ICANN has unimously voted to allow an unlimited amount of new TLD’s, using any combination of letters and numbers, including non-Latin characters.
In CNN article annoucing the decision it states in part:
“””The decision could spell the end for traditional Web addresses ending .com and .org and country names like .jp or .fr with Web sites able to use easier-to-remember suffixes such as .hotel or .sex.””””
Of course the current US adminstration already nixed the .xxx extension.
However this action, combined with a possible democratic administration that would be in place in early 2009, when the first applications are expected to be received, might allow a .sex, .xxx or similar extension to pass.
In addition to adult extensions, it is expected there will be many application for Geo extensions with .paris, .berlin and .nyc already having groups formed to sponsor them.
Right now we are just left with a lot of questions:
Will this as many predict start another “gold rush” to acquire the top domains for each new extension?
How will type in traffic fair if there are hundreds of new choices?
What effect hundreds of new extension all hitting the market in 2009 or 2010 have or the current value of .com’ and other current TLD’s, now and in the future?
I don’t see values of .com domains dropping before 2009 or 2010. Nobody knows what will happen at that time. I even think after a few new extensions come out, it will still be too early to tell. What will happen in 5 or 10 years? Dot com will always remain king. Anybody with a large company will want a good dot com for their business. You will never be the true “sun” unless you have sun.com. But the demand could go down slightly in the long term.
Andrew
I don’t expect any of the new extensions to actually be in use until early 2010.
.Com will always remain king but the questions are still valid.
Mike,
I think you might be expressing more concern than this merits. Don’t we already have .travel, .pro, .biz, .tv, etc? They haven’t made much of a difference in the dotcom landscape. It’s the hundreds of billions of dollars (if not trillions?) of dollars that have gone into marketing dotcom domains that gives dotcom an irreversible advantage over all other extensions. There will never be that kind of focus in terms of marketing and capital that will be put into any other extension again.
The value of dotCOM will rise. Domains are like real estate and dotCOM is Park Avenue.
When they started building out in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx it made real estate worth more on Park Avenue and the same will happen here.
One only has to look at dotUS, dotINFO and dotTRAVEL. They’ve all been out for a while and have had zero impact on dotCOM, dotORG or dotNET. The only exception has been the nationalist marketing popularity of the ccTLDs – and for good reason.
Does .cm mean anything to anyone ?
David,
Do we sound like a broken record yet? The reasons are being repeated because they are good and valid. There is enough precedent from the existing filler extensions to extrapolate that more of them won’t make much of a difference.
Nice analogy with Park Ave.
Some good points here for sure. David – your analogy with Park Avenue is probably dead on.
One that is missing is when you have more relevant extensions. Assume for a minute in 5 years there is a .Linux, .Developer, .Personal, .Business, .Tax, .JavaScript, .Manu(facturer) and 500 other extensions.
Now, I can see where many people would say – wait – I can have Andrew.Tax for $7 instead of AndrewTaxInc.com for $500. Over time people could become more desensitized to .com being king and can slip a little bit. When you have hundreds if not thousands of extensions, there is now an extension that probably matches you and your website perfectly. A golfer? Get Colorado.Golf. A manufacturer? Acme.Manu
Overall maybe David is right and .com prices will only go up. But a little bit of demand will be taken away from .com in all of this if trillions of domains become available to the world. Probably many will be free. I can only see .myspace giving free domains to their users.
I propose that these news TLDs be known as vTLDs (Vanity TLDs).
I propose that these new TLDs be known as vTLDs (Vanity TLDs).
Andrew,
What good will those trillions of new domains be if no one will ever visit them. They will all be cluttered up amongst each other. Own the dotcom, and your customers come to you. You can save a couple of thousand on not having to buy the dotcom, but you will have to pay google or some other marketing channel, thousands A YEAR to get people to your site. This is a no brainer.
This is going to be a trademark nightmare. Companies trying to protect their brands in the new extensions, aswell as companies fighting over the actaul new tlds.
Tony – I agree completely. Type in traffic from .com is irreplaceable and free. As I said in my first post “Dot com will always remain king.” It’s what is branded as the Internet. Permanently. I was merely playing devils advocate a little with my points / questions.
Cory – you are absolutely right on the TM issues.
This will be another california gold rush but without the gold. Only ICANN and the registrars will make out like bandits. I will feel bad for the general public who will think they are getting great new names for so cheap.
The other beneficiary indirectly will be the stubborn dotcom domainers who might gain from the chicken-littles who will be running from their dotcom’s thinking this will only dilute their assets.
Some of my 3 word dotcoms get more type-in traffic than some of my 1 word dotnets. And how long has dotnet been around? It takes time and an incredible amount of capital to ingrain an extension into the public’s collective mind. It will only be that much more difficult to do when the new TLDs get unleashed by the dozens if not by the hundreds at a time.
In a sea of new and confusing TLDs, the public will cling to the familiar dotcom.
Think that I and many others are digital immigrants, I wonder what the digital generation makes of any extension ?
Tend to think that Google.com Yahoo.com Baidu.com FaceBook.com plus + country codes will now be part of the cultural linguistics, Have to ask my grandson not my small circle of domain registrants
When they add Blackjack to the Casino here in Florida, the Casino will be full but Vegas will be fuller. That’s because a strong brand is not about a name or logo or extension, its about the experience that surrounds it.
The best brands already say everything those extensions say. You go to AOL, Yahoo, iTunes, Facebook, PalmSprings and they don’t even have to mention dotCOM for you to add it.
And sub-domains will help anyone reach any person or destination within a brand/domain with common sense applied. Jobs.ibm.com; kidsdepartment.bloomingdales.com; weddingregister.crateandbarrel.com etc
If you are going to GEO Expo in Chicago or Traffic in NY, the GEO owners can sublet traffic.newyork.com and geoexpo.chicago.com and leverage the GEO Owner’s local exposure to attract the best prospects in those cities who need no hotel nor would know these shows even exist let alone to type-in traffic.travel.
They can offer pages to the thousands of other conventions and events that drive the economies of those cities. And they and ONLY they can do it because their brand becomes a way to extend another.
All it takes is a redirect- not much development. Your first closed sale will be the example to attract the next. And on.
That’s the only untapped potential in extensions that really matters.
MTV has already engrained these navigation habits in tomorrow’s leaders.
And Apple’s ME.com is about to take that equity to the bank in a way no new extension or start-up can because of the relationships and interfaces that reach out to shoppers on their desktops, and remove the browsing from buying.
