Today at opening session of the Dot Nxt conference entitled: Setting the Scene, a questions was asked what would you tell large domain holders in anticipation of hundreds or thousands of new gTLD’s
Rob Hall of Pool.com made stated “if I was an owner of a large amount of two, three and four word .com’s I would dump them as new gTLD generic terms will be worth more than the .com equivalent in the future.”
“If I owned Shoes.com I would probably keep it, but if I owned Greatshoes.com, or GreatShoesforsale.com I would dump them”
I spoke to Rob for a while after the session to get further clarification and he used the example of “Ottawa Pizza”
Rob thinks that once there is a .Ottawa and a .Pizza the domain names Pizza.Ottawa or Ottawa.Pizza would both be worth substantially more than OttawaPizza.com.
I asked assuming if GreatPizza.com is worth $50K today what would it be worth a few after say a .Pizza is live.
He said there would be an immediate loss of 20K in value and the decline in value would continue but slow.
Finally he asked me to tell him a domain I owned, so I said Stuff.com.
“So would you rather own Stuff.com or .Stuff for $185K?
“If you owned the TLD don’t you think you could sell 10,000 registrations a year at $10 or make $100K a year.”
Maybe you would sell 50,000 registrations a year and now make $500,000 a year and that would be an annuity in perpetuity.
“So why wouldn’t you sell your generic .com’s and use the money to fund new gTLD’s”
Its certainly a radical approach to domains and one I haven’t heard anyone discuss so boldly an publicly.
So what do you guys think.
Do you think the additional choices in the domain space will cause value of other than bang on one word generic to fall?
Would you rather own stuff.com or .stuff?
let me be the first to say Rob Hall is talking out of his rear end imho
maybe so pool can try to catch them and sell them on lol
seriously I have never heard so much rubbish
OMG!!!
this confirms what I and many others have been quietly thinking as well.
in the world of Coming New gTLD’s
the only real gem of an extension will be
.Co
its short meaningful extension is going to encompass all other names.
MHB— how on Earth did you put up with this guy’s stupidity?
Why did you waste your time talking to him? Just send him to my “BullS’ and he will know how BS he is.
Rob, please visit “BullS’ .
Again, too many dot whatever will cause confusion!!
too bad for many .com owners. glad I dumped 50% of my .com positions.
.com reminds me a lot like a company called CROC, this shoe company went from $1 to $100 in just a few years and then back down to $1 in the last three years.
it exactly makes me think is going to happen with the .com s.
I plan to write a long blog post putting to bed a lot of this nonsense and my predictions, again only imo
will post back when done, in a few days hopefully, or so
I’m surprise you didn’t laugh in his face Mike!
But we know you’re too nice for that.
Maybe Bandit should have pissed up his leg, lol
Would you rather own stuff.com or .stuff?
===
Verisign + some Registrar currently “owns” Stuff.com
Eventually you will be able to hold domains you “own” in your own hands.
You will be able to present the device in a court of law as “owner”.
STUFF is a verb and a noun – very valuable
all the money Ricky Schwartzy, Mikey Manny has made from your hard earned money. well someone’s got to pay for the $Millions cash they made, and it is from all the .com holders pockets today.
last one holding .com s don’t forget to turn off the lights.
“If you owned the TLD don’t you think you could sell 10,000 registrations a year at $10 or make $100K a year.”
====
This is a return to the similar model that early ISPs used – MA PA and a T1 – two people could make $100,000 forever – but they got greedy, their costs skyrocketed, the market shifted, they sold out
MA PA and a TLD could work IF allowed – currently that does not appear to be likely – the regulators (Clerics and Czars) will take all your money and you will
not likely get launched
Where are those 10 k regs coming from in the first place ? do people think that because 500 new TLDs are created that 5 millions new regs will just appear like that ? The number of domains that people reg and renew is finite. Just because of that, operating a TLD will always be a business, in competition with other businesses, and not a passive income machine or annuity. Sure some will make money, but it will be business income/ profit.
Now whats the cost of operating a TLD ? whatever the answer is, im sure selling 10 k names at 10$ a pop does not turn in a 100 k profit.
Where are those 10 k regs coming from in the first place ?
====
They will come from the .COM space that has ? 80,000,000+ ? domains.
—–
Now whats the cost of operating a TLD ?
If unregulated, MA PA and a TLD could operate like many ccTLDs.
Caribbean TLDs operate off of old 8086 servers under a tiki bar.
The regulators are going to force people into gold-plated comp centers
with millions in overhead (going to them).
There are also unpredictable market forces to consider.
Can MA PA and a Saloon operate a Casino in the remote mountains of Nevada?
…sure…but the big boys will not allow that
Rob Hall is phonier than a $3 bill
Pool is just ringing that bell for the sheep to come to their gtld slaughter (pronounced auction)
do you remember all those .mobi, .info, other auctions Pool conducted?
Ive been thinking this for a while but with .tv – which is better drmtv.com or drm.tv , lots.tv or lotstv.com? Who knows for sure, I got both.
I personally think it will be totally *awesome* if the new age of internet is built on ottawa.pizza type nomenclature, I mean seriously this is like totally cool!
Its like humans seizing back the internet from computers. ‘com’ indeed 😉
Note to self: No longer take advice from Rob Hall
I think Rob Hall, as many posters above have said, is way off base here.
In my opinion, the only viable new .anythings will be .brands. And, even then, only very large brands. For example, perhaps a .apple, .espn, .cnn, or .microsoft would be sustainable. But there is no reason for those companies to switch away from the current .coms.
I think the new .gtld movement will flam out. Those .com owners who reduce .com positions in anticipation of a decline in value of .com names will be kicking themselves in the future.
Once the .gtlds flame out, .coms will increase in value. I also think .net values are probably overly depressed right now in anticipation of the new extensions coming out. Once the new extensions fail, I think .net is likely to see a slight uptick in value, though I wouldn’t actively seek to buy .net names because I’m less confident that .net values will rebound than I am that .com is and always will be king so long as domain names are how we navigate the web.
Exactly my point BigLie, the customers will come from another business, in this case a publicly listed corp with a billion dollars in the bank. Not gonna be a simple walk in the park. Nothing remotely close to an annuity
it will be totally *awesome* if the new age of internet is built on ottawa.pizza type nomenclature, I mean seriously this is like totally cool!
====
Sounds Good!!!
