According to several sources during Verisign’s celebration of the 25th anniversary of the first domain registration, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom was quoted by several people in attendance as saying that .NET, is “worthless”.
Unfortunately there does not seem to be a transcript of the meeting, but some in attendance confirmed the statement was made in regards to the importance of .com, which the event celebrated.
The other extension held out by Beckstrom as having inherent value was .Org.
The Fairwinds blog confirms the statement was made and then quite accurately points out if .Net’s are regarded to have little to no value then how about all those new gTLD’s coming down the pike.
“”So what does the assertion that .NET, an extension with over 12 million registrations, is “worthless” mean in the face of ICANN’s plans to launch an unlimited number of new gTLDs? Well for one thing, it should make people question ICANN’s motives. If the head of the organization is agreeing that the second most popular gTLD is “worthless,” then why are ICANN and the businesses that dominate the ICANN community trying so hard to introduce more potentially “worthless” extensions? At this point, ICANN has no proof that Internet users are even interested in utilizing other gTLDs – in fact, if recently released gTLDs like .INFO, .TEL, and .TRAVEL are any indication, Internet users are not interested at all. The motivating factor behind the push for new TLDs is likely pure economics—the push is to see just how many TLDs ICANN can sell and how many domain registrations these companies that control generic or place-name TLDs can sell to businesses and other organizations, domain speculators, and the general public.
If user behavior is a clear indication of user demand, then 90.2% of those online already vote for .COM. As a result, any organization that plans to apply for a new branded gTLD is going to have to put forth a good deal of marketing effort to train their current and future audience to pretty dramatically switch their surfing habits. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap. The next question then is, will new gTLDs really be worth it?”””
Of course .net was originally designed to be used by networks, ISP and those types.
Home.net which is a domain we own, used to be a giant dialup ISP, back in the day.
Now of course the extension is opened and used from everything from networks to porn, so if the extension really doesn’t stand for anything meaningful, how is it inherently anymore valuable than a .info for example in a world of 500 extensions?
I don’t know if .net is “worthless” but surely I’ve never registered a .net domain
I recall how Paul Twomey always appeared to be like a deer in the headlights when testifying before the US government. It looks like Beckstrom has caught foot-in-mouth disease from Twomey, or alternatively this is a rare moment when he spoke raw truth. Remember, Beckstrom applied for a US Registered TM for “Bullshitters Anonymous.” It’ll be amusing to see what BS he uses to explain his statements.
Mike do you believe .net is not worth anything ?
Everything
I do not believe .nets aren’t worth anything.
I do think .net’s is the most at risk extension for loss in value in the rollout of the new gTLD’s
I just sold Interpath.net for $2,600 USD – value is in the eye of the buyer like beauty is to the eye of the beholder. At least thats what we tell our wives if she asks us if she is beautiful.
.
the value of .net domains isn’t zero but is very low since they have been often registered only as a poor surrogate of an unavailable .com
.
Perhaps everyone misunderstood Beckstroms statement and his true meaning is dot net is worth less then dot com.
We both know how good the media is to report honestly. Honest news or statements don’t make headlines while scandals do.
Attila
Does anyone really to make a statement that .net value is less than .com.
That wouldn’t even be worth stating
Though it’d sure be a hell of a cover for Beckstrom since his ass seems to be in the hot seat! :-p
You would expect ICANN and Beckstrom to have a finely tuned public opinion of any gTLD or TLD in general. Regardless of what everyone says, as the representative of TLDs, you should be sensitive to why and how each can and should be used and the to power of even the lowest thought of tld. (Dot Tel, I’m tallking to you) Very disappointing. I want a TLD cheerleader not a stuffy pragmatic running ICANN.
someday many TLDs will vanish due to poor number of domain registered and .net could be one of them
And if .net is so “worthless” why does ICANN have ICANN.net registered? 🙂 It goes to the whole argument about defensive registrations, that registrants are literally forced to register domains in TLDs that they don’t care about. That benefits ICANN, registry operators and registrars, at the expense of the public.
they registered the .net domain before it has become “worthless”
Obviously, .net has excellent value. Incidentally, I would not put .info in the same basket as .tel and .travel. There is a heirarchy of value based on registration numbers, tld proliferation, and use. .dotINFO is most definitely in a higher/better league.