Like iTunes or NetFlicks, the most direct navigation involves no extension at all. Think of how you got here or to the last ten sites you visited today. Chances are bookmarks, brand preferences, email alerts, portal sites, rss feeds, and peer links lead you from one place to another.
Then it’s up to the value offered by the site to bring you back.
But even if type-ins are extinct and navigation becomes automatic by voice or touch, the strongest argument for dot COM is the role it plays off line.
To help keep that value that keeps visitors loyal, you top of mind and to differentiate for competitive advantage, advertising is key.
I’m not talking about SuperBowl campaigns. I’m talking about all the interactions with your brand that shape its perception.
When you don’t have to say music and you don’t have to say dot com, or you don’t have to say desert vacation and dot com when you can say iTunes, or Palm Springs and say it all- suddenly three line Google ads, T-shirts, Logos within stadium camera view, business cards, email signatures, comments on forums and blogs, link exchanges, tradeshow signage, local ads, license plates, email display addresses, even invoices, — work a lot harder.
So greatplacestovisit.travel may get traffic from exposure on engines, blogs and feeds, but when the salesman calls to sell an ad to the big car rental company: “I’m from PalmSprings.com” will carry more weight.
Time to stop debating what extensions are worth and domains are worth and look at all the unmined gold in the marketing and application of the assets we already own.
Let’s ask ourselves this simple question: would any of us buy airfare tickets from a place like – oh let me make something up – bestfares.travel? I think the answer is a no, and we say this even without the benefit of the doubt that it could be a perfectly legit operation.
Same will be true for most of these vTLDs, the trust and branding is simply not there based on our past experiences and conditioning.
I can only see some like .nyc and .city having some local appeal. That and a limited SEO benefits if one of the keywords is the extension itself.
Owen Frager does it for me, Good Post
Good comments. In general it seems .com values increase. Waterfront real estate does not decline when new suburbs in outlying areas pop up. Rather, the opposite happens. As Frank said, “adding more skim milk does not stop the cream (.com) from rising to the top”. Another benefit to having 1000s more extensions is undercutting the argument that Company X is/was “denied its domain”. With far more supply, Company X in Memphis could register its name in .memphis (etc.) so its coveteous pursuit of the .com would be laid more bare than it currently is now.
.net will suffer. I think it has already fallen very far since there are plenty of alternatives. To me .net means I couldn’t get the .com
.com is in the consumer’s head and it will stay there so geo .com names will be fine but something like resorts.com just might loose value.
Imagine you are disney. Sure you’d like to own Resorts.com but for how many millions? Why not just start .disney and create resorts.disney and market the hell out of it.
They no longer need Resorts.com.
Same for Laptops.com. HP can just create .hp and build on laptops.hp.
So, I may be completely wrong but very expensive category killer generics just might have less demand if companies decide to do theirown.extension.
Time for a dose of reality.
Michael IMO you are spot on to fully reserve judgment on what this will mean in 5 years, unlike others who blindly make assumptions that their current business models will no way be effected.
Some of these niche TLD’s will present viable alternatives to dot com. PPC will fall. The way search is done will change.
A new generation will be raised on a web with many “TLD channels” that will be used for various purposes.
Development will be the great equalizer. Content will carry the day.
Owning a .com domain will give you a strategic advantage if you develop and provide quality content. The days of sitting back and getting high on the hog will be few and far between without hard work.
Change happens. Things evolve. Just because .com was branded early on, in 10 years will not mean it will always be the end all be all. We are already seeing examples of many powerful online businesses that are successful without owning the .com With new TLD’s this will be even more so.
Not saying .com is not going to valuable. It has and will continue to have a huge strategic advantage but to just assume this will have zero ramifications (or positive ones) on the current dynamics that are on the web is naive IMO.
Watching comments on this blog is akin to asking Broadcast TV execs 30 years ago if cable TV will effect their dynamics bottom line in any way and them saying “no, all the noise of additional channels will drive more traffic to broadcast TV. We started with 3 major networks and the public only trusts these networks”. Then Cable execs saying “The net will not pose a challenge to their viewing habits, cable will remain strong and not be affected by TV moving to the net”.
Same thing will happen with TLD’s. You can look at .com, like old school NBC and ABC. It did not go anywhere when cable became big but now has to work leaner and meaner to get half as much of the pie. A few decades ago 40 million viewers for a show was major hit TV show. Now everything is so splintered 20 million is a monster hit.
Dot COM is prime to do well IF IT IS DEVELOPED PROPERLY. It can no longer afford to stay static with PPC links and think it will be king forever. The young kids coming up today already are having alternatives branded into the brains. People want dynamic content.
So this issue is not black or white. Those who claim to know for sure, are just trying to protect their current brands. We do not know for sure how things will play out.
Those that do not develop will get left behind. Those that have developed .com’s will have to work harder and spend more to make half as less long term. They will still be able to make money, but those that think this will help there business will be in for a rude awaking in a few years.
Guys
Sorry had some other matters to attend to today and see I missed a lot of good conversation.
Lets say there are just 10 new extensions (although I think there will be over 100) and lets say the 10 are:
.sex
.nyc
.paris
.lawyers
.doctors
.movies
.realestate
.store
.news
.sports
First of all throw out all recent TLD’s.
There has never been a time that more than 1 was released within 6 months of another, now there will be 50-250 within the same calendar year.
This has never happened before so no passed events can be used to judge what will happen when all these extensions get released within a short time of each other.
Second. you have to throw out .travel.
That extension was doomed because they restricted the domain to travel agents and those who could prove they ran a travel agency.
All of the other newer extensions, info .biz .pro, all to general.
Other than .travel (as discussed above) there has never been a domain released for a particular topic.
Releasing 100 of them basically at once will cause people to think differently about direct navigation.
You want to find an adult site you type in something ending in .sex, a business in New york type in .nyc; your looking for a lawyer, type in .lawyers; a house type in .realestate and so on.
Having one new extension cannot get people to rethink direct navigation the way having all the topic domains released at one time will.
Now here is my simple point.
Having 100 bang on extensions, broken up by topic, is not going to increase the number of visitors directly navigating to your .com, unless your .com is the same as the extension, like sex.com.
How much the traffic will peal off from the .com to the new extension is an unknown as this point. It may be 5% it maybe 50%. Traffic to the .com is not going to go up.
So my point is no good can come from this for large .com holders from a direct navigation, perspective.
Traffic is going to go down either somewhat or a lot.
There is no win here. Just a matter of how big the loss will be.