How long do you think it will take to get .PIZZA out of the ICANN oven and then out of the legal battles for that ?
Are people going to invest 10 years and $10,000,000 to see what is baked ?
Rob Hall is a MORON for making those statements.
Too many TLD’s will make the few that people know that much more powerful.
Cline your a fucking idiot.
Your posts make me want stop reading the comments in domain blogs
Hi “MHB”
To answer your question: “stuff.com”
With all due respect to Mr. Hall…he can “stuff” his theory at:
IwishIOwnedStuffDotCom.stuff
IMHO…as always 😉
‘D’
Most likely the only ones that will make money from the unleashing of new TLD’s will be ICANN and IP lawyers. It will be a huge drain on corps as they will have to constantly look to protect their brands/TM’s. Maybe a dozen or two TLD admins will make a huge profit. The rest will either lose or barely scrape by.
The one benefit from all this is with some of the attention being diverted away from .com and into .co etc, I have been able to pick up some very nice dotcom’s uncontested lately.
Does Rob Hall plan to drop POOL.COM ?
Does Rob Hall have rights to .POOL ?
Will Rob Hall be running the auction for .POOL ?
The new extensions will have their place and displace .com only marginally, like other extensions now do. .TV, .info, etc…. all may not be stellar extensions, but they have grabbed hold and will have their small place in the sun. Some will do very well.
Overall, surfing confusion will cause surfers to revert back to .com to find what they want, and other gTLD extension owners upgrade to .com, or at least buy it to protect their interests.
This is what will happen.
..”How long do you think it will take to get .PIZZA out of the ICANN oven and then out of the legal battles for that ?”
I dont have a clue, I do suspect however that there will be enough real (or perceived real) hard cash on the table to allow some good old dodgy deals in smoke-filed rooms, golf courses and the occasional hot-tub to allow things to move forward in due course.
Expansion of the root is INEVITABLE, sure some people have bagged some plum .com/net/org/whatever – you didnt seriously expect the world to sit and watch, and have no choice than to pony up. The next generation, having found all the beachfront property taken, are building more beaches.
Some new tld of course will have fail written all over them from the start either from the financial backing or the string or a killer legal challenge, but others – I believe the type-in domain kings are right, the terms (like .pizza(.com) own themselves. Who cares where the stupid dot is lol
And how soon can we expect to wait until Mr. Rob Hall announces that he, or Pool.com, is involved in some massive gTLD venture?
Because so far the only people making such ridiculous statements are those who are involved in the new gTLD’s, whether in the form of consulting, creating their own extension, a registrar, dropcatching service, etc. So it would only seem natural that someone making such crazy statements is, or will eventually become, involved too.
I wonder.
remember, people have hidden agendas. There is one reason why he is pushing for .whatever…so HIS bank account can get fatter. If I remember correctly, pool was pushing .mobi’s pretty hard as well. Look where that extension went.
Rubbish – Pool.com you have made my day “LOL”
Dengate Thrush said it today, ‘Complaining of consumer confusion with #newTLDs is an incredibly patronising stance.’
People really aren’t that dumb, They adapt, it is the defining human trait. The dumb ones don’t matter much anyway.
The vast majority of victims of phishing and fraud are boomers and older.
The valuable growing markets are savvy and will adjust.
People like new and hip stuff. They never knew anything but .com and that is about to change, in a huge way.
Europeans have adapted extremely well to non.com names. .DE is huge. And, it is rewarded in search results for it’s target market. Search engines change algorithms based on signals of quality and relevance. When new TLDs reflect this in their content, there will be adjustments.
Type in traffic will diminish. People will realize it doesn’t take them where they want to go. Users will rely more on search, then mark or remember their favorites.
Top level domains, for the first time, will be marketed directly at consumers. Billboards and signs in Times Square for .NYC, Neon in Vegas for .VEGAS. .GOLF in Golf Magazine etc etc
Ordinary people don’t know much about domain names, but they know what they LIKE. Golfers don’t care about domain names, they care about .GOLF. Fishermen like to .FISH, poker players love .POKER, and gay people really ARE.GAY. People will be attracted to TLDs that reflect their own style and interests.
There will be no ‘flame out’. Some will fail, others will PROLIFERATE. It will become absolutely normal to see domains end with .SONY, .BANK, .POKER, and the rest.
A thousand or more Brands are applying to operate their own TLD.
Jeffrey Hayzlett, Marketing Guru calls .BRAND TLDs ‘no-brainers’ for marketing purposes.
Small businesses and individuals will buy a $20 domain that fits their product, service, or target market over a $1k long tail .com domain.
I disagree with Mr. Hall, I think .com names will see a spike, then a gradual decline to obscurity as the DNS goes TECHNICOLOR
And which would Ron want to own; Rob.com, Hall.com, and/or RobHall.com … or Rob.rob, Hall.hall, and/or RobHall.robhall?
Yea; thought so.
The only thing that should be dumped is Ron.
Nuff said.
Sorry, it’s of course “Rob,” not “Ron.”
Adapt or Perish
I would write a much longer response, but I don’t think Rob Hall’s opinion is grounded in reality. I will just go with the two letter response as it is all that is really needed.
BS.
Brad
It is hard to trust anyone with massive conflicts of interest.
Wasn’t Pool the company in the past that was allowing you to preorder non existent extensions (http://www.quintaris.pool.com)
I am sure they are just trying to get their hand in the cookie jar.
Brad
Looks like Bobby Cline still hasn’t gotten his Manic Depression under control.
All domains are dead. Apps are where it’s at…
Hi,
Speaking of Mr. Cline…
On anther note:
I am sure O .CO sponsored the wrong stadium…in Oakland. They only had two people shot, in critical condition, after a “Raiders”pre-season Football game two night’s ago…
Not something I would want my ‘brand’ associated with…as this type of thing will continue the whole football season.
I wonder what the ‘body count’ will be, after seasons end…quite sad.
Having the Oakland Raiders…here in Los Angeles for years…was a nightmare of violence at every game…and I do mean every game.
Peace Robert!
‘D’
All of you guys are WRONG.
This is what’s really going to happen.
Once there are 100’s or 1000’s of new gTLD’s…your average joe is going to get confused.
Once they are confused, they will no longer type the domain name in…instead, they will go directly to google and just type what they are looking for and hit search.
Google is the big winner here!
