Morning Folks!!
According to many, .XXX will likely get approved next Friday. But opponents are feverishly working to derail that approval. The anger is evident in this AVN Post.
After a strong .CO introduction, will .XXX be meaningful? I don't know. Nobody ever does before the fact. We all have hunches. Another indicator whether the new extensions will be important. Not up to domain investors. It is up to consumers and the content. But the controversy swells and the fight is on. Whether fighting with your target group is smart will certainly play out in front of everyone.
As I indicated yesterday, I see the biggest challenge is just how easy it will be to block .xxx and countries and businesses and education and so many more will likely be blocked. Will providers like Comcast block it? Can they? Would they? Will they? Strong headwinds could develop. We shall stay tuned and see it all unfold.
Will the second coming ever come? The numbers say 'No'. The reason .com is .com is for a number of reasons. In any new extension, the biggest reasons are basically non-existent or at least few and far between.
.Com has the masses all pouring in trillions of dollars in advertising.
.Com has massive natural type ins that no other extension has. The drop off from .com to .net to .org is huge.
.Com as a word phrase is repeated more than any other word on the planet ever day of the year. A fact yet to be discovered and still growing.
.Com is the gold standard
Now that does not mean there won't be opportunity to capitalize on some extensions. But it likely won't be in the same form or manner or magnitude as the .com.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Andrea
.XXX is just a small”Internet red-light district”…
Porno.com will always be better than Porno.xxx
Joe
I think the success of .CO launch was the combination of several factors, such as perfect timing and recognizability of .CO as ‘company’, which is the base concept of any industry. IMO one of the downsides of the new gTLDs is they strictly refer to a particular business.
em
.com is in its own stratosphere. Untouchable. However, there is always a bit of room for new TLDs.
.CO is the forerunner of the new wave of TLDs. I highly doubt any new TLD can match the .CO launch/juggernaut and that’s why .CO is valuable in the”right of the dot” age. .com is the representative of the”left of the dot” age where any important keyword or brand was always linked firstly with .com.
According to an article I read recently, the margin for success for new TLDs will be extremely small. If they don’t make it out of the gate well ie new registrations, they are sunk. That’s quite a bit of pressure to make a lasting first impression. Plus you have to have an endless supply of money to market it AND a quality extension.
Rick, there will be no second-coming. There was another first-coming ie .CO, but it exists as a comparing point for new TLDs.
Nothing really can compare to the 25 year history and marketing of .com.
DomainPig
I think .XXX could go the same way as .mobi
but if the government get involved and banned adult
content on .com this will hit the adult industry
like the online gambling ban!!
Rick is right this will be a STORM!!
I think it’s sick if they do this and someone steals
porno.com traffic
It’s fine if they let the .com owner buy the .xxx and
redirect it, but this would never happen. So it’s
going to get very nasty. Imagine stealing the girls
from a pimp! I would not like to be in the .XXX owners shoes.
Josh
I think .xxx only gains end-user significance if governments ban porn on .com. There could still be other significance for .xxx, such as an ISPs decision to ban .xxx or treat its traffic differently. But end user significance only if some porn isn’t allowed on .com.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
Great Post!
You have been preaching to the choir on this for years. There are many who go into severe denial of the truths about the .COM CHANNELS dominance.
Many, Many years ago I preached to my clients to ignore the other CHANNEL EXTENSIONS and sell them off and to trade UP to the .COM CHANNEL. Many listened and are better off for it.
Is it too late ? ,to take this advice? There are INFINITE choices available in the .COM SECONDARY CHANNEL, You all would be smart to MIGTRATE to .COM CHANNEL.
Grateful, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
BullShitWebsites
If you want to be successful, just concentrate on dot com and that is not BS.
What don’t you understand??!!
LS Morgan
This is obviously laying the groundwork to forcibly migrate all adult content onto it’s own separate and easily filterable domain platform. It will come in the form of”reasonable regulations” meant to”protect children”, mandating that adult content be hosted on .xxx so it can be filtered out of libraries and schools. It will be a cataclysmic shift, but eventually, it will come.