As far as the value of domains go, once again I do not think you can look back at any previous extension releases.
Right now if your a criminal lawyer in new york you have one choice of great domain name, newyorkcriminallawyer.com
If the is a .nyc and .lawyer extension, then that lawyer can use, criminallawyer.nyc, or newyorkcriminal.lawyer.
All of these new extensions expand the possiblities.
Now will .com still be king?
Yes, .com will still be the strongest of all extensions.
Does that mean however it will still have the same popularity as it does today, probably not.
So I don’t see how this can help .com owners.
A lot of bad can happen and not much good.
There have been a lot of kings in the history of the world.
Some have enjoyed long reigns and some very short.
Being king does not assure you that you suffer no dilution in your power.
The are many other factors that will determine the eventual success of the new extensions.
Here are just 2:
How will the top domains for each extension get awarded? First in line, randomly or held by the registry for auction to the highest bidder.
How many of the top domains for the extension actually get into the hands of end users who will build out sites around them and how many will wind back in hands of domainers, parked?
No one knows of course and that is why any of us can offer just a good guess.
Our guess this is a bad day for domain holders.
How bad we won’t know for at least a couple of years.
Michael I agree with your assessment 1000%
Again, we need to look at real estate for a comparison.
In South Florida, real estate values are getting hammered. Going off a cliff. However, there is one area where they have actually gone up in value: Palm Beach.
Palm Beach has always contained some of the most valuable real estate in South Florida. And through thick and thin there has always be a demand for it.
The high value generic dotComs will most likely come out ahead after the dust settles. There will always be a demand for them and they will always be considered the Rolls Royce of domain names. A major enduser will always pay the price to capture the International branding a major dotCom can deliver because a vTLD ending in Lawyers or Doctors is ONLY effective to market in English speaking countries.
Hope all the .com pessimists sell their .com names like in 2001 and 2002.
I’d say it will have very little effect initially. It might eat some direct navigation traffic at first, but when folks realize that 99% domains are either parked or ghost towns they will mostly revert back to .com’s.
Just imagine how many will be registered and sat on simply as “defensive domains”. If you get enough of those then the extensions get killed. Mostly parked? Same deal.
Here’s another twist. What about all these kinds of domains?
golf.colorado
colorado.golf
Now you got to buy out DOUBLE the domains if you are trying to capture a market, which also means traffic will be even more fractured in the hundreds, or thousands of new extensions.
These new extensions will be like the ones we already have. I think they will serve a purpose in direct marketing, temporary domains, ,mom and pops, etc…… but don’t expect surfers showing up too much in terms of direct navigation – at least for 20 + years. Just look at how long it took just to get to this freakin’ spot we are at !
David
The comparision to real estate is not applicable.
Here’s why.
One of the most used phrases to describe the value of waterfront real estate is “there’s only so much and there not going to make any more”
Well they just made more.
Lets say when you woke up tomorrow all of a sudden there was another 200 miles of Florida coast line.
Would the value of existing Florida waterfront property go up or down?
Johnny
As I said some direct navigation will go to the new extensions.
How much is up for debate but whatever the new extensions pick up will be at the expense of the existing extensions.
So my point is however you slice it, the domains we owned last week were more valuable than they are today.
Michael:
I promise you that by 2010 you’ll see the prime real estate comparison for mega generic dotComs is applicable.
Beachfront property in Martin County is not the same and never will be considered the same as Palm Beach County. The International branding power of dotCom cannot be superceded by these Vanity TLDs.
For those of us who grew up on ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS, we now readily accept CNN, FOX, HSN, HBO and the dozens of others. It took some time for these channels to become engrained in our heads, but eventually they did. To the kids who were born after the advent of cable (and who have cable), they are all just channels to chose from, no one more special than the other.
Dot.Com is king for now. Looking longer term, however, it will be diluted over time, just like the major TV networks. As new generations of kids hit the internet, .COM will eventually be just another “extension to a web address.”
Television networks earn their eyeballs by what they deliver to the viewing public, not by their name or their tenure on this planet. So, too, will websites. If aspen.colorado has great content and gives people what they are looking for, while Aspen.com continues to do nothing, where do you think users will end up? If PalmSprings.tv creates a better value proposition to advertisers (more traffic, better website) than PalmSprings.com, where do you think advertisers will flock to.
David Castello, take note: The dot.com name alone will not be enough. Once upon a time, IBM thought their good name was enough to be the leader and defacto standard in the personal computer world.
With all the new choices of web addresses, type-in traffic will probably decline. As time goes on, search engines will continue to improve and yield better results, thereby allowing the surfing public an easier way to navigate amongst the billions of web addresses to find what they are looking for and weeding out the garbage pages that offer no value (regardless of their TLD).
Put this all together, and look long-term.
The winners will be internet users who just want what they are looking for. The winners will be companies who need a web presence and now have a range of domain name choices to acquire, from premium names to more affordable names. The winners will be the website publishers who provide valuable content that EARN eyeballs.
The Losers will be domain name owners who refuse to change their business models and who own assets that offer no value to the surfing public.
Let’s look past our individual interests as domain owners and look at the larger picture. This is nothing more than the natural evolution of the internet. It’s a good thing.
Glad you raised the network issue because it’s a great example of why dot COM will matter more.
Today there is a new network- TIVO. You could care less what the times and addresses are because content comes to you– without the annoying ads.
In the very near future your pc or mobile will become a gateway to any and every type of content, on your terms and schedule. You won’t be tuned into Fox waiting for 8PM and American Idol.
You’ll type American Idol in your browser and watch it whenever you want, interacting in a variety of ways and sharing the experience.
American Idol won’t have to compete in a time slot, or split revenue with syndication because it will live forever on its dot COM plot.
It won’t even care about networks or advertisers because it will generate more income selling itself and its music and concerts and just about anything else. Not to mention a lifetime piece of everything it creates.
And that’s why after years of living without it, of being foxbroadcasting/entertainment/americanidol.com, they bellied up to the bar and acquired americanidol.com.
Same with todayshow, ac360 and more.
But the difference is that the production company owns it not the network.
Just like breaking PPC dependency on Yahoo, it’s a whole new world when you can sell American Idol on AmericanIdol.com rather then send the opportunity you created to iTunes where they could be distracted and spend money on something else instead.
They own their future. And that’s what dot COM is about.
Ellen can’t reap the benefits of having built her brand on ellen.com.
But the next Ellen could buy a domain Morisa.com and build a billion dollar franchise around a cyber-smart invented persona.
