Domaining.com and TheDomains.com have a new look this morning as they launched the new gTLD ticker on the top of each site.
The new gTLD ticker is an advertising program, the brain child of Francois Carrillo, Founder and C.E.O of Cybertonic which operates Domaining.com who is in charge of making the ticker work
Michael Berkens of TheDomains.com is in charge of sales and client relations for the new advertising program.
The program is strictly limited to 2o strings in 2014.
At the moment we have 15 spots sold and we are awaiting some final information with a few registries.
Some of the advertisers include one off registries that only applied to operate one String like .CLUB, .BUZZ and .UNO while others are from portfolio holders who applied for many strings including Top Level Domain Holdings (Minds + Machines), Uniregistry and Radix.
For the portfolio advertisers you can expect to see the strings change monthly.
Each String is clickable and goes to the registry’s site or a domain name registrar and of course that might change over time.
We can track the number of clicks each string receives.
The charge is $500 per month, per string and that one charge is for both TheDomains.com and Domaining.com.
For those registries that wish to lock up a spot and prepay for a year we offer one month free.
So that is it.
Very transparent, very simply and we hope very effective for the advertisers.
Of course both Domaining.com and TheDomains.com have other banners and advertising spots available for domain name registrars, brokers, current registries, ccTLD registries, attorney’s who represent those in the space, and anyone seeking to reach readers of either or both publications.
I did try to reach out to many of the new gTLD registries at the Argentina ICANN meeting and through email, but there are a lot of you out there so if I missed you I do apologize.
If you want to grab a spot or more in the new gTLD ticker program please let me know ASAP at admin@thedomains.com
Once we have commitments for the 20 spots we will start a waiting list but a registry will only be allowed on or an additional spot, if one drops off.
If you have any problems with the way the ticker appears on your browser or device, feel free to contact Francois.
My understand it the iPhone is too small for the ticker to show but the ticker should work on ipads, tablets and bigger devices.
To all the advertisers that jumped on this project early both Francois and myself great appreciate the support and trust you have placed in us.
i guess my noscript and adblock are blocking that ticker 🙂
Congrats and Good Luck Guys!!
Yep best of luck of course I hope it works and makes everyone a nice sum.
I do wonder tho how many other people saw that just now as “Why register a .com?” …. – um thats why! heh 😀
“Why register a .horse?”
The ticker is annoying on Domaining.com. It’s distracting.
Interestingly, I think the ticker is a great advertisement for .com.
Why register a .com? Well, because the alternatives are those on the ticker.
go on take the money and run..
There should be an “X” on it so a user can close it which will also place a cookie on the user’s computer so that the ad remains closed on the next visit(s). It is annoying/distracting.
I agree that the ticker is rather annoying.
As far as the content goes, it just makes .COM look much stronger by comparison.
It reminds me of a stock tracker populated with all penny stocks.
Brad
Agree with others, it’s annoying and distracting, there should be an option to close it.
I’m just going to pile on the running joke from the previous posts.
Why register a .com? Here are 20 reasons…
🙂
I am not seeing the ticker on the mobile version. What percentage of your traffic is that?
com net co org png pdf psd php html are real extensions.
.horse is just a word after a dot.
Looks cheap.
Francois has no respect for Domainers that visit his site because he thinks he has the domaining community cornered. BUT he is going to be in for a BIG shock soon. He did not get the approval of domainers before doing this. AND for those that will say “it’s his site”, well, it will be his site soon.
He will sell his soul to the highest bidder. He tried to do FLIPPER.CO, and it was all hubris; it’s all style over substance.
Schwartz, please stop congratulating Berkens on all these useless attempt to shout down dot com with nothing but colorful graphics. We should be planning who will be the official domain news arbitrageur should Francois keep selling us out. I think it’s time to replace Francois with a more adroit project such as Namebee.com
Sorry about the delay in responding guys
So the words “why register .com? were actually carefully chosen.
It doesn’t say “why buy a .com?’ which was an early suggestion.