Be it in 5 years, 15 years or 40 years, the advent of .xxx- measured against the anti-porn sentiments of many legislating bodies around the world- ensures that all adult content will eventually wind up there whether they want to or not.
Jeff Schneider
@ L S Morgan,
We agree with you 100% , (I F) XXX is adopted. The Porn crowd will migrate away from the .COM CHANNEL.
BUT ALL OTHERS will migrate to .COM CHANNEL
(Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
DomainPig
What’s next? .gamble
I think it’s disgusting that they can kill .com adult business
with .XXX
The internet will never be the same!! They will do the same
with online gambling and come out with the same BS and make
.gamble
The Truth
Wow look at all these .CO spammers and affiliates (I’m looking at you, @em). People in these comments keep using the phrase”The success of .CO” … but where is this so-called success ? Please stop spewing nonsense. Last I heard business.co and other ultra-premium terms sold and barely fetched anything, and the actual amount of .CO registrations is still unknown, especially with the 1-year drop coming up.
Pleas stop mentioning .CO anywhere near .COM. .COM is so entrenched into the foundation of the internet and multi-billion dollar industries, websites, everything … just stop. Columbia ?
I also find it quite amusing that some individuals and companies with multi-million dollar .COM portfolios are pretending to support the new TLD’s. Are they that bored, or more likely greedy, that they are going to thrust these extensions onto the public, enter into a new area just to collect registration fees from the naive and ultra-speculative? Very sad. They know they are sitting on a goldmine with their .COM’s, so they don’t care.
In sum, I agree with you Rick- we could literally END ALL NEW .COM REGISTRATIONS today, and it would still remain the foundation of, and the primary thing associated with, the internet. For decades.
Anunt
porno.com is better…but it will be banned if .xxx comes into play.
Watch and learn kids…
All porn websites will be banned unless they have .xxx
This way, parents and people have much better control over what their kids watch on the net.
Rick, if .xxx comes into play…you better make an inside deal with whoever is in control of .xxx and buy up those .xxx domains first…make an inside multimillion dollar deal to scoop them up…
if you don’t, your .com porn domains are going down the drain for sure…
so all the porn masters like Rick are worried the most about .xxx coming into play.
This is a whole new game..this is not a .co game!
You might think i’m bullshitting right now…but watch and see how this plays out…
all i’m saying is that if .xxx comes into play…all porn domains whether they are .com or .net or any other porn names are going to lose alot of value very fast!
T
I partly agree with LS Morgan, There will be regulation, I think its going to happen soon. More Family oriented People as well as older adults are venturing off of facebook and going surfing for the first time. Not if but when they come across inappropriate content they’ll be upset as to how accessible it is.Sites with innapropriate content try restricting its content by asking the user ARE YOU OVER 18 – NO I AM UNDER 18 , Even Bing does it. WTH, Crazy ! Would be Funny as hell if it wasn’t a serious matter. Either your going to have to regulate yourselves or be regulated. IMO There will be many other options besides what LS said and even if what he says does happen think about it YOU Don’t need content you Just redirect.
ALtaf
Comments are good & helpful to know insights when it opens easily.11th Mar Comments cannot be opened.Does any one else faces same difficulties? or just I?
UFO
.XXX is the ONLY new extension that I have said to date that is a definite winner. It will win because 1) Its says what it is on the tin and 2) and most importantly, is that all”porn” that is not on .XXX will be eventually banned. In effect legislators will make .XXX a complete monopoly on porn.
Personally, in fairness I’d say whoever own’s the .com version should have first rights on the .XXX version so all URL owners of .com can protect their position irrespective of having any registered trademark.
UFO
Those that own porn .com should get in there and ask for what I have said i.e. that .com owners should get first priority so that 1) They will be happy to migrate to .xxx and relinquish the .com and will back any legislation should that occur with .com and 2) State that .com owners could be adversely affected if they don’t have first rights to protect their position.
Obviously, if someone like verisign owns the .xxx then they will kill it by having different registration fees and terms than .com (basically gouge the commercial sense to fully migrate by exploiting the profit angle).
steve
time to sell all your .com domains and buy .xxx
I will buy your .com at a reasonable price as a service to the domain community.
