Yesterday we reported that Minds + Machines (LON:MMX) lost on average around 30% of its registrations in 13 of its new gTLD’s due to non-renewal.
Today we were informed by Minds + Machines that the deleted domain names were not the result of non-renewals; but was the result of Minds + Machines “unwinding its Emerald Names initiative and moving premium inventory back into the retail channel that were previously held through Emerald.”
“It’s the first step in making our premium inventory more accessible to the domain investor community that will start to unfold in the coming months – i.e. Q1 2017.”
Like Frank Schilling North Sound Names that registered domain names of Uniregistry string; Emerald Names is a company controlled by Mind + Machines which registered domain names in its own strings.
Of course that means that about 30% of the registered domain names in these extensions on average, were registered by an arm of the registry not by domainers or end users.
Minds + Machines informs us that overall over 17,000 domain names of Minds + Machines extension were registered by Emerald Names to allow us to sell directly to the end consumer.”
“As part of the restructure of the business which has seen us closing down our retail operation, we are now moving these names out of Emerald and back into the channel. This is part of a longer term initiative to make our inventory far more available to the domain investor community.”
According to ntldstats.com Minds + Machines is the backend provider for over 755,000 domains with .VIP accounting for 455,000 of those and .London which accounts for almost 65,000 domains.
Here are the number of registry registered domain names (Emerald Names) that were deleted in those 13 domain name extensions that will hit the registrar market for in Q1 and the percentage of the total of registered domains in each of the 13 extensions that Emerald Names represented that were deleted.
.Rodeo 60% of its domain registrations 1,256 domains.
.Country 40% of its domain registrations 1,135 domains
.Vodka 40% of its domain registration 1,206 domains
.Horse 36% of its domain registrations 1,492 domains
.Garden 34% of its domain registrations 1,039 domains
.Fishing 30% of its domain registrations 864 domains
.Cooking 30% of its domain registrations 1,052 domains
.Surf 30% of its domain registrations 1,081 domains
.Yoga 16% of it’s domain registrations 1,288 domains
.Beer just under 16% of its domain registrations 1,992 domains
.Fit 14% of its domain registrations 1,348 domains
.Wedding 12% of its domain registrations 947 domains
.Casa 6% of its domain registrations 1,139 domains
Translation: You all know we couldn’t care less about the “domain investor community” that is why we keep the best names of each string to ourselves and try to sell them at premium prices to some idiots and greater fools.
But now we discovered that actually no one wants to buy that crap so we decided to delete all of these names and hope that at least someone regs them at retail prices so we at least can make enough money to keep the lights on.
You’re welcome.
Great translation !
It makes me scream when Donuts’ guys (or others) brag there are 22 million new GTLDs registered and how the whole program is a great success.
If you remove all new GTLDs owned by registries in shell companies, all new GTLDs that are owned by wannabe domainers thinking these domains will make them rich but as nothing sells, they will drop them all en masse, all penny new GTLDs and all new GTLDs registered for brand protection then there are very likely less than 4 million new GTLDs registered.
I can’t wait to see how they will spin it when the first strings are going under.
That shouldn’t be a problem for them. They have been in spin mode for over 2 years.
So nobody got in early & cornered the .com market hey!!!!
There’s a few I can think of who have now turned their attention to new TLDs
They are definitely up early in the morning.
Smell that coffee ……..hmmmmmm.
“There’s a few I can think of who have now turned their attention to new TLDs”
And they will lose their shirt.
The only money to be made here was by losing auctions (a great business model) or by being ICANN.
End of the story.
What is that? The panicked voice of someone invested deep in the old GTDs fearing that their value will now only go down over time? Yes, that’s what I am hearing.
@Richard Funden :
Looks like you need an hearing aid as what you hear is totally disconnected from reality.
No panic here, fear is on your side.
Check the headlines with New GTLD’s daily losses, 5%, 20%, up to 60% for some registries.
Panic mode…
The value of our investments is going way up, thanks for asking.
What do you mean cornered the .com market?
Did Verisign blocked the 10.000 or 20.000 “best” names in the .com string when it was launched in 85?
Did they marked the best names as premiums and sold them to the highest bidder in auctions?
No they did not. It was first come first served plain and simple.
At the internets inception,no
But they certainly are now….
Checked the Chinese Auctions recently…
http://coreile.com/news.html
HAHA… Eggcellent!
Yeah those 1,492 .HORSE SH*T names will be gobbled up by the end of the week.. Naaaaaaaaaaaaay
That is exactly what I thought when reading the article. I assume some of the gtlds registries will do the same thing.
I think the new registries are finding out they will never be the next ‘verisign/netsol’.