Domain names are NOT going to disappear…you still need a domain name to build a website on…they will exist…but will NOT get any direct navigation traffic.
They are going to come out with .nyc … so if i am looking for a pizza place in new york city, i will type pizza.nyc and a website will appear…
but what if i am looking for a pizza place in atlanta…if i type pizza.atl … nothing will appear
and when your average joe keeps typing these url’s and nothing appears, he will get tired and just go straight to google.
I have been saying this for a long time now…that direct navigation traffic is going to die out and people will just go straight to google.
anyways…whatever happens…happens!
Good Luck to all
“They are going to come out with .nyc … so if i am looking for a pizza place in new york city, i will type pizza.nyc and a website will appear…”
Or it will just be a parked page just like other premiums today.
Brad
If we’re going to have a TLD for every city and every food item we might just as well go straight back to numeric IP addresses and .f##k domains
If you know anything about SEO, it’s that Google wants QUALITY and RELEVANCE. They have hundreds of signals, but ultimately they want consumers to find the best and most relevant information. Google is a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars, so they will do what is most likely to yield quality/relevance EVEN IF THEY SAY OTHERWISE. They are a for-profit entity and their algorithm is PRIVATE and no matter what they say about SEO openly, it could be a complete lie because they can’t let people know their algorithm.
And with .COM being purchased, sold, and transferred for the past 20 years, well, they have simply ended up in the hands of END USERS who can afford them, and thus provide quality and relevance.
.COM is a signal that users have the funds and intention of building quality. 20 years worth of accumulated quality all around the world. Google knows this.
Say what you want, spin it how you want, but what the end users have been building for over 20 years in .COM will not be undone. The smart and honest domainers know this.
@MT
You are correct
And when .NYC domains are used primarily for New York related information, When poker sites are all people care to develop on .POKER, a signal of RELEVANCE will be adjusted for.
and we all know that nothing but quality occupies .com
‘all around the world’ – except in Germany where .DE gets a boost, in the netherlands where .NL rules. Apparently TLDs other than .com can get a ranking boost from Google if they feel
it gives off signals of Quality and Relevance to the search being made.
Search is becoming more localised and granular. If a TLD gives good signal, SE’s will respond.
Sorry Rob, but you’re way off the mark and you could be costing a lot of readers money if they dump now when the marketing confusion sparked by these new TLDs eventually cements dotCom as the gold standard once and for all.
And speaking of stuff.com or .stuff, I’ll put it to you this way. My friend Sean Miller owns NYC.com and is positively jumping for joy at the launch of .NYC.
“I do suspect however that there will be enough real (or perceived real) hard cash on the table to allow some good old dodgy deals in smoke-filed rooms”
====
IF 99,9% of the “Applicants” (excluding .brands) are in SF meeting this week, WHY do they need ICANN ? They should have the clout and chops and sauce to make .PIZZA
@Tom G
Seeing as your name links to, “newgtldsite.com” … I’ll take your comments with a grain of salt, like all of the other people that hype it up, yet also stand to make $$$ from gTLD’s.
The smart ones know how .COM fits into the world of SEO, the minds of people, and what has been built over the past 20 years. I just wonder how many people are actually falling for this.
We’ll find out soon enough.
Actually, no, it’s another 2 years away at the very least.
@David J Costello
why, Is your friend planning on marketing, selling, hosting and providing value added services for hundreds of thousands of http://www.subdomain.nyc.com buyers?
Everyone here has an agenda
“what the end users have been building for over 20 years in .COM will not be undone.”
—
“these new TLDs eventually cements dotCom as the gold standard once and for all.”
=======
Based on the informal poll of experts here… It would appear that DNS should go ALL.IN and focus on ONLY .COM
If that is what the Free Market Forces select – many people are going to be disappointed with their ICANN Franchises
Mr. Rob Hall
is right on the money with this.
what goes up must come down.
whenever there is this much money, others will want a piece of the dinner pie
and unfortunately the old lion will have to yield to the up and coming
hyienas on the chase.
and the new and young Lion on the safari is going to be
.Co
.Co is already showing up on many popular sites.
SEO ranking is doing well, often showing up on the first page even ahead of the .coms.
Long live the new
.Co King of the new domain Jungle.
I don’t get the new tld debate. Anyone remember .travel, .museum, .aero, .jobs, .biz, .mobi and more? What makes you think the new tlds will be any diff? Same chip different dip. Destined to fail.
These TLDs didn’t do that well and any new ones will just end up in the list below.
.info
.mobi
.name
.travel
who invited .co cheerleader to the debate?
imagine
500 – 1000 different companies
that will have their own marketing and PR departments.
There will be billboards commercials for each and every one of these 1000 different extensions.
if you thought
.Co
upended things the past year.
now imagine 1000 other separate companies doing the same thing.
Frankly
I don’t think
.com
is going to survive.
.Co
will succeed it,
just like Windows Vista superseded Windows 98, etc.
Constant improvement is the only sure thing.
au revoir mon .com ami
Hi,
@Gnanes
If we all need invites from “MHB”, more than the “.co cheerleader” might be out of luck…me included.
“MHB” does a great job of managing his blog and allowing most everyone to voice their options…within reason.
What I do in this particular case you mentioned…is just ‘scroll by’ a bit faster 😉
Peace!
‘D’
@Robert….
Within reason…mean anything at all to you?
@Gnanes
Did not “scroll” fast enough this time 😉
Peace!
‘D’
Robert Cline. Are you mad?
I have been very generous by adding the question mark.
RobHall.idioto
Well, let us look at this logically.
Answer this one simple question. Yes or No
Do you agree that the only constant is change ?
Yes or No
If yes, then answer the next question
What will .com change to ? Or What will .com evolve to ?
The logically answer is it will evolve to:
.Co
@Anunt
I understand what you are saying, but in my opinion Google will NEVER let it get to the point where users are typing “xxxxxx.whatever” into the URL box when they are looking for something. Why? Because that would bypass Google’s search engine- the way they make their billions and billions of dollars.
So if at any point in time there becomes a chance that gTLD’s take off, and people can type “pizzashops.houston” to search for pizza shops in Houston …. Google will simply make gTLD’s rank AWFULLY, or also come out openly and say they don’t rank well to discourage them.
To me this just seems like it would be the rational approach for a billion dollar corporation if its flagship/fundamental product – search – is threatened.
