The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Morning Folks!!

So yesterday afternoon my Research Department sent me this graphic below and more. You will notice .tk is the #2 extension. Forgive my ignorance, never heard of it. But that nonsense aside, where is .mobi on the list below? .Biz? .Pro? .travel? .Aero..whatever has a LONG way to go for 700 of them to divide up the tiniest of little slivers. This is not even about domain names. This is about numbers and market share and more numbers and all I can say, is study the chart below and others Verisign has posted on their blog.

Each of the 700 new extensions have to sell you on their vision and then have enough content by end users that is significant enough to warrant mentioning. They can talk about the small guy all they want, but like Lonnie says, they have to sell them on something. Their job now is to sell and show the blue skies on the horizon simply by using their new unproven extension.

Well, take a step into reality and look at what that horizon really looks like. Look at the chart below and look at the SLIVER that says "OTHER TLD's". That is where your losers already reside and they are about to be joined by 700 others. Of which only ONE has a real chance at being meaningful imho. And then we can measure and weigh "Meaningful".

Look, you can fish in an ocean. You can fish in a river. You can fish in a pond. You can fish in a stream. You can fish in a creek. But fishing in puddles is for fools. Again, strictly by the numbers. Strictly as an investment. Strictly by historical facts. Strictly by gut instinct.

I wish them all success. Many are dear and close friends. But for the life of me, I just don't get it and it must be my own shortcomings.

Just yesterday 3 guys I have known for many years came out with the .co.com registry. Huh?? Sorry, I love you guys, but for the life of me, I just don't get it. These guys are all a lot smarter than me. But I just don't get it. I just see more and more confusion and when that happens it is human nature to go back to what it knows and is familiar with. That said I can see just a glimmer of what they may see. A universal country code ending in .com? Instead of co.uk you have co.com? I am not sure. This makes .co confusion seem simple.

So without talking to each registry and trying to see their vision, it is difficult for me to figure out the end game in 5, 10 or 20 years. There are only a handful so far that you look at it and it makes sense and you get. But should I really need to talk to each one? Should it not be evident on the face of things?

So my first question might be when will the first .whatever make the following chart? Study that chart. See how hard or easy it is to have a SHARE of that.

Like Lonnie Borck says, these guys all must sell something to stay in business. Which will explain the flurry of new shows coming to the space. A shrinking space to begin with when we talk about domain investors but one that is exploding when we talk registries and registrars. They each need to sell to survive. They each must convince 3rd parties that theirs is better and the way of the future. Third parties tht have no interest to begin with. Where does that intersect with investing? When? Why is Need, Want and Desire being ignored? The basic building blocks of any good or service.

Over the past months I have articulated as many of the pitfalls as I have time to write about and I could write for another year. This is a TINY industry. The SMALL guy that they always seem to be talking for could give a rats ass and is not in this industry. They are not waking up in the morning looking for a domain name. They have one or don't want one. That is the case in 98% or more. They have one, they don't need another or just don't want one. They use Facebook or eBay or whatever their preferred marketing outlet is. Get over it! That's the reality we are in and what is stunning to me is it applies to the guy in his 60's and in his 20's and 30's.

Ok, so they will focus on startups. Great. Startups using other people's money of which 80% would fail with a .com and now more will fail without it. Again, I focus on numbers and history and human nature. I don't worry if I will offend a friend. This is business and this is our hard-earned money and nobody should do this blindly. They have been trying to reinvent the hula-hoop for 55 years without much success.

We all know what the motivation was for all this. It was not to make a better universe. It was not to make the internet easier to navigate. It was and is a pure hula hoop money play. PERIOD!! A square Hula Hoop full of holes and dead ends that lead to an awful amount of confusion! What is with 2013? Shopped for Medical Insurance Lately?

But the characteristics of the .com are not the same as they are with .whatever. Study the NUMBERS. The numbers. Look below and study them. Then look to history and ask where are all the other great extensions on that list? You can see from that chart below it is nothing more than a sandwich. On one side you have .com. On the other side you have cctld's. Both are key and are important and neither are going away. They co-exist without damaging each other. Now in the middle of that sandwich below is all the other extensions. Six of which are CCtld's as well. Take out the .net and .org that have been around for 20 years.  You will see all the extension now combined don't even equal .info. 700 extensions and 695 of them will be relegated to living and sharing that sliver!

