BusinessWeek.com just published a story on the new gTLD’s.
“”The story highlights a Commercial builder George Minardos, president and founder of Los Angeles-based Minardos Group, who said he has spent $1.2 million applying for .build, .construction, and .expert.”
“The money covered $185,000 in application fees, legal, accounting, and marketing expenses, and preparation of the 500-page applications he submitted to ICANN.”
“”He estimates that owning domain registries for .build, .construction, and .expert could each yield up to $7 million yearly for his company””
“”Most construction companies have the word construction in their name. ”
“This would allow them to get rid of the .com and instead of being XYZConstruction.com, they could move to XYZ.construction.”””
You can read the whole story here.
Get .real! Who’s ever going to buy one of those?
Someone is about to lose a whole lotta money!
I guess it’s true that a sucker really is born every minute.
The marketing costs and begging the registers to take on these new extensions will be the big cost.
Confusion will exist. Question is how much will it cost to switch to another extension to the company. I am not talking about the 30 bucks to register a domain name. But the loss of links, rebranding, business cards. customer confusion, and what happens if these ext goes bankrupt. I am not referring to anyone extension but just in general.
Very few will make it imo. Some will but trademark issues will hurt many of these new extensions. Key word customer confusion.
Donny
Even if one was to get one of these, why get rid of the .COM? That would be like changing the phone number of your business. This is getting rather funny.
He’s got the right idea for the long haul. But his execution is .meh.
.expert is too general. Otoh .law is going to be a moneymaker for example.
Some of these new tlds are going to be huge. Because society is so full of anonymous venom I expect at least a billion .sucks registrations.
@Archiba
And all of those .sucks websites will probably suck. Money well spent.
.builders would have probably been better to apply for, it sounds better for second level domains like:
home.builders
chicago.builders
commercial.builders
There is going to be a learning curve as far as single and plural strings and also the best root keywords. Unfortunately when an application is approved for a lower quality keyword that locks out all the better choices for that keyword for ever.
–
What a mess, like roadkill on the highway and cars going all over the place to avoid it.
Right now my Google platform devices do not resolve top level domains without the h-t-t-p syntax included. If you type in the tld only you get Google search results for the letters (which is not that bad).
But since Google is going to dive into this with 50 tld apps it would follow that they will begin resolving the tlds directly.So then the longer stuff like .construction becomes a pretty great landing page.
Assume the other platforms will follow? Let’s see what Microsoft and Apple are doing on Big Reveal day. Good chance that all of our alphabet media will be getting their respective tlds.
.cnn
.fox
.nyt
.msn
.etc
Can you imagine how quickly the new dot whatever meme is going to spread.
Just going to be confusing to web surfers. Web surfers are still going to type in XYZConstruction.com when they are looking for their contractor.
Until Google, Amazon, Youtube, and Facebook stop using .COM, .COM will always be top dog.
@JW
Well, seems like both .Google and .Youtube are coming online.
We’ll find out about Amazon soon enough but I would be surprised if they didn’t apply.
Facebook’s last input was ‘no comment’
June 13 we know.
How they are going to be used we won’t know for some time. But Google itself has a lot of power to influence perception.
You keep dreaming, Archiba.
The online world is not going to revolve around this glut of English-based gTLD “keywords”. For one, China is an undeniably growing presence, and yes they have latched on to .com and .net which has become successfully ingrained, but again the world at large will respond to this massive charade — in their own respective tongues — with a resounding “FAIL”.
Confusion? I’d like to see the “deer in the headlights” look in the applicant’s face when someone explains what sub-domains are
Itsafail, the Google announcement marks the new paradigm in domaining. There will be a massive corporate push to right of the dot names.
This is not the o.co story writ large. This is game change not only because of muscle behind the move but because the move saves tons of keyboard strokes in the aggregate.
…which is the superior domain?
Ricksblog.com
or
Ricks.blog
I bet Schwartz registers the latter and migrates the blog. In fact I bet a lot of the dot com kings are in the hunt June 13.
dotshort.com
I wonder if ICANN will be sued for implying its a good idea to apply for these.
Archiba, people are creatures of habit, notice we never switched to the metric system despite its apparent superiority. The correct answer is ricksblog.com will be much more popular and memorable than ricks.blog even if latter appears easier, more logical or cute, does not matter, focus on habits and facts not wishes.
I was right.
Mike, I respect your business acumen. You are one of the aforementioned kings of .com. But the big brains at Google have rejected your argument.
I picture you making your pitch to Page & Brin and then they come back at you with “not only are we doing .Google but we’re doing 49 other terms!”
Do you, Mike Mann, walk out of that meeting thinking they’ve lost their minds? Maybe. But then later you awake in the middle of the night sit up in bed and let out a primal scream because you realize: game on.
