The World continues to change.
As I found myself in Ireland, clearly blowing past the Independence Day celebrations and any signs of fireworks only to find myself in a large pub on July 5th with all the staff and most of the patrons celebrating Christmas, complete with Hats, a Christmas Tree and plenty Santa outfits.
Yes it was the Christmas in July party and the place was rocking to the live music.
In this case it was a rather good cover band who performed everything from Classic rock to hip hop, but not one sign of any ‘Irish” music.
Not only the traditional Irish music as you would expect to hear in any pub in Ireland but not even a Song from Bono.
So as I watched the room of filled with red and white, listening to the lead singer tell me “the summer of 69 was the best days of his life” when clearly he wasn’t born until at least the summer of 89, well times they are a changing.
The band is named Clockworks & their banner hanging behind them had a Facebook & YouTube banner as well as there domain name which they used Clickworkstheband.com
In a few years they maybe will be able to use Clockworks.music or Clockworks.irish or Clockworks.band.
Yes the world is changing the domain name world is not immune.
We all know what we have coming down the pike which is 500-1,000 extensions in the next few years that will give more choices to the consumer for domain registrations.
Maybe some of those new extension will even allow free registrations.
We know that the biggest search engine in the world applied for over 100 of these new gTLD’s including over 90 generics, so anyone wondering if Google will rank the new gTLD’s basically has their answer.
Over the next days we are going to look at what all of this could mean for domain investors, domain holders, and the domain industry as a whole.
Could we Verisign pass on some rate increases it is entitled to under its new and endless contract, or even see .com registration and renewal rates rolled back as new competition cuts into registrations?
Will registrants drop incumbent TLD’s and ccTLD’s domain registrations and will investors have a chance to acquire some great dropping domains, maybe not seen since the dot com bubble?
There are a ton of angles and considerations and we plan on covering them over the next week.
Stay Tuned.
;
“Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin”
Hello MHB
Wow, what an enlightening Post. Higgs Boson , Star Wars= Google.com – Apple.com , The next breakthrough I am sensing will be in Super-Conductivity= Death Knell for Big Oil.
Iran now has Boatloads of oil looking for a market while the world is afloat in inventoried oil.
This is all called “Creative Destruction”
Whats Next?
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
The band probably wont be around by then, and if they are they arent going to abandon the domain they have been operating under for several years.
I think what you and many others are missing is that these new english language extensions are not going to be relevant to asia and most europe. .com is global and is drawing a lot of speculation from Asia, where the money is steadily flowing.
Stop being blinded by the english speaking and western world that is under massive debt loads. The Internet is global and most of the world does not speak English.
The more you evangelize the new english extensions the more evident it becomes that you are too deep into the weeds to look at the real global picture.
The more things change, the more things change the same.
The band could have chosen the Irish extension but chose .com. Enough said
“With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound he pulls the splitting high tension wires down.”
BOC
MHB –
It was never a question of if Google will rank new extensions only a case of how.
Cutts has already said that whatever.newextension will not be promoted over whatevernewextension.com
Will .newextension get parity with .com in search?
Will .Geo extension get the same boost that .De for Germany .Co.uk for Uk get? This is the most interesting one for me.
These are the questions that need answering.
Exciting times for lots of folks.
Personally, can’t wait for .Us to take off!
Even 5-10-15% increase in value is acceptable. It can’t get any lower in $ value…..only up….lots of hockey stick potential. But, I am an optimist 🙂
And….did everyone know….it is only 2 letters…..wow……..that’s pretty short.
I still don’t see how this is different than .biz, .info, .mobi, etc…. there is plenty of domain inventory out there if anyone wants it.
The goal of site design is to not make people think ; A domain strategy should be the same. Even .net is highly shunned today, just look to the kids as they are the future :
.net domains dissed
It will only take a small chorus of site owners to start mumbling how people can’t remember their domains, no mater how intuitive, since they will still confuse with all the other intuitive extensions.
