I promised I would be writing a few post this week about the new gTLD’s, the current state of the domain industry where its has been and where it’s going.
As far as I can see we are now in the age of Domaining 6.0
Before trying to figure out where we are going, lets do a quick recap of where we have been.
Domaining 1.0
This goes way back, before ICANN, before Google, back to the day when domain names were free.
It wasn’t until 1995 that Network Solutions was allowed to charge to register or renew a domain name and the charge was $100 for two years.
After a lawsuit, the fee was dropped to $70 for two years in 1997.
So until 1995 the entire universe of domains were available; Yes all ending in .com, and they didn’t cost a penny to register or renew.
There were just a handful of people who even knew what the internet was, even less what a domain name was , or even how to register one.
Those who knew what the internet was, what a domain name wand how to register one, had a once in a generation opportunity to own the internet yet not many registered more than a few free domains.
There was no way to monetize any traffic to the extent the was any.
Domaining 2.0
The late 1990’s some people woke up to the fact that domain names were virtual estate.
In 1999 Network Solutions monopoly over domain internet registrations ended, other registrars came online and the domain world changed when our friends at Tucows lowered the price of a domain name registration/renewal to $10 only one year required, in January 2000.
People saw how business were built using just a great vanity phone number like 1-800-flowers, and realized that a whole business success could hinge on a great domain.
The fact that an exact match domain could create a tremendous business opportunity fueled a growing number of domainers who sort to register and buy domain names for resale.
Monetization of domain names was very limited except for adult domains, which monetized like crazy.
Domaining 3.0
This was the period of the dot com crash of early 2001/ to mid 2003 in the domain world and in the financial world, the perceived value of the internet as a business model and therefore .com domain names as well greatly diminished by not only domainers, but by investors, the stock market and the general public.
Company’s invested and lost hundreds of millions, billions of dollars in the .com bubble.
Although domain names could be had for $10 a year renewal fee the vast portion of domains especially the older domains were still at Network Solutions and still $70 for 2 years.
Domains started dropping like flies.
Some really smart domainers who had the guts to against the entire market, sweep in and bought everything they on drops and privately believing that the trend would reverse and that domain name would not only be invaluable for a presence on the web.
Monetization of domain names was very limited except for adult domains
Domaining 4.0
The monetization era started with Goto.com and FindWhat.com.
Goto.com got acquired by Overture in 2001, and then Overture got acquired by Yahoo in 2003
Google acquired Applied Semantics in April 2003 shortly thereafter that is when the true era of monetization occurred and the subsequent boom in domains values and sales occurred.
For some 6 years, a fortune of money poured into the domainer channel from parking and sales.
Monetization of domains led to sales, not only for the great “bang on category killers” domains but for typo traffic domain as well.
Parking revenue drove domain sales and domain sales drove more domain purchases.
Live Domain Auctions were measured in the tens of millions, just millions.
Domaining 5.0
Monetization started to decline and then fell off the cliff.
We can dedicate a whole series of posts to the cause for the decline in Monetization but for sake of keeping it short lets cite a few factors including, Google’s Smart Pricing, Yahoo Quality Score combined with Google squeezing the domain channel getting the same traffic while reducing payouts to domainers, and Yahoo’s failure to stay competitive in market as well as the overall recession.
.Brands started enforcing their trademark rights and UDRP’s and lawsuit’s followed taking away a lot of the typo traffic market, which in turn took more money out of the sales channel.
Domainers and end users were still buying a lot of domains for six and seven figures.
SEO guys jumped in knowing that a keyword rich domain, even non-com’s could get you ranked in the search engines. The aftermarket for .net and .org’s rocked and we saw six figure sales for such domains in the aftermarket.
Domaining 6.0
So here we are in 2012 and things have changed again.
Google algorithms change like the wind leaving SEO guys trying to figure out how to game the system keyword rich domains are selling but at a much lower rate and non-.com’s at a much lower prices.
Sales are brisk but the average prices have come down.
Look at the DnJournal.com year to date sales chart.
I mean really go check it out now and come back.
I’ll wait.
So we are half way through the year and you will see just one domain selling for seven figures in 2012, and that was at $1,000,000 even.
Only one other domain name has sold for $500K – $1M and that one was at an even $500K.
Only 4 domains have sold between $200K-$499K
3 sales of $1M or more.
9 of $500k or more.
18 were between $200K-$500K
7 sales of $1M or more and two for over $5 Million.
There were 8 Sales between $500K-$825K.
12 between $300K- $450K
16 between $200K -$300K
You get the idea.
Its not that the resale market is dead.
So far in 2012, there are over 25 sales between $100K- $325K
There are a lot of sales between $20k-$100K and actually it still takes $42,500 to make the top 100 list for 2012.
So stuff is selling and the resale market is far from dead, but the top of the market has dried up to a large extent.
Look at the weekly Sedo.com report or the Afternic.com report in general, we publish it every week.
You will see a steady weekly $2.5 million in combined domain name sales but over 90% of the transactions priced $3,000 or under.
That’s what the state of the resale market is for the vast majority of domainers.
Lets look at Sedo figures for 2011:
“47% of traded domain names during 2011 were sold at prices at or under $500.”
Only 6% of sales were $10K or more.
So where do we go from here?
We know that we are facing a world with 500-1,500 new gTLD extensions in the next few years, from the 22 we currently have.
Choices for consumers are going to increase for some verticals exponentially, will all domain prices hold steady?
Will a New York Personal Injury Lawyer that might pay $10K for NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.com in 2012, still pay that much when he could register for $50-$100 anyone of a number of new possibilities like NewYorkPersonalInjury.Law, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Lawyer, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Attorney, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Esq or NewYorkPersonalInjury.Legal or even PersonalinjuryLawyer.NYC?
We can and have argued for now a couple of years what the effect of these new gTLD’s will have on the value of existing domains and extensions.
The truth is as we have said from day one of the announcement that these new gTLD’s might be coming, is that NO ONE Knows what will happen when the market expands from 22 TLD’s to 522 or 1,022.
But there are some hints out there.
The biggest domainer of all applied for 54 new gTLD’s committing $60 million towards the process.
Google applied for over 100 new gTLD’s
What Happens if Google gives away domain name for free in 2014.
Yup just about 20 years to the date, we maybe back to where it all started, with free domains.
What happens to the $10K domain NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.com when someone can register NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.Web for free?
In the world of 1,000 new gTLD and what we have already started to see is for domainers is going to be all about branding.
It’s not about the domains or the extension but about brandable domains which would give an end user an memorable internet presence.
If you read Techcruch.com regularly you will see a lot of companies being funded by big VC firms in extensions like .Me, .Tv, .Ly, .It .Es and among others.
As more and more brandable and intuitive extensions come on board, its going to be even more about brand potential.
Look at this week’s top sale on Sedo.com
Connect.to
Last week’s ArtDeco.com
The week before, Cruise.me
All highly brandable intuitive domain names.
When 500, 1,000 1,500 or more new gTLD’s are on the market sometime in the next few years, the internet will become what was a one trick pony of .com to one of infinite choices and possibilities.
Highly brandable intuitive domains will continue to be in huge demand.
When seeing hundreds of new extensions all hitting the market, Internet users won’t just be confused, there heads will be spinning like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.
More the reason that end users will want and need a brandable, memorable domain.
The domain name space and the Internet is all about branding, standing out from the crowd, making a memorable mark regardless of extension.
On a personal note, some have accused me of being biased towards the new gTLD’s because of my involvement in RightoftheDot.com which was founded in just 2011, although I own some 75,000 domain names, none of which end in a new gTLD.
I feel like I need to address this.
Personally I was perfectly happy if my domaining life continued like it did in 2004, 2005, 2006, etc when parking revenue was measured into the six figures every month, live domain name actions were measured in the tens of millions, not the one’s of millions.
I worked less and made more.
I could have done that forever and I would have been quite happy.
But the numbers are the numbers.
So you can either live in the past or try to make a proper assessment of what the future will hold.
Part of being a good businessman is being fluid; to assess news and developments, not only in the industry you’re are in, but in the economy and world in general and adjust your thoughts and plans as events warrant.
People change their positions based in change of facts and circumstances.
The world is consistently changing and blinding holding on to positions based on facts no longer in existence is a fairytale.
Of course, many people will interpret the same facts differently and that is as they say that makes the horse race.
I remember when one of the hottest businesses in the US was pay telephones.
You paid to put a phone in a location or bought an existing location, and you would never have to worry because people would have to always make phone calls and a location that did $100 a day would always do $100 a day.
Well that didn’t exactly work out that way did it?
Throughout the history of the world, those who have, usually opposed change.
Its human nature to hold on to what we have, especially if what we have is valuable
However the only consistent in the history of the world is that the world keeps changing.
So now we are at the time where our world of 22 TLD is about to expand to 522 or 1,022 or 2,022 in a few years.