Whether a registry makes his annual nut or goes broke has nothing to do with what we do. Building anything on a foundation of sand and you better have a plan "B" ready to go.

For a clearer graphic: Source: http://blogs.verisigninc.com/blog/entry/verisign_to_issue_new_domain

Morning Folks!!

I was going to post this last week and got a bit derailed.

So now that both Part 1 and Part 2 of Team Schwartz vs Team Schilling it is time to post how I see it.

First, I don't think there is a winner or a loser. I think we just have "On the record, for the record". I think we all presented a brief point, counterpoint and I think it was entertaining, informational and productive and it was very serious because it deals with where you may or may not invest your hard-earned money. In a few years we will look back and then we will see.

Frank and I are friends and we have never had a cross word. That does not mean we have to agree. Berkens and I are friends and we too disagree some times. But we duke it out with thoughtful debate and we let the future sort out things like winners and losers.

I heard arguments that I had not heard before. Some made a lot of sense and of course I was quick to point out when it made no sense. But we all have one thing in common, we are looking for answers. Some have a more vested interest in it than others, but answers are what we seek.

I look at it and while it was really a perfect opening, it was just that, an opening. There is so much more to discuss and understand and to either reject or embrace.

It's not up to me whether their vision becomes a reality. I can only bet on the outcome. Invest in whatever direction I see it going. Like everything else in life, I may bet right, I may bet wrong. But as a businessman and an opportunist, I will look to history and the empirical evidence that has already been gathered to help me decide.

And while many would like to forget about .mobi and .aero like the public has, we can't ignore their outcomes. Their success is not our success. Nobody to blame for that. Just how the chips came down. Same with most of the others.

So out of 700 I am pretty sure that 7 of them will come to challenge .net or other tld. Maybe some country codes. Maybe not. Great and Unique Content and successfully establishing viable businesses will determine the outcome more than any other single thing. Registry success does not translate to investor success. Two different ballgames. I am sure many will find some degree of success.

Monte says .Travel is a successful registry. That may be true. But I would not invest seriously in that tld. Or .aero. I have nothing against them. If they make money or not has ZILCH to do with me. I just don't think it is a wise investment when there are so many better choices. Especially if you flip domains for a living.

But what really is crazy to me is the notion we are running out of .coms or that .coms are going to be old-fashioned. That is just loony tunes to me with all due respect. I don't think crazy talk helps their cause and actually hurts them. I think it turns people off. I may be wrong. I can't speak for everyone but human nature does have a reaction and it is not the one they want. Especially when I can prove it with simple numbers and an example with TopPlumber.com.

There will be opportunity whether this succeeds or fails. Whether there is confusion or not. But you can predict with a pretty good degree of certainty that if they discover their efforts are not being fruitful or their customers are confused that they could care less about anything but stopping the bleeding.

I talk about how I see 700 horses in the starting gate and I don't know how most of them don't get trampled by the others. They disagree among themselves. They each have different self interests so none will be playing from the same sheet of music. That equals chaos. You can see it from here. You don't have to wait a year to see multiple collisions of all sorts. A few scams and an extension could be out of it!

Like I said, we have only touched on some of the issues.  And at the end of the day it will be a gtld by gtld race. Some will be viable and some will die on the vine and that is already happening. All forseeable.

There is so much more to debate over. Reality will determine the winner. Not you, me or anyone. We all just make our case. We put our money where are mouths are. Frank certainly has devoted many millions to what he believes and like Lonnie said, if anyone is going to make it, it will be Frank. I like .link but I don't get .tattoo. I have to look over the rest of his list and again, it will be a .whatever by .whatever decision. .tattoo won't be high on my list. But Frank estimates 25,000 registrations.

Each Registry I talk with throw around numbers that may have made sense given the current levels of extensions but I think are a little ambitious given 700 breaking at nearly the same time. So their biggest obstacle may be their own projections.