So maybe in a weird way you are right, ultimately Google will benefit. But I can’t see them letting “xxxxx.gTLD” make too much progress.
“If yes, then answer the next question
What will .com change to ? Or What will .com evolve to ?
The logically answer is it will evolve to:
.Co”
.COM, the most widely used extension in the world, with 25 years of history, trillions of dollars in advertising, and close to 100M regs, is going to be replaced by the ccTLD of Colombia. That makes sense in your world?
Brad
Rob has some good points especially with the pizza.ottawa example.
Rob made some very good points wich crossed my mind also.
Also the adaption rate. If you look at the speed of FB and other social media it is unreal how fast that was adopted. Will we face the same expierence with the new gTLD’s ? Or will it be slow ?
Regardless the price erosion will kick in.
If that the case, why don’t he sell off Pool dot com and get dot pool.
People who owns generic domain names do not mean they are expert, it means they are arrogant BS-ers.
Anybody can own a generic name via money.
Rob Hall is clueless
On that basis Rob Hall, I will contact BankRate.com and bid on the portfolio, they will realise the terrible mistake they made.
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/08/23/looks-like-bankrate-com-is-a-huge-domainer-spending-over-90-million-in-domains/
“Will we face the same expierence with the new gTLD’s ? Or will it be slow ?”
After 20+ years millions of people still don’t know if domains can be worth more than $10 godaddy regfee
Guys thanks for all the comments.
As someone who owns 75,000 domains I would say .com is going to be the most valuable extension for quite a while.
I’m 50 but for the younger people lets remember that things change.
Who knew 5 years ago that people would spend much of their day on facebook and twitter?
You can’t take .info or .mobi and just say they didn’t work so these new extensions won’t work
Please remember up to this time there may have been 1 new extension every 2 years.
Now we may have 500 or 1,000 in a year, including brands that will all be sending out a message that what you type to the right of the dot is as important as the left.
So NO ONE knows what is going to happen long term when the right of the dot expands from 22 extensions over 25 years to 1022 extensions in two year.
NO ONE knows.
We all have opinions but its just that
So as I always urge you to do, keep ahead of the game, play smart and leverage your position.
At age 50 with Alzheimer, one will never forget dot com.
Mike,
Lets remember we have the conversation about new TLDs as domainers and investors butnew TLDS are really about others most non-domainers. To think that others particularly technophobes will suddenly become guessing geniuses and spend oodles of time trying to figure out if it is pizza.ottawa or ottawa.pizza is a huge stretch. In fact mye experience is that users will type the direct navigation url into even a goog search box which is why I think meaningful memorable dotcoms are and will be king since they are the standard and don’t require guessing or work to remember.
Simplicity is what Internet users crave which BTW is why twitter and FB and lets not forget Googs are so popular. In addition those of us who buy sell dotcoms and have seen the non success of some of the other top tlds recently announced can say that yes some tlds will be sold but will they devalue the .coms drastically? My guess is over the next 5 – 10 years no.
to follow up Mike, I want to distinguish that just because I think that the masses of new tlds that may soon be introduced will not take hold on the net short term primarily because internet users will not spend time trying to figure which to use doesn’t mean that from an investment standpoint they are or are not worth the risk.
Look at the tons of .cos that are on auction and that obviously therefore some speculators once bought.
I bet .FB will make an appearance soon…
@Cline:
Thanks for the belly laugh! To the contrary, the fragmented marketing power of 1000 separate companies, each trying to promote their own silly gtld, will have absolutely NO chance of offsetting the awesome marketing power of .com .
Know any major ,BIZ websites? Me either. And that was sponsored by ICANN after their research showing a need! You really think that a little company will be able to promote their little crappy one better than that?
Those that would benefit from the marketing efforts of 1000 little gtld companies will solely be the owners of the correlating .com equivalents since that is where the visitors will inadvertently end up when they go to type in the intended destination and accidentally go to the .com version instead.
Mike you argued against your point, 1000 at a time makes it more probable that there is so much confusion that nothing gets accepted.
Yes it does make sense to question biz,mobi,info,jobs,travel,name.pro. To look at their adoption and usage rate as some guide to the new gtld. I mean that goes against the rightofthedot.com or TomG Encirca mantra, but it makes sense to anyone without a horse in the new gtld race.
You for got .museum, .cat, .aero, and my favorite, .coop!
All .disasters at a period when there were few other sanctioned options.
Yeah, you just keep on thinking that the new ones will catch on better!
Read between the lines, short domains will be worth a lot, longer domains, not as much as they are now.
But even then PizzaOttawa.com will be worth MORE than ottawa.pizza or pizza.ottaway, at least for this generation.
The total amount of money spent in developing and promoting .COMs will not be surpassed by any other extension in the next twenty years at least and therein lies the value.
I’ll take Pool.com off his hands!
a $50,000 .com domain will decrease in value to $20,000
start selling before others sell in a stampede, which incidentally has already happened I believe from the list of domains that are coming online for sale right now.
And if you don’t think the coming of the new right of the dot era
will not have an influence on the value of your domains
you are, well, lets just say … f***ed
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated” – Mark Twain… and the same can be said of any established extension today, specially .com
The people who will make money in the ‘new right of the dot era’ (lol) will actually be the registries, registrars and other sundry domain service providers, not domain investors.
Read this, it might help you understand better – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle – though with your .COloured lenses, probably not.
@Samit Madan –
“But even then PizzaOttawa.com will be worth MORE than ottawa.pizza or pizza.ottaway, at least for this generation.”
Ottawa.Pizza or Pizza.Ottawa will make OttawaPizza.com worth even more !
The day that it is not is the day the Internet gets replaced by something new the Al Gore invents.
Wonder how .EU went for Pool.com? Or .ASIA? Or .MOBI? Or .CO?
It seems that all these people pushing the new gTLDs want to concentrate on the wonderfulness of these yet to be confirmed TLDs while conveniently ignoring the mistakes of their past. With dropcatching Pool/Snapnames et al had a great business but it was erroded and once the larger registrars figured out they could make more money by shunting expired domains to their own auction house or auction partners, Pool/Snapnames etc never quite recovered. I think that Rob Hall is just pushing the latest salestalk to sell domains to the unsuspecting newbies who follow his “advice”.