This is the domain opportunity as producers and talent cut the intermediaries and go “direct to domain.”
Imagine the potential when a movie can open on a domain and be accessed by everyone in the world– projected on their Plasmas with a near-real theatre experience?
Batman’s $600 million opening is a lot sweeter when the studio isn’t taking 1/3, the theatre a 1/3, prints and shipping and posters, and the captive audience has $20-50 found money in their pocket to spend on the site because they aren’t needing it for babysitters, popcorn, parking and gas. Or buying 10 tickets when the whole family and friends can enjoy it for less then the price of one.
Navigation may change so that you won’t need an address- but you’ll always need a home. For email, for annual reports, press inquiries, job applicants, partners and as comfort for those who need to associate a face with a name.
bestfares.travel can’t provide that comfort. And neither would most of the biggest generic sales have commanded those prices, without the benefit of association with the brands that bought them.
To shareholders- bank america makes a huge statement when they are loans.com. Just the way CBS will benefit from news and tv (.com) in a way CNET never could.
In the end, it’s not about what comes after the dot, but before it that counts.
David
First of all the “mega generic” .com like your palmsprings.com are not going to lose value.
But honestly what percentage of domains in most of our portfolios fall into this category?
What about the 99% of the other domains we own.
Good .com’s not “mega generic” domains?
I do not think the value of the Vanity TLD’s as you call them will “supercede” the value of .com’s
But I do think they will take a certain amount of traffic away from .com’s further reducing PPC earnings and take away some value from them.
Certainly the value of our present holding did not increase by ICANN move today.
Rob
I disagree with your statement
“COM will eventually be just another “extension to a web address.””
I don’t think .com is ever going just to be another extension, just like NBC is not just another station.
Michael:
I tend to agree with your last comment.
The large developed dotComs will continue to grow and prosper. Parked names may find themselves in somewhat crowded waters.
David
Those are the waters that 99% of all present domains swim in.
No way to really predict the effects but the main thing is not to get blind sided…build great sites NOW and all others will be playing catch-up for years. Just dont take ANY competition for granted, like Yahoo did with google 🙂
Rob great points.
David Castello, you are missing the point.
Nobody is saying .com is not valuable or will not continue to be the best of the TLD’s as Admin points out correctly.
However, your analogy about Virtual Real Estate is flawed.
In the real world, what is “beachfront Property” is clearly defined and finite. In the virtual world it is in constant flux. Trends change. Search will change. Viewing habits change and now ways to reach the public are changing. I
What is considered “beachfront today” is not guaranteed forever. The virtual world is governed by different standards then the real world. If .realestate takes off and is marketed nationally by agents, then guess what. Now this is “beachfront porperty” for this very valuable nice that suddently erodes the value of .com real estate related domains. This is business 101. .
If .nyc is used and developed and branded by the city of new york and it takes off. Then suddenly that is “Beachfront Property” Content, development, real world marketing and branding is what will carry the day.
We are in the infancy of the net. Most people still fail to see how early it really is. This narrow minded thinking astounds me. Yes I know many of you are looking out for your investments. I understand that, but Michael Berkins is too. He is just be realistic about it.
In the Virtual world “Beachfront property can move right next store and suddenly appear. THIS CAN NOT HAPPEN IN THE REAL WORLD.
Once again .com is not going anywhere but guess what, more viable alternatives are moving in. THIS IS FACT.
Can anyone say .google or .goog ? Imagine direct search navigation into the browser. Imagine a world where .com stops getting branded becasue at the end of the day it has always been about corporate identity. That is why madison avenue has never bought into buying up key .com generics. Now they have more Ammo.I can go to shop.walmart to find my products. There the “com” is irrelevant.
Corporations spend millions for 30 seconds of air time on traditional TV. You think they will not shift away from .com to brand there own corporate identity?
You think others will not embrace .city?
Once again what is considered beachfront property in the virtual world is not finite but not in the virtual world. The rules of the game are changing.
Many of you sound like broken records “.com is king .com is king” You choose to ignore history. You choose to bury your heads in the sand. Many of you are old and out of touch living high on the hog in your cushy .com bubble all these years. There will come a time when links on a homepage do not cut it anymore and that time is coming fast.
I propose a new term “Domainers in Denial”
Michael Berkins thank you for having the courage to stand up and be the voice of reason. Nothing is guaranteed.
To the .com pioneers out there. I admire you and look forward to meeting many of you in person one day. As pioneers, I implore you to keep thinking outside the box and do not fall in the trap that many throughout history have done.
Stay nimble, EVOLVE. if you fail to, many of you will still be a millionaires, but future generations in your family will pay the price. You will have to work harder for less, but in the end if you do the work, it will pay off. If you dig your heels in and have an elitist attitude that you are bulletproof, you will suffer the fate many before you in history have.
Look at this as a wake up call and take on the challenges this new internet will provide. Many of you have your head in the sand so you fail to do this.
The rules of the Virtual world are far different then the real world.
Michael:
You are right – NBC is “not just another station. Part of it can be due to the NBC brand name. But most of the credit is due to the fact that NBC has historically provided better content than the compettion (Today Show, NBC News, Meet the Press, Must See Thursdays, etc.). If they start producing garbage, theywill be just another station. Their brand can only do so much – they need to deliver on their brand promise,or they lose.
In regards to .COM domains, the other 99% of the domains you refer to can also have a great future as successful websites or profitable businesses. Just like NBC, these .COM domain names need to deliver on their brand promise and produce great content that is better than the comptition.
While this may not be possible for large portfolio domain owners who can’t possibly develop all their domains, it does level out the playing field in the big picture.
Going back to the television analogy, there will soon no longer the big three networks (.com, .net, .org). Cable television is coming with lots of channels, so the big three can’t rest on their good name alone any longer. They better start producing a great product, or or their value will diminish.
Brian
I think we got 18 months before these TLD’s are launched, allocated and in use.
As they say in the NFL Draft ,We are “all on the clock”
“I think we got 18 months before these TLD’s are launched, allocated and in use.
As they say in the NFL Draft ,We are “all on the clock”
Well said!
That’s a case in point. Hollywood Florida is like the new extensions. It means nothing in the consumers mind. Going to a local casino for a few hours (as I did for the first time last week) is not the same as going to Vegas. Once you’ve been to Vegas, going to the Hard Rock in Hollywood only reconfirms why Vegas (the dot COM brand) is king.
