Can A Senate Candidate Be A Game Changer For The Whole .US Extension? JoeMiller.US

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If you’re a .US domain investor you might want to pay close attention to the Campaign of Joe Miller who is running for Senator from Alaska.

Miller is a Tea Party candidate who has a slight lead in the race for the Republican Primary for Senator pending the counting of absentee voters.

Why should you care about Mr. Miller’s campaign if your a .US investor?

Because Mr. Miller is using a .US domain for his campaign rather than a .Com.

Not only is he using a .US for his campaign, but he is prominently promoting his site JoeMiller.Us on all campaign signs and political literature.

Moreover, Mr. Miller typically campaigns  alongside plenty of workers and volunteers all wearing JoeMiller.Us shirts, carrying JoeMiller.Us signs.

These shirts don’t only promote Mr. Miller, but they are promoting the whole extension.

The site is getting traffic.

JoeMiller.Us currently has an Alexa rank of 700K.

If you have been watching the news on this election you would have seen hundreds of JoeMiller.Us signs at every rally.

Its the first time I can recall a major political candidate that chose to use a .Us extension rather than a .Com.

In my opinion this could mark a turning point for the .US extension and it can be a game changer especially if Miller makes it into the general election and get another 2+ months of National TV Exposure and the .US extension with it.

Moreover this just isn’t just an election but it will be one of the most watched of the November elections as Miller is a tea party candidate supported by Sarah Palin.

It take this type of use for the light to go off in other peoples heads that the .US extension exists and is a real option especially for a US based activity such as an election.

It could be a turning point for .US

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  2. John says

    It would be helpful, but not a game changer if he was from California or something. Alaska? No way… despite the few big names behind this guy, not a great deal of attention is being placed on Alaska. Though the close race sure helps.

    I wonder if he even tried to buy or at least rent the .com name? It’s being used, but not for much it looks like.

  3. Kevin M. says

    I like the exposure this brings to the .us extension, and hope it helps bring about a better public grasping of the .us extension! Here’s to Joe promoting the .us extension, ..and then of course ‘losing’ the election!!

  4. Larry says

    The anomaly and the cool thing about .US is that there are so many triggers that will lead to people waking up one morning and realizing that it’s a real good way to name stuff in/for the USA. This use by candidate a perfect example..

  7. James says

    Sarah Palin is a total moron, but this Joe Miller guy is a WestPoint, war vet & Yale Law grad….impressive…..go .us

  8. Jim Holleran says

    I think it’s great he is using .us, but it won’t be a game changer. Now, if Oprah starts using; Own.tv to promote her network next year that will be a “game changer” for .tv.

    Thanks, Jim

  9. NotSocialist says

    Jesus, he looks so normal on the picture until I read this: “Joe Miller guy is a WestPoint, war vet & Yale Law grad”. Where are we going to forget about people like that once and for all?

  11. Riq says

    Americans, as compared to most other nations, happen to be very patriotic and as such the highly prominent, seemingly deliberate and conspicous use of .US extension to foster such patriotic emotions by this senate hopeful in a highly charged political campaign can only bode well for this pure US-centric extension. Now that Joe Miller is an official GOP candidate for the senate race, the .US usage by his campaign all the way to November election and probably afterwards (as he’s quite likely to win the race) will significantly increase the recognition of this extension by masses and others alike and hence increase the chances of its further usage not only by other political candidates but also other entities. In itself this may not be a game changer but it can only be a good omen for .US investors.

  12. domain expert says

    I think with all the new extensions, you don’t know much about marketing , branding if you don’t thing .US is going to become a front runner.

  14. LS Morgan (Not Morgan Linton) says

    I tend to limit my interest to legacy TLD’s, but I’m happy to lightly play premium .us.

    It will never be global brand like .com, but it’s one helluva alternative for local marketing, given the costs associated with securing a decent keyword (or, what’s out there in the open namespace). Also, the whole exact match keyword + ccTLD bump in SEO isn’t a myth…

    I don’t think this one use of .us alone is a game changer, but it’s a nice, hefty brick laid in an ever-growing foundation. I don’t think .us is going to suddenly ‘blow up’. Rather, I think one day, some years from now, people are going to wake up and realize that .us has finally realized a lot of it’s potential. Today, while driving to work, I heard that the Chicago Jazz Festival is advertising ChicagoJazzFestival.us, which redirects to their page on the official city tourism site. I think we might see more and more of this sort of thing- .us as a peripheral marketing device.