It could be 2014 or 2015 or 2016 but it’s coming.
It’s not my decision.
I didn’t get a vote on it, but i saw it was coming in 2010 and decided I couldn’t afford to ignore the disruptive influence that the new gTLD could bring.
Although I had no idea how what my involvement would be in the new gTLD’s there was no doubt I was going to be involved.
Now as you see I wasn’t the only domainer checking out the new gTLD space.
Those domainers who are now trying to move into the registry business came to the same conclusion.
For them its an evolution rather an abandonment of being a domainer.
The biggest of new gTLD’s advocates wouldn’t suggest that .com’s will be replaced in total number of registrations by any new extension.
I have talked to almost every new gTLD applicant and I will tell you no one expects to see .com dethroned in their lifetime by a new gTLD, even all the new gTLD’s put together.
Yet that doesn’t have to happen for the domaining world to change.
However with 500, 1,000 or more new gTLD’s coming into the market backed by new companies, with new money, with different pricing options, including possibly free domains, when you see people who used to be the biggest buyers of .com’s becoming registry operators, it’s just naive to expect business to continue as usual.
We have already gone through many versions of domaining as outline above and we will go through several more in just my lifetime and I’m an old-timer in this business.
It’s Domaining 6.0 and its all about branding; be it a .Com., .Me, .TV, .NYC, .Law, .Music, .Miami, .Poker, .Berlin. .Inc., or hundreds of other extensions.
If a domain is its intuitive and brandable it’s a winner, if not your running uphill against an avalanche of endless domain combinations.
Eh, except alternative extensions have always been available and can you list how many Fortune 500 companies are not built on a .com? Can you go thru all your bookmarks and tell me how many .biz or .travel sites you have bookmarked?
Timing plays a part in the marketplace, the battle has already been fought, .com won.
You mention Schilling’s post, and when he was trying to make a case for the new extensions (flip flopping) he was actually making a case against them. Saying it takes big brands to move the market, except all the big brands already have their .com. When a couple tried, they failed. See Overstock and .co. See Budweiser trying out .tv and retreating back to the .com, points Frank made.
There’s this myth perpetuated by people that it costs and arm and a leg to get a good .com. If we’re talking about 1 word generics, probably. But I see on Domain Name Wire every now and then blog posts about which companies are buying domains and you can see they’re getting them for low x,xxx. Or companies simply get creative and buy one for $8.
Again, options have been available, ask yourself why businesses haven’t flocked to them? Maybe because they have a marketing department with people that actually know what they’re doing and understand something about branding. .com is already engrained into the public’s mind, it’s the easiest and most well known extension to build on. No company with a .com already is going to give that up and experiment with a new extension, unless they hired Overstock’s marketing team.
These new extensions are alternative extensions. There battle will be against the already existing alternative extensions, .net, .biz. info etc. Not .com. It’ll just be sitting on top of the hill, enjoying the show.
Mike – exciting times, indeed.
Maybe you overestimate the potential of brand to drive traffic, however. Plenty of people still see big brands and think “people look for them” without realizing just how much advertising those brands have to buy to drive traffic. Anyone looking to drive traffic is going to have to pay… one way or another, for the first no-one-knows-how-many years.
And you didn’t mention Google’s control of search traffic. More than ever, Google expertly manages that flow of search traffic. What if Google says exact match still applies, but is weighted heavily towards dot com? Or more likely, Google sets the algo to track investment… more expensive domains benefit more, and free domains don’t get any? And if Google decides .gay gets to index and rank by virtue of name alone, but .web doesn’t unless heavily supported by audience engagement (e.g. links)? All likely, based on past Google behavior.
The only constant is change.
I like your Domaining 1-6 but I suspect the more profitable periods of domain marketplace were the ramping-up of the most stagnant periods: selling based on PPC revenues, selling ecommerce generics before Amazon ruled over ecommerce, selling EMDs to SEOs while the EMD bonus was real. The rest were highly speculative – with successes only visible in hindsight — as it is likely to be going forward.
Wow…Very nice post MHB. I agree with everything u said in this post…
I am trying to sell-off ALL my domains ASAP.
I’ve had a great run buying and selling domains since 2003.
Looking for new ways to make money.
Just invested 6 figures in an Internet Sweepstakes Cafe…it’s a legal casino…and the house ALWAYS wins!!!
The only 2 domains that will stand out are “BullS” and MarijuanaGuy dot com
When marijuana is legalized, I will be the cartel and all of you …young and old need to buy it from me and all sites are “BullS”
As far as I am concerned the new extensions are just a bunch of hype and noise.
There are already plenty of alternative extensions now and no one cares. Extensions like .INFO (8M) and .CO (2M) have a lot of registrations but hardly any awareness, usage, or credibility.
Anyone can go online right now and hand reg a decent .COM for $10, or buy a better one (Two Word brand type) from a few hundred to a few thousand.
How many times do products take off when they fill a need that does not exist?
The people pushing these extensions all have a financial interest in them.
The big money is potentially there for registries.
A lot of money is going to be made by some and lost by others.
Consumers are far slower to change and adapt than most “domain experts” realize.
Brad
Hello MHB
I just rolled out of bed at 2 in morning to check to see if my computer was infected, obviously lucky here.
I am tired but could not resist reading fully your fine assessment above. A truly superb Virtual Business Foundation in the .Com Channel that is BRANDABLE as you say is the way to go. How the times have changed!
Thanks for your efforts in giving us this LowDown,its excellent as usual.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Gratefull
MHB, Frank Shilling—you all have lots to lose if dot whatever is successful because both of you have lots of domains and will become pigeon shit domains.
Oh well….
Excellent article. True, two facts stand up ; the internet is changing and most people fear change. Those who prepare for the change and don’t fear it, like you Micheal, are the ones who succeed because they SEE , ACKNOWLEDGE and REACT quickly, so they are always resilent winners.
I don’t know. Free web names are going to be fine for the mass people I guess or individuals, but for a company to brand under a free domain name and spend 10 or 20k on advertising each month could be a big mistake. In fact a huge liability.
Getting something solid in the .com for say 50k would be a wiser choice.
Question is what is that individual giving up to have that free domain name?
The biggest unknown and issue is how will these new extensions apply to siri for search?
What is apple going dictate with search, because they will be the first trillion dollar company and have more cash than probably the next 10 biggest companies put together in few years.
Also with more extensions coming out it makes everything more worthless. It is like a stock that has just issued 10 more million shares thus further diluting shareholder value. >com will get more valuable because it has a trust factor. They where first to introduce the product just like apple was the first.
JMO
Donny M
One thing is for certain whenever a “will the new GTLDs affect dot coms” thread..
Jeff “nutcase” Schneider & Mugford will be in the thread supporting .coms..talking AS IF they owned Tier 1 dot com domains.
You can always tell the “quality” of a domainer by the company he keeps ie. what other domainers they has:
90% is pure crap.
Like:
americanebiz.com
hongkongebiz.com
Dharmaebiz.com
Askebiz.com
bizdirlib.com
ADVERTISINGEBIZ.COM
AGELESSEBIZ.COM
AMERICANEBIZ.COM
ASTROLOGYEBIZ.COM
BONANZAEBIZ.com
maxiebiz.com
popebiz.com
Oh shit…that’s Jeff “nutcase” Schneider’s crap reg’d in yr 2000…Bwahaha
Was that REALLY the best he could reg back in 2000?!
As for Mugford…check out DataCube.com…hahaha
I don’t see much .coms let alone quality .COMs…mostly a bunch of crappy .net, .bix, .info. .orgs, .us
So why all the support for .COM!?
These marginal domainers all talk AS IF the line of demarcation is above THEIR heels.
Just like most people in a class think they are all “above average” (which is impossible)
They all live vicariously thru the Top Tier domainers who own the truly great Tier 1 .coms
These delusional domainers who will soon be pounded out of their “domaining for a living” fantasy back into their cubicle jobs
You could have bought a 2 bed apartment in Manhattan or Central London 5 yrs ago – did nothing to it since – and if sold today would’ve doubled your money.
That’s a big number, considering the price of property, even 5 yrs ago
And had a better return than from domaining for 5 yrs..
Whereas most “domaining for a living” types , at best, would have made the same return…after spending all that time buying, selling, fending off the $300 offers..
Heck Sedo sells as much in a week by value ($1.5M) which is the price of a SINGLE 2 bed apartment in the swankier parts of Manhattan, London or Hong Kong. That’s what a SINGLE average real estate agent sells, never mind the total real estate brokers in the city or over a week.
For most domaining will only ever be a slightly lucrative hobby (don’t forget the reg fees!), at best.