In Vegas Wynn can open a second Casino and 1000s more rooms within feet from his existing Casino and so too Venetian opens Palazzo doubling the existing capacity. Is it a threat or a benefit to all the Casinos around it?
Actually it’s a benefit because the Wynn and Venetian will market worldwide and bring conventions to town- thousands of people who will wander off property and drop money in places that would never attract this traffic on their own.
Why? Because like dot COM Wynn, Venetian and Vegas are brands that stand for something bigger.
National Broadcasters convention in Vegas is a no-brainer but try moving feeding and housing that kind of volume in Hollywood.
More importantly, on expense accounts without family or job obligations and the fear of neighbors and friends catching you having too much fun, the attraction is not the Casino but the experience that surrounds it. A unique experience that can’t be duplicated anywhere at any price.
In fact Vegas is the classic real estate comparison to domains and evolution. When Steve Wynn bought and imploded the Desert Inn hotel and casino for land to build his greatest casino yet– the major shift with this new resort was the concept of designing from the “inside out.”
That’s what we need to do with domain thinking. Desert Inn and others like it on the same soil that thrives today, was parking and lacking the capacity to enable the big traffic. It could never realize its potential in the former state nor without the airport expansion and carrier consolidation to make it compelling to the Asian market.
Did you know that 4 out of 5 of Vegas high rollers come from Asia?
But the former owners of the Sands and Desert Inn never would imagine that. Like domains/ppc/traffic mentality they thought you get a big headline name like “Sinatra” and you’ll fill the seats to their capacity. That was the business plan.
Those properties generated xx per square foot. They may have sold for 10 times revenue. But what does that mean when you look at what stands on the same square footage today.
Take PPC away, traffic away and you still have the dot COM land.
Look for the Steve Wynn and it will only take one of your names to cash out your investment beyond anything you ever wished for.
Owen
Let me ask you this.
If there were 5,000 people at the Hard Rock tonight, and tomorrow 10 more casinos opened up within a mile from its doors, would there be more or less people at the Hard Rock the next day?
Great response by David J Castello.
The $$ value of the .com’s will increase as new domain exten. become available.
ICANN wants more money so they will approve any domain ext. as long as they get their $$.
By letting new domain ext. entering the web they also let other domain name investors to enter the market.
I say bring it on.
Owen,
Not sure what you are saying? Please elaborate?
Corporations have the money and power to brand there own corporate identity’s online.
If you are saying the .com land that PPC is currently built on, will still be valuable when the PPC dries up, I agree 100% but it needs to be developed and being a “.com alone will not be enough.
The development will need to meet or beat other sites out there to be assured top market share. This will be new the new economics of the net in the future
But as Michael Berkins points out? We are all on the clock.
Damir
I think if you read all of David’s posts carefully he is talking about the top 2% of .com domains.
Premium “Mega Generic” .com’s
I agree with David that these are at little risk for devaluation from the new TLD’s in the next 5 years.
However, its the other 98% of .com domains that I am talking about.
After all how many domains do you own like PalmSprings.com?
…haha, THEY are all FIGHTING for that “.com” domain.
No.
Actually, they are “one-by-one”…using common sense to develop *the only other viable alternative…
One at a time…
AlabamaPolitics.TV
ConnecticutPolitics.TV
FloridaPolitics.TV
IndianaPolitics.TV
MassachusettsPolitics.TV
MichiganPolitics.TV
NewMexicoPolitics.TV
NewYorkPolitics.TV
OhioPolitics.TV
RhodeIslandPolitics.TV
TexasPolitics.TV
VirginiaPolitics.TV
UsaPolitics.TV
Sorry for ruining the day.
FACTS ARE FACTS.
NY
Admin,
Why are we in the minority in thinking that this can old be bad for .com?
Brian
I really have no idea.
When there is a major event that takes place it is either going to be bad or be good. It is rarely of no consequence.
I see no way that this is good for .com names.
Therefore it can only hurt.
The issue that can be debated is how much it will hurt and when will it start hurting.
I have no idea of how it can seen to be a positive.
I think domainers are putting to much emphasis on past performance of new extensions.
The are comforted in their failure to make in roads on .com.
However this situation is completely different.
All of us are heavily invested in the space and if you believe what we do, you just had a very bad day.
ICANN’s decision seems to come out of nowhere and seemed to move from consideration to passage in less than 72 hours. A lot for anyone to digest in such a short time frame.
Plus never in our history have corporations and cities and organizations been given the keys to the TLD car.
I think people are glossing over just how huge this is.
They have been looking for a way to screw us via reverse domain hijacking for years.
Now they have other means to not have to play by the old landowners rules.
They have a license to brand and create as much land as want.
Land they are sure to brand and develope with millions of dollars. Branded EVERYWHERE.
This is not .jobs .travel and .anythingelse that we have ever seen!
There are two fronts, .com on one side and the rest on the other. .Com are the HOLDERS of fortune and the rest are TAKERS of fortune. The TAKERS will swarm like piranhas and get a piece which means the HOLDERS will make less….not nothing….but less…..
So far, most of the opinions have taken the position that there will some order to this and the vTLDs will mostly be professional like dotDoctors and dotLawyers, and the public will intutitively flock to them because they “make sense.”
Not quite.
Today, ICANN didn’t just open the door, they blew it off the hinges. ANYONE with enough money can buy a vTLD as long as ICANN has no objection to it.
In other words, Mr Smith can buy dotMissy for his 16 year old daughter and her high school friends if he can pony up the money.
The public will be hit a tsunami that will overwhelm them. And they will do what they always do when they are hit with too much information and they can’t remember a URL – go for the obvious.
Brian: Yes, dotCom is the ultimate cyber beachfront property. Why? Because it’s not just another gTLD. DotCom is also the name of a pop generation revolution that is forever branded in the public’s consciousness. And if you want to know how much that’s worth just ask the owner of one these vTLDs next year when he can’t get anyone to remember it after he’s burned through a million dollars promoting it.
My advice to everyone parking names is to pick your 5 best domains, learn Dreamweaver and develop them like crazy. If someone as technically deficient as I could learn basic web site development in 30 days in 1997 – anyone can. It’s your best insurance for the future.
You are thinking its bad for dot COM because as people who sleep, eat, breath and live domains long before the majority of the world gets it or will- you can envision the possibilities and loose sight of the fact that end users won’t have the insight or perspective to see what you see.
In fact they may never notice this at all.
The whole thrill of the search is to eliminate the middle man and pocket the savings. You’re not looking for a Realtor, you’re looking for a place to sell property direct and net 6% more.