DomainPig
I have been thinking a lot about this and I got very angry at first but the more I think about it I don’t think .XXX will work. So if the adult industry is going to .XXX instead of .com
its going to be dead anyway!! So I would rather wait and see what happens and keep working on my .com sites. I would rather rot in hell than give Stuart Lawley more money for pies.
These are my reasons
1) .XXX looks horrible
2) It would be very silly investing in .XXX
when its going to be blocked everywhere.
3) would .music stop people downloading
music if they banned people going to .com? NO WAY!!
4) Stuart wants every .com owner to start
getting scared because it will help the
buzz to sell .XXX!! Stuart .XXX will be
like having .VIRUS and we all know every
computer,mobile,etc will block it. So .XXX
will have huge drops in the second year
because the traffic will be dead.
So Stuart I hope you’re reading this because
(time will tell)and time will wipe that smile
of your face.
.COM IS KING :) its X because its the wrong answer :)
Anunt
domainpig, you are completely wrong.
if .xxx comes into play, they will start banning .com from having any porn on the sites so .com will NOT work with porn.
if you want porn, you will have to go with .xxx and porn is were the money is at…so .xxx will win big time!
.com domains with porn will go down in value very very fast since porn will not be allowed on .com
this is a great idea to keep children off porn sites…very easy to block!
you said .xxx looks horrible…ask anyone in porn and they will tell you that they would rather have .xxx than .com for porn sites.
i agree .xxx will be blocked by alot of people…but they are going to completely ban .com adult sites
.xxx is going to be very huge…but only if .com gets completely banned from having adult sites…and i see this happening!
so there is going to be a huge opportunity to own .xxx very soon….instant millionaire with the right .xxx domain
good luck either way…
dont get scared domain pig…oink oink
DomainPig
@Anunt
Please don’t reply to me when you’re high on crack :)
You really need to STFU!! Perfect domain for you
well done.
quote
(ask anyone in porn and they will tell you that they would rather have .xxx than .com for porn sites.)
My reply to this
http://tinyurl.com/6k2ypbb
quote
(they are going to completely ban .com adult sites)
They could NEVER completely ban porn from .com
you live in la la land. please STFU
quote
(instant millionaire with the right .xxx domain)
Do you really think they are going to give you
premium .XXX domains? NO WAY!! sex.xxx will be
worth 10% of the .com and I bet they don’t give
him the .XXX
Good luck buying your .XXX domains :)
Landon White
Mar 08th, 2011 12:03 PM
.XXX is Fascist Scheme
It’s Time, Let’s Fight Back!
By Diane Duke, Free Speech Coalition Executive Director
You may have noticed a common theme throughout my articles about .XXX. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by the reaction I received in my use of the word “bullshit.” I know that it is out of character for me to be so, shall we say, blunt. But those who know me, know that I take professionalism very seriously; some might say to the point of being boring. Guilty as charged. But I had to get your attention. .XXX is a serious threat to the adult entertainment community, and it is now crunch time, folks.
The last four articles in this series were designed to explain the threat of .XXX. I pointed out that ICM is using “child protection” as a way to demonize our industry and convince ICANN that the adult entertainment industry needs someone like Stuart Lawley and his company, ICM, to force the industry to be “responsible.” I showed you how Stuart and ICM lied to the industry and to ICANN about support from the adult entertainment industry. I explained to you how ICM is using the threat of damaging your existing brand and traffic to force you to “voluntarily” purchase .XXX versions of your domain names. I have revealed the farce of an industry-guided regulatory board (IFFOR) that is supposedly separate from ICM, when in reality it is not only selected, but also chaired by none other than ICM’s CEO, Stuart Lawley, who would have veto power over every decision made by the IFFOR policy council and Board. I have also pointed out the fact that ICM promised ICANN that it would use IFFOR funds to protect the children and consumers from our “irresponsible” industry, while at the same time promising the adult entertainment community to invest those same funds to protect our industry.