For someone who is looking to “register a domain” as opposed to buying an existing premium domain, its more than fair for someone to consider registering a shorter, arguable more intuitive new gTLD domain.
The ticker is in your face and that is the idea.
Of course its more in your face today because your not use to seeing it.
We have no plans to let people somehow block it.
Also since mostly all our posts are indexed in Google news and Google search we get a lot of visitors to thedomains.com that are not “domainers” or domain investors including a lot of new people looking to get into the space.
On the business front its $60K in revenue to myself and to more importantly $60K to Domaining a year.
If you haven’t notice and I’m not sure how you couldn’t but our friend who runs domaining has been struggling for years to find financial support for a very valuable service to all of those domainers and domain investors who go to domaining.com many times a day, 365 days a year.
If you use domaining and respect all the time and effort F has put into making it the go to source in the domain industry you should be happy for him.
@Jay
As I said we are working on the mobile version, the actual launch date is not until January 15th we just got the ticker up early for namescon
“The ticker is in your face and that is the idea.
Of course its more in your face today because your not use to seeing it.
We have no plans to let people somehow block it.
On the business front its $60K in revenue to myself and to more importantly $60K to Domaining a year.”
So in summary what you seem to be saying is that you are aware the ticker is annoying but that was the plan, and you have no plans to let people block it. However, that negative experience for blog readers is fine with you because it is in your financial self interest.
It is your blog, you can do what you want, but regular blog readers are not any more likely to register a new gTLD on the 500th time they see that ad than the 1st time.
Brad
Maybe a compromise…
Can a blocking cookie be term-limited (i.e. the blocking cookie is valid for the next 24-hours only)? That way, regular/frequent visitors to TheDomains.com and/or Domaining.com will be ‘reminded’ of the opportunity to purchase new gTLD’s every 24-hours; yet can hide the ticker in-between those ‘reminders’…
Steve
The only way the ticker could be more cheesy and annoying would be to have Thunder and Blazes playing in the background.
(please don’t)
If Francois wants to make money, he should filter out the blogs in the feed that add nothing to the domaining community.
He could then auction off 5 or 6 of those feeds to people who might actually put some work into it.
As things come to mind…
Thanks for the nice words Michael, and thanks Rick for the congrats.
Regarding “Why register a .COM”:
– Remember that domaining is the business of monetizing and selling DOMAIN NAMES, and NOT only .COM
– A new wave of opportunities is coming with new GTLDs, and we are lucky as many are domainer’s friendly!
There is no reason to be afraid, and the faster you will assume the domain space is changing the faster you could take advantage of it.
New GTLDs is the future and we all have seen how those who early bet in the future were those who made the more money.
If you are a new domainer and you were not there in the early days (like me) then for you it’s a second chance!
You have today the opportunity to build a brighter future. Just be smart and fast.
– The idea of the ticker came from the fact a thousand strings are coming and good or bad, one will only remember the more promoted.
We thought how it could be possible to do a huge branding in our sites without have to change our layout?
We found that rotate strings in a tiny ticker was way better than fire popup windows!
Regarding the ticker:
– More the ticker title is long and less there is room for the strings, so all the challenge was to find a title that was the shortest possible but with enough meaning so anyone could quickly imagine the meaning of these scrolling words.
– The ticker has been also designed with the idea to not disturb too much respective site’s readers, this is why the speed is extremely slow.
It’s also possible to switch the placement to bottom if you feel it’s a better experience for you (simply click the title).
– There is no hide or close box. Advertisers paid to be promoted, we have the obligation to do our best for that.
Now we’ll probably play with colors, so I hope the ticker will look more acceptable for those who find it too flashy today.
“New GTLDs is the future and we all have seen how those who early bet in the future were those who made the more money.”
There is actually no worse time to invest in domains than during the hype stage.
How many extensions that have been released since .INFO in 2001 are worth more today than when they were released? Pretty much none.