And realtors aren’t lining up for domains because they don’t have the marketing skills or budget to develop them any better then you can. The realtors who are in the top tier, who embrace marketing, already have their own sites under their name with dotCOM. And a massive opt-in list and social network.
You know the ones I’m talking about whose names you know from the post cards mailings they’ve been sending like clockwork for years. There are 600 realtors in my community, and only two of them have ever done anything to get my attention. I can’t see the other 598 rushing out to launch their dot Realtor site.
The ones with the name and reputation are the brand. They are how you make more money or sell faster then doing it yourself online because of who they know and what they know.
They are the best and their dot COM branding and digital marketing savvy not only re-enforces that but is the value add they can put to work for their clients.
Do I want a champion on my side that’s going to do emails, blog posts and press releases to connect with the best buyers for my home, or a Realtor who will list it in MLS and send a rookie to read the paper on Sunday in my living room and hope that the 4 or 5 open house signs placed nearby will deliver a buyer?
If that’s all you have to do to make $30K commission on my $500K home, I’m already home on Sunday reading the paper, I can type in “list my home” into Google and the first result (owners.com) lets me do it for $377. I’m $27,923 richer by NOT searching for a Realtor.
And here’s what this all means to you. If owners.com was auctioned a domainer wouldn’t pay much and would put up a PPC page. After 13 years he will leave as he came, with a name that has no 0ther value. The hope is that back on the auction it will have more value in 2008 then 1995.
But the guy who acquired owners.com in 1995 built a different idea around it: You can make more money helping people succeed without a Realtor then you can leading them to one. Today Owners.com has helped owners in all 50 states market over 1 million homes, accounting for more than $200 billion in home sales.
At $377 a listing, without any type-ins this ONE domain has exceeded what Frank and Kevin made in the same timeframe, without any hassle. At 10 x revenue it’s a $3 billion domain. With a customer base worth at least $30 per record let alone what third party offers they can monetize from it.
When you say you need big development- no you need a big idea or to lend your domain to someone with one.
How many domains does Michael own that he could build a model like this on? I bet many and he could launch a site and patented application for far less then he spent at Tucows only to get fxcxxx and now worried about PPC or competing extensions.
Forget what you think you know.
Compare your best domain on PPC after 13 years to this:
http://www.owners.com/About/AboutUs.aspx
We are our own worst enemies.
dot Sex? Do you really want that in your browser history for your wife, kids and employer to discover? There’s a reason for “discreetly billed as…”
Do I need to go to newyork.realtor to see ads from Remax and Century 21. I don’t need a better navigation tool to find those.
These extensions are not a threat because there’s a bigger threat and better alternative for end users that’s been eating our lunch. It’s called Google.
It works just like these extensions with a little help from and a big spiff to browser makers, isps, and pc makers to make the search bar the “better address” bar.
It’s better because when you can’t exactly remember the name or extension you heard about, by using this bar you get some suggestions to tickle your memory.
Type in your example “new york criminal lawyer” and see what awaits you. Add dot COM, dot WHATEVER and as long as you are doing it in the search bar, you’re going to find more compelling results then had you landed on the PPC page. For starters, like those who look bigger and more successful with the bolder Yellow Page display ads- the thinking is if they are on top of Google and can afford to advertise here, they must be big– they must be the best.
Notice on the results page the domain newyorkcriminallawyers.com makes no other claim, while surrounding it the ads offer a benefit to the surfer and use their own firm names which may already be well-known or promoted in the community. You think “I know this name, they are good.”
previous post was in error- had a second post pasted in after it ended.
Owen,
With all due respect, i could not disagree with you more. IMO you are out of touch with what is going on. Yes you are well respected in some circles. I do not mean this as a personal attack. Bottom line, you may be dead by the time this happens (I am assuming based on your posts that you are pushing 60’s), but things will change in a big way.
“Bottom line, you may be dead by the time this happens.”
There is NO WAY I can top that. This business gets more dangerous every day!
In retrospect,
ADMIN Please delete my last post and I want to make a public apology to Owen. I did not intent to be disrespectful and after I looked at it, I realized I was.
Owen, we can agree to disagree and only time will tell which of us is correct.
Brian Berke if .com is in trouble to .city then your .tv network is really in trouble. Because if .com getting hurt
.info biz tv mobi eu getting wiped out. I DON’T THINK THEY WILL BUT SINCE YOU WANT TO TELL DAVID .com getting hurt. THEN .city or .houston or.sandiego means Sandiego.tv getting affected.
David you have to understand outside of Michael, the others debating you do not have great .com.
Hope I can post this comment as I am almost 60 and I apologise if I lose the plot part way through with memory loss or the effect of all the medication you have to take after 55 years
Admin how do you think the Domain Parking companies will react to the temporary surge
Brian, alls good. I got a little carried away on this topic because some spin maestro put out a press release and everyone took the bait.
As for my age, I’m 20 years older then Microsoft and as old as Steve Jobs. Old enough to see investors bet on the youthful enthusiasm that triggered the dot COM boom and bust. But wise enough to realize why the old fart Steve Jobs succeeded where the Napster kids and the world’s best developers failed.
In their early ads, Apple Computer urged people to “think different,” using photos of celebrated innovators like Einstein, Edison, Picasso and Frank Lloyd Wright to
remind us that progress is often made by those who defy convention and look beyond the accepted ways of doing things.
So let me leave you with some advice from Einstein himself:
“Talent is important, being smart helps, and knowing how to think is essential, but the way you solve creative problems is by working on them…and working on them. You have to be relentless in your search for an answer. You have to know that your first 100 ideas will be lame or have been done before. You have to bang out every stupid/pointless idea, pun or joke you have in you and then keep going. Only by constantly doing that will you uncover original ideas or original uses of ideas.”
Owen
Well said.
I left the comment to age in, as I think that is a common feeling by many, not in a mean way, but many think that if your over 30, your too old to connect to what is going on in today’s world.
Too old school.
But as a guy also pushing 50, hard, I hear all the time that we are now out of the loop.
So your point about Steve Jobs is bang on.
Moreover lets not forget that although no 40 somethings invented facebook or myspace, a lot of them were instrumental in investing in them early on and got them the ability to grow to where they are now.
Creating is one talent
Recognition of a great concept, investing in them and having the ability to support it financially is another talent.
Jimmy,
I never said “.com is in trouble” if it is developed well. That is my point. PPC will no longer be enough in this world. My city network must also be developed and meet expectation or it to will “in trouble”. Times are changing. The rules are changing. In the end the most dynamic content will win the day, Period.