There are a few other points that are imperative for you to understand concerning .XXX. If you auto-redirect your existing .com at your new .XXX domain, your .com domain will be required to follow the same regulations as .XXX. That means you have to let whatever entity that ICM has chosen to automatically scan and monitor your .XXX site for “illegal and offensive material” and to make sure you are compliant in the best practice regulations that IFFOR (or should I say ICM) imposes, to monitor your .com domain. Also, if .XXX passes, there are governments that will block .XXX. This will not only immediately de-value your .XXX domain, but will also pose a threat to your click-through .com domain. From a business perspective, purchasing .XXX domains is a bad investment and is potentially dangerous to your existing domains and traffic.
It is likely that ICANN will vote on .XXX at their March 18 Board meeting in San Francisco. We will have a strong presence there, but, I will be honest—the cards are stacked against us. ICM has invested over $12 million to push .XXX through the ICANN machine.
So what has $12 million bought ICM?
* Sponsorships for a number of conferences at which there were votes for .XXX.
* An independent Review Process that voted in favor of ICM on the issue of “sponsored” community (i.e. the adult entertainment community) even though no one from the adult entertainment community was questioned or interviewed in the process.
* An ICANN insider, Becky Burr, to represent ICM in all ICANN matters—did I mention that she was on ICANN’s Accountability and Transparency committee for a good portion of her time, representing ICM to ICANN?
* An ICANN Board Chair adamantly in favor of pushing .XXX through.
* An ICANN Board member, Sebastian Bachollet, hired to be on the IFFOR Board (can you say conflict of interest?)
* A shortened public comment period at the San Francisco conference—two hours rather than the usual five hours, in an attempt to silence the adult community’s public voice.
* ICM’s ability to conceal the information they submitted as proof of sponsorship support, knowing full well that the actual sponsorship community easily would refute the “proof” submitted.
* A vote by the Board to move forward with the process even though they knew and stated publicly during the board meeting that what they were voting on was a lie.
ICANN will be in a position to make a great deal of money if .XXX is approved. But there is a voice of reason in this catastrophic mess called ICANN. ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC) has, on three occasions, noted the lack of support from the sponsorship community and also a number of other problems with .XXX; GAC has reached consensus opposition to .XXX. ICANN is required, by its bylaws, to take GAC advice into account. Moreover, the US government, the entity that authorizes ICANN to oversee the domain name system, has expressly cautioned ICANN about ignoring GAC advice, basically threatening to take away its authority if it continues to overstep its boundaries by ignoring the public policy concerns of world-wide governments.
Adult industry professionals must take action NOW!
On March 17, ICANN will convene a public forum, albeit much abbreviated. FSC is organizing key leaders in the adult community to speak at the conference during the public comment period. We know they will limit the number of speakers inside the conference, but we can have a pronounced voice outside the building. In a time when rallies are changing the world around us we are…
Calling all industry professionals to rally in San Francisco against .XXX!!
When: Thursday, March 17, 2011, from 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Where: ICANN Conference, the Westin, San Francisco, Union Square, 335 Powell Street, San Francisco
What: Press conference and rally outside the Westin
Who: All industry professionals and supporters of the adult entertainment community.
If you can participate in the rally, contact Kim at Free Speech Coalition, at (818) 348-9373) or by email at joanne (email addy) freespeechcoalition.com. We will provide additional information.
It you cannot participate but still want to be heard, we will launch a tweet campaign-make sure you are signed up and able to tweet by March 16, follow FSC on twitter and we will launch our campaign so that the decision makers are fully aware of where we stand on the issues.