Now for the really cynical bit. Most of the new gTLDs will fail. The TLD world is quickly splitting into a ccTLD/CNO market. While .COM is still growing, many of those new registrations have their equivalent in ccTLDs. The only other significant gTLD with high growth is .INFO. The ccTLDs are where real growth is talking place and what happens when these ccTLDs become dominant in their local market is that businesses no longer consider the brand protection registrations package necessary. They drop the outlying gTLD registrations. They don’t drop their .COM registrations. The .COM is a truly global TLD. This ccTLD/COM axis is one that the new gTLDs will struggle to make a dent in on a country market level. In most developed countries, that ccTLD/COM axis accounts for upwards of 80% of the domain market. New gTLD registrations at a country level might only account for hundreds of new registrations or a few thousand if the new gTLD is particularly lucky. Some new gTLDs might break the 1 million domains mark in the first year but most will struggle like .ASIA, .TEL and .PRO to gain significant market share.
I do not trust Rob Hall’s opinion.
Robert Cline, you make my eyes bleed because you base everything on NOTHING but your own wishful thinking. You have a one track agenda and I hope Mike starts to remove your comments as they have no place other than a pump and dump agenda that nobody appreciates. JMO. I am sure nobody agrees with me. 😉
Agree with you Rick 100%. IF .com is f ‘d then .co is obliterated. This is becoming laughable. Opinions are great, they really need only to be given once in a post. The same thing over and over is just laughable.
There is this need to believe that one is the end all be all, its not.
There are people who have become wealthy by selling luxury cars and others by owning vending machines, and everything in between. Pick what you like and do it.
The key is the plan from the get go not trying to be all things to all people. The average domainer needs one pla,n he or she does not have the budget to multi plan.
Interesting replied from everyone. Great to see a fully informed community debating this.
Let me try and be more clear on my opinion. I do not think that .com erodes to no value as some have stated. .COM will for a very long time be the premium domain. And with the introduction of new TLD’s the generics and great domains in .COM will still have value.
However, the marginal domains in .COM that have some value now I believe will lose some of their value fairly quickly. There are a lot of marginal (ie: long) domains out there that will easily be replaced by a much better generic in a new TLD. So if I had a portfolio long on marginal domains I would be selling those. I would definitely be hanging on to any premium .coms.
And what of other TLD’s and ccTLD’s now ? Would you hang on to “ILoveOttawaPizza.org” or “BestPizzaInOttawa.ca” ? I would argue the value of these will drop when an enduser can buy a .Ottawa or .Pizza domain easily and at near Registry cost.
As to those who commented on Google search, I disagree. New TLD’s will make Search much more valuable. As the consumer mind set shifts to recognize there are now many new TLD’s (they largely ignored the last rounds), search will become even more important.
And I believe Google is in the business of trying to provide results of what a consumer wants. So I believe that they would rank a TLD that was in the search term of a user very highly. Search for Pizza in Ottawa, and I would be willing to bet that Ottawa.Pizza would score very high, as Google would think that is a domain that is clearly close and in a vertical to what the user is searching for.
On the topic of buying new TLDs rather than holding marginal second levels, I think it is a bit of a no brainer. I would much rather own .insurance than insurance.eu for example.
And thanks to those of you who think I should sell the domain Pool.com. If it was just a domain it would be easier to think of it like that, but it is a Brand for a profitable company. So it would be evaluated on the value of the business, not just the domain itself. Using your logic, the most valuable domain sale ever was when Google bought the domain youtube.com.
Rob
Shorter domains will become even more valuable, long-tails will become worthless as groogle begins to base search results on relevancy, not the domain name (keywords).
Zip.ca, a DVD rental service (owned by Momentous, which also owns Pool; Momentous also owns many registrars) appears to have really suffered lately (I ended my membership there recently, as have others if you read their forums). So I think part of Rob’s position is wishful thinking and maybe a wee bit of desperation, as they might *need* a source of short-term profits. MelbourneIT also recently reported weak earnings, and are looking to new TLDs to boost their profits (e.g. making money from helping companies with their applications, etc.).
Registrars *should* be pushing for a re-bid of the dot-com contract, so that VeriSign can’t keep raising prices 7% per year. Why aren’t they doing that? Registrants should be paying $2/yr or less for a dot-com renewal, and registrars would also be better off if that was the wholesale price. Of course, some of the registrars *want* to become registries, and so are not acting in the best interest of registrants.
As another poster suggested, it’s wiser to follow the “smart money”, like BankRate. Big companies like Microsoft, etc. continue to do stealth acquisitions for great dot-coms, too. When have you seen anyone do a stealth acquisition of a “great .biz” or a “must have .co”??!!??
The one great “positive” of new TLDs (not outweighed by all the negatives) is that they provide a distraction — how many competitors slept, while great .com domains were being acquired by the “smart money”?? (e.g. my company’s acquisition of School.com might not have been possible, had others not been distracted by new TLDs or other Fool’s Gold)
I certainly hope that some “weak hands” start selling their .com domains at firesale prices. I doubt you’ll find the big players, the true “smart money” like Anything.com, Digimedia, National A1, etc. being in that camp. The smart money will stick with .com and look to buy when others are looking to sell. If new TLDs were able to be “shorted”, the smart money would sell them short, just as the “dumb money” is looking to buy them. Of course, some “smart money” is not taking a position in them directly, but just wants to be a “middleman”, i.e. facilitating applications, etc., laughing all the way to the bank. However, there’s only a limited supply of “dumb money” that they can get at over time.
Why gTLD’s will fail:
1) too many
2) consumers like simplicity, not confusion
3) still 2 years away and plenty of opposition from governments/business organizations on the way
4) super high costs
5) different languages … whereas .com/.net/.org are used universally by people in all countries
6) Google will NEVER let it get to the point where people can type “ottawa.Pizza” to search for Pizza. That will bypass their search engines and BANKRUPT them. Sorry, that’s just an obvious but overlooked fact. Google controls the internet.
7) .COM has had 20 years to grow and end up in the hands of END USERS, thus accumulating quality.
8) Old habits die hard
Where gTLD’s can maybe succeed:
1) .MajorCorporatebrandsThatCanAffordToBlow $1 million +
2) .whateverOrganizationLookingtoBuildaCommunity
3) .aFewRandomOutliers
Rob the examples you gave of second tier names like BestpizzainOttawa.ca is already worthless.