.com is just like crude oil. The middle east countries dominates the power of crude oil.
.net is like diesel cars.
.city, .nyc. and etc is like hybrid cars, electric cars, natural gas vehicle cars and so on.
As for now everyone uses petrol to run their cars. It might take a long time for people to convert over to other type of cars.
Wow. How can anyone post after Owen? Great points, Mr. Frager.
Just wanted to throw a few things out there:
1.) Domainers are the most forward thinking people I know and I come from a physics/science background (where forward thinking is encouraged). The average domainer is more cutting edge than the vanguard of most other industries (not to mention the cutting edge domainers we have posting on this blog). I think we tend to overstate the general public’s ability to grasp some of the things we take for granted. I’m talking about the people who can’t even program the time on their VCR’s let alone have the wherewithal to type in ‘bestfares.travel’ into their browser bar. If the general public behaves like the average domainer (embracing new technology, anticipating the future, etc), undeveloped dotcom’s might be in trouble. But, we are talking about people who don’t know or don’t even care about the difference between the search and address bars.
2.) Totally agree with David’s advice: take your 5 best domains and develop the heck out of them. This applies with or without the opening of pandora’s box of vanity or niche TLD’s.
3.) Say someone owns domain.net or .org and I own the dotcom. They develop their sites and I park my dotcom. Their developed sites help add to my type-in traffic – true or false? A developed bestfares.travel would drive more traffic to bestfares.com – true or false?
Two critically important factors not yet addressed–or appreciated–in this discussion are:
1. Continued rapid US and international population growth.
2. Continued rapid growth of people using the Internet for the first time.
When added to the salient factors already laid out by David and Owen, the owners of .com and the ccTLDs have nothing to worry about, as 10s to 100s of millions of these new people using the Internet each year insures no less than a maintenance of current usage–and therefore valuation–levels for .com and ccTLDs.
Furthermore, using the analogy of the rise of new TV stations with the resultant lost of viewership by ABC, NBC, and CBS with this expansion of new extensions is misplaced; as it is likely that few if any companies or other entities will pour the 100’s of millions to 1+ billion dollars it cost in advertising and programming costs for companies like Fox and HBO to become competitors to the entrenched networks.
One has only to look at the failure of UPN; and the virtual failure of the money-losing CW networks–where these 100’s of millions were spent, and lost–to see that this is so.
One of the factors ICANN will need to address and have procedures in place for is what to do about the 100’s of coming failures of these new extensions in the years ahead . . . as what was once seen as overflowing new pots of gold by many turns out to be nothing more than worthless dirt.
Tony:
Regarding Question #3: YES to both.
Yes, a developed dotOrg or dotNet throws traffic to the dotCom. We know this for an absolute fact. For example, our Rate.com has always done excellent type-in traffic, but one day it shot though the roof. The reason? We discovered that a major loan company had launched Rate.net the day before. They were using Rate.net in a lot of their TV and radio ads. And guess which address they remembered?
And, Yes, a developed bestfares.travelwould drive traffic to bestfares.com.
In the past 12 years I’ve learned three things about dotCom traffic:
1) With search engines, it’s a level playing field. Google doesn’t care ifyour dotCom or dotBiz. However, when it comes to radio and TV ads people mostly remember what they hear before the word “dot” and many will default to dotCom when they try to remember the extension. This was true when there was only dotCom, dotOrg and dotNet to choose from. Can you imagine when there are hundreds of TLDs?
2) A parked dotCom will receive type-in traffic, but not return traffic because there is little user experience with a parked name. This is true with any dotCom, but you can really see the difference with the better names.
3) DotComs are the only TLDs (besides, perhaps, some major ccTLDs) that receive any type-in traffic. We own some great dotOrg and dotNet names. They receive practically zero direct navigation.
David, thanks for that reply. It’s exactly what I was trying to get it and your three reasons are why dotcom, developed or not, will be in the future at least as valuable/relevant if not more so than they are now.
POST1 : NEW EXTENSIONS AND CORPORATIONS
—————————————————————————-
ICANN is opening the door to a huge mess for companies of all size, SMBs to Fortune 500.
Companies were used (should i say forced) to register their company name and brands in all new extensions ICANN would come up with : .eu / .mobi / .asia
These are nothing but defensive registrations, mostly not resolving or simply redirecting to the .com corporate site.
On top of that, multinational companies faced an even bigger challenge registering, managing (or fighting for) their name and brands in all cctlds (248 of them).
With several hundreds new extensions launched, there are two options :
1/ SMBs will give up their fight for defensive registrations.
It would cost some of them more than what they earn on an annual basis !
2/ Legal departments of bigger companies are pretty upset and will start suing ICANN en masse
I can tell you that this door ICANN has tried to open yesterday is not opened yet, it could even end up slamming in their face.
Their plan is to flood the cyberspace with new extensions, i can already see them flooded with lawsuits.
They know it and that’s probably why they wanted to move to Switzerland…
As to Fortune 500 giving up their dotcom identity (they’ve spend millions branding) to move to their own dot, (like .ebay or .intel) that just won’t happen.
Being your own registry puts you in too much trouble for no reward at all.
It requires employees with huge technical skills working 24/7 and costs a fortune, probably a million dollars a year or more.
Why would any company pay that price when you can get a much safer web presence for….let me think about it….JUST $8.95 PER YEAR, under both verisign’s umbrella and your registrar’s umbrella ?
If you go for it, you’ll then have to deal with pirates constantly trying to hack and put your registry down.
Can you imagine .eBay without website or email access for 24 hours ?
(By the way, email address would look very ugly : email@email.ebay or email@ebay.ebay )
If your registry is being hacked, the world will be watching to see if you can get away with it and how long it takes you to get out of that mess.
With your company dotcom, it’s very unlikely a hack will happen and if does, you’ll let Verisign deal with it and your company reputation will be safe.
If you’re selling things on the internet, running a registry is definitely not your job and it’s not worth dedicating resources to it.
Seb:
You make some excellent points.
wow David, 12 years is a long time. Thanks for sharing
And the fun begins:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39440185,00.htm
Thank you David
POST2 : NEW EXTENSIONS AND .COM DOMAIN OWNERS
—————————————————————————-
I sincerely hope this proposal coming out of nowhere can still be opposed by the congress or any other entity.
Time to start lobbying for everyone, brand owners and domain name owners, all united for once…
Because ICANN is also opening the door to a huge mess for companies (or individuals) having invested large amounts of money in internet real estate.
