknown, unseen registries.
So the domino effect you describe may come about sooner than many might expect, when the big registrars – sensing the car crash ahead – scale back on or flat-out stop promoting ANY of the new gTLD.
That’s like shelf space for a product being withdrawn in the supermarkets – who’s going to hear about the latest random new gTLD to come out of the ICANN conveyor belt if no registrars are pushing it? Nobody will!
Kevin Murphy
It’s unlikely that any new gTLD will “out-and-out fail” in the sense that registrants will lose their domains. The EBERO system will keep failed registries ticking over for up to three years, giving plenty of time for others to acquire them.
UFO
Kevin Murphy
September 16th, 2013
It’s unlikely that any new gTLD will “out-and-out fail” in the sense that registrants will lose their domains. The EBERO system will keep failed registries ticking over for up to three years, giving plenty of time for others to acquire them.
>>> Sounds nice in theory but who is going to buy a failed business model? and losing proposition? Especially one they could replicate by simply applying for a new extension. What is most likely to happen is either ICANN are going to lick their wounds and hide things under the table to maintain these failed extensions and then ramp up .com reg fees to offset….. or its going to allow these extensions to fail by not allowing renewals once they get to expiry date.
The domaining community needs to ensure that ICANN doesn’t ramp up renewal costs to pay for their own failings. Because I can see them doing this to save their own credibility. Basically pay for a registry to maintain failed ones.
Kevin Murphy
@UFO
A registry running a single gTLD could run out of money, go out of business, sure. It’s bound to happen. Maybe they overestimated registration numbers, maybe they spent too much or not enough on marketing, whatever.
In those cases, the EBERO would take over until it is acquired by a registry that runs lots of strings and has a sustainable business model. Economies of scale would make the “failed” gTLD much cheaper to run for a company like that.
Ramahn
True…who will be doing the promoting? These new gtlds are supposed to hit soon and all I’m seeing from the biggest domain name advertiser (GoDaddy) John Claude Van Damn in a bakery shop.
Domenclature.com
I witnessed something interesting yesterday; I was diving back from Las Vegas with four friends, one of them got a frantic phone call from his associate which was put on a speaker phone, apparently his associate had just heard/seen an ad by some domain Registrar he referred as 1on1domains or something like that. I listened intently without saying a word. This associate regurgitated the pitch he heard on the ad, and was almost trying to make this guy stop the guy, and go register names in .soccer, .shop, .jersey, as well as his competitors names; the associate either was misled by the ad or he didn’t hear it correctly. The associate believes the names are available for registration right now, and are flying off the shelves. He recommended not waiting till Monday!
So, it could be that the early jumpers such as 1on1domains or whatever the Registrar is, will end up getting a head start, but could begin the damaging of this thing already. I learned a lot from listening to that dialog yesterday, from the end-user perspective. I will be writing about some of it soon.
Edwin Hayward (@uk_domain_names)
1&1 are running print ads (maybe other media as well) directing traffic to http://www.1and1.com/new-top-level-domains which is a “pre-registration portal” for the new GTLD. That’s no doubt what your friend’s acquaintance was talking about.
MikeToronto
Here is the commercial you are talking about http://youtu.be/rBSxb6EahQ4
Scott Alliy
Rick, you have certainly opened a can of thoughts errr worms in this post LOL.
There is enough mystery surrounding GTLDS to keep Ricks blog new article content flowing for the foreseeable future and beyond.
You raised so many great points in this post I don’t know where to start but how about this… I agree with you on the revealing statement that these folks have not turned to domain industry experts for advise.
“They could not even afford to hire professional domainers to consult with.”
The lack of experience, education, and preparedness will lead many registries to seek out those services designed or at least intended to provide SOS relief.
The opportunity for domain businesses therefore is to be prepared to offer the types of consultation and operational and marketing assistance that the registries failed to ask for in the first place.
Ready or not (and it sure seems that many are not) the future is coming and that future includes a multiple GLD affected if not based internet.
20
How are they going explain to buyers how many email client systems won’t work with the new TLDs, unless everyone goes and makes the confirgurations to accept them.
So, you can’t send emails to anyone like you can now on .com.
Ouch!!!
DonnyM
One of the only parties that will come out ahead on all this is BIG G.
Free domain and with instant hosting, email, storage.
The others have given away domains, but not like what BIG G can do. They have to many added services. Why pay for a domain when it will be for FREE. Unless it is a .com or .org
I don’t if they will give a way but based upon past actions they are going to destroy most of new extensions chances of getting noticed if they give away domains.
.
Josh
I’ve been asking myself the very title of this post: What happens to a TLD when domainers all the meaningful domains? .com gained popularity over a few years and while there was a domain “gold rush”, there were so few people doing it (as compared to today) that many end users had a chance to register something meaningful, there piling on to the success of .com as they advertised and promoted their business site.
You need a lot of end users using and advertising a TLD for it to catch on? How can that be when domainers rush in and register everything. Then an end user must pay or register something unnatural. If your going to do either of those, why not go with a .com?
UFO
@Domainclature
You’ve pretty much summed it up. Unsophisticated business owners running around like mad dog newbies buying everything under the sun because it’s the next biggest thing. After a few years of renewals they’ll realise that these domains provide no benefit and they’ll start throwing them back.
ICANN really is just selling fools gold prospecting licences and big business is playing along. Not sure how this is supposed to be a good thing for the general populous. ICANN should have had a min 5 year roll out, with the highest bidders/payers being first off the blocks. So much effluent hitting the fan in one go is sure to result in a big stink.
Altaf
Whatever is said here, all the expert domainers already got the plans to book the top key phrases that get type ins. Same way,Registrars are found keep-hold the best ones in hand(so many tactics used) being premiums. What is their ultimate goal?Thanks to Rick for opening the topics. Brain storming! Let us see the trends which way it goes, but many young pc experts will get good jobs from the new gTLDs.
Typo Assassin (@typoassassin)
@Altaf I agree re type-in traffic.
Direct navigation will grow as people get fed up with all the different .this and .that GTLD’s and also as google gives less real estate to organic results it’s just a matter of time before we’re back to 1998 and more people simply typing “searchterm.com” in the address bar.
Let’s just hope the typo squatter/domainers don’t catch on :)
Groovy
Hi 20,
Which email clients are you referring to? I suspect they will all work with everything as soon as they are approved by ICANN and the new gTLD name has populated DNS system.
what.a.groovy.name
SEMfuze
I’m interested in seeing how well these domains sell and rank on search.