Either way the landscape could change drastically in the months ahead. As I have said, once these folks start hiring staffs, their sheer numbers will overwhelm us. It will get noisy. So don't be surprised and don't be surprised if I don't win any popularity contests. Anticipate and be ready for what is coming regardless of the success or failure of any individual extension.

My MAIN position is that after the dust settles and we have the carcases of 695 .mobi's lying around, that will be the fuel that finally accelerates .com prices to the levels I believe they are worth. I think we are already seeing that.

It is ok to build on any gtld. But you MUST own the .com at some point to continue your growth. Not doing that is a dereliction of duty. If you are in charge and you make a mistake like that.....you should no longer be in charge. That is why to this day I scoff at that Madison Avenue panel in 2007 that said it was all about "Budgets". Sorry, budgets don't count when you must make a decision for the next 100 years! I don't think budgets matter when your house is burning down. I don't think budgets matter when you have a heart attack. Budgets are guides they are not tablets written in stone! Listen to THE Dumbest answer I have ever heard since I have been in business.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I could probably add to this list for quite a while. But these are the false myths that .whatever is trying to build their foundation on and if they continue, it won't help their case, it will hurt their case. Remember, I am in sales. This is not the road to selling. It's the road to losing credibility. At least inside the industry. Outside, I guess they might swallow anything because they know so little as the video on Las Olas proved. Each of these I have addressed on previous blog posts and the video.

Myth #1 We are running out of .com names. (Not in our lifetime.)

Myth #2 All these millions of people will embrace .whatever. (Anytime you try to speak for millions, you find yourself speaking for yourself.)

Myth #3  .com is like AM Radio (Sorry, that dog won't hunt. FM offered Stereo. .whatever offers nothing new other than confusion and a way for some to make money and others to lose money.)

What will success look like? It won't look like the above. It will be an extension by extension debate and vote and some are going to get very few votes. Votes in the form of registrations.  But even that does not guarantee investor quality domains. Some will find success with .whatever. But I look at all this through many lenses. That of a domain investor and that of a shop owner on Main St. I look at thru the eyes of startups and the eyes of the Fortune 500. I have the ability to go around a 360 degree circle and see it through their eyes. And when I do that, most eyes have little or no interest. Biggest are the startups, but startups make a calamity of wrong decisions and this is just an example of one they will need to fix with any degree of success and most of course will just fail all together. Could be the perfect marriage.

Selling is about overcoming objections. As long as somebody is objecting, like myself, they are buying. So while I have all these objections as an investor, it is their job to make the case using logic and facts sprinkled with some dreams. If they successfully do that, they can make the sale. But if they use arguments that can be easily shown to be myths, that sale gets further away. This is what I call "Negative selling" because it is less focused on the benefits of what is being offered and more focused on what they see as the impediment to where they want to go.

Rick Schwartz

Evening Folks!!

This post may not be as meaningful without reading my first post earlier today.

Candy.com = empire.

.Candy= empire

BUT

Hard.candy.com, chocolate.candy.com, dietetic.candy.com = unlimited variations =

vs

hard.candy, chocolate.candy, dietetic.candy single domain names that are difficult and may be impossible to expand and compete with each other. They are likely owned by hundreds of different folks. That seems to divide a market not be able to take over one.

So the latter you have to win all 3 variations and the hundreds of thousands of others to take control but with candy.com you get them all as add-on.

So I as the .com owner compete with the registry not with the single domains. I already own those. All the others compete with each other. I have EVERY variation and combination they can come up with. EVERY single one and the confusion all those folks combined will cause will also cause Candy.com to grow and expand and become bigger and more powerful.

And the owner of the whatever.candy owns ONE! He controls ONE! And he expands how??

My value is DESTINED to skyrocket and I just demonstrated  ONE reason why. Just one. There are many. It has taken me 2 YEARS and dozens of blog posts right here that examined this issue from top to bottom and side to side.

And tomorrow I will be posting the video that will be watched from every corner of this industry and beyond. I hope it plays as well out here as it did inside the conference room. We kicked things around and everyone made their points and the future tells all.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Are we beginning to see the new marketing campaign for .whatever?