LOL
A fantastic article, Michael. It´s what we´ve been trying to tell people for years – brandable domains have slowly become more and more popular, and they´ve been reaching new heights year after year. We´re definitely excited about the times ahead 🙂
Ben is correct when saying “most people fear change” – especially some of the people heavily involved in .com. The prime example are the guys who keep bashing new gTLD´s and every other extension because they don´t know about the nature of evolution, or because they are afraid of it. They´re so focused on the .com world that they´re missing out on everything else.
I´ll say it one last time – the days when .com was the one and only are over! In some parts of the world .com never was king and never will be. .Me, .Tv, .Ly and other brandable extensions have already gained a lot of momentum and the fun has barely started.
Then you have people like Anunt, who´ve realized that things may change bigtime in the future. He´s had a major change of heart about his .com analogy. I respect people like that. They investigate, they adapt. They don´t waste time crying while going down with the ship.
People like Michael himself, who´ve invested in .Me, .Tv and other extensions besides .com because they understand what´s going on in the market.
Adapting is part of evolution, it´s part of the game. If you don´t adapt over the years, you will fail!
Aggro? The same Aggro from Domain State who tried to sell me his load of swine influenza domains? The aggro who lives with his uncle because he got fired from his job? LOL
.Co
yes, let’s not forget the King.
Its a bit bias of Elliot to leave the
King out like that. not cool Elliot.
.Co
is the biggest of all and will be even bigger when
500-1000 gTLDs come out because it is the only
real meaningful, respected, and admired extension.
I wrote about this back in 2008, if you click the link in my name, you can read the article.
As a background, I’ve been a ccTLD believer since 2007 and a self proclaimed extension agnostic since 2009, but even I don’t believe .com will be displaced within our lifetimes.
There is just too much money invested in developing .com brands, no other extension will even come close for the forseeable future, in fact .com is the only brand even now where you can get by not including the extension in ads.
There is money to be made investing in other extensions, specially for people who don’t hold tier 1 names in .com or any of the other gtlds like .net and .org but you’re right, the glass ceiling is around the $5k mark.
If you’re buying .com domains above the $5k mark today, you better know what you’re doing, people still make a killing, see Elliot’s recent purchase and sale of CallCenters.com as an example, but not everyone can do it consistently.
John
.Co will have its place but lets not forget it branded the extension to mean company, corporation, etc etc and there will be a lot of new gTLD’s in competition with them for that space including .Corp., .Inc, .LLC, .GMBO
Who knows precisely what the future holds for domain investors?
The key thing we do know certain is that CHANGE is guaranteed in all businesses.
Change is important. It clears out the old and ushers in the new. It’s change that brings the dynamic cycles which create immense profit opportunities for those that see the new waves of change forming and ride them each time to the max.
We also know certain that the Internet will continue to change, grow and be one of, if not the most important component of the global economy for our lifetimes.
Trillions of dollars have been invested in developing, branding, advertising, and marketing Internet domains and websites over the past 17 years. And certainly trillions more will be invested in the decades ahead. It shouldn’t and doesn’t matter if .com stays the king or something else displaces it.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is as investors and entrepreneurs, we can all be assured that the Internet will continue to provide endless and immense investment and business opportunities of every kind and size, be they buying domains for X and selling for Y, or selling services, or anything else that can be innovated and marketed.
Seriously folks, you have to be a really pathetic investor and businessman, if you can’t find a way to make money off the Internet year after year. It’s the most incredible, vast and exciting goldmine ever created.
If you can’t deal with change and the neverending risks that are a part of being an entrepreneur and Internet investor, then you shouldn’t be in business in the first place. Hang up the entrepreneur career and go work for someone and be content with a guaranteed paycheck every week.
Excellent post Michael, very thought-provoking.
>>What happens to the $10K domain NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.com when someone can register NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.Web for free?<<
Well after someone registers that free version, and other lawyers grab the rest (NewYorkPersonalInjury.Law, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Lawyer, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Attorney, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Esq, NewYorkPersonalInjury.Legal, PersonalinjuryLawyer.NYC)…Let the Confusion Games begin.
And one really smart lawyer will gladly purchase NewYorkPersonalInjuryLawyer.com to rise above the confusion.
I can't wait for tens of thousands of new TLDs to launch, and if half of them are free, even better.
An incredibly insightful post. When the guy who sells the most .com and has been the biggest proponent of .com over the last 10 years starts buying 60 million in registries, one has to take heed. I have also liquidated a lot of domains that are not “brandable” even though the keywords are pretty good. With 1000 new tlds, there are too many available combinations of good keywords which you have astutely pointed out. Branding will be the only way to stand out in the future. The best brands will have a keyword in the domain and something catchey or intuitive along with it.
I think type-in traffic will continue to be big. Half of people will always type in a generic for what they are looking for (ie lawyers.com). However, the future of “domaining” per se, lies in the “brand” realm. Your meet.me case in point. Intuitive and a good brand.
So in the future, either someone can afford the exclusive type-in keywords or you will be good at picking brand names out of the plethora of TLDs.
The days of combing through mediocre keyword .coms to register or for resale on the aftermarket are over. No one wants them.
>>Your meet.me case in point. Intuitive and a good brand<<
With all due respects, it was a defensive purchase. Type in meet.me and see where it goes.
“If a domain is its intuitive and brandable it’s a winner, if not your running uphill against an avalanche of endless domain combinations.”
That says it all regardless of the extension. (But you still better have the .com counterpart)
Thanks for the historical perspective. Helps a lot when seeing the future. Very much agreed the future is branding.
“Google algorithms change like the wind”
correct and non.com’s (oops new gTLDs) are only as brandable as SEO algorythms – no matter how ,tv, .co and new ones like .shop, … are marketed.
sure non.com’s create countless more intutitive business addresses – but they will never be self-marketing, self-promoting and self-advertising like .com – no mastter he bullshit “networking” crap that is promoted by the likes of .tv, .co and others.
Another thing to consider that totally validates your point is the “trillion” registerable domain thing. With the new TLDs there will be literally trillions of keyword combinations and brand combinations available. Lots of naive domainers will go about buying hundreds of keyword combinations that they will think someone will buy. This will not be the case. Good for registries but bad for the poor domainer. People will be more selective about choosing their “brand” to develop on.Even what we consider mediocre to good .com at the moment will fall by the wayside.
Instagr.am and meet.me are great examples. People want to develop on them, exclusively as brands, so these are the domains they buy for whatever price.
Domaining as we have known it is really over, and part of me is thankful that I won’t have to look at people trying to sell 1000s of domains that aren’t “intuitive” but have false hope written all over them.
Domaining, for most, is worse than a lottery. At least in the lottery you find out in a couple days time that you didn’t win and then you throw your tickets away. With domains, you have a year registration, and then you can become attached and keep re-registering. This is the plight of 95% of domain portfolio holders. But this will change,hopefully, in Domainer 6.0, as you’ve called it. On the other hand, it might even get worse. Hard to say.
Hopefully the new domainer will register or buy in the aftermarket wisely, not with speculative intent. This never works.
Understanding brands is the way to go, IMO.
We made 2 bids this year for domains that sold for well over a million USD, also I brokered 4 domains in the range of 100K USD to startups that needed their .com extension (one had .net, 1 had .de and 2 just included “inc” and dashes in the name.
The DDF sold 3 names only in May and June in the range of 50 to 100K USD.
All of the sales are under NDA and my feeling is that more and more sales are under NDA these days for many reasons (taxes, commissions, more attention from outsiders etc.), so I would not judge the market with the little information available from reported sales.
But I agree there will be some changes to the industry….
Mike
There is no doubt that there are many sales under NDA.
I’m not sure if the percentage is higher than 2010 or 2011 we can only go by what’s reported
what about how the new web browsers are getting better at auto completing.
Type in 2 to 3 letters and it already shows the most popular selections.
…thus not only is right of the dot becoming less typed, right of the first few letters are becoming less important to type
Would you spend 20K right now to buy a diamond ring for your wife on a .biz domain? How about a .info? What about .shop?
Do you trust .biz and .info right now enough to spend 20K on a site on it? There’s your answer for .shop.
Free = Cheap. If the new TLDs become full of sites like nail salons, cheap Chinese plastic trinkets, barber shops, and your uncle Jimmy’s home page, then the extensions will come across as cheap. Imagine if you visited 50 pages in .shop only to have 40 poor experiences. Do you think the surfers will continue typing in that TLD? Will it be trusted?
Add me to the blind, old .com camp. I think right now is the best time in almost 10 years to invest in .com and hold to your beliefs (if you have good .com domains).
The new TLDs will be initially adopted by site builders to a large degree only to be shunned later as they realize how much of their marketing dollars are being wasted.
You simply cannot expect folks to remember dozens, hundreds, thousands of extensions, no matter how intuitive. Just look at the current confusion with .net, .org, .co, etc….. Try building a six, seven figure brand on those and see if you don’t have everyone going to the .com. Granted, people can get around this by buying the .com and redirecting, but that’s what they will have to do, and obviously this will show others the Achilles’ Heel of the TLDs.
