Mike Daniels who served as Network Solutions (NSI) chairman from 1995 – 2000 and orchestrated the sale of Network Solutions to VeriSign for $19.3 billion in 2000 shared his thoughts on the new gTLD’s with BroadwayWorld.com
Will the new crop of domain registration companies be as successful as Network Solutions?
Probably not.
Dot com remains the most important domain because that was what we publicized in the mid-to-late-1990’s during the .com boom days.
Dot com became the brand of choice and remains so today. I believe it will be in the future.
According to Mr. Daniels, “the real question is whether the entire ICANN process is appropriate in terms of how they have structured this and the cost to enter the game.
Many believe that ICANN has grown beyond anything ever imagined and that these new domain names and costs associated with them have pushed the limits. The original thinking when we created ICANN did not envision a large organization with a significant multi-million-dollar budget.
Going forward, we need to debate the limits of ICANN and its policies.”
Related article posted here titled “The Dot Com Firewall.”
http://www.newmarketnames.com
“Going forward, we need to debate the limits of ICANN and its policies.”
Exaclty, this is such a monopoly.
What is compelling me to take some of my money and invest in gTLDs is I see a disruptive business model in the making – lower gross margins and smaller target markets are characteristics of disruptive business models.
The general view is that .com is “Internet real estate”, and with real property we know that certain areas will always have higher values than others: beach front property, Park Avenue, Rodeo Drive, Manhattan, etc.
The assumption that .com is Internet real estate that will always command the highest prices may not be the case ten to twenty years from now. It may be that .com is truly a product with a product life cycle, and the last stage in a product life cycle is decline.
If I am investing for the long-term (which I am), I am going to keep my mind open to the possibility that .com may not be this pillar of Internet real estate that can’t be knocked down but may be just a product with a product life cycle and unless it periodically innovates, a disruptive business model can come along and knock it out of business.
“The assumption that .com is Internet real estate that will always command the highest prices may not be the case ten to twenty years from now. ”
Invest in names that make sense… product,service + extension, be able to cover the renewal fees on all of them for 10 – 20 years. Hopefully you picked winners the majority of the time.. sell for more than you’ve paid in renewals and time invested. Flipping some along the way for a profit a must.