I am not sure what makes everyone think the non techie/non domainer will pay attention at all.
I was at a party a couple weeks ago and two 30 year old women did not even know what the listings on the right side of Google were. I said those are sponsored ads, they both were like, “I only click the left hand side of the screen.”
This new tld party may be thrown and the average web user may not show up.
Rob: You mention “Ottawa.pizza” and other examples where “long tail” domains can be replaced at “registry cost”. But, isn’t it true that ICANN has done little to protect domain registrants from price gouging by new TLD registries (recall, the economic studies were a direct result of people like myself who opposed the attempt by .biz/info/org from removing price caps from their registry agreements)? Indeed, isn’t your own company planning to auction off all those supposed “good” names, anyhow, on behalf of those registries? Good luck! As I said previously, there’s only so many times one can go to the well of “dumb money”.
@MHB
Please don’t remove Robert Cline from these postings. Every palace needs a Court Jester. I know that most of the readers here have very red foreheads from continuously palm slapping it after reading his posts, but domaining is a very serious business and we are in dire need of the levity.
“NO ONE knows. We all have opinions but its just that
So as I always urge you to do, keep ahead of the game, play smart and leverage your position.”
==========
Sounds like the ICANN and ISOC strategy
THEY will be happy to extract millions from your wallet(s) and entertain you at their next meat-space meeting.
Time to build a new Internet – the U.S. FCC and IEEE are more honest forums
Registrars *should* be pushing for a re-bid of the dot-com contract, so that VeriSign can’t keep raising prices 7% per year. Why aren’t they doing that?
======
One of the fascinating aspects of the so-called Internet.Community or the Eco.System is the TINY Role (voice) that Registrars have. There are also only
a couple of Registrars that matter. They hold most of the domains, in their
centralized Client-Server (Non-Internet) Architecture DNS.
Peer-2-Peer DNS will end the Verisign .COM era. Your domain will be flashed
into your $50 routers and modems. You can hold it in your hand. There is no
CENTRAL (Big.Brother) Registry. The Network forms the Registry.
Microsoft just cut a deal with China. It is ironic that it involves the control of
open source Linux. You can also bet China and M$ want to control Peer-2-Peer.
Skype was a strategic P2P purchase.
Client-Server (ICANN) DNS is just another Walled.Garden. Obviously many
people understand it and profit from it. It does not conform to the true
Internet Architecture, which is P2P.
Rob – I don’t think that you really understand the domain landscape outside of .com TLD. The ccTLDs have a very different dynamic to the TLDs like .COM where generic domains are best.
With ccTLDs, (and your .Ottowa example would be far closer to a ccTLD than a gTLD), people actually don’t have to remember the extension because they identify with it in a way that they don’t identify with .COM or the other gTLDs. This means that brandnames and location type names are far more important. Owning Pizza.Ottowa might be great for a domainer but the average person is going to call Dominos have their pizza delivered locally. And that’s what ccTLDs are – local. They are local in the same way that .COM is global.
As for .EU, Pool got demolished on that one as did a lot of non-EU speculators and domainers. What most of them did not understand was that the .EU ccTLD was a joke of a TLD whereas the main TLDs in the European Union are the real ccTLDs. Most of the junk that appeared in .EU was the same kind of stuff that people thought was valuable in .COM. The .EU ccTLD was incompetently run by a bunch of people from a third rate ccTLD registry with absolutely no expertise in running what was effectively a gTLD. It was speculated to hell and back by people who thought that every ccTLD was just like .COM and therefore whatever English language term was valuable in .COM was valuable in .EU. The problem was that most of these target domains were English language phrases and the EU is a market with around 27 different languages. In the English language areas of the EU, the .EU ccTLD is dead. Nobody really develops new sites in .EU. Nobody except the EUnuchs in the EU HQ in Brussels cares about it. But the Irish care about .IE, the British about .UK, and the Germans about .DE in a way that you just don’t seem to understand because you are purely focused in applying .COM rules to new gTLDs.
I agree with George’s comments above about Pool.com needing to acquire some new short term revenue streams. Pool.com needs fanboys like Robert Cline because they are the people left buying the dregs that never made it to the larger registrars’ auctions. I’m tracking about 18 million ccTLDs here and of these domains, just over 652K are .CO. Some of the early .CO domain registration patterns have more in common with .BIZ and .INFO than with the mainstream ccTLDs and .COM. It takes years for those highly speculative junk registrations to filter out of a new TLD. But operations like Pool.com depend on trying to sell the good drops along with the dregs.
As for your comment about Search it ignores about fifteen years of development in search engine algorithms. People trust their local ccTLDs and .COM as they have mindshare. People are familiar with these TLDs in a way that they are not familar with other TLDs. People might see a .CO result high in the results but they will ignore it because it is strange and it does not look right. They know .COM and their local ccTLD and they will be far more likely to click on these results purely out of familiarity. Search algorithms have moved well beyond the simple domain name/search term match. Thus the killer domain name has been trumped by killer content. Ironically this happened years ago and there’s a whole business (Search Engine Optimisation) that has grown up around it.
These new gTLDs are going to face the same problem than many of the more recently launched TLDs face. The most important one, for domainers, is the “Cannot Register A Premium” problem. The registries seem to hold back a list of premium domains in the hopes of gaining more revenue from their auction or the premium domains are sold off early to investors. This skews the markets but it benefits those in on the auction or working with the registries. But isn’t this where Pool.com wants to be?
“This new tld party may be thrown and the average web user may not show up.”
====
It should be obvious who will show up at the “new TLD party”.
1. The Big.Brands who get to keep their .COM and buy a cyber.Trade.Mark for ONLY $185,000 and $25,000 per year. Compare that to a U.S. Federal TM cost.
ICANN is a real Non.Profit bargain (not). The $185,000 goes to ????panelists???
2. Deep pockets will show up for .INC .CORP .MOVIE .CPA and a dozen other billion dollar slices of the Name.Spectrum. Most people do not have 10+ years to endure the litigation. What was the total cost of .XXX in time (lost market) and money?
3. A few {MA PA and TLD} folks may show up and be run in circles until
they run out of money. No refunds of course.
4. Obscure Off.Shore “players” may slip into the party and walk away with some gems. They will probably sell up and out in a few years, similar to the Registrar roll.ups. Get yourself a cab driver in Kenya to front the TLD. ICANN will fall all
over themselves helping the poor fellow run YOUR diamond.mine.