Also, doesn’t anyone think the Overstock example of O.co losing traffic to O.com is a weathervane? It seems like this example is already being forgotten.
.com is sitting prettier than it ever has and I’m tickled pink by the launch of TLDs. I only see money coming my way from this.
Sincerely,
Clueless, defensive, blind and stubborn, old 90’s domainer 🙂
One other thing I wanted to say regarding those domain sales figures.
We are dipping back into another recession right now. I think that many business folks began sensing the slow-down again earlier this year and have closed their wallets to a degree. People are smarter now after the last crash and are making preparations to weather the next storm.
I sensed it three months ago and started saving more than I was spending to get out in front of it.
This is affecting domain sales in 2012, IMO.
type o. into one of the new browsers
it will suggest:
overstock.com
o.co
not even showing o.com ….because they are getting better at what they are intended to do…get you to where you want to go
It is time to wake up people!
Yes, domaining as we know has been over for a while. The easystreet is over but the business is still sound, if applied soundly, like any business.
The easysteet is gone, erm, … unless of course you are a major corporate with staff lawyers who make it possible for you to abuse laws which the man in the street has to adhere to. (Like, YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc.)
I have a major problem with allowing a corporate to take ownership of .book, .search, .blog, etc etc. Those are generics that belong to the public domain! I believe, like the .com, being manage by a company which is awarded the franchise, many of these generic gTLDs shoudl be managed the same way!!! There is a reason why you cannot trademark a name that is already in the public domain… why should this be different?
Will Amazon now become the custodian of our libraries with .books? Can we trust them to manage it sensibly for everyones benefit? NO No No!
Wake up people, apart from less than 1%, you are NOT going to make money out of gTLDs! It will however cost you loads more, even if you are not a domainer….
When my child grows up and surf’s to whatever .book, she is going to assume that is the de facto authority and custodian of books!
It is time to speak up.
.. I previously said this whole gTLD thing sounds like something cooked up by lawyers to keep themselves employed for decades…
Agreed cm, have you tried going to http://www.google.us? it does not exist…
There are many examples where google is censoring the internet, albeit in a positive way…
WAKE UP PEOPLE – Take control back!!!
This could be the last opportunity to reclaim the internet…
With more than 100 million .COM registrations, the brandable keyword opportunities in extensions other than .COM far outweigh what one finds in .COM. Understandably the aftermarket is very .COM biased. However, acquiring quality .COM domains at Namejet/Snapnames/etc is intensely competititve. You have a fighting chance going after a decent keyword in alt TLDs. On the other hand, alt TLDs get little type-in. Many people reject alt TLDs regardless of the keyword. But we are starting to see limited adoption of some alt TLDs and short alt TLD domains may present a limited opportunity. Note I am not referring to every alt TLD.
I don’t know what the gTLD’s will bring but I do have a question about how Frank Schilling is approaching them. I’m a nobody to question the greatest domainer of them all but would it not have been better to invest the $60M into 2-5 killer gTLDs like .web, .sex, .inc, .ins, etc, than the 50 so-so .blackfriday’s, etc? $60M is double or triple what ICM paid for .xxx. It’s comparable to owning one great dotcom vs owning 50 mediocre ones. I get that he’s trying to diversify his holdings.
Also, I’d like to second Leonard’s post. It is a great time again to buy dotcoms. Names like LinoleumFlooring.com going for $1k on Snapnames and CNCLathes.com for $170 on NameJet are steals and they’ve been happening fairly often this year.
I think a lot of you are missing the point of this article. Change is coming and while the new gTLD’s are gay, most new start-ups are looking for brandables to make their home. Dot .co is doing a great job at marketing to this crowd. Dot .me and dot .tv are also great alternatives. Yes, we all know that .com is king blah, blah, blah but at the end of the day if all the dot .whatever’s are available why is someone going to pay high dollar when they’re trying to bootstrap? Marketing from the registrars will be a key factor. If others are as clever as dot .co and dot .me, then it will ultimately dilute the .com when dot .crap rear’s it’s ugly head.
At the end of the day everyone will need to polish their portfolio and hold on to the best dot .coms and drop/sell the rest. Dot .com king is still king as the old farts always say but the king will eventually be dethroned by the peasants pissed off at his rule.
I made a half dozen sales over $10k via NDA direct end user, which I did not report, they were for .com’s registered between 2000 to 2004 which most domainers would mot likely pay more than $100 for.
Well said MHB, well said…
@ AGGRO
I let loose of a lot of those names , knowing they are targeted and Brandable to those lucky enough to get the drops! Just a GIFT to those with Eyes Wide Open.
“Give what you covet and the skies will open up to you”
Thanks for the coverage AGGRO, Peace be with you.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Nice historal summary on domaining. I enjoyed reading it.
“So where do we go from here?”
It’s not like aftermarket sales and PPC are the only monetization methods available. There have been other methods available for years. It’s just not as easy as those two.
I always advise people to at least take their best domain name, develop it out and learn how to live off the revenue. It may take an adjustment; such as learning new entrepreneur skills but it can provide the revenue needed.
Tom, are you the same guy that’s friends with everyone on MySpace…lol
@ Anunt
You should have invested in “Social Casino”.
@ Samit
I agree that doesn’t matter what, it is just impossible to displace dot-Com within our life times.
Their may be some occasional other TLD examples (like MHB posted in the article) of selling for good prices but it will be very limited.
I just can’t wait to see the new gTLDs launched because it will be so much fun to watch this soap opera.
@ Aggro
It is always great if you can keep your mouth shut because the only thing you know is how to attack other people. You are a very bitter person who obviously can’t sleep if he doesn’t go after someone. Try to talk about the topic, and not attack others. Today you picking on Jeff,and tomorrow it will be someone else.
How come you don’t pick on me anymore?
Is the trailer of your misdeeds that I showed you too much to handle?
Oh btw, I have the whole dossier so be careful when you attack next time.
Man, I finally lost my patience with your attacks.
Just hoping that someday God will bestow wisdom on you 🙂
@ Fizz
100% agree with your example.
Let the new gTLDs launch and it will be even better if all of them are free.
holy crap… you got a lot of responses to that post… i think you might have hit a nerve.
Funny you wrote this post now. Not you in particular, just interesting timing. More on that in weeks to come.
Dot Com Is No ! ~~~
Perhaps now you see why being in Europe has its advantages, Mike. This is a very thorough, well-researched, original post that’s classes above regular articles about Marchex stock fluctuation or NAF decisions. Job well done.
@Tia
Direct navigation and ppc income is the way to go. Or Url forwarding.
Some of us are proud to pure domainers
We all ready seen whats going on development this, develop that. Over rated!
@Anunt
I am sure they are more than one Tom’s out there, and the fact you still use myspace just shows how out of touch you are my little monkey friend.
MHB,
Let’s bring this whole topic down to reality, shall we? The true beneficiaries of the introduction of the gTLD’s and the one’s banging the drum the loudest for their approval are the big players. Frank Shilling: sixty plus new extensions, Yourself and Monte: Right Of The Dot, Rick Schwartz: has pretty much been mute about the subject, but certainly has the resources to cherry pick the top domains from any new extension introduced. Other big players, etc,. So as in any business model prior the adage “it takes money, to make money” is ever so true.
There is a huge class divide here, You address you blog audience as if most where in that top category, while I would guess that less than 1% of your readers has the resources to truly capitalize on these new opportunities that will be presented with the introduction of the new gTLD’s. Let’s keep it real shall we MHB?
You did address my question, or rather you glossed over it. Is it not true that ROTD stands to make enormous sums from consulting, and that you and Monte are actively courting any new potential applicants. Would that not constitute an agenda?
I don’t begrudge You or anyone else for going after those opportunities, I would do the same given the chance, but let’s be upfront about it, not hide behind some veneer, that it’s solely in the name progress or good of the internet.
I have never stated that I am against the new gTLD’s or that we should not move forward with it. Progress in inevitable. I think there will be opportunities for the little guy’s as well, but anyone vying to make money off the new spaces that has little capital, better approach it with trepidation and cautiously. While many will fail (both big and small) in the new spaces, it will present opportunities for everyone, but the real winners will be those who take the largest risk(s).
@domains Bad development is overrated. Smart development is not.
The most intuitive and brandable component of a domain name is the .com part.
It will be interesting to see if this moves the mountain.
It might. It’s definitely ‘big enough’ in scope to eventually develop into something that beats .com out of minds of consumers. For that to happen, it’s going to require brands to seriously develop and advertise them. I haven’t been paying attention to the applications but have the premier brands been applying for .them? That’s the mover, not what some turd domainer speculates on. Just as nobody takes .net seriously, we may arrive at a time when your status as a ‘big boy’ or ‘player’ is having your own vanity TLD.
You want to get a better handle on this, ignore domainers and marketers alike.
