This past weekend I took a quick trip down to Key West Florida to see the .XXX race boat the Miss .XXX race in the World Championship.
While the weekend was capped off with the .XXX boat winning there class in a thrilling final World Championship race, but they had mechanical problems in the 2 earlier qualifying races in the week and lost on points.
Yet and way more importantly, the whole weekend was marred by the tragic death of 3 participants in two accidents earlier in the week.
On Wednesday, racers Robert M. Morgan, 74, of Sunrise Beach, Mo., and Jeffrey Tillman, 47, of Kaiser, Mo were killed when there boat turned over and the capsule they sat in was crushed.
On Saturday Joey Gratton, 59, of Sarasota, Fla., died from injuries suffered Friday when his boat rolled over twice on the final lap of a seven-lap race.
Our condolences go out to their family, friends and love one’s.
Even in the Championship race there was a crash but thankfully the injuries were minor although one of the two member crew still spent the night in the hospital.
I have to give huge credit to the driver Mike Seebold and Jay Muller his throttle man of the .XXX boat for even getting in the boat much less coming away with the win.
Scary
Very scary stuff.
Even being onshore just 30 meters or so where these boats whizzed by at 100+ MPH is pretty scary since they can become airborne at any time.
So congrats to Mike, Jay and .XXX for the making it through safely and winning the race.
Beyond the actual race there was another thing happening, much more subtle but certainly more important to the long term success of the .XXX registry and that was acceptance by the crowd.
At the Friday night street boat parade, where all the boats were parked on their matching trailers along Duval Street, there sat the .XXX boat along such mainstream companies as Geico, Stiel, Lucas Oil, and Hawiian Tropic and the crowd wanted their picture in front of the .XXX boat. .
It was kind of strange to see parents wanting a picture in front of the .XXX boat with their kids in tow, but they kept coming for their chance for a picture.
People lined up for merchandise including .XXX shirts, .XXX hats, calendars, pens and pretty much anything that wasn’t nailed down.
None of the material had any nudity and models/actresses that .XXX had on hand were dressed appropriately for the crowd.
So as I walked around race day with the .XXX hat on supporting our hosts, I didn’t find any push back but rather curiosity from the crowd.
The most frequently asked question by far is “what is .XXX” and once I told them it was a new domain extension, they all indicated it was a cool/good idea.
I certainly think the reception would have been a lot different had if the extension would have been .Sex or .Porn rather than .XXX
The .XXX racing team was welcomed into the community without any hesitation, representatives of .XXX were present at the memorial service for the fallen racers and spent time networking and getting to know the other teams.
So before the weekend I was most curious to see what the crowds reaction would be to the boat, the girls, and most importantly to .XXX itself.
At the end of the weekend the biggest accomplishment for .XXX was without a doubt was acceptance.
(If you want to see some pics of the boat and the event follow us on Facebook, we will be posting pics)
I’m am truly sorry to hear about the losses. This reminds me of the tragic Dan Wheldon crash at the Las Vegas 300 last month.
On a positive not I am glad to hear that people are curious about the .xxx extension. To me a .xxx shirt is on the same playing field as purchasing a t shirt with the Hooter’s emblem on it. If this gets played right, the merchandising could be a very profitable avenue.
Jason
Even better than giving away the shirt is for the guys the only way to get one was to take your shirt off and put the .XXX shirt on right there.
and people did it
and I was lucky to get the last hat on early Sunday Morning.
Video is now up on thedomains.com Facebook page
The fact that people lined up for pictures and hats and pens et al is explainable. People love free stuff. Thats why they hand out bags at trade shows – so that people can store all the free crap they pick up. The fact that the draw for people was the free stuff as opposed to interest in the extension is confirmed by your own statement. “the most common question I got was…what is .xxx. This supports the notion that the extension still lacks any mass appeal or mindshare which is not saying it has no traction or merit, just that the draw for people was the free stuff not the product per se.
yyy
Well the extension hasn’t even launched yet.
xxx really could be used for any type of content.
xxx does have other usage besides an abbreviation for “adult material”
instead of worrying about your intended audience mistakenly finding for your non-adult related institution/business at .xxx, you might envision having your non-adult content at .xxx and all the extra traffic that will see it thanks to people looking for adult content. in some senses, eyeballs are eyeballs and any exposure is good exposure.