LCDwallpapers.com and LCDscreensavers.com – if you consider those 2 domains not “worthless” domains then you are in no position to make assertions about .net.
Home.net is a phenomenal domain.
If they are worthless, just send them over to me.
“Foot in Mouth of the Year.”
(so far)
@Greg: I think he’s trying to show a counterpoint to .net being worthless.
Obviously the terms “LCD Wallpapers” and “LCD Screensavers” are meaningless and not worth the reg fee. Or maybe they get a couple clicks per month from folks who replace the term monitor or screen for lcd. Weirder things happen.
On the other hand, we know “Wallpaper.com” and “Screensavers.com” are very meaningful and valuable. But, likewise, “Wallpaper.net” and “Screensavers.net” are up there too.
Then there’s “home.net” which would eclipse most .coms. So the point is that .net is far from “worthless”. On the contrary.
Dudh!!! if you own tons of the dot net/me/ca/asia, domains- of course you going to brag that you are making tons of money from them (oh really??!!)
GOOd for you…good for your BS!!!
BTW, Rod Beckstrom is a co-founder of twiki.NET (see the “About Us” on that site). Maybe he’ll take some of the millions he’s due to make in salary at the non-profit (cough, cough) ICANN and buy a .com.
for a long time ppeople have been saying dot nets are worth from 10 to 50% of dotcoms. a closer figure would be 2 to 5%.
Just to set the record straight, Rod Beckstrom DID NOT say that .net’s are “basically worthless.”
A review of a video made at the event reveals that about 5-minutes into a panel discussion the following 35-second exchange took place between Beckstrom, the panel moderator and satirist Mo Rocca.
________________
(Moderator – Kevin Maney, Technology Writer): “ I went looking for a MoRocca-dot-com and there is not one.”
(Panelist – Mo Rocca, Author/Humorist): “It was a South Korean clothier and now it’s nothing, it’s very insulting that no one has hijacked my name. (laughter) But not having a stalker, it’s really demoralizing (laughter). “
(Panelist – Rod Beckstrom, ICANN CEO): (laughter) “We’re rooting for you Mo…. We’re rooting for you…, someday….”
(Rocca – to Beckstrom): “Don’t you control all of that?”
(Beckstrom): “Well yeah, sort of, yeah.”
(Rocca): “Can you get me MoRocca-dot-com? (laughter) I have Mo Rocca-dot-net, but it’s worthless.”
(Beckstrom): Yeah, We could, but it wouldn’t be very popular. (laughter) Oh it is? it’s worthless? Yeah well… we’ll try to help you with some marketing.
_______________
Beckstrom was responding to and asking Mo Rocca’s about his domain, he never made any type of generalized comment about .net TLDs.”
The title and first paragraph of the blog are inaccurate. Beckstrom never said that ‘ .NET, is “worthless”.’
Nor does he believe that to be the case. In fact Beckstrom believes that all .NET domain registrations are worth at least what the registrants pay for them, otherwise they would not renew.
Brad White
Director – Media Affairs
ICANN
Why not post the FULL video, and let the public decide?
More importantly, it’s interesting ICANN’s media affairs pounced on this issue, but said not a word about the executive compensation issue, the “Bullshitters Anonymous” trademark application issue, the Ombudsman/Air Canada issue, ICANN censorship issue and so many other issues that have been in the public eye (some of which are linked to in my Twitter feed, but which Mike, Andrew of DNW.com, Ron at DNJournal.com, the guys at DNN.com and elsewhere have covered).
There are also nearly *20* ICANN open public comment periods, many of them ending on the same date (April Fool’s Day, ironically), and instead of staggering them as has been suggested, they’ve been left to overburden the public, or worse, left to end quietly without the public bothering to say anything, and thereby allowing the staff to get their way.
When the IOC sends a letter, ICANN jumps to attention. When domain registrants who own far more domains than the IOC give their input, ICANN ignores them.
Brad
“”The title and first paragraph of the blog are inaccurate. Beckstrom never said that ‘ .NET, is “worthless”””
This is why I put a question mark at the end of the title.