Bone up on phenomenology.
@ MHB
Great historical perspective, but you left out Domaining 0.0 when at the very beginning .net was the king and everyone ignored .com, off course they switched places soon afterwards once people realized the commercial value of the Internet. Nevertheless there is no guaranty as to which gTLDs are going to get to the top. We will only know that after it is done.
–
P.S. great comprehensive and informative overview of the history of domains. Really enjoyed reading the article.
MHB –
This is a great article, thanks.
I also think that you have an ‘agenda’ but you know what everyone has an agenda and this is your blog and you can write about anything you want. Its not as if youre editing the WSJ and promoting products on the sly, youve been upfront about ROTD and youre just expressing your views.
Once again great article.
“Direct navigation and ppc income is the way to go. Or Url forwarding.
Some of us are proud to pure domainers
Development this, develop that. Over rated!”
Yes. All those ‘suckers’ who develop… Haha.
Keep babbling that bullshit. I hope everyone believes you.
Enjoy the ‘domainer model’ of turning millions into thousands, while those with a clue of how the internet works turn thousands into millions.
Acro
On the Europe issue I just want to be clear that although I find the time difference difficult for working, I do love Europe and the lifestyle I have for many years and hope to experience again many times in my life.
As far as this post it was written over several days and in my head for about a week.
anon – dont be jealous and rely on google search.
direct navigation names will only increase in value. Priceless!
Haha, I love guys like you.
All evidence demonstrates the exact opposite of what you just said, but there’s always going to be some delusional Pollyanna to cheerlead the ‘believers’.
If you want to chant dogmas, go be a monk. In business, that’s a losing strategy.
One thing I was noting yesterday and that has been a huge learning curve for most of us, is how .Co was a huge sham (scam?). The tactics they used in it’s introduction and promotion where clever, stuff right out of marketing 101 textbooks. I think it has made domain investors much wiser and less apt to fall for the hype that will accompany the introduction of every new gTLD introduced. The HUGE SALE ploy, that follows the introduction of a new extension, you know-the one where they announce with much fanfare, how someone just purchased so and so domain in a particular new extension for some exorbitant amount. It’s a marketing tactic that usually whips the novice investors into a registration frenzy and is probably good for a few hundred thousand worthless registrations. After a year or two and thousands spent on renewals, as is what is starting to happen now with .Co’s, people much to their chagrin start to realize that sadly it was not the second coming of .Com. What will happen to all these marginal .Co’s once this flood of new gTLD’s is released? Call me a pragmatist, but I will stick to the tried and true .Com’s till the dust settles.
I want someone to tell me the reason why .jobs, .travel, .aero, museum, .coop never made it.
Dean
I’m writing thedomains.com for anyone that cares to read.
As far as my audience for the blog, we get far more traffic from the search engines that we do from domaining.com or the direct domain channel, so I’m not going to assume what position anyone reading the blog is and what they are financial ability or unable to do.
As far as a class divide as you call it , it always exists so if you are talking about any investment opportunity which requires capital, whether it is buying a great .com’s or a new gTLD’s registry or new gTLD domain names or shares of Apple or bars of gold, no two people are exactly situated a like.
For example I’m not in the financial situation to apply for 60 new gTLD’s like Frank.
As for RightoftheDot.com just so we are clear about it, any work we are doing is all contingency based.
If our clients make money on their new gTLD’s registries we make money.
If they don’t make money we don’t make money.
Enormous sums will only to be made, if the strings we work on are enormously successful.
Obviously since none of the new gTLD’s have launched we haven’t made a dime.
Almost all of the client’s we are working with at this point have TLD’s that have more than one applicant, so our clients may not win any of the strings they are going for.
So we may never make a dime.
Such is life, such is business.
When the time comes and the strings are awarded and we are working on them at ROTD we will be transparent about it.
At this point we are guaranteed nothing.
Frank is guaranteed nothing.
We may wind up losing a lot of time effort and money and so may Frank
Not every article on the new gTLD’s you will read here will be glowingly positive as there are huge risks, crappy extensions, and there will be some failures.
I’m actually I’m working on another post which like this one which is being written over several days that looks more in depth at the business model.
Now for your statement:
New gTLD’s are “”solely in the name progress or good of the internet.””
When did I say that?
Dean
As for your latest comment on “.Co being a scam” I think the problem is domainers think they are too important in the ecosystem of a domain registry.
When Verisign was reporting the stats they were showing 7-10% of all .com/.net domains were held by domainers, meaning that 90%-93% were not.
.Co still has over 1.3 million registrations
@ Emma
“I want someone to tell me the reason why .jobs, .travel, .aero, museum, .coop never made it.”
I bet if you went on the street and asked 10,000 people to name one website on any of those extensions not a single person would be able to do so. I’m in the business and can’t even think of any myself.
So it’s the same reason anything fails on the Internet. Without marketing, advertising, branding or a really innovative concept that gets traction by viral means, no one knows about it.
It’ll be the same reason 99% of the new gTLD’s will fail also. Unless these gTLD adventurers pour massive amounts of capital into building great websites and then creating awareness of their extension no one will ever know about them.
I think most of the gTLD entrepreneurs must be clueless when it comes to the tens of millions it will take to brand their TLD successfully. If they’re thinking a few press releases will do the job their nuts.
Michael’s “Domaining 6.0” registries will make out well and deserve their own historical classification.
However – into my 14th year I have been fortunate enough to have saved my dough and then bought correctly into sharply down stock markets – especially in 2002-2003 and 2008-2009. And during those times made some very decent sales.
Point is – forget the non.com 1 out of 1000 cherry picking geniuses. A grounded .COM business model needs to follow the expectations of the stock market and economy in general – not the latest hype or “Domaining Classification”.
MHB,
Just because your (I) am paranoid, does not mean they are not out to get you, Lol. I come from a generation where I was indoctrinated with the phrase “Question Authority.” I approach everything with a healthy skepticism. I try to hold the prism to the light and examine every facet and color. Sham/Scam is kind of harsh, but I believe everyone from hucksters on Wall Street to Domain Street should be held with the same contempt. I doubt Juan is loosing any sleep over fools who lost thousands in registration mining for domain gold. Yes, ultimately it was the registrants choice, but the way it was presented (and I hold bloggers accountable as well) just seemed predatory, ill intention-ed and scammy. You make of it what you will, that is my take on it.
Dean
We will have to agree to disagree on .Co
If .travel wasn’t introduced early on, it would have been cherry picked for the new batch, it has not shown any promise, is this a sign of things to come.
It is hard to gauge what to believe everyone has their own self interests involved whether it be consultants, or direct investment, Anything that is going to be given away free will be hoarded, and rules against selling etc, maybe implied. I don’t think you will see the domainers support this as they have with many of the other launches.
It is a sucker bet, and the house always wins.
Generally, I agree with this article as marketing and branding of a domain that is inclusive of it’s extension creates the 6.0 premium domain. I also really liked the comment about the importance of web development as creating distinguished web businesses is a critical component towards determining an extensions success and appeal with the general public. I think .Me has been able to attract some real tangible business to that extension. (I hope .pro will be able to follow that model of quality development.)
Again, relevant combinations of words is what should carry a premium value as I’m not sure just purely having good keywords in alternate extensions will carry as much weight. Google seems to be able to sort through a domain pretty well with its search for relevant information. I think the overall combination of the complete url will continue to play into that result along with the developed website.
It’s funny, how (dumb) people ignore the massive influence of ego on the process of making decisions…
Some folks are totally consumed by ego (you can spot them by their wristwatches), others not so much but ultimately, the desire to ‘inflate the opinions other people have of you’ is a huge basis for a lot of decisions made in both business and life.
In business, it’s an essential component of developing trust.
In life, it gets you laid.
If you decouple this phenomenon from domain names and operate on academia alone, then there really is no difference between a .net and a .com… but the real world shows us that isn’t true. How you’re perceived is a very, very big deal and there is no limit to what people are willing to pay for something that implies a higher order of status.
You want to forecast how this next phase goes and position yourself accordingly, bone up on your phenomenology. This game has just taken its next step up, leaving all the used car salesman and “serial entrepreneurs” behind.
@anon you and your ego LOL. your funny
“I want someone to tell me the reason why .jobs, .travel, .aero, museum, .coop never made it.”
@ Emma
They were silently rolled out and I believe were closed to domain investors, but the fact that not too many people have heard of them can actually work in their favor since they can now remarket themselves as if they were just launched and can benefit from all the attention that is being given to the New gTLDs.
I see great potential for .Jobs and .Travel in the near future if the people who are running them start taking advantage of the New gTLD wave.
(just my opinion)
–
Yes, “me and my ego” whatever that means.
‘Yore’ an idiot… but keep on talking that book about the “POWER OF TYPE-IN TRAFFIC!!” while simultaneously having no idea of how that traffic actually relates to an entity who purchases it.
type in traffic going up. we will crush your sites dude
@ Emma
Added: although .Job and .Travel are not gTLDs but they can still be bunched up with the New gTLDs as far as marketing gos.