Don’t forget rightside is realeasing tens of thousands of two letter domains starting next week!
ONLY starting at $300, and working it’s way up to $2,500 annual renewals, get them while they are HOT, you will be sorry you missed out on this gravy train, what will you do when ICANN releases the next round in 2019?
Come on, sure people in India, and China will register 1 cent domains all day, and spam North American users to hell, this is really just a game.
Some idiot in China went and registered Cartier.Shop for $1,500 EAP, who the F let’s this happen in 2016?
Artificial supply, and demand.
For the record, while we have a premium name program, Donuts does not own names for its own portfolio.
Ahh reserved domains ?
The price is premium, not the names.
It’s not the New G domains that are a failure, it is the registries business model that fails domain investors. The registries completely underestimated the power of domain investors. Pricing domains out of the reach of domain investors has shown to be a vital mistake for aftermarket sales and end user viability. Domain investors are a sales channel that has gone untapped. Not only do domain investors constantly pitch to end users they are often developers as well…If New G registries want to get back in the game, I would suggest to let the biggest players in the game.
What gives any gTLD value, is ICANN allowing these strings into the DNS. While I have no problem with a new string coming online, ICANN has abused the structure and purpose of the DNS in allowing thousands of new extensions. That alone should give the public pause in their taking control of the IANA contract. In this regard, they have shown themselves reckless and unaccountable in their decision making IMO. They are a reactive organization when they should be proactive. They are supposed to insure the stability of the DNS, not experiment with it.
Michael – I couldn’t agree more. I have made my position very clear regarding the ICANN/IANA transition. I am absolutely against the proposed transition for so many important reasons including security and basic human rights.
Fellow Domainers,
I think Minds + Machine is running a shady business, and FTC (or any appropriate international trading commission) needs to investigate them. Allow me to explain… but first, see what M+M said in quote:
Qs: How did M+M acquire those names? At what price? Is it same price a domainer would have paid via an accredited registrar? Did money actually exchanged hands during the transaction? Where are the records of Emerald Names purchases of these premium domains? Isn’t it considered illegal to buy and sell products to yourself to manipulate numbers? Pumping and dumping names?
Fellow Domainers (the global domain investor community), it is clear that Minds+Machine is focusing the livelihood of its business on selling stupendously, ridiculously, highly priced premium domain names with expensive renewals, to the domain investor community.
Why is M+M not marketing and selling their premium names (or, is it “Emerald Names”?) to real end-user businesses? Simple, because real end-users do not need them, and are simply not buying. These are most likely, exact-match domain names they used monopoly to acquire/reserve; hereby cutting off domainers trying to legitly acquire same names for their portfolio.
Many experts in the industry have been suggesting for long that all these shady newgtld startup companies like M+M, are building their uncertain businesses off domainers. M+M is starting to look like a pyramid scheme shady MLM business.
They need to stop talking to the domain investor community, and get out there and start selling and marketing their TLDs to potential real end users “businesses”.
Yes, we own a couple of M+M domains, and this company have done nothing significant to market their domains and create real awareness among end users. They want to continue pimpin’ domainers to do the marketing and awareness for them. That has to stop.
This has been a constructive criticism from an unhappy/unsatisfied newgtld domain investor(s).
Ben,
http://www.PotentialDomainSales.com/
This was an article Mind and Machines put out 3 years ago, declaring .com to be dead, it garnered almost 100 comments
http://www.domaininvesting.com/minds-machines-dot-com-dead/
Let’s fast forward 3 years, and see the current status of such remarks, and if anyone of these characters are still in play, or have they cashed out, and onto the next one?
Trevor
No they were not reserved domains they were names the registry went ahead and registered so the domains would resolve.
Reserved domains do not show up in the zone file as a registration
Mike,
Frank Schilling is getting rid of all his North Sound Names domain portfolio.
.property lost 69.5% registrations
.audio lost 64.5% registrations
.hosting lost 63.8% registrations
.diet lost 78.27% registrations
.tattoo lost 32.5% registrations today after a 50.2% drop yesterday
.Christmas lost 81.1% registrations
.blackfriday lost 79% registrations
.flowers lost 89% registrations
.hiphop lost 67.9% registrations
There was already a massive drop yesterday so some of his registries have lost close to 90% registrations in 2 days.
If there was only one person who could have succeeded with new GTLD’s it was obviously Frank but all those names are costing him a lot in ICANN fees and earn him nothing, hence the massive drops.
Lots of other registries are also losing money with new GTLDs so expect soon lots of registries to go out of business.
Jack
Yes he is but he said he would be a month ago
http://domainnamewire.com/2016/08/19/uniregistry-release-one-million-domains-registrar-channel/
That’s the difference he Frank has been transparent.