"The days of .com dominance will be coming to an end shortly, says Juan Diego Calle, founder of .CO" in an Inc article that I wrote about yesterday. 

Last Night Paul Stahura explained to me on Berkens Blog that my sale of eBet.com was because I am scared that .com domain values are going down and I was bailing. Of course that is as absurd nonsense and perhaps desperate as you can get!

He went on to say “Dot com is your father’s TLD.”

Really??

Here is my response:

And if that is going to be your marketing plan, good luck with that.
.Com is only like 20 years old and could not be served a drink in many states. lol

You have to show the benefits of those extensions listed and if you folks think you are going to do that by peeing on .com, all I can say is it is weak and you may be questioning why you spent the money you did on these.

All I said was “I don’t get it”

So have me understand. None of us do. You have to sell now not throw rocks at the house we all live in. Believe me, that dog won’t hunt. Not at all. So what are we really missing?

Why .camera and not .cam? I think .cam is much more universal regardless of the current objections. Now that does not mean I think .cam takes off or changes the world. But why is .camera better? I don’t get it.

So are we beginning to see their strategy or lack of one? I have explained in detail about selling something. This ain't selling anything. In sales you have to overcome objections. But you can't do it with empty rhetoric or grand predictions based on HOPING something will unfold even tho the evidence at hand points to the opposite outcome. You have to do it with well thought out LOGIC.

“Dot com is your father’s TLD.”

That is not logic. That is pure emotion. His other examples are flawed because he starts with a premise that I don't agree with. Like all traffic from .whatever comes directly from .com. Sorry, that is flawed. I don’t see it that way.

I think you have to have content on .whatever to increase the size of the pie. That takes nothing from .com the way I see it. It adds to an existing pie. And that is assuming a success.

I even wrote an article and asked what happens if the first 100 .whatevers out of the gate fail and what will it do to the others coming.

Where I ask: So in the event that the first 100 new extensions came to market and fell flat, what exactly would that spell for the other 900? It does not help their efforts it hinders their efforts. Even a winner could be weighed down by the sinking of others. And some are gonna sink right to the bottom.

Here is exhibit A.

I wrote many posts about .whatever over the last 6 months because I knew once it began it would be a few of us against many of them. I need to be on record so I can point to those words like I do today and the next couple years. I did not know their campaign would be based on misinformation.

Let the facts speak for themselves. Let the chips fall where they may. Anything less is desperate.

.com is not the enemy. But if that becomes their focus, they will fail even faster than any of us think.

Look, there are a lot of folks with a lot of money riding on this. But if this is how they are going into the sales arena to do battle, then they have even more problems and fears than I thought. Sales is about overcoming objections not bad mouthing obstacles. I wrote all about it just last week!

Here is an objection I wrote to Paul last night: "Why  .camera and not .cam? I think .cam is much more universal regardless of the current objections. Now that does not mean I think .cam takes off or changes the world. But why is .camera better? I don’t get it."

Okay, now talking about .com is not overcoming the objection. See what I mean? There has to be an answer ready. A good answer. Anything less and you can't make the sale. I am doing these folks a favor by pointing out these pitfalls.

Lastly, I will come at this always 2 ways. First as a domain investor and second as an end user. My focus is limited to that because that is what counts to me and my readers and the future.

A campaign of noise and misinformation will not win the day. Not telling folks about massive leaks to .com will not win the day. I am really trying to keep an open mind about all this. But the reaction says volumes.

We are all on record and time will tell everything. My posts are crystal clear and I use historical facts as my basis. Let's see what develops and we can match my words of 2013 with the reality of 2015 and 2016. I am no match against Calle, Stahura and Schilling. A one man band against hundreds. But thoughts that turn into reality are very powerful. So let the strongest thoughts win. Drinks are on me guys!

Rick Schwartz

PS: Nearly every argument you make will be no different than the argument .mobi made. That .xxx made. That .everything.else.already.made.becaise.the.path.is.the.same.and.so.might.be.the.outcome. See confusion might come into play. Are those urls or typos?

Morning Folks!!