Traffic will be so confused it will be like Six Flags bumper cars running into each other, over and over into eternity. Traffic leakage will become a popular term used to describe all the lost traffic.
@ Leopold
LOL
That video is so funny and right on the mark.
If Google treats the new gTLDs like they have .biz, .info., .us, .travel, .mobi, etc., then many or possibly all of the new gTLDS will fail. Google has always claimed that they treat .com just the same as .biz or any other TLD, but it’s complete nonsense. Every SEO guy and gal out there knows this.
My guess is that Google will use it’s own new gTLDs for product purposes, while treating all the other new gTLDs just like it has treated all the other crap that has come down the pipe over the years (try and rank a .tv or .biz over a .com).
Google has always claimed that they treat .com just the same as .biz or any other TLD, but it’s complete nonsense. Every SEO guy and gal out there knows this.
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That’s not true (other than maybe a possible exception for edu).
Show me a “SEO Guy” who crows about the “advantages of certain TLDs”, I’ll show you someone who may think he’s a “SEO Guy” but is really just a stupid domainer who sucks at solving basic logic problems.
There might be some selection bias for ccTLDs and geotargeted SERPs, but otherwise, nope. Nowhere has anyone identified an example of a TLD being ‘advantaged’ in the engines that- and this is the important part- wasn’t otherwise attributable to very apparent on or off page factors. Yes, I realize you can run to google and find a lot of dumb people theorizing about it, but they’re all wrong.
Understanding this isn’t ‘hard’ but if you’re one of the 19 people in 20 who have no capacity for metacognition whatsoever then it’s going to totally sail past you, because SERPs present too many opportunities to make intuitive and simplistic correlations that aren’t causal.
@ Domainer G
This particular band is just an example which will be repeated millions of times for domain holders and internet users, the choice each will have will be exponentially large than before and subject to all markets, risk and reward, cost and benefit.
@ Back
All I know is that new gTLD’s will have a much better chance of getting ranked if the company that is responsible for 70% of the search market applied for over 100 of them
@Leopold Its different because its not a one off extension trying to grab a market share and change consumer behavior but hundreds of them many with hundreds of millions of dollar in marketing.
Moreover this is going to include brands like ABC and CBS and Fox and Apple and Amazon and Google
If you can’t see the difference between that and .mobi I don’t know what to tell you.
@David
If Google treats it new gTLD different in search than its own, then they are going to have a big problem with the .DOJ
@ David said:
I beg to differ. If you play a little “hard to get” with Google, yet Google gets a whif your site has content, Google will be all over that site, no matter what the extension . . . Do a Google search for mobile tech, a popular keyword term for different extensions. Who’s near the top?
@ serp said:
I beg to differ with you. I find, all things being equal, dot org is #1 advantaged, then dot net, then dot com.
I beg to differ with you. I find, all things being equal, dot org is #1 advantaged, then dot net, then dot com.
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And from this, we can infer you arrived at these ‘findings’ by employing the same intellectual process that inspired to you corner the market on “bendy” domains?
It isn’t just the new gTLDs… what will have more of an impact on Internet browsing will be how people will continue to move to mobile devices. People won’t be browsing the Internet like they used to.
Of course, there will still be plenty of people who do browse the Internet as they always have… those who have been on the internet for a long time. But since many of the top websites out there now have Apps that replace their websites, the writing is on the wall in the direction that things will be going.
Quote: “Moreover this is going to include brands like ABC and CBS and Fox and Apple and Amazon and Google
If you can’t see the difference between that and .mobi I don’t know what to tell you.”
You are right Mike, I just can’t see it no matter how hard I try.
I think the likes of ABC, CBS, FOX, APPLE, etc….. will be like their own little enclosed AOL worlds. That part of the new TLDs makes sense. Nothing else does.
I believe that when someone wants a pair of tennis shoes they will not go to tennis.shoes in big volume (it could be a ghost town) like they might at shoes.nike.
