Morning Folks,
These are in no specific order. But these are the top pure play Internet companies that are widely known to all. That almost everyone in the world knows. Compare that to the BILLIONS of sites trying to break thru the soil. Billions and FEW can do it. There are also tens of millions or more dead carcases littering the way.
So when you look to the future it will only get harder to break through. There will only be more folks competing for the same set of eye balls. The more folks depend on Google for traffic and life the more they will be squeezed and controlled and suffocated.
Groupon is now #70 and less meaningful than in prior times. Sites like Pinterest and Flickr are also making their mark. But of all the billions of websites, the following ten are the ones that are universally known and are the legs of the internet today. So far. For now.
Google
Amazon
Facebook
Twitter
eBay
Yahoo
Linkedin
YouTube
Paypal
CraigsList
.com
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Mr.T
Rick,
most people in the world know about CraigsList? I’m pretty sure most people outside the US haven’t heard of it; EVER.
Add Wikipedia, MSN or Blogspot to that list instead.
groneg
scratch Linkedin and throw in wikipedia instead. if you forget to uncheck”forward to all my gmail contacts” like I did, a Linkedin invite gets sent to everyone. Basically everyone over 40 in my contacts was confused about what Linkedin was and why they got an email from me.
wikipedia
Joe
It’s interesting to notice that none of them is a one-word dictionary keyword domain. All of them are brandable names.
AbdulBasit Makrani
I think MSN should be replaced with Craiglist. Not everyone knows about them compared to MSN.
Jp
I appreciate your evangelism as much as the next guy, and I think generic dictionary/category .coms are also just as awesome as you do, but I thought it interesting to point out that the only Geneneric dictionary word on this list is Amazon and thats hardly a category in the yellow pages.
DM.
Agree, Craigslist out and maybe LinkedIN, replaced by Wiki and possibly MSN
Anunt
ALL made up BRAND names…with Craigslist using .org
Names do NOT matter and in the future…extensions will NOT matter making domains worthless…
In the near future, domains will be valued according to the revenue it generates and NOT because of its .com extension nor its one word generic name.
It’s all about coming up with a great million dollar business idea on a $8 domain name.
Bye Bye dot com…
Jeff Schneider
Hi Rick,
I know what you are planting in all of our heads. The fertile seed of hope that one day our favorite name will be on the list. And why not dream the dream of hope everybody? I personally hope and dream that my website will be on the list someday, why not dream Big ?
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
BullS
All of them are useless to me as they belong to”BullS”
My favorite one is the 99 cent store or the thriftway store
Craigslist is still the best for me as I get so many free stuffs and resell them on ebay!!!
Josh
All brands and not generics. That couldn’t have escaped you when you posted this. So you must be setting up your next post.
Theo
the keyword is .com. not the actual list. Linkedin.com could have gotten themselfs linked.in and brand that one.
Jeff Schneider
Hi Rick,
Through my experience with you I have a bold vision, that you will negotiate more Future Internet moguls than anyone else. This is not a fact yet? For those who can fast forward they will see what I see.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
viman
The point is that all of them are .com and nothing to do with generics or brands or anything.
COM rules – simple
Anunt
They are NOT all dot com…
Craigslist.org
You retarded dumbfucks!!!
Rick Schwartz
Craigslist.org
Just goes to show. News to me.
Wonder why they acquired craigslist.com?
Comparedeal
All above mention website are most powerful tools on internet, missing one is wikipedia
Jeff Schneider
Hi Rick,
Is the light bulb going off anyone?
I can tell you why they purchased the Craigslist .COM extension and this realization of yours just now is a classic example of them being a victim of leakage. They had no choice they had to buy the strategic Game changer .COM address. You aren,t the only one Rick that accesses Craigslist through their .COM extension,to this day I do the same thing.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger
Theo
isn’t that your whole point Rick ?
I repeat.
You wanna business in some country? you secure the ccTLD.
Oh you want todo business with the rest of the world ?
Answer : get the .com
It’s that simple.
New gTLDs… watch what could be strong/ have an impact.
A TLD extension that is not going to be used is dead.
A TLD that will have customers is something to keep an eye on since it will have a domain name after market.
.SO does not have an aftermarket.
A ccTLD like .DE has an aftermarket since people want use it and want it.
You do not own the .com you will leak traffic to the .com. That’s how it is and that is how it will be for a long time unless the likes of Google will market their TLD. And manage to use that as a default.
This is gonna take 10 or more years.
Rick Schwartz
Theo,
That is one of a number of things I am saying.
Plus if folks think it is hard to get noticed now….just wait.
Look anyone that does not have the .com of whatever extension they have will stunt their growth. The only debate is by how much. Some think that is a 61% leakage is no big deal.