====
It may be more interesting who does NOT show up.
The real question is how can most of the good people on .EARTH be saved
from the above. P2P is a good bet. China and M$ are all over P2P.
I think .Com/.Net/.Org will remain on top. I used to think .CO would succeed and in fact had many strong keyword domains, which I am letting drop now. The fact that .CO has been heavily advertised and still end users haven’t adopted it, is a red flag. Many other gTLD’s will be released, which will further weaken .CO IMO. It will only make .COM stronger as people feel safe there + we are living on a very uncertain economy were people are not willing to risk like they did before.
Many folks got into .com’s long before my entering into it 13+ years back – and probably feel they were an integral part of “molding” the Internet the way it is today – and therefore, probably feel they are qualified to “Mold” the Internet into something other than .com’s as well now.
Unfortunately the Internet is only what the Legal Profession, Courts, International Courts and UDRP have “Molded” it into – and they have “Molded” it into one thing – .com’s – everything else is eaither reactionary, hype, bottom feeding ot believing your our BS.
“Unfortunately the Internet is only what the Legal Profession, Courts, International Courts and UDRP have “Molded” it into…”
===
That may apply to “the Internet” that most people are forced to use.
ICANN and ISOC are helping people create a Prison.Without.Bars and the people step up to pay their captors like royalty
The inmates live off the other inmates…
i have been thinking about this for quite some time.and i think something that needs to be addressed is the number of letters to the right of the dot.today most are few .eu,.com..us,.info .ws.
however in the future there will be mamy letters ie.houston.
and when you start looking at the spelling of todays younger generation its awful. this is where i think the problem will come in.
and this is why i think there will be a problem implementing these future tlds.not everybody relies on search.
another point of contention and thought is many of the .coms do not provide the correct content aligment. so when someone types in latinos.com theres no revelent info on latinos..therefore the searcher is forced to use google.this is mainly domainers fault
not supplying the correct content to match the domain.
what i do see as a possible solution is if domainers unite to implement the correct content aligmnet to the correct domain.i mean like every domain out there.this will combat the implementation of alien tlds.
and who uses this strategy? insurance cos..you are required to purchase insurance period.all patents on medicene you need the medicene you buy the pill.opec…remenber the price of gas in the 70s?
another example which really catches my eyes..is the 400k march of all latinos with no, i mean no violence as a quite demostartion in the us. i think this was really really powerful..a quiet aligment of forces.
and what this suggests is what schwartz stated before domainers need to unite or other forces will take over domainers position.
therefore a quite internal alignment among every domainer out there is required to beat back alien forces.
“what this suggests is what schwartz stated before domainers need to unite or other forces will take over domainers position.”
====
“other forces” like new software can not easily be stopped
DNS is not required to operate The.Internet (at least The.Real.Internet)
One approach will be to install new {Nodes} in high-traffic WIFI Hot.Spots to provide people their first contact (entry) to a New Internet
The next generation of kids can have a lot of fun building the New Internet and make a lot of money. ICANN and ISOC have captured the Internet most people are forced to use. They get their cut of the action (up front) and live very well.
domainers have no chance against The.Establishment
I thought I am the Domain Jester!!!
anyway Pool dot com is just another useless “BullS’ website- I prefer to use Godaddy.
the end of .com era is near
welcome to the
.Co era and the right of dot era.
I’d take “stuff.com” over “.stuff” any day. Costs of mgmt and maintenance on .stuff would make it a liability, and who’d want a .stuff name any way?
Would I rather own pizza.com or .pizza ? Actually after thinking about this for a couple of minutes I have an unequivocal opinion on it. I would MUCH rather own .pizza
I think after I sold newyorkcity.pizza newyork.pizza ny.pizza nyc.pizza to get my money back I would sell chicago.pizza and buy a new car. Id franchise out things like all UK cities to UK.pizza and so on, for other countries worldwide.
Although there is no doubt that the owner of pizza.com would also be sitting very very happy, by the time I was selling hicksville.pizza (for possibly more than hicksvillepizza.com) I think I’d be doing quite ok thankyouverymuch.
@LindaM
I will stick with CheapPizza.com.
Would you be expected to also pick up all the spoils from .travel and .museum and all the other “existing” failed pioneers as well.
Costs of mgmt and maintenance on .stuff would make it a liability, and who’d want a .stuff name any way?
====
wikipedia .org/wiki/Stuff_(magazine)
“Stuff is a men’s magazine featuring reviews of consumer electronics , and other articles of interest to a predominantly male audience.”
Operating a TLD (without the ICANN overhead) is trivial.
The Applicant-Based ICANN system appears to be doomed.
It is fascinating the lawyers can not imagine another way to make .STUFF
ICANN was supposed to have some technical focus, that did not happen.
Now free market forces and CODE (software) will have to shape the future.
Just because I fancy .pizza does not mean I give a ringing endorsement to all possible new tld, I said earlier lots of them of them will be fail from the start, for a variety of reasons.
.pizza *imo* is massively monetisable on a global level, if deployed properly will be LOVED by google, and basically – if a strong player wins it then I would rate it highly. Also imo these kind of potential new tld like .pizza .loan etc are hugely different to .mobi .aero .museum and other obvious pre-fails.
Ive noticed that a section of domainers are very black and white in thinking, imo there is no reason why the owners of ottawapizza.com and ottawa.pizza cannot both live in mansions. All Im saying is that the owner of .pizza has the potential for a mansion in every town, just like the pizza.com guy.
.pizza *imo* is massively monetisable on a global level
====
1. The OLD SCHOOL Internet Pioneers (Clerics Czars) do not want people making money off THEIR Internet [ Note: they have no problem charging you $185,000 to try and $25,000 per year to continue trying ]
2. The OLD SCHOOL Internet Pioneers (Clerics Czars) would prefer that Mega Pizza Corporation of the World own .PIZZA and do NOTHING with it to prevent anyone from making money with it.
3. IF you {game the system} (in their view) and somehow get control of .PIZZA then they will work to derail you in other ways. Governments love their methods.
One really has to re-visit the old NSF days when everything had to be portrayed as some sort of Cooperative Agreement with many winners. High-profile individuals have a very hard time against the I* Lobbyists.
@MHB
In all honesty at their current prices I don’t want either of those.