Those millions, once spent on the TLDs, will need to be replaced by millions again, because as soon as they shut off the ad spend the traffic and recognition will die if the TLD did not take off after initial funding. I don’t think a trillion dollars would even be enough to change the current habit and psyche.
I might end up eating crow if I am wrong, but I’m planning on lobster if I am right. I think established .com holders with great generics will make some real money off this.
@MHB – great to have met again, if only briefly, in Prague.
Thanks for providing some entertainment in an otherwise dull news period, I’m really tired of tweets and retweets of redundant info.
I can’t comment much anymore, or refute doubters without revealing competitive intelligence. It’s going to be an interesting environment when it all hits.
I really just don’t get why people are arguing with the leaders, pioneers, and giants of this industry.
Baffling
Good luck all.
“Do a Google search for mobile tech, a popular keyword term for different extensions. Who’s near the top?”
Agreed. Also try a search for “mobile stories” or “stories on mobile”. If you have good contents, the extension is not critical.
@ serp said:
That and DualScreenApps. If I hadn’t been into the dual screen niche from the get-go, I wouldn’t have registered it one month ago!
Hello MHB
FB and Yahoo.com will initially not be favored by Institutional Money!
Short Term = Negative 6Mos.
Long Term = Positive 6Mos. to a year
Just my Humble Observation!
Gratefully , Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
@ MHB, If you want to experience Ireland, visit Seal Beach. Last weekend Irish teams from all over the US and the world got together for a Hurling tournament, and my neighbor and I visited O’Malley’s and got to talk to some of them, while watching England/Italy soccer match. I went home, but they went on to the Irish Mist pub, and took in the Whooligans (an Irish folk music Group), singing, drinking beer, and collecting people and having a merry old time. They had traditional Irish dancers, too . . .
@ kl, thanx for that! Here is a funny one: what extension pops up when you type in, acronym?
Hello MHB
We expect Google.com to do STock Split a Min. of 4 times next 10 years !
Also to instate increasing dividends in same Time frame !
Just my humble Observation. 7/6/12
Gratefully , Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
MHB –
Google applying for or getting 100 strings is proof positive of nothing unfortunately. It could mean everything in terms of shaping stratergy moving forward for the company and the way people interact with the internet and just as easily it could be something they think they will be utilizing and in two years time shelve.
Looking at the information and thinking about these new strings I think I have a firm view of them now that isnt going to change:
For a domainer POV the vast majority of strings, even with fairly decent keywords, will be nigh on worthless and not have enough upside to bother with. The most valuable keywords on the better strings will be taken by big money speculators. Some people will make money on both ends of the spectrum however the vast majority wont.
From a development POV even the more niche strings will have potential depending on what the content of the site is.
From the POV of FS and others providing a service to those selling the new gTLDs, like yourself, this is going to be a goldmine.
All in all anything that creates disruption is good as it provides a chance to make more money, however where there are winners there are also going to be losers.
Disruption isn’t always good
Ask some ex-kings, dictators and others with power and money who want things to remain as they have been.
Disruption is only good for those who are outside with their noses up to the window looking in
Hello MHB,
Hope this is not a repeat ?
I submitted a comment, and it may have got lost in cyberspace.
Can you please give us a fly buy on what exactly ? Imposing URS on .com means in layman terms ?
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group0 )Metal Tiger)
Jeff
I you search URS in the search box you can see all the article i wrote on it.
Very quickly and broadly URS is like a UDRP where someone files a complaint and the domain is decided by a panel to go to the complainant or stay with the domain holders.
The main difference are:
Domain holders do not have the right to have a 3 member panel, all cases are decided by 1 panelist
The process is much quicker than a UDRP
The amount of material and the length of your response is very limited.
The cost to the complainant is much cheaper $300-$500 meaning the complainant has even less to lose in taking a shot at the domain.
In theory the URS should apply to only truly typo infringing domains but we all know how that goes.