All these things are novel ideas and we’ll see if they work. What I find interesting is the estimated revenue of $7M. This is obviously based on them guessing about how many registrations they will get. So what is that guess based on is what I’m curious about. How did they decide that they will get at least N number of registrations? At least they called it revenue and not profit. Perhaps it will take a lot of marketing dollars to get N registrations, and who knows if there will be profit after all those marketing dollars to achieve $7M in revenue via N regs.
ricksblog.com >> ricks.blog argument also would imply that joeswidgets.com would need to rebrand as joes.widgets and so on and so on, ad infinitum which also seems to be the failed logic of .anything
@ Mike Mann – you are right but look at it from a different angle.
Habits and facts – Were Iphones,Ipad’s markets that existed or were they created?
Habits form with time. So, yes the older folks are used to .com but the younger generation will adapt faster. If big G will advertise it everywhere, then it will seem natural the same way using an Iphone is natural. The same way using an app is natural to them.
Ppl look for simple short cuts that dont require much time or learning. If I know I want ricks blog i will go to blog.rick. If I know I want ricks domains i will go to domains.rick
It is not a one to one but the point is that a markets can be created. Obviously many will fail but that’s another discussion.
@Friend
Your last sentence, (obviously many will fail), is what this “discussion” is all about. If it wasn’t there wouldn’t be this debate, and we’d all happily be buying into this madness.
The ignorance of some .com people never stops to amaze me. Why is it so hard for you to understand that an era is coming to an end? Some people don´t want to see change and they´ll continue their .com parade until the bitter end. Too bad they´re blinded by their own ignorance.
Its funny how most “domainers”, who mostly just setup parked pages for years and years, all of a sudden know everything about the endusers of tomorrow and their behavior. Owning a collection of .com domains running parked pages is not the same as developing online brands and monitoring enduser behavior on a daily basis. The online behavior of the younger generations is so different from the older generation, and they´re far less narrow minded than most .com people want you to believe. That´s a fact! Younger generations are far more adaptable and they pick up on “new” trends much faster than anyone else.
Here are som facts to think about:
1) .Com may currently be king in the US, but it sure is not in the rest of the world.
2) New generations are far less “attached” to .com than people aged 40+. Do I have to explain why?
3) In the last 1-3 years we have seen an increase in “brands” represented by other TLD´s than .com. Do I hear About.Me? Watch.TV? NBA.TV? Meet.ME?
How do you .com people know what feels natural for the upcoming generations when typing a URL into the address bar? What may be a habit for you, may not be a habit for somebody else (especially the younger generation). Why?
1) They are probably younger than you
2) They adapt more easily
3) They grew up / started their online venture with more options than just .com/.net/.org
Some ideas to get you up to date on the expansion of the internet:
1) Travel outside the US borders to realize what´s going on in the rest of the world.
2) Grab some books about online branding, marketing and enduser behavior!
3) Talk to some younger kids and learn how different their internet experience is from your own.
Change will happen. Once some of the big brands start to roll out their new gTLD “brands”, consumers and endusers will follow their lead. I´m not saying all gTLD´s will work, but if the correct business models, branding and marketing is applied it will open a new world of opportunities.
He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson
That was funny.
Another applicant smoking something that is altering his reality.
.expert?
Really?
You can register .pro domains RIGHT NOW for $2.99 each.
There will be a mad mad rush for keyword domains in all of these extensions
But the problem is that the registrars will keep the best names for themselves
The speculators will grab the few that remain and all of the rest of the buyers will have the equivalent of a bunch of .info or .mobi name portfolios
At the end of the day for the purchasers it will be akin to joining the mafia…once you are in, you can ever get out.
I think the mind boggling here is the gross over estimation of the desire and need for new domain names period
Also interesting that none of the old guard appear to be jumping in on this wave…schilling, ham, day…is it because they are not interested, don’t believe or are the stakes too high for them? Directi is spending 30m? Where’d that cash come from? Ten years of wild wild west Ppc play?
“This would allow them to get rid of the .com and instead of being XYZConstruction.com, they could move to XYZ.construction
Lol. That’s one problem solved lol. Sure hope there is not more than one xyz around tho or we r back to where we started. Wait, no problem, the answer lies in releasing yet another new extension
“I wonder if ICANN will be sued for implying its a good idea to apply for these.”
@Mike Mann
By the time the shit storm happens all the ICANN insiders behind this “good idea”would have left ICANN to set up their own .whatever companies.
What do they care?
Seems obvious to me that there is a major train wreck ahead In the form of failed gtld fallout.
Someone above pointed out that the.com would be necessary if one were to try to use an alternAtive gtld. I agree. If so, screw the GTLDsand just stick w .com.
@Gee tld – spot on. the target market is domainers who will grab the keywords. domainers are of course a threat to businesses with trademarks. and lo and behold, when the gtld applicant in the businessweek article approached other construction companies to partner with him, how did they perceive new gtlds? as a threat. they are not stupid. everyone is on to icann’s scheme to rattle trademark holders one more time. and they’re not buying it. the only people praising new gtld’s are the applicants, who are hoping to get in on the icann scheme. terrible.
It’s really a challenge to think of a suitable web address if almost every word is already taken by all the other websites. But personally, I think the .com is pretty important.