    I do believe that 2008/2009 was the absolute bottom for .us. It has been a speculative TLD thusfar and was the first to get trimmed from the larger portfolios. Types of names I was desktop snapping in early 2009 for registry fee are now getting backordered and fought over. The .us landrush drop at Godaddy this year was intensely tasty.

    If .us goes on to realize even a fraction of its inherent potential, we will view 2008-2010 in .us what 2000-2002 was to dropping .coms. In the mean time, I’ll continue to selectively buy them.

  15. Paul J. Kapschock says

    I think when TLDs like .NYC become a reality and advertising flows for the websites, a connection will be made and .US will slowly buy surely become “more mainstream” for US citizens.

  16. WorldInternetWar.com says

    Game changer… more like a scape goat.

    Let’s look at the big picture.

    SarahPalin.com is a private whois and not owned by her and goes to a blank page???

    Just after Barack Obama won the US election, he or the government bought obama.com off the Jap’s, and it now foward’s to BarackObama.com

    “The small fry will be fried alive, if they don’t have their .com they simply won’t survive.’

  17. John McCormac says

    Most ccTLDs are quite slow to take off but then they go into overdrive. The .us ccTLD has still to approach that level but it is growing. The .com TLD is beginning to slow down in that the numbers of new registrations in 2010 are falling. While growth in .com is unlikely to go negative this year, there’s a whole lot of bad karma stacked up and waiting to drop.

    It seems that some of the 2008 and 2009 speculation is now filtering out of the gTLDs. The .us definitely needs some kind of brand champion – Bob Parsons and Godaddy would have been ideal for this kind of promotion. But there’s a far more important element in ccTLD evolution and that’s development. All the successful ccTLDs have a strong level of website development. Only development will drive a ccTLD like .us and to paraphrase that old cliche, if you develop it they will come. The .us is overdue for a boost but it requires the registry to help market the ccTLD beyond the domainer community.

  18. Andrew Douglas says

    Frankly, this is just a blip on the proverbial radar… that said, the number of .US blips are starting to fill up the radar screen. I’ve seen a number of startups using .US just within the last month. I saw FreeClinics.us on MSNBC last night during an interview for the New Orleans free clinic program going on right now. Shell commercials for Shell.us air seemingly non-stop on cnbc. I see .US on vans/trucks/suv’s for local companies and in local ads on TV. It’s not a .com killer, but it has it’s place now and it will continue to be adopted as the web goes local. Would I choose a .US over the equivalent .COM if both were available? No, but when I can get amazing keywords at a fraction of the .COM, I don’t need them to be 6 figure names for me to make a very nice return on my investment.

    Frankly, .US is about 20% of my portfolio of domains and I think that’s gives me decent exposure and nice diversification.

  20. LS Morgan says

    “The small fry will be fried alive, if they don’t have their .com they simply won’t survive.”
    ———————————

    Domainer-centric mentality.
    Not every business is looking to build a global brand. If that’s your objective, then yes, .com is king and for that reason alone, .com will always be the most valuable TLD by a significant margin.

    With that said, if you’re a small to mid-sized US based business, the United States ccTLD offers a ton of value in terms of affordable generic keywords in a sensible ccTLD that people already recognize and intuitively comprehend.

    There are those businesses or people or politicians who want to leverage national pride and denote their presence as being US based. I’ve only sold two .us names this year from cold inquiries (simply because my asking prices are way too high and I really don’t care to sell .us at this time) but both were generic industry keywords bought by small US based manufacturing operations that wanted .us to affirm to their potential customers that their products were made here in the USA. Yes, in both cases, the eponymous .com was long gone and if it were for sale it would’ve definitely commanded a kings ransom, but they were perfectly happy to stake their claim on .us and went out of their way to contact me to buy them (keep in mind, though, these were top keywords. If you want to make money as a .us reseller in the year 2010, you’d better be in the top 0.1% of keyword quality).

    Anyway, the internet landscape is changing rapidly and, as is standard in anything where things are evolving, most participants can only see what is, and what once was. This leaves immense opportunities for those handful of people who are able to accurately anticipate what will be.

  23. TheBigLieSociety says

    ICANN has yet to get their hands on the .US assets

    The .US contract expired last month ? August 2011 ?

    The IANA contract will apparently be divided up in U.S. NTIA and FCC agencies