Each day the gTLD rollout gets a little clearer to me. Last night was the first time I ever went down the list of those hundreds of extensions. Some of these folks are going nowhere. Their extensions are so limited, I have no idea what they are thinking. Selling hundreds of thousands? Millions? I think maybe they will get a few hundred. Some of the extensions are that bad.

I am still musing over .accountant and .accountants. No confusion there!

In less than 2 weeks Team Schwartz vs Team Schilling will rumble at TRAFFIC!

This tag team match will toss it all around. We will debate gTLD's and Frank and his team will tell you what they see and me and my team will tell you why they are looking at it wrong. It will be fun. it will be lively and it will be packed!

I have not picked my team yet. Contact me if you would like to joining Team Schwartz or Team Schilling.

Frank will be joined by Monte Cahn from Rightofthedot.com, Jeffrey Sass of .CLUB and 1 other operator. I will be joined by just 1 other domainer still to be named.

There will be a boxing ring placed in the middle of the seminar hall.

Just kidding about the boxing ring!

Seriously, this is going to be fun and exciting and it just may STEAL the show! The byproduct may be clarity!

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

Ok, this post is gonna piss some folks off. It is not meant to and I hope my explanation stands on its own.

I never talk much about .biz as an extension because for whatever reason, my perception of the .biz extension is "Fly by night". I can't help that. It is how I think each and every time I hear a .biz. Call me prejudice. I can't explain it in words other than to say I know the type folks that bought into .biz. Another "Second coming" that never materialized. The "Z" crowd.

I hear .info registrations are down. That is not surprising. Domainers registered some of the worst domains I have ever seen under .info. So that accounts for the loss of domains registered. However, I still see .info as a viable extension when matched up correctly that might get a second look.

.TV is still a powerful extension matched with powerful end users. It is nt universal like .com, but it allows everyone in the world to broadcast their own TV shows and have it designated as such.

.Me is a nice extension when matched with a proper verb or noun that fits the extension. Again, limited but powerful.

.Org is for charities and non-profits and works best when match up to help the human cause.

.Net is an orphan that may get a second look with 700 .whatevers but still tough to build your main identity on without losing traffic/customers to the .com. Confusion sucks.

ccTLD's all have their purpose in their home markets. The minute that market spills over their physical borders, it is time for the .com

.Mobi is just a loser But with .mobile coming does .mobi get a second chance or do we have Loser #1 and Loser #2?

.Co, is simply confusion central and when the end-user or start-up, grows up, they will want the .com. Why? It will be cheaper and more rewarding to harness those already looking for them than the expenditure of advertising for new hit and miss business.

.US, don't write it completely off just yet. See if the 700 new extensions unfold the way each of these operators believe, than there is little question that the extensions already existing will also get a second look during that decision-making process.

.Com, King of the hill. An empire that will rule for the lifetime of every domainer and end-user reading this. It is just starting to gain traction not the other way around. But as always, marginal domains are worth marginally less today. When you buy slum property, prices don't go up easily. When you buy oceanfront property, you set record sales after record sales. The asset goes up and up. Simple parallel.

.Whatever, I will review each as they come to market. Most will be one word reviews. MeaningFUL or meaningLESS.

.Web, I would say the biggest open question at this moment is will .web be another .net or another .com? This is the most universal sounding name. This is where we get back to perception. Domainers won't judge the outcome they will simply BET on the outcome! HUGE difference! So if you don't look at it right, hard to get it right.

The best will rise to the top naturally. It won't be forced. The extensions will either be universal or limited in scope of combinations that make sense. There is an infinite amount of ones that don't make sense. Matter of fact, domainers have cornered the market on worthless domains. Sad but true.

.Aero, .Travel, are not even on the radar at this juncture so nothing much to say. I was seeing some .travel commercials last year, but have not seen them in a very long time. Indicating that the results were not stellar.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Pretty simple. If you own a SINGLE keyword LEFT of the dot and there is a new matching gTLD to the right of the dot, your traffic will soar. YOU are the basket for all their misdirected traffic. You are the basket for any and all confusion. There is no downside for .com counterparts. But there is a significant upside. Possibly life changing.

Now if you don't own any of those keywords, your benefits will be much less.

There will be a .Property. That means Property.com is the big winner.