–
Mike great post i enjoy it 🙂
THANK YOU
type in traffic going up. we will crush your sites dude
“Angels don’t just sing at Christmastime. For most Americans, they’re a year-round presence. A new Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 77 percent of adults believe these ethereal beings are real…”
I don’t think Anon’s an idiot by any means. Truly great point that “perception is king for an extension”. Investors will gravitate toward and want a brand that exceptional and of quality. An extension may never get to .com level of registrants by any means but it’s value could far exceed expectations dependent on the public perception of quality. Again, I think .pro and .me are prime for that and hopefully with the introduction of new extensions this will be a prime time for existing extensions to reinvent themselves and ramp up.
Great post Mike. The world is a changing
larry
why did i not see dudu.com 1mm sale on list or meet.me for $450k and a few others or did i miss something?
Mike,
Great article, great review of the historical facts of the past and transition to the possible future.
I have difficulty with the supply vs. demand when all these extensions are out.
Im at drfrank.dentist or frank.dds or frankdentistry.nyc or frank.md which btw never took off. Too many choices and with the examples newyorksomethingsomethin.law, well suffice to say branding is importnat and short and memorable too but seems like options are well open right of the dot as well as left of the dot and as such whats the point if free or close to free? With confusion too people would put it in the url maybe but then a .com auto generated or manually by them.
I do see some to work but I think it was KEVIN above who said it best. Marketing dollars is what and why people buy and remember. Without the marketing dollars I cant see it being very big…a money maker, sure but national or worldwide presence no. More extensions the worse off too. You are basically looking at a scenario of more (chiefs) option to one entity then there are enitites out there.
Wish everyone good luck, supply will definately bring down the potential for investors on extensions that HAVE NOT YET DONE THE JOB IN PROMOTING ITS BRAND, THAT SHIP HAS SAILED FOR VALUE…
above is IN MY OPINION
Mike,
Very interesting article but two things need to be factored in before any comparisons re year on year domain sales.
1.The 2012 Reported sales reflect just half of the year to date (or so) compared to full years as in 2011 / 2010
2. As a domain broker I can only speak for our own trends but we have brokered 4 sales in the mid to high $xx,xxx range in recent weeks and all have been subject to N.D.A’s
Of course N.D.A’s have been around for a long time but we are definitely noticing that many more buyers and / or sellers are increasingly requesting them.
I believe this massive increase in N.D.A requests massively distorts year on year comparisons.
I swear to god, the people who are getting into new GTLDS business are clueless. We all know that in general a domain name is just a web address, and we have 3 types of domain names: Brandable domains, premium/popular keyword domains and popularity-deficient keyword domains. Brandable domains don’t suggest a product/service or business idea, so you need to spend a lot of money and time so people can familiarize with your brand and your business concept. If it is a good concept you will be successful, if not you fail. Unlike brandable domains, premium/highly popular keyword domains suggest a product/service or business idea. You don’t necessarily need money to start making money. All you need is very sophisticated/technically-able website, development/refining of the business idea, time devotion and competitiveness to start making money. popularity-deficient keyword domains may suggest a product/service or a business idea but the demand for the product/service they may suggest is very very low or the business of such product or service may be not practical on internet. Even if you spend money for the development and marketing of this kind of web addresses you will never make money. Now listen carefully! Did I talk about domain extensions so far?? No, and Why? because everything about internet addressing system will come down to a business idea/concept, a presentable/sophisticated website and your degree of competitiveness. But one thing that is very very important that we have to bear in mind is that the reality shows us that almost all business ideas/concepts that one can think of that are practicable on the internet have been tried/applied already and they have been tried/applied with .COM, .NET, .ORG and cctlds such as .CO.UK, . DE, .FR and .BR. Cctlds because of patriotism/pride for the country one belongs to, and .COM, .NET, .ORG because they were the first extensions that came out. Because online business is very very competitive, not so easy, some online businesses have succeeded and other failed, just like in any business using physical store. They succeeded with the above mentioned extensions and they failed with the above mentioned extensions. And people have been trying to repackage business ideas/concepts to see if they can bee successful and they have been doing that always with .COM, .NET and all other tlds I above mentioned.
Now this is my question to the people who are getting into new gtlds business: Is it that the new gtlds, in terms of product or service quality/innovations/inventions economically, will bring a rain of business ideas/concepts that never existed before and that will be used with the new gtlds??? Why am I asking this? I am asking this because they are hundred of thousands, if not millions of premium domain names in different extensions and they are not being used. The reason why they are not being used is not a mystery. It is because, as I above said, almost all business ideas/concepts that you can think of that people can do online have already been applied/tried, and they have been applied/tried with .com, .net, .org and some cctlds. Some have been successful and other failed. What people have been doing is repackaging business ideas/concepts, and is this really the reason why they are introducing new tlds?? People should know better that it is much more difficult to come up with a successful business idea/concept than to buy or create a premium/popular keyword domain. The world does not find itself in a domain extension crisis or deficit. Domain names outnumber business ideas/concepts in a way you can’t even imagine. Almost all people would like to make money by starting a business but only very few people are able to make it, the far majority who try fail, because it is very very difficult to come up with a smart and successful idea than to create or buy a premium domain name, and this explains why there still are millions of unused premium/popular keyword domain names. So the questions I above asked and which I will ask again bellow must be answered so people can know whether or not the people who are getting into new gtlds are clueless nor not:
Is it that the new tlds will cause people to start having millions of workable/successful business ideas/concepts at a rate /pace that would outnumber the quantity of domain extensions that are still available to create or buy? And what is the reason why .jobs, .travel, .museum, .coop. .aero failed??? and why would new gtlds not fail????
Is it that the new tlds will cause people to start having millions of workable/successful business ideas/concepts at a rate /pace that would outnumber the quantity of domain names in different tlds that are still available to create or buy? And what is the reason why .jobs, .travel, .museum, .coop. .aero failed??? and why would new gtlds not fail????
@Emma – excellent! You’ve hit the nail on the head there.
Unfortunately the best people to sell to are sales people, as they are easily taken in, and then they try take others in, etc. etc.
gTLDs are only good for THREE things:
1. .brand – Corporates that need to own and manage and protect their brand. (Although I strongly disagree with .book being a brand).
2. .bank – Banks and companies etc. that need a higher level of control and security to operate on the internet. If you can afford one for your own intranet, why not – it has nothing to do with domaining.
3. Communities or cities etc. I am not sure it makes sense for traditional .org type charities to waste so much donated money on a gTLD and its management.
That’s it – the rest, like Emma says, has already been done many times over.
If we thought the Facebook IPO was a fiasco… watch this gTLD space…
“Brandable domains don’t suggest a product/service or business idea, so you need to spend a lot of money and time so people can familiarize with your brand and your business concept.”
You just typed an awful lot of words for someone who apparently has the ‘domain name intelligence’ of your typical Namepros denizen.
Pray tell, Einstein, of your little ‘categories’, where would you put a name like “AutomobileWorld.com”?
How about TelevisionUniverse.com?
FunZone.com?
Nevermind. The less chimps chasing after those, the better. Keep fighting over XHQV.com and hoping it means something to a Chinaman.
Dean:
.CO is meaningful and memorable.
.CO is available.
.CO is global.
.CO is shorter than .com.
And .CO is one of the biggest end user alternate domain acceptance/success stories of EVER!
I never told you to buy it- I told you that it wasn’t a domain investors play as I did with dotTV twice in history, dotMOBI and 3D. Go back and read seven mile.com- what advice did Frank give?
What domains do the really successful domain investors buy? dotCOM. But startups are buying .co. Law firms are buying .co
(last Friday I was at an estate lawyer and wanted to see what I could trade for their pricey services- so I asked for a business card which had a cryptic domain and then whois’d the three initials plus .co and it was buy now for $900- I asked them what a clear simple domain with their partners initials worth to them- they said we looked into it but couldn’t afford it- I said would it be worth 160 hours of your time to advise on this matter? They said of course. I then asked them to fill out the form on sedo and buy it. They were amazed. To them .co = company because their business is incorporating businesses.). I never been a domain flipped, but this is the second “reverse fliP” I’ve made, booth to .co. I bet I could start cold calling law firms and sell plenty. In fact, at my next meeting at .co hq I was going to suggest they engage me to do that.
If you continue to call it a scam- this law firm would be first in line to take the suit from .co, subpoena your ip from Mike and sue you for slander.
Dean
So if I don’t answer you I’m being evasive and if I do answer you if being paranoid.
Not much of a choice
one of the best posts Mike.
Very interesting article Mike!