One side was not enough, domain owners are now being attacked on both sides of the dot.
We were questionably accused of cybersquatting, trademark infringement and dilution by brand owners for generic one word dictionary names on the left side of the dot.
Now ICANN wants to dilute the value of our intellectual property assets by allowing anyone to create a whole registry squatting on our domain names…
Time to create a udRrp = uniform dispute Registry resolution policy for domain name owners squatted on the right of the dot ?
I know ICANN thought about his wallet by auctioning registries if several parties are interested in running them.
We’re not interested.
I’ll sue ICANN for every new registry proposal that moves the left of any of our domains to the right of the dot (mydomain.com / .mydomain) on the ground of dilution of our intellectual property assets.
I encourage everyone to do so.
Rick Schwartz should if someone wants a .candy or a .property
Escom should more than anyone because .sex will be first in line.
With 21 tlds and 248 cctlds owners who all use the same name on the left of the dot, that’s 269 possibilities for ICANN to be sued FOR EACH new tld application !!!
There’s a lot of easy money to be made from ICANN and their new naming proposal coming out of nowhere and changing all the established rules.
I’m sure a big law firm will be interested in representing all of us in a class action.
Guess what : ICANN spent $10M of our own hard earned money (you know, the ICANN fee we pay for every domain registration and renewal) to produce this thing that might put us all in trouble !
Isn’t it sweet and marvelous ?
There should have been less domain names today.
Historically, when the DNS was created, DNS fathers thought sub-domains would be much more widely used.
That means registrars were supposed to sell lots and lots of sub-domains and only a few domains.
We all know what it looks like today.
But it seems selling domains with a $0.20 fee per domain per year (even with a record number of domain names) was definitely not enough for ICANN.
The great idea is that there was more money to be made in selling a thousand registries at $100,000 each or more.
On top of that, it doesn’t hurt if you can still charge a $0.20 fee per domain on these new registries 😉
What’s next to improve ICANN’s budget so that they can show their muscles to Verisign next time the .COM contract comes up for renewal ?
Well, i suggest ICANN should give someone the key to all tld registries (including the thousand new ones) for one billion per year.
ICANN, you’d better buy a large umbrella as it’s going to rain very hard on you, i feel there’s a storm with very dark clouds just above your head.
It’s coming from every direction.
It won’t get any better when the first registry collapses, leaving a few thousand registrants (people thinking they finally found a great domain name) without any website or email for their business…
This looks to hurt gTLDs and help ccTLDs.
Unlimited new general or commercial extensions will mean there is less emphasis on any particular extension, changing the game as admin says above. Think tags, Digg and del.icio.us. This affects .com disproportionately and as also said above, our kids and those that will live on these ‘open’ extensions (and search) will have no reason to artificially maintain .com as an article of faith, particularly where it has no inherent meaning or navigation value.
But the new laser targeted geo domains, by definition, still all slot in and support the hierarchy of geography and therefore ccTLDs; to define a country they still rule.
That said of course definitive, useful or established names should continue to attract the light no matter what extension, like on any keen new vTLD.
In all it seems a well crafted way of shifting power from .com and PPC. I didn’t do it.
Seb
Excellent points.
Man we got some smart people over here.
Great catch on the zdnet article.
I wonder what CANDA position will be on all this.
Maybe they will lobby against this, and thereby for once help us out at the same time.
No doubt this is a legal mess.
Forcing corporations to pay registration fees for 100’s of extensions, not to mention all of the abuse that will occur taking into account mis-spells etc will be a nightmare for trademark holders.
A very expensive nightmare.
del.icio.us had no effect on dotCom.
After all this time, dotUs is still struggling.
The kids of today are being spoonfed dotCom on every television commercial. I make it a habit of noticing every domain name splashed across the screen and 99% are dotCom.
Coporate America has spent billions branding themselves into the public’s mind with dotCom. They’re not going to suddenly switch gears to rebrand themselves simply because ICAAN wants to make more money.
David
Del.icio.us didn’t help the use of .US much either
Michael:
Exactly. That’s what I meant.
Seb
You want to go to the top left of the page and hit the submit a post and put your your responses here, including the link to the article in a post and I will publish it as a guest post.
Definitely worthy and needs to be highlighted and the topic discussed
Guys – there is a very, very bright silver lining to all of this that you are all missing.
Clownpenis.fart will finally become a reality.
(see my sig if you don’t understand)
Update
Here is another view on the new gTLD’s from a non-domainer perpective
http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=3759
de.licio.us DID NOT HELP DOT US….
BUT…what was it’s effect on the keyword delicious?
YOU ARE ALL BLIND.
Let the historic records reflect the right and correct the wrong.
The domain hack is worth more than 300 times the mathematical value of dot com.
And that my friends is only with the current 300 or so available extensions.
Domain Hacks Are Priceless. (match.com) Was chipped away by (match.net) (match.info) (match.org) (match.edu) etc. then 275+ country codes.
YOU CAN’T EVER TOUCH (mat.ch)
match.net cost 100 dollars
match.com cost millions
mat.ch PRICELESS
FAG Arrives
The Proposed Final New gTLD Applicant Guidebook is Available for Public Comment
://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-12nov10-en.htm
“If the volume of applications received significantly exceeds 500, applications will be processed in batches and the 5-month timeline will not be met. The first batch will be limited to 500 applications and subsequent batches will be limited to 400 to account for capacity limitations due to managing extended evaluation, string contention, and other processes associated with each previous batch.
A process external to the application submission process will be employed to establish evaluation priority. This process will be based on an online ticketing system or other objective criteria.”
2008 June 27 David J Castello permalink
del.icio.us had no effect on dotCom.
After all this time, dotUs is still struggling.
The kids of today are being spoonfed dotCom on every television commercial. I make it a habit of noticing every domain name splashed across the screen and 99% are dotCom.
Coporate America has spent billions branding themselves into the public’s mind with dotCom. They’re not going to suddenly switch gears to rebrand themselves simply because ICAAN wants to make more money.
**********
agree 200 %.
deli end buying the dot com anyway..isnt?
.
Mega Business plataforms (worth trillions) are built under a .com domain, from google , ebay, amazon, dell ,yahoo, intel, etc etc , even thinking about re-branding any of them sounds completely irrealistic and stupid…
New Coke anyone…?
As usual people selling the “shovels and picks” will be the only winners (and a speculator or two ) pretty much as a see the .co hoopla panning out…