Look at landrush auction prices in the past. Very few of those buys have ever been sold for a profit.
I wonder how Mike and FS are doing on their .XXX investments?
Brad
Interesting to note that the subtitle for Domaining.com is:
“The business of monetizing and selling domain names”
…so if we accept that as the general definition of the industry, then Domaining.com (& TheDomains.com) should not be faulted for attempting to do just that!?!
[Although, as some frequent readers find the ticker overly intrusive/annoying, perhaps a compromise can be implemented?].
@Brad, you nailed it! this year can be one of the worst to be buying domains, or better yet, to pay premium values for domains. at the peak everyone is eager to take risk and see every endeavor as a great investment opportunity.
saying that this move will change the domain space is way far fetched. for certain it will drain money to oblivion, like every bubble does.
some extensions… errrr… right-of-the-dot, will succeed. some domains/extension combos will be great and fetch big money. but behind that don’t we have already relevant data to predict the outcome of this “novelty”? how many extensions have already been launch, with every single one of them being hyped with great plans and perfect sense?
once upon a time there was also IDN. wow! what a great idea! people could write the domains in their mother languages! but, guess what, people with money were in the states and other western countries and the thing never took off. now we have more money going to the East but people still prefer the classics. so, let us invent a right-of-the-dot and collect all the flood of money that doesn’t know where to go and doesn’t want to think much about things.
but getting back to the ticker. were the heck is it? “We have no plans to let people somehow block it.” guess what, people have already done it 🙂
in the end Michael is a fair guy. at least he admits that is all for the money with this ticker. it’s not like he’s running a NPO you know? 🙂
TICKLER looks greatMIKE
How did you come up with the great colors,
THAT GO Daddy Orange did SUCK
LOL u b welcome
I am not a legal expert. So, I am just curious. Is this kind of ad phrase “Why register .com?” legally ok ? Is it different in nature from the ad phrase, for example, “Why drink Coca Cola? Pepsi Cola is here.” If Verisign keeps silent about this kind of ad phrase, I would be surprised.
@Michael
“If Francois wants to make money…”
Don’t you do what you do to make money.
Why do you think Francois started domaining.com, just so you could make money?
Its one of the Silliest comments i’ve read in a while.
Believe me Francois has tried a LOT of things to make money on domaining.com, but its been like pulling teeth for him.
@ Domenclature
As silly as that comment was “”He did not get the approval of domainers before doing this”” Francois needs your approval before doing something on this site?
This morning when it was orange it definitely was annoying but it blends in nicely now that it is gray but still stands out enough that non regular readers will notice it. Your regular readers will get used to it over time. I said it before and I’ll say it again there is going to be lots of advertisers looking to put their ads somewhere and I must say this is a genius way of doing it.
If any of you is distracted by the optical illusion on Domaining.com, then it’s time to switch to Domainsville.com. We won’t *hypnotize* you with a bunch of gTLD crap.
@Berkens,
Domain investing business has always been informally organized. We are a small community, so folks took everything for granted. BUT we always knew that if attacked from outside, such as single wayward UDRP panelists, or undermined from inside, we can get organized quickly.
Your Francois makes money from Domain Bloggers, and domainers and makes more money than you, Berkens.
Francois has forced evryone to display his logo on their websites; he has forced domain bloggers to remove any mention of domains for sale on THEIR blogs; he has barred domainers from advertising their own domains on their sites! He is charging unreasonable prices for ads to domainers. He removes Elliots weekly series from the line up. Francois doesn’t pay any of these bloggers. He gets these things for free.
I don’t know what Francois contributes except RSS’ing these blogs.
Therefore, if he doesn’t feel that his website is simply a default Domainer’s collective forum, we will have to open one. I know he’s given one little space for Schwartz to put his Hall of Shame stuff, but that’s not enough as I will be lobbying Rick to establish a new domaining feed.
And Berkens, I took you off my Twitter, for now.
Uzoma Ojogho (Domenclature.com):
You have been bashing me for years for a reason I ignore, that’s not new!