Until this thread, I had no idea that craigslist was a .org. I am sure I must be the only one that dumb.
Earthlink.net…..but they also have the .com. Guess they figured out how much it was costing them.
Let me put it this way. Any Captain that took a cruise ship full of passengers in the ocean with a gaping hole the size of which we have talked about for YEARS and not care about it is an idiot and should be relieved of duty.
Any CEO, President, VP etc. that does not NEED, WANT and DESIRE their corresponding .com when they operate out of a .whatever and want to be global and do as much business as possible should read the paragraph above. Who in their right mind would leave 25%-61% of their business on the table for their competition to have a shot at? It’s idiotic on the face of it. Blind to that gaping hole they don’t even want to bother talking about without getting all defensive like a teenager.
Rich
Rick@
“But of all the billions of websites” you mean millions?
Rick Schwartz
Probably should have put”Pages”
Rich
I do read very carefully what you write not to criticized but to take something from each post.
Bill Roy
Rick, I should just point out that the following from your list actually use the ccTLD in the UK automatically, and I would imagine in many other countries as well, so the .com point is not ‘quite’ as strong as perhaps indicated.
Google
Amazon
eBay
PayPal
Craigslist
I am not trying to detract from the obvious, i.e. that the .com is currently by far the strongest suffix on the internet, just a point of clarification.
Anunt
Here are some Top 500 Alexa ranked sites with .net extension that do NOT own the .com
Their ship is NOT sinking with .com leakage…
These .net sites below get tons of traffic.
Popads
Rapidgator
Php
2ch
Seesaa
Pixiv
Turbobit
Speedtest
Battle
Ramahn
@Anunt
The only site I’ve EVER heard of from that list is speedtest…and unfortunately for them they are LEAKING traffic right to Century21…unless the two are in bed together..?
Sometimes you have to read between the lines but sometimes things are spelled out for you. Those global companies that own the cctld also own the .com…the foundation of their www presence.
By the way…people still mistakenly dial 1-800 even after hearing/reading ads for a company number that’s 888..877. Hard to get away from a BRAND that’s been ingrained in your head for so long.
Jeff Schneider
Hi Bill Roy,
Still fighting the idoit fight I see. Your the type that could be in space orbit and deny gravity. Thats OK but just remember when you get your head out of the clouds you will have to deal with gravity.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Bako.com
Another thing that you are showing is that popular website have short, easy to spell, and pronounce domains.
Bill Roy
(?????????? re: above post by ‘Jeff Schneider’)
Anyway back on topic. As ‘Ramahn’ says above the companies I mentioned do own the .com and do an automatic geo redirection to the cctld should the visitor type in the .com. So the companies I listed above are utilising the cctld as a confining implement to try and restrict visitors according to their location. As I said above this does not detract from the position of the .com.
mjnels
RE:”Let me put it this way. Any Captain that took a cruise ship full of passengers in the ocean with a gaping hole the size of which we have talked about for YEARS and not care about it is an idiot and should be relieved of duty.”
a gaping hole in the cruise ship would mean ALL customers and your ENTIRE business are gone soon after you set sail. so its probably more like docking next to another cruise ship and having passengers see whats happening over there… or maybe instead of remaining on board they get off on the island they’re docked at and spend some money.
…or like opening a bar/restaurant in a popular location – across the street from another bar who will inevitably eat up maybe even HALF of your traffic. yes its probably preventable like here in cyberspace – but at what cost? is that other bar across the street even for sale? oh they’re asking 30 million dollars? is it worth it to pay THAT just so i know im not”losing” traffic? was it dumb to set up RIGHT NEXT TO the other bar/restaurant? or did they just think they would win by offering better beer, food, appeal, etc than that other bar…will customers get confused when their friend tells them to meet at”that one place” on the corner of 5th and Broadway and end up going to the older, more established place out of habit.. then just end up staying there for the hell of it… yes of course. but is the solution ALWAYS to buy/lease the other bar that your traffic is leaking to?
im just thinking out loud here, because this actually happens all the time and in some locations is unavoidable. i wonder, if craigslist.COM wasnt owned by the actual craigslist what would the value of that traffic be? like you said, Craigslist is one of the most recognizable website”brands” (in the US anyway) and so if they didnt own the .com, and people typed that anyway would a large enough portion accept being redirected to say,”ClassifiedAds.com” ?
lets make it even easier and say for example that eBay operates on a .ORG and doesn’t own the .COM — i betcha even if that ebay.COM traffic was redirected to Amazon that nearly everyone would immediately go OOOPS and then search for the real eBay they were originally looking for EVEN THOUGH Amazon is very similar to ebay and a direct competitor. i have sold on ebay for 10+ years and have found that a lot of times, amazon people don’t shop on ebay and ebay people dont shop on amazon even though everyone knows they both exist and sometimes you can get cheaper deals on either one. it seems to me the BRAND NAME is ebay/amazon… .COM is just a neighborhood.