The post title asks a questions, rather than makes a statement and therefore cannot be said to be inaccurate
Mr. Beckstrom’s reported statement came from a post on Fairwind’s blog, as I attributed the statement to and according to the author of the blog who I talked to personally several people in attendance heard Mr. Beckstrom to say the negative comments that Fairwind’s discussed
You clowns keep mentioning how .info is a failure, yet there are just short of 6 million .info extensions registered.
Although that is half the number of .net’s that are registered, you must remember that the .net extension came out 16 years before the .info extension was introduced.
Fairwinds quote
“If the head of the organization is agreeing that the second most popular gTLD is “worthless,” then why are ICANN and the businesses that dominate the ICANN community trying so hard to introduce more potentially “worthless” extensions?”
Brad, maybe you should “call-out” Josh Bourne rather than Michael.
Fairwinds is the one misleading his corporate members.
The only news I trust Fairwinds with is to inform me when someone ELSE actually sells a good domain and since when do we go to Mo Rocca for humor?? He’s the .net to Colbert’s .com. That’s right I said it, cat fight anyone?
John
Well both Fairwinds and the ICANN rep talk about Mo Rocca, and a joke, however as Fairwinds tells Mo made a joke about Beckstrom statement on .net’s value not that the statement of Beckstrom was the joke as the ICANN rep states.
As a domain appraiser, I can assure domain investors that there are valuable .net’s, and that plenty of businesses use them – regularly branding them. These businesses are usually connected with internet business, though, but not always. I am dealing with a landscaping market and collecting business cards from my interested parties, many of them who bought the “.net” because the .com wasn’t available. The majority of people out there still don’t understand this “domain value” thing.
For valuation, a good one word .net will work very nicely in SEO prepping for PR. If I wanted to “control” a domain phrase that was generic descriptive, and knowing the “uneducated” business media departments preferring to buy a OOTB .NET domain over paying several thousand or more for the .COM (the preferred way to go), I’d say that purchasing the .com and .net version of a clear “natural” would be wise, and if you couldn’t get the .COM, get the .NET and for sure, get the .ORG (second most recognized TLD in service).
I sold a mid 4 figure domain this weekend, and added the .net version for the buyer, who already had owned the .org. He now has a 11 year old five letter domain leading his group of all the top three TLD’s… including the .net. He owns the brand now.
What’s unusual is someone in a high level position at ICANN not preventing themselves from revealing their *ahem*… thinking strategies. 😉
in rare cases technology .nets can be branded, like VoiceMail.net – but CheapApartments.net or CheapHomes.net and CapitolHill.net – well you will get more value for your $7 at the movie theater – same with .orgs – and every other non.com is completely worthless – that is why I have dropped all 50 or so of my non.coms
@Brianwick
I think you will find that people distinguish .ORG’s from .COM’s quite regularly (although I’m sure there are still lots of mistakes). The reason people recognize .ORG’s is that there are hundreds of thousands of organizations, all with memberships and volunteers and other recognization factors (redcross.org), that continue to promote this extension worldwide to millions of people through their website domain names.
Thus, a .org domain name, if branded and promoted, will retain some recognition factors to make the domain name more valuable than not, if the brand generic phrase is strong. My experience shows that .COM’s and .ORG extensions are the most viewed and remembered extensions in the world.
thanks
About the .info extension…Though I think it is under rated, as I get better rankings with my .info sites with same name .com in SOME instances, I will remind everyone that godaddy usually charges .99 for a .info registration for years now. Before that they were free for some time. Thus the 6 million .info registrations. BUt, like I said, I am not knocking .info. Google doesn’t, so why would I?
Right on Oxford Moron!
.net was originally meant for “network organisations” or some such designation.
.org was intended for non-commercial organisations.
and .com was intended for commercial organisations.
cctld’s were intended to be used by the countries their ISO codes represent.
etc.
though the stated intented designations may mean little in retrospect for many tld’s, is it any surprise .com is the largest and most active?
of the above categories, it is the most broad.
no. of commercial organisations worldwide vs. no of “network providers”? not even close.
anyway, if we follow the old designations, icann should be reg’d in .net. they are a network organsation.
a more interesting question is why they are reg’d in .com? is icann a commercial organisation?