At one time you even pushed too much with false statements and defamation, I told you I will take legal actions if you continue, so take care to not overpass the limits again.
…
Thanks for the feedback. The ticker colors have been changed and I think it’s better now (less flashy).
Francois,
What you see up there has been my concern, and the only thing I’ve been bashing you with for years.
Do you censor, and intimidate bloggers, and prevent them from selling domain names on their own blogs or not? Whereas you know that all bloggers are in fact domainers who make a living from selling domain names, how can you prevent them from advertising their names on their blogs?
Answer the question rather than silly threats.
You do realize that all it will take is 4 or 5 courageous bloggers to ban you from their feeds to bring you to reason? Unless you change that policy, I can assure you that it is coming. Be fair.
Uzoma,
Not sure where you get this false information:
Bloggers can do and publish what they want in their own blogs, and it’s normal.
The only thing is at Domaining.com we don’t authorize sales posts except if they are sponsored, these are the main reasons:
– The aim of domaining.com is to show news and views, it’s not a classified.
– When you make an exception it’s very hard after to not allow another blogger to create a post to try to sell his names.
– If you do not refrain the site will quickly become a classified and will lost all his interest.
– Try to motivate people purchase sponsored headlines (I also have a business to run ad family to fed like anyone).
Based on this rule and as you named it previously, to clarify:
Elliot shows for one year a weekly post where he lists brokers domains for sale and let his subscribers post each one a domain.
I cannot show these posts in domaining.com for the reasons explained above.
Now everytime these posts have been visible on domaining.com and his newsletter (probably +75% of times) it is because I sponsored myself the post at no charge simply to thanks Elliot to let me add a CAX domain.
You will notice Uzoma, that all the others domain brokers listed in this weekly broker sales post never had the courtesy to sponsor Elliot post in their own newsletter to give it more exposure like I have do myself so many times and for free.
The only times I didn’t do it is because I am in development mood so I did not trade names and don’t have any new domain for sale to publish in Elliot post.
I hope this clarifies.
Francois,
It does NOT clarify it. You can’t do what you are doing. I do understand what you are saying, but I disagree with it.
It is non of your business what bloggers have as content of their blogs.
If a blogger wants to turn his site into a classified, that is non of your business. It will be up to his or her readers to decide.
Frankly, I don’t think one private business should control the domaining feed like you do. I think we should establish an official one that is controlled by a committee. It gives you an undue advantage.
It’s nothing personal. I think you are a nice guy, but it’s not about sentiments. It’s what’s proper, and what’s improper. That’s the standard.
“So the words “why register .com? were actually carefully chosen.
It doesn’t say “why buy a .com?’ which was an early suggestion.
For someone who is looking to “register a domain” as opposed to buying an existing premium domain, its more than fair for someone to consider registering a shorter, arguable more intuitive new gTLD domain.”
————————————————————————–
That is assuming the average person will be able to register a good gTLD domain when it’s available. That probably won’t be the case as the best will be auctioned off by HA/ROTD. I would say MHB has positioned himself to best profit from the rollout of all domainers.
Taking a cut from all the top gTLD domains > buying all the top gTLD domains > running one of the 80+% of the gTLD registries that won’t make it.
Uzoma,
Curious to know where you read above that bloggers cannot have the content they want in their own blog???
What you think is funny, as if I was able to dictate to anyone what they must put or no in their site. I do not have that power! Everyone does what he wants in his own website.
Now in my hand I try my site does not turn into a classified site, because it’s not his vocation, there is a lot of marketplaces around. Now if anyone wants to get advantage of my site traffic I offer many ways to advertise domains for sale, starting at $3/day only.
…
Tony,
Out the domain sphere it continues to be a true minority those who know domains can be traded (sell/lease or buy), most people see domains as a name you register when you need to create a web site, period. So if you want they understand what these strings means you must use a language they understand. While we mainly target domainers in both sites we also have a speech that can be understood by anyone.