Look at it this way… An important Monet, Picasso or Van Gogh masterpiece is only and always limited to one owner, therefore it’s remarkable value. An important piece of antiquity works pretty much the same way. You’re quite right eluding to the fact anyone can potentially brand Newyork.lawyer for instance, however there are still serious barriers to entry to achieve meaningful brandability against a dot com. You will notice as in your reference to .ly , Bit.ly actually now mostly use Bitly.com as their main point of reference for very obvious reasons, quite so? Must have cost them a lot to buy the dot com.
So even if you owned Newyork.lawyer , you had better have very deep pockets to compete with NewYorkLawyer.com. Now assuming you owned NewYorkLawyer.com as an un-developed domain name, the value of your dot com just went up ten fold, assuming NewYork.lawyer actually do have very deep pockets and are loosing out to your dot com one way or the other!
So my point is, if you are going to buy all these gltd’s , that’s fine as long as you fully understand the inherent risks and extreme asset dilution. My experience tells me NewYork.lawyer and NewYorkLawyer.com can both co-exist as leading brands in the genre of law, but only if NewYork.lawyer have very very deep pockets, and we are talking many millions to scale the brand! However if Newyork.lawyer simply wishes to create a small niche brand with new & existing clients, then it should be worth it.
Bottom line is, most buyers of gltd’s are very likely to lose a lot of money, which ever way you look at it. Did you guy’s know there are now over 644 million websites out there according to Netcraft.com ? go check! These are live websites!! So with the introduction of over 1000 new gltd’s, these will cost a lot of money to bring to market in terms of traffic. One last thing… did you know Google already has plans to limit the number of “organic” blue link results form 10 results to may be just the one! ?? See the potential problem?
Here’s one last one to think about… did you also know the hype around “Native Apps” are more likely to become dinosaur apps when HTML5 really takes off within the next 3 years? The Financial times dumped Apple’s native app for html5 and it works perfect! So, go back to my very first paragraph as therein may lie the answer to what “original” or first level tld domains are really worth. Works for period property, art, even stocks and i’ll bet it’ll end up being the same for good old domains. Cheers!
Maybe worth just a small mention in Domaining 6.0, but this is where domains go truly global. In addition to the English .anything gtlds, Verisign takes their clout to bring the .com brandto 8 major languages as foreign language transliterals of .com and .net in the following languages:
Arabic
Chinese
Hebrew
Hindi
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Thai
“Verisign applied for IDN transliterations of .com in the following nine non-Latin based scripts: Arabic, Cyrillic, Devanagari (Indian), Hangul (Korean), Hebrew, Hiragana and Katakana (Japanese), Simplified Chinese, Thai and Traditional Chinese. Verisign also applied for IDN transliterations of .net in Devanagari, Hangul and Simplified Chinese scripts.
“Internationalized Domain Names will make the Internet more personal to end users around the world by allowing them to identify themselves using their native language scripts,” said Pat Kane, senior vice president and general manager of Naming Services at Verisign. “These non-Latin-based transliterations of .com and .net should provide new opportunities and more choices for global Internet users.”
This is a seminal overview of the domaining industry – thanx for sharing your knowledge! 🙂
“the fact that not too many people have heard of them can actually work in their favor”
@OJohn
That has to be about the least intelligent business statement ever written. Yea, had they sold 10 million registrations they would be worse off. If Frank Schilling is calling a high water mark in .com, what is the good news for these extensions now that they have even more competition coming and are unknown?
Yawn. I am so board of frivoloud pillow blog talk about domains that dont yet exist.
Wake me up when its over and .COM is the only game in town.
Gtld
Mike,
the part about being paranoid was said in jest and more self referential than directed at you. I just wrote a long winded reply to various issues that were addressed and not addressed in your replies, but aborted it. I will save it for the next installment.
Cheers!
Okay folks…enough of this BS.
Dot com is KING.
go home , go eat, go sleep.
Hello ALL Commetators!
WE know that all of this talk is good because unrealized Challenges never get solved !
By the way I have a hell of a time formatting the text comments on this Blog, not complaining just stating an observation.
Back to point : The single MOST IMPOTANT POINT .We think should be looked at is this!
Right now in our Nascent SECONDARY MARKET there are countless thousands of screaming values in the .COM Channel , and many of them will have future valuation multiples that will skyrocket.
This is not hype it is the fact of how all Nascent marketplaces have rolled out in past history.
Your odds in the .Com Channel Secondary Market Place are overwhelmpngly in your favor.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
So the (.com) domain market is in a slump? All markets experience peaks and troughs once they have some maturity.
Every market has seen a fluctuation at some point over the last 2 to 4 years. For those with the cash, the lows mean ‘start buying’.
Given the current uncertainty and lack of agreed direction regarding new gTLDs, I’d say the domain market is holding up exceptionally well. Dot com will continue to grow in value compared to all other extensions.
And it doesn’t matter how many lawyers pick up LLL.co’s and .law, .legal or .whatever….they’ll all WANT the .com
I think that .com will take a bit of a beating, in some areas, when
“.anything” gets going.
The marketing world is currently going through a revolution in
many ways, and it is crying out for new ideas and meanings that
can make consumers sit up and take notice.
In terms of domain IP, that means web identities such as ICANN’s
“.anything” offering, or indeed domain name “hacks”.
Bill
I think that is a very good point, IDN’s are going to have a big roll in the new gTLD program and Verisign by applying as you point out for the IDN equivalent of .com in different language has the potential to be a big play.
Being upfront about it I’m not an IDN investor its outside my scope of knowledge but one issue I keep hearing is that IDN’s don’t work consistently.
For example I hear that you can’t use them for email as they are not understood by most mail servers.
” “the fact that not too many people have heard of them can actually work in their favor”
@OJohn
That has to be about the least intelligent business statement ever written.”
———
@ BFitz
You need to give that statement a little more though before putting it down like that,
If .Jobs and .Travel had over a million registrations then obviously they wouldn’t need to relaunch and remarket themselves, they would be in pretty good shape at least as far as the registries were concerned.
Imagine if there were not going to be a New gTLD program and that there was nothing on the news about them, then .Jobs and .Travel would probably have to continue to limp along forever as obscure extensions, but now that there is so much attention given to the New gTLDs it gives .Jobs and .Travel a second chance to make themselves known to the people that they want to target, and even though they are not gTLDs but they can still benefit from all the publicity that the New gTLDs are getting.
Think about it, if .Jobs and .Travel had not already been launched as sTLDs (Sponsored Top Level domains), they would probably be on top of the list of the New gTLDs.
(just my opinion)
–
Smart domainers made enough to cash out. Some call it “F u money.”
Why would anyone want to make a “career” out of domaining? There are so many more interesting things to pursue in life… that could be funded by money made from domain names.
Some smart domainers made enough to become even bigger speculators… they have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, so why not play the gtld game?
I’d say because if you have the money, there are more interesting things to do in life than fiddling with domain names.
The domain name system is a mess. BIND was written by a high school drop out. And the people propping up up DNS as a technical achievement alas have neither common sense nor an ethical bone in their body. They just don’t care. Do you think they care about UDRP? It’s just a small formality on the way to heaps of easy cash from domain name registries.
The less one has to be associated with this, the better. Make your money and get out. The smartest domainers of all are the ones you’ve never heard of.
Now the ICANN people want more cash. As if they haven’t made enough already. They are going to push this system to it breaking point. The public still hasn’t got a clue.
New gtld’s are bringing out the worst domainers. They will slash and burn the namespace to make a buck. No mercy. The whole system is up for sale.
Whatever happens, ICANN cashes out. That’s the plan. Isn’t it great?
Of course Google wants it all. Why shouldn’t they? A study back in 2010 said something like 96% of people use search engines. 26% use “vertical websites”. A smaller percentage use online yellow pages. What percentage use type-in? Doubtful it’s more than 25%. With gtld’s, Google can get that last 25%.
This is corporate ownership of the web. Will it fly? Who knows? Make your money and get out.
Once you’ve made enough to retire from exploiting this system, why not just move on to something else? I guess some domainers have not made enough to retire. Or they actually enjoy the dirty business of domain names. Maybe they still have dreams of selling names for inflated prices to companies that need a domain name. Good luck with that.
The guy who started on of the first PC businesses back in the 80’s quit computers and became a family doctor in rural Georgia. I doubt he ever regreted that move.
I’m quitting domain biz and moving into Internet sweepstakes cafes in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina…they are making much more money with NO work…it’s like parking domains…no work.
They are legal casinos where the house always wins!!!
Kicking myself for not noticing the free domains available in the early 90s’ I suppose hindsight is 20/20 though right.
Linked to your post here >http://wpdomainpark.com/must-read-for-new-and-old-domainers-alike/
“And it doesn’t matter how many lawyers pick up LLL.co’s and .law, .legal or .whatever….they’ll all WANT the .com”
You are 100% correct – not 99.999% correct.
