Morning Folks!!
So for those interested in .whatever it will spark a debate inside their kitchens, offices, and boardrooms. Don't ya think? Even if it is the entrepreneur thinking about it in the shower.
So then please follow the yellow brick road. They ponder between .com and .whatever. They weigh the pros and cons. They discuss various issues. There is not a straight line nor is there an either or decision to be made. See the path will start as a volley between .com and .whatever. It will quickly morph into a discussion about .net, .org, .info, .us and other alternatives. So anyone that believes that won't be happening are completely miscalculating.
So from that the debate it is no longer about .com vs .whatever because all those variables just came on the paying field and .whatever went from a 50/50 scenario to one of many alternatives. and then divide the 50/50 debate on one side by 700. 700 splinters perhaps?
THAT is how people really think IF they even get that far. Most don't care. Will never care and you can't do a thing to change their ways. We saw it. We did not plan it. I was just as surprised as many of you. Some did not even believe it. I was shocked in fact. Well not really. We may have come a long way in 20 years but for them, the race means nothing. It's a horn blowing in traffic and they could care less. Most could not care less. Their reply will be, "we already have a domain name".
Remember, I do a lot of talking with store owners and I know their mindset. It's sad. Its shocking. But it's also reality. The proof? Go into stores and ask. You will see that what you saw is a pretty good and accurate representation of what is out there. It was funny, but it sure made our hearts sink to know we have that much more to do. Even the young guy in his 20's or 30's said his site was under construction and he uses "Facebook".
All I can do is urge you to find 10 store owners to talk to and you will see the mountain we still have to climb. Do I lean against .whatever? Yes. But that des not mean I am going to be blind to opportunity if I see it. But at this juncture, there is no there yet. People can throw all the numbers around that they want. But at the end of the day, go see how many view Schwartz/Shilling had so far. Bet it surprises ya. I can do an entire post about that. 800 after 3 days on top of Domaining.com. That's it!! Not thousands....hundreds!
We are told that most people are not online and that is what many hold on to. However when we show that video, everyone laughs. Well don't laugh, THOSE are the folks YOU are relying on. Good luck with that. That is what motivated me to write this post and now I think it makes more sense. "I want to teach the world to sing" because you can start right there on Las Olas and I got news for ya, they ain't gonna change their minds or learn to sing.
Now it will affect domainers. If you own a lot of pigeon shit, it may turn into pigeon diarrhea as these worthless names become less valuable. lol Sad but true. Now it won't affect domains that mean something even if it has several words in it.
Rick Schwartz
UFO
I do think certain TLDs will work, from a registry perspective and from a user and domainer perspective (assuming greed doesn’t take over registries which I think it will).
Take the following
CandyShop.com, it will lose value (or face a reduced increase) because Candy.Shop will become a close subsitute. In effective those bidding and using the domain will be spilt in half.
Candy.com however will retain its value and appreciate, because it can’t be substituted with some hack. Also, owners of high end .com’s have placed enough money into them to have the follow through on advertising and enough sales etc to have it properly ciculating in the market place.
The vast majority of lay people out there will never change, learn or adopt because its of NO interest. There are more important things in business and in life. Too many domainers think domains are at the centre of business, they are not. They only leverage a business.
.whatevers are going to be tumbleweed ally. If they are cheap to buy, then the owners will have cheap expectations and cheap orientation with its use. If they were expensive they wouldn’t buy them or they’d buy the .com.
gpm group
The Video is very good. Though there are some issues
At 10 minutes there is a claim that the tech companies like Google, Microsoft are behind the new extensions so that implies the new extensions will be a success. Many of the same companies were founders for .mobi
At 12 minutes there is a claim that O.co is the main portal for Europe. For us (in the UK) o.co redirects to Overstock.com. Only o.info is used for a standalone consumer review site. This also seems to be the case for users in Germany.
At 42 minutes there is an expectation that 80% of the coming new gTLDs will fail. That is incredibly high for what are essentially infrastructure companies. Who would want to build their core company and brand assets (that are so integral to the success and will cost even small companies thousands to change) on suppliers that have a 4 out of 5 chance of failing?
Kassey
I’ll only look at new gTLD where the extension together with a domain name makes sense, which will be only a very small subset of all names available for registration. .me is a good example already.