There will be .Free. That means Free.com is the big winner.

There will be .whatever and whatever.com will be the winner.

Will be the winner for doing nothing but being there.

And the new gTLD will be missing THE most important part of their marketing puzzle.

There is no question about this. It has already been proven. It is fact. Now those that won't accept that fact will have a costly road in front of them. Matter of fact, there are so many facts after nearly 20 years and some ignore all of them and are destined to repeat failures of the past that should NOT be repeated as failures of the future, But by ignoring facts, their destiny awaits!

.Mobi has 1.2MM registrations. WHO CARES??

As a domain investment it was a FLOP! Period!!

We are "Domain Investors". If you want to play the registrar or registry game, go buy Tucows stock or one of the stocks of the others. Buying domains is not the key.

.Mobile......Really?? They will NEVER see 1.2MM registrations. Many won't even see the .2 regardless of their grand plans. And without domainers, MANY will die on the vine. .meaningless is coming.

So with 700 gtld's the first thing to do is to eliminate the ones with no chance of survivability. Then from the ones left, eliminate the bottom half of that list. You should not have no more than 35 gTLD's to even consider and that means 665 of them will ROT away. Won't even reach the levels of .Aero. And have no investment value whatsoever.

The proof lies in the aftermarket of .mobi, .xxx, .co, .biz, .aero, .travel and the list goes on. Who gives a rats ass about how many registrations they have when as an investment it lacks the elements needed to GROW your money and grow the value of the domain.

My advice as always, buy GREAT .coms and never worry that you have something with no value. I would rather overpay for a great .com then get a bargain for something with little or no value.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

I make a lot of typos. No not domain typo's. Typos when I post or even write emails. See my focus is my thought and I want to get that out before I lose that thought or word or phrase and so grammar and spelling and punctuation when I am in full typing mode results in a lot of typos. Plus I answer several hundred emails a day and sometime I don't even check what I wrote before hitting send. Not a good thing to do. I am trying to do it less. But not all the time.

Below is the paragraph below before I tried and fix all the issues and there are many.

"I make a lot of typos. No not domain typo's. Typos when I post or even write emails. See my focus is my thought and I want to get that out before I lose that thoughjt or word or phrase and so grammar and spelling and punctuation when I am in full typing mode results in a lot of typos.Plus I answer several hindred emails a day and sometime I don't even check what I wrote before hitting send. Not a good thing to do. I am trying to do it less. But not all the time."

Left of the dot, right of the dot I do this for a living and sometimes I am still confused. Left's and Right's are not exactly my strong point and I have a lot of company. About 3/4 of the planet. So I decided to make a point and use an example below of another stage of possible confusion by changing the "." dot or period. Will there be a live link there now?

"Should be fun to go.free admission too. sometimes you don't know if it is a domain name or they forgot to put a space after the period.that can be confusing."

so how is "go.free" handled?

So the question is how does the world process this. Do they see a "Dot" or do they see a "Period"?

Another unknown. It can be processed in different ways by different operations or programs or email or whatever. or is that .whatever? That period is so confusing.

Just another thing to think about and digest and it connects with my next post about keywords and the traffic growth certain domains will see.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks,

Frank Schilling made a BRILLIANT video that he released recently. It really is brilliant as is his comment on Berkens Blog. The video immediately below.

There is no Schwartz vs Schilling but that seems to be the perception. I love Frank. We have never had a cross word and why should we? It does not mean I can't have doubts or ask tough questions. It doesn't mean I have to agree. It doesn't mean I have to disagree. We are all examining an unknown and we all come at that unknown from a different POV. The beauty is we get to share our visions, bet on them and REALITY will win.

Frank and I have spent hours 1 on 1 at TRAFFIC discussing domains and the future as well as emails and on my board and just a decade of conversations and friendship. In Frank's position he should be doing exactly what he is doing and doing so well. If I were his advisor, I would advise him to do what he is doing. But even Frank is going to have winners and losers when each extension is measured against the next. Some may go nowhere. But it only takes 1 to be another life changer. So I still keep an open mind and new evidence and new information is the formula to change my stance. That has not happened yet and the more I study things the more certain  I get. But I am sway-able on certain things. The only thing that can't sway me is that the value of GREAT .coms can only skyrocket.