Why would I want to spend 185k application fee (plus the 25k yearly fee and another 500k for getting it operational) on .stuff which is based on a keyword that is not in the top 500 as far as popularity and demand goes.
Now if these fees and expenses went down drastically in the future (and I couldn’t get a better keyword) I might give .stuff a shot.
Same goes for the domain, why would I want to pay top dollars to get a .com domain at the current prices when there is a chance that it might not be worth as much in couple of years once so many better gTLDs got a hold over the market. The only way I would pay top dollars for a .com domain right now would be if it was already an established online business that was making a lot of money, or that I could recoup my initial investment in a year or two by monetizing the domain itself and even then I would still factor in all the risks with how it might be affected once all those new gTLDs got operational.
The most practical and popular domains and the most practical and popular new gTLDs will rise to the top, everything else will be marginalized.
–
All this talk of pizza is making my mouth water…
@ojohn:
You should acquire Stuff.com because the chances are much better than not that after 2014 dotCom will rise sharply in value.
Advice to all those who think the new gTLds will be golden. Why wait? You can jump in NOW and invest in killer gTLDs like dotTravel, dotName and dotJobs 🙂
These new extensions are just a huge, immediate profit center for Icann (as if they need more cash). The more they roll out, the more they flood the marketplace and dilute the value of all of them. I think .com will always be the main ticket to the internet naming space. The only new extension I would want is .bullshit and make it a directory of failed new extension roll outs (but I would perfer to do it with bullshit.com).
@SAteve Obrien
There is already one created called “BullS” and it is worth Billion$$$
ill say it a million times. its a .fail or as future headlines will read “.bust” where is the identifier that its on the internet and not a typo in marketing. Google will have a hell of a time trying to add all of these gTLDs and lets not forget that each registry will need to make deals with the registrars to sell these gTLDs. How is a consumer suppose to know a url is get.pizza? if you saw that would you automatically think oh thats a URL? or are we going to move backwards and start typing in www again?
I know we are tech savvy people but to try to explain to my parents that its http://www.get.pizza they will automatically say or type. http://www.get.pizza.com?
This is going to be an internet clusterfuck.
What domain investors are not aware of is that we aren’t going to live for ever, it is only our generation that got used to listening to blABlBLA.COM. There are new generations coming, kids today are the men of tomorrow, they will get used to.anything just like we men of today got used to hearing .com when we were kids yesterday. It’s just a matter of time until they grow up, it’s just a matter of a few years till the new city get new people moving in to it, the real estate owners of the old city will have less chances to sell as the opportunities in the new city costs less, they will have less opportunities but I don’t know if what they own will go down in value, I guess it depends on what they own.
Rob Hall Of Pool.com on The Coming New gTLD’s : If I Was A Big Domain Holder I Would Start Dumping Domains
======
The FREE dotTK (.TK) top level domain may give people some ideas of what is coming
All of the other major changes coming to DNS will be based on FREE
China and Microsoft just signed a deal to leverage FREE Linux
FREE sells very well to the masses
from GCN .COM Aug 25, 2011
Microsoft has announced a new deal with China Standard Software Co. Ltd.
The new interoperability and legal agreement with CS2C was inked Aug. 23 as part of a Linux server partnership deal. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Microsoft’s announcement indicated that the goal is to “jointly develop, market and sell solutions for the booming cloud-computing market in China.” CS2C sells Linux-based server and desktop operating system products in China.
Microsoft’s partnership with the company is associated with CS2C’s NeoKylin Linux Server.
The deal involves a technical collaboration on Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization technology plus the signing of a “mutually beneficial customer covenant agreement.
I had published an article on Business Insider indicating the misinformation circulating about the new TLDs, largely because I had seen far too many mainstream articles with sentiments similar to Rob’s.
People are making the false assumption that just because there could now finally be what are currently power words in the domain space to the right of the dot for once that people will start gravitating to those domains. IF it ever happens, it would take at least a decade if not more, partially because it will take that long for a significant amount of those extensions to be in play. I personally doubt that shift will ever happen.
The biggest thing the new TLDs are fighting against is expectation. .com is winning because people still expect businesses to be on .com (and to a limited degree .org, .net and some ccTLDs). ICANN in limiting the amount of applications and the extensive cost of applying for and operating an extension will combine to stifle any possibility that people will expect sites to be on a .word relevant to the site. Mostly sizable companies will be applying for extensions given the costs involved, and most of them will feel better served with their .brand instead of a .generic
“people will start gravitating to those domains. IF it ever happens, it would take at least a decade if not more”
=====
You may be under-estimating the power of Mobile edge devices and software in Access Points for those devices.
If China starts shipping NEW.DNS agile devices (per Microsoft + Linux specs) the ICANN game can be over quickly
ICANN may evolve to be the Adult.Content Platform (Walled Garden) which China and M$ will not likely promote
The current ICANN CEO likely wants to jump ship before the XXX crowd dominates his road-shows. The CES show in Vegas ebbed and flowed with the
same issues for years. There are now distinct venues.
Two Internets – ICANN.XXX and China.MS
With 95 million “.coms” vs. 14 million or less for other TLDs (http://alagna.com/2011/tld-statistics-numbers-in-various-gtlds-as-of-february-2011_110) I don’t think the value of “.com” domains will drop that much.
On the contrary, the prices of any new TLDs will be inflated during their “land rush” period and then fall off within the first couple years after their introduction.
BTW, if you want me to watch for any specific keywords as I’m going through the lists of expired and deleting domains, follow and comment on this page: https://plus.google.com/b/116054614305339390789/
Is it worth investing in a gTLD? From an SEO perspective, absolutely if you have the cash. Just imagine the number microsite that you can create under one umbrella. However, people are so used to typing in .com for the past 20 years so I wonder how long it would take for people to learn the new format.
The people who typed .com for the past 20 years will -unfortunately- not live forever, the new generations that will replace will get introduced to the internet with the new tlds just like we were introduced to it with the .com.
Add to this, all it takes is a few successful websites built on an nTLD for the new extension to get noticed and look appealing for new webpreneurs.
That being said, I am sure something lengthy like .restaurant after the dot won’t make it.
Does anyone think future browsers -after the .anything burst- will perhaps add a drop down menu for users to choose which extension are they visiting after typing in what’s before the dot?
Or maybe, Google will add a button that says ‘display results from .TLD’