Anunt
I agree with u”mjnels”
If Facebook.com was Face.book
There would definately be a lot of leakage to Facebook.com, BUT when people see that they are at the wrong site, they will eventually type face.book to get on the correct site.
So, did face.book really lose any customers??? NO
This leak will NOT affect face.book
Yes, it is good to own both domains, but if the owner of Facebook.com is asking millions…he can go fuck himself.
People will eventually end up where they want to be…eBay, amazon, google, yahoo, Facebook, etc…
Jeff Schneider
Hi Rick,
There are those on this thread that are hell bent on misleading End Users. Their pretzel logic or psycho babble is nothing more than the white noise you have spoken about that misleads End Users down the wrong path.
Your business model which contains mostly .COM Foundations will silence the din in the very near future. Where will they all be then? The smart money knows the answer.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
mjnels
alright, if it hasnt been said already: Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)…..however many names you go by.. im sure im not that only one that skips over your comments on this blog.. and i like reading long, thoughtful comments from anyone and all points of view. so its not because i disagree with them necessarily but because nearly all of your comments are ass kissing and dont really even have anything to do with the topic at hand. just random ass kissing.. do yourself a favor and say something REAL. sorry, but i cant be the only one thinking this. i know this may come across as mean but seriously dude it is painful reading your comments.
Rick Schwartz
mjnels
There are a lot of ways to look at this plus the degrees.
The sin is that most of these folks are not aware of this entire subject.
Worse than a leak, as you point out, is losing your fought for customer back to the competition.
That makes them weaker and the competition stronger
We can all debate the fine points of all this.
But what does it say about large end users that are not even aware of this conversation at all?
The gaping holes they don’t even know exist.
And the fact that plugging those holes will provide the huge sales boost they are searching for and their bosses and shareholders are demanding!
Anunt
The very first new gTLD goes live at Super Bowl…
NFL.CBS
UFO
Actually Bill Roy is CORRECT. People on the Us tend to think only in .com terms. In most other nations they tend to think in cctld and .com.
I use ebay.co.uk google.co.uk hotmail.co.uk and so forth. I use .com for non British based information or products.
If you have a US or Global brand then .com is the right stuff, but if you also want easy recollection (or geo specific content) in many nations then you should use the cctld.
Obviously subdomains could be used that detect geo locations of users, but I would guess that additional URL’s and IP addresses on different servers helps with resilience etc etc.
UFO
In effect there is leakage from the .com to the cctld just as much as there could be the other way around in non US nations.
Hence if you are engaging in ecommerce as a US company aimed at Britain then it makes sense to target UK customers with a .co.uk while having the .com as the global brand identity. Same applies with Australia and .com.au and so forth.
These new .whatever extensions are going to be even less valid in cctld nations as they already have .com and .cctld and there definitely is a finite limit to what the average person is able and willing to recollect. Only the absolute biggest of brands with serious recollection will be able to use their brand as an extension with any impact.
Anunt
Yes, i’m the idiot that hand-reg stadiumpoweroutage.com just incase it turns out to be a huge deal…hahaha
UFO
lol, just like I own ‘collapseoftheinternet.com’ so if it does I’ll get huge traffic…. lol.. The only question is whether I should close out all the other extensions and even typo’s to win big if this happens…
Anunt
“UFO”, if the internet collapses, won’t your site”collapseoftheinternet.com” collapse…or will the 2 of you fly away in your UFO
anjan bhushan
For a big idea domain name is relevant. But for an average idea it matters a lot.
Rick Schwartz
When I joined Linkedin years ago I decided it was a waste and cancelled my membership.
2 or 3 years went by and I decided to give it another shot.
I would not underestimate the value of Linkedin.
I have first hand experience on the power and have used it.
To me, has more value than many of the other”Social” services.
Jeff Schneider
Hi Rick,
I may have to rethink my posture on LinkedIn, I initially joined and had your same thoughts about its usefullness. I can’t stomach FB so maybe I will renegotiate my position with LinkedIn and update profile and start building another network of contacts. Thanks for the memory nudge.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
UFO
It’s useful as an online business card repository.
Better just to keep all your contacts in one place and if you need to track someone down its still there months/years later.
I would have forgotten many people that have moved on in work and consulting etc, so I’m more than glad I linked them in.
Trunk Recording
Still fighting the idoit fight I see. Your the type that could be in space orbit and deny gravity. Thats OK but just remember when you get your head out of the clouds you will have to deal with gravity.