That all said, I see Franks Journey and it really does remind me of the song and old Coke commercial.

"I'd like to teach the  world to sing in perfect harmony."

So "I'd like to teach the  world to sing in perfect harmony" is the tall order that Frank has taken on. Herculean task!

Think about the job to be done to complete that task. Some would say "Mission Impossible".  Ever hear me sing?

I mean even Coca-Cola can't pull off this one.  I can't sing. Frank can at least carry a tune!

I’d like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees 
And snow white turtle doves
I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company

I’d like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace throughout the land
That’s the song I hear
Let the world sing today
A song of peace that echoes on
And never goes away

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms 
And keep it company
I’d like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace throughout the land
That’s the song I hear
Let the world sing today
A song of peace that echoes on
And never goes away
A song of peace that echoes on
And n-e-v-e-r g-o-e-s a-w-a-y

Point is changing Human Behavior is the single greatest challenge one can take on. I see no downside in what is coming other than the confusion it will likely cause and when folks are confused, Human Nature and Human Behavior kick in. To me, that is not a downside. That is a bonus. That is exciting. None of us can lose no matter which direction things go in as long as you are keenly aware of where we are each step of the way.

I don't see an AM/FM radio parallel. FM gave you stereo and music. There was a reason to change to FM. So there was a difference. And AM never died. It sizzles with advertising dollars even today. But still no parallel. TV was going to kill radio. I guess you guys don't remember that far back. Well did it? Did cd's? What killed radio? Nothing killed radio and it flouishes even today. Just look at SIRIUS.

The parallel might be 800 numbers and 888 and 866 and 855. And if investors bought all the 866 numbers, how meaningful would it or could it be?

The dynamics that must be there are end users and great content. Without those elements, I don't see much. I speak to end-users. Some will purchase defensively and never activate the domain. Others may buy a gTLD but they all said they would merely point it to their .com. The rest say they already have their .com and don't need anything else. That is the majority.

I just don't see that harmony coming anytime soon. I don't see this being done for the right reasons. The overall benefit is limited and as an INVESTOR these are the things I have to weigh. Again, I look at it thru the eyes of an investor and an end-user.

Just look at how .com unfolded and why. Then look at the other extensions and ask why they look more like .mobi?

Frank and I just disagree on how things will unfold and the consumer and future will determine things. Not any of us. I just know the epic challenge ahead and it will take many billions of dollars to sway behavior. And that is just the first stage to get to value. Domainers selling domains to other domainers won't move the needle much if at all. End-users are the ones that create value. Domainers create Tulips.

And I will say the same thing about .whatever that I said about .com. "Your first purchases are your most important purchases". Everyone just discounts that. But it is key to having the wind at your back and a future of success. And the beauty with our industry, you can wake up on any given morning and start all over again and do it a better way.

Look, we can be seeing the greatest launch of all time or we could be seeing one of the biggest duds ever. I measure success by TV ads. Radio ads. Billboards. Magazine ads. Newspaper ads. ADS, ADS, ADS. Continuous and widespread. That will be what I am looking for. That is how I measure the viability of an extension.

All I would say is this. I would GLADLY take what I paid for whatever .mobi's I have left. I would GLADLY take what I paid for whatever .xxx's I have left. I would GLADLY take what I paid for whatever .co's I have left. And many of you would too.

I can't wait to sit down with Frank at TRAFFIC. I want to see his vision as closely as he does. Does not mean he can convince me. But I am ALWAYS open to being convinced with new information and evidence that is real. I am always sway-able. But that is different from blowing in the wind and chasing every shadow. Exciting times and the only losers are domainers that have yet to learn the difference between diamonds and old broken coke bottles.

And the one thing Franks knows about me, nothing I wrote here is anything I would not say directly to Frank. And I probably just did.

Cheers Frank!! Congrats, good luck and even if we disagree or don't see the same vision, I am rooting for your success. I really do hope you can teach the world to sing. We are always looking for that next pot of gold.

Rick Schwartz