In the long run, if .XXX passes, FSC is considering the following possibilities:
1. Filing a dispute through ICANN’s IRP (Independent Review Process), although we are rightfully wary of all things ICANN
2. Filing a lawsuit, including an immediate injunction against ICANN—we have a team of attorneys considering best possible arguments
3. Organizing a boycott of .XXX—there are two ways to defeat .XXX. One, with a BANG, and the other, with a trickle. Clearly, we would prefer to have .XXX defeated, over and done with. However, passage of .XXX does not necessarily mean that it is viable or will be successful. ICM needs adult businesses to purchase .XXX domain names. ICM has reported over and over again that its business model relies on between 300,000 and 500,000 .XXX domain names. After over five years of actively marketing pre-registrations, ICM has just over 200,000 pre-reservations —and remember, that includes registries that have reserved a number of names in hopes of re-selling to the adult industry. It costs absolutely NOTHING to pre-reserve a domain name. Once money has to be paid, those numbers will decrease. Couple that with a boycott and .XXX could fail before the end of its first year. Remember, more of these domain names have failed than succeeded, and without the support of the industry it is purported to serve….XXX is history!
Theo
Good post Rick.
And that post from Anunt got me thinking. Thanks !
We already see hollywood have homeland security fetching domains for them. Even if those are legit in some countries.
We see Legitscript forcing USA based registrars to kickoff legit pharmacy companies off the internet.
So the next step forcing the adult industry into .XXX ?? I can see it happen. And i can see goverments going to crackdown on who are not moving..
Companies and goverments are trying to regulate the internet. As said before. .XXX might be huge.
Personally i am not a supporting .XXX
Mr. Deleted
Sounds like a plan. Not that I am big on adult, but shows that there is always a way to make it online. Say xnxx.com could move to xnxx.xxx and link all his 1000’s of names to the new domain name.
Shaper
This is just the beginning. Unlimited domain extensions, starting with xxx, are going destroy the scarcity side of the supply and demand equation. As soon as companies realize they can monopolize brand specific catagories for less than the price of a dot com, the ceiling is going to be blown apart.
Why pay millions for movie.com when they can own .movie, and probably do better in search (because hollywood marketers will be all over that). It will be more cost effective to own the keyword extension than to own the keyword. Commercial entities will make the obvious choice.
The engines will adapt to a catagorization model. This won’t happen over night, but it will happen as the new globals begin to flood the market. Since corporations will initially be buying the extensions and will have the power to brand them and strongly develop them, they will become likely authority sectors for subjects.
Once the advertisers realize that the dot com is extraneous and they can throw a dot in just about anywhere, two word domains are done.
The extensions become extraneous. Since the new TLDS are global, they will get all the search benefits that apply to global domains.
Search engines will adapt to this trend, and when that happens the shift will be too far underway to unravel.
In time the cost and profit potential of new extensions will affect every high value keyword. This is very much tied to the cost of providing the extensions, but will have a dramatic affect on market prices.
When you flood supply, demand drops. When this happens the entire pricing structure that drives the domain industry (which is all built on relative scarcity) will be undermined, as will the speculative values which drive the domain investment system. You can’t build a pyramid without a foundation. Unlimited supply will erode that foundation much faster than most people realize.
Dot Com will hold ground for a while, but its really there because of percieved value and first mover advantage. That percieved value will not be the same once keyword specific and corporate specific extensions become the order of the day.
It won’t take a lot of television ads until the consumer realizes that the dot has just become a placeholder and that anything can be an extension. This will create a perceptual shift that will not help dotcoms, as the exclusivity barrier will be pretty much shot to hell.
This isn’t really about .xxx, its about the wave of specialized extensions that will follow.
Unless the barrier for entry is extremely high, the cost of the extension will very quickly set a cap on the .com value. If the barrier for entry to these new extensions is low, the flood will happen faster. Cities will adapt geo extensions and businesses will register locally, they won’t need com, in fact they will probably benefit in search by not having one.
I think there will be competition for terms, within various extensions, but the overall values will be nowhere near what they are today. The next landrush will be in the extensions themselves, until the market is completely saturated.
The move in .xxx is just the first crack in the dam, and its just a matter of time until the floodgates open. Ultimately, ubiquity will trump scarcity and there will be a lot of people caught holding the bag.
Just my thoughts, I could be wrong. Perhaps people will cling to the brand of .com, stubbornly refuse to give it up, but I suspect at the end of the day domainers are far more invested in maintaining the status quo than the masses of people who just want a business site, or a site relevant to their interests.
Expanding global domains is very dangerous ground, and for those of you that have investments to protect, should consider the implications thoroughly.