But the point is these new registries will still make their sale – and lots of themm-mthey are in the business of selling hand registered domains – not any secondary market (which will be virtually nonexistant)
Hmmm…… my comment from a couple days ago never was posted. 🙁
@deans conscious,
your points about .Co have fallen on deaf ears. Those trying to tout it as a universal brand, like .Com are sorely mistaken. Maybe as a secondary extension or as an alternative to another lesser extension it may work. Once the tide of new gTLD’s are unleashed, it will fall further into obscurity. Glad you have had some success with it though. P.S. I have no conscious.
I am glad to see domainers are starting to protect their market, because it is at risk.
There are monopolies manipulating the market that we have no control over. As long as the money is in .com, they will protect it.
There is however a real risk of happening to .coms, what happened to email accounts…
As far as the .CO is concerned it is a damp squib! Google thinks it is a spanish language Columbian ccTLD!
So as you can see, no matter what the registries or marketeers think, the monoploies have the last say….
so are we happy for them to take .book, .search, .blog etc. etc?
Hello ALL Commentators!
WE know that all of this talk is good because unrealized Challenges never get solved !
By the way I have a hell of a time formatting the text comments on this Blog, not complaining just stating an observation.
Back to point : The single MOST IMPOTANT POINT .We think should be looked at is this!
Right now in our Nascent SECONDARY MARKET there are countless thousands of screaming values in the .COM Channel , and many of them will have future valuation multiples that will skyrocket.
This is not hype it is the fact of how all Nascent marketplaces have rolled out in past history.
Your odds in the .Com Channel Secondary Market Place are overwhelmpngly in your favor.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
P. S. Warren Buffet, The ORACLE OF OMAHA is active in the SECONDARY MARKET .COM CHANNEL !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Leopold –
“We are dipping back into another recession right now. ”
When you neighbor loses his job it is a recession – when you lose your job it is a depression.
The key is avoid both – cash is king – fortunes are made during recessions and depressions.
Domain Investing for me is based on where I think the economy & stock market is going vs. chasing the latest hype like all the new non.com’s now coined as “Domaining 6.0” – or whatever.
That way all the politicians can just blow themselves 🙂
I’m quitting domain biz and moving into Internet sweepstakes cafes in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina…they are making much more money with NO work…it’s like parking domains…no work.
They are legal casinos where the house always wins!!!
—-
Yeah, that’s just how I want to spend my life.
Being an ‘early adopter’ of deeply gray legal area where it’s ensured that I’ll have to slog it out in court at least a few times just to keep existing, then have the plug pulled all together once the laws catch up.
Ask Ray Bitar how he feels about that exact same strategy.
Mike,
One of your best articles yet! Keep em coming!
Jeff
Hello Commentators!
A full blown Bull Market is confirmed ! Stock And our Secondary Market in .Com Channel !
You will make far more money in Our secondary market than stock market though! The secondary Markets multiples are just getting off the ground.
Still for a pretty fair return we have taken WWWW off watch list and put on Buy list, for those interested. I own no positions in WWWW.
Follow Warren Buffet into our secondary market for superior ROIs 7/10/12
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Jeff Schneider –
Warren Buffet’s better ones I like to quote:
“You only know who is swimming naked when the tide goes out”
Domining 6.0 – proceed with extreme caution
Unrelated: I’m having a hard time keeping up with these comments. It’s not obvious that there are 3 pages of them. The “Older Comments” is in an obscure location.
Sorry its a Word Press thing and I rely on my Adam to keep it together
Great article…….domain history lesson for everyone…thanks for publishing.
Enjoy the longer article…can’t wait for future ones.
Hello MHB
Domaining 6.o = “Dead Balls On”
Congratulations you are setting an example for true Domainers and not Spammers to follow.
Quite a few Spammers portraying themselves as Domainers here and other Blogs confusing Domainers.
The Truthfull man always wins in the long run.
Thank you for this gutsy post!
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
@Paul J Kapschock
HealthInsuranceExchanges.com= Great value! NICE
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
It is kill’ me to hear you all waste your precious lives debating the feasability of the new gtlds.
Allow me to make some forecasts for you so you can go get some sleep…
Any student of tld history can tell you that any domain that tries to upsurge the .com tornedo is doomed to fail. The .com has gotten too big and it is now way too late. Every day that goes by, the task of dethroning .com gets more and more exponentially difficult. in 2014, when the new gtlds ultimately do come out, they may as well not even bother. Perhaps, the gtld scenario would have worked had Jon Postel initially realized the severe limitations of the foundation he was about to lay, but he did not. Anyhoo, many other tld’s have tried and failed. Some were cheap, some expensive, some highly sought after (ie, .travel) and some, not so much (.coop). Some were long (ie Museum) and some were short (ie, .cat). All died miserable deaths.
The new ones will do the same. The only difference this time will be that a long line of investors will get burned in the process.
I see no future in these silly, unwanted extensions. I see lots of bickering, squabbling and litigation ahead and only trademark lawyers, registrars and registries getting rich. Oh, and ICANN.
I like the comment above about people willing to take other extensions, but really WANTING the .com. Reminder, any ol’ extension will work, but only .com will work well. To setle for anything less is just a losing proposition.
The gtlds will surely fail. No brainer.
“The gtlds will surely fail. No brainer.”
@ .fail
When you consider all the major Cities around the World that might end up with their own gTLD and if you add to that all the big companies that might be interested in getting their own .brand , there might be thousands of New gTLDs coming out in the next 10 years aside from the generic keyword gTLDs that everyone seems to be after right now.
Are you saying that all these gTLDs are going to fail,
Even if you go with the laws of probability alone, there will surely be a small percentage of all these New gTLDs that are going to make it to the top. Even a 10% success rate can amount to a bunch of these New gTLDs becoming popular in the next 10 years.
–
Ah the speculation! “Should I stay or should I go now…” I have a book on my desk entitled “Change or Die”. I put about as much trust in ICAN’T as I do in the Republicrats. We are living in an Obamanation and it is marvelous scary. Opportunity to become one of the 1% has never been greater. I’m putting my money on the .COMs and may Heaven have mercy upon my soul…
Hello MHB
I think we all can agree,that in any Business proposition you need to lead with your strongest foot forward. In Todays “New World Marketing”it is absoulutely Key that you pull out all the stops and present a professional platform for your Business.
We would like to make an IMPORTANT POINT that many online Businesses miss :
( It is absolutely Crucial that you have a Strong Brand on the Left side of the Dot and the Right side of the Dot ! )
Gratefully Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Great post Mike. I really enjoyed the “blast from the past”.
regards
Gordon
DropWizard
The truth is Google is King and in the end whatever extensions they own, in turn they promote and guess who falls off page one? Everybody else!
@TF AGREED!
Which is why I keep repeating:
Are we happy to let the likes of Google take ownership of public property?
Yes, they can have .Google and .Brand BUT NOT .Book, .Search, .Blog etc. Those are public domain and should not be allowed to be registered as a TOP LEVEL DOMAIN!!
If ICANN approves registreation of a generic public domain names like .search and .book, it is an open admission that their only interest is money and that they do not have the interestes of the wiser internet and it’s users at heart.
Like I said before, when a 9 year surfs on to ###.book etc. she will asssume, and trust, that that is the authority on books, because you cannot get any higher than a TOP LEVEL DOMAIN!!
That’s right – we are selling out our children!
Wake up people, start sending in those objections even if it is only to selfishly protect the .com!
Well, folks, we’re honored to have the domain expert, B-Rad G from the ‘Bu, tell it like Embee really wants to tell it here. Welcome to the show, B-Rad!
“Yo, funky looking poser — I jes show up to help Embee make it blow uuup, so here it be:
“Yo fools, dares some hardcore drama goin’ down riaght abowt neeeow. We gots the boys in the gtld’s pushin’ on strong heeyah, you all betta be shakin’ in yer nike’s cuz they get theirs, yo.”
“But we old school domain-aires still thinkin’ of da new opps teeuw. Them opps is plenty, and they be the bomb callt “da dotcom”. Alwayz have been, alwayz weel bee.
“Ya can’t PUNK OUT no matta WHAT da Devil may bring. Think strongs, sistahs and broz. Hope dis helps. Yo, ahm out, shiznit.”
Well, B-Rad, thank you for coming on and speaking the truth. (P.S. Work on your spelling, dude.)
Hello MHB
Those who think the .com secondary market game is over are ill informed to say the least.
The secondary market in .COM extension hasn’t even cleared away 10% of the smoke screen that Google , Ad Marketers and Registrars and Domainers loaded with other extensions and others with agendas to hide the real values of Virtual Business Foundations awesome Strategic Marketing capabilities.
Those who have already sold have jumped the gun and will miss the most historic price multiple explosion of any asset class in history 7/22/12
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
In fact, it is not that bad Mike. In 2014 the average price nearly doubled. The volume did not, but more dollars are moving hands in the industry.