Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League and its member teams have gone in pretty heavy into the new gTLD .Social registering domain names during Sunrise for almost every team and several variations of teams and for the League it itself.
.Social has the deepest registrations in Sunrise of professional sports teams that I have seen in the new gTLD space to date.
MLB.social and NHL.Social are just two of the many Sunrise registrations, the leagues also registered domains including the NationalHockeyLeague.social, SpringTraining.social, MLBtv.Social; AllStarGame.social and StanleyCup.social, Worldseries.social and WorldBaseballClassic.social
Many teams also not only registered their formal name like ChicagoCubs.Social but Cubs.Social
The team that one registered on version of their domain is the New York Yankees which only registered Yankees.Social
Sports teams in other league also applied for their domains including one of the most popular teams in the world in any sport Manchester United which registered ManchesterUnited.social, ManUnited.social and Manutd.social.
The UFC registered UFC.social
On the other hand I didn’t see any registrations from the NBA or the NFL except for Jets.Social
A few other trademarks that I don’t normally see generally in Sunrise registered a .Social domain name including:
Avatar.Social
Alibaba.Social
Adtech.Social
Barrons.Social
HBO.Social
Fox.Social
As we typically see some pretty generic domains seem to be registered in Sunrise which is for trademark holders including:
Bingo.Social
Portofino.Social
Blanco.Social
Crunch.Social
Immo.Social
Galapagosislands.social
Here are the more interesting registrations:
adtech.social
alibaba.social
alipay.social
allstargame.social
anaheimducks.social
astros.social
athletics.social
atlantabraves.social
avalanche.social
avatar.social
baltimoreorioles.social
barrons.social
bingo.social
blackhawks.social
blanco.social
bluejackets.social
bluejays.social
blues.social
bostonredsox.social
braves.social
brewers.social
bruins.social
canadiens.social
canucks.social
capitals.social
cardinals.social
chambord.social
chanel.social
chicagocubs.social
chicagowhitesox.social
cincinnatireds.social
cisco.social
clevelandindians.social
coloradorockies.social
comcast.social
coyotes.social
crunch.social
cubs.social
d-backs.social
dallasstars.social
detroittigers.social
devils.social
diamondbacks.social
dodgers.social
edelman.social
emirates.social
fire.social
flames.social
flyers.social
fox.social
galapagosislands.social
geographic.social
giants.social
habs.social
hamburg.social
hbo.social
houstonastros.social
hurricanes.social
ibm.social
imax.social
imdb.social
immo.social
immobilien.social
indians.social
jets.social
kansascityroyals.social
kcroyals.social
ladodgers.social
leafs.social
lightning.social
linkedin.social
losangelesangels.social
losangelesdodgers.social
luxury.social
majorleaguebaseball.social
makers.social
manchesterunited.social
manunited.social
manutd.social
mapleleafs.social
mariners.social
marlins.social
maserati.social
miamimarlins.social
milwaukeebrewers.social
mini.social
minnesotatwins.social
mlb.social
mlbam.social
mlbtv.social
nationalhockeyleague.social
nationals.social
nhl.social
nymets.social
oaklandas.social
oaklandas.social
oaklandathletics.social
oilers.social
orioles.social
penguins.social
philadelphiaphillies.social
phillies.social
pirates.social
pittsburghpirates.social
place.social
portofino.social
predators.social
prime.social
rays.social
reds.social
redsox.social
redwings.social
reinventyourself.social
reverso.social
riviera.social
rockies.social
royals.social
sabres.social
sandiegopadres.social
sanfranciscogiants.social
sfgiants.social
sharks.social
springtraining.social
stanleycup.social
starbucks.social
stlouiscardinals.social
texasrangers.social
think.social
tigers.social
torontobluejays.social
twins.social
ufc.social
whitesox.social
wild.social
worldbaseballclassic.social
worldseries.social
yachtclub.social
yankees.social
Reality:
NHL.com/social
NHL.social.com
good for the guys that own Social.com
good for the guys that own Social.com, well that would be salesforce
“good for the guys that own Social.com, well that would be salesforce”
Don’t remind me. We were going to purchase the domain from the NC man in 2009. But decided to build out more sites. But it worked out well for the gentleman. Marksman & John M at Moniker brokered that sale to salesforce,com for, as I recall, over $2.5 million?
Maybe dot social will be relevant one day, but I think # > .social for a long time.
Steven, dnprices says 2.6M. Hindsight…but at least you had the vision back then 😉
“Steven, dnprices says 2.6M. Hindsight…but at least you had the vision back then”
Thanks. I need to work on my foresight. The timing really helped that sale, as Benioff, CEO Salesforce.com, wanted to present “Social.com”, as the theme of Dreamforce (the big industry event in SF) was “Social”.
But it’s a really solid name, especially with so many “Social” companies doing well.
I’m a big fan of .SOCIAL.
And if it does catch on, it would be a big benefit to the domain industry.
Why? Because businesses could begin using a .SOCIAL domain to consolidate links to their social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever). In that case, branded domains would be showcased (as they should be) rather than some other company’s website. And any time a brand asserts in own independence with a domain, it’s good for that business and the domain industry to boot.
@Peterson,
That is never ever going to happen,
No Big Brand will ever deviate from their established URL*…
Marketing 101
(*whatever that URL might be, 99% of those cases in the USA of course… is King Dot Com)
And “The Big Disconnect” continues…
and so is the hundreds and hundreds of New gTLDs.
@DomoSapiens
I wasn’t talking about big brands deviating from their established URL.
@Domo – So why would they have to deviate from their established url? Are big or small brands ‘required’ to use ‘one’ url? Pretty unbelievable that these major sporting enterprises wouldn’t know ‘that rule’. (in fact does anybody know it but heavily invested dot com domainers?) Don’t know what marketing 101 class you took, but we use and promote lots of urls that point to our main, and various related websites to our business. .Nets, .Orgs. And soon, we’ll start using some new gtlds too. But I guess for some, they’re happy with ‘only one’ avenue to bring them their customers and traffic.
@JP, ‘social’ is already consolidated and businesses take advantage of it. Matter of fact, we’ve discussed on this forum in the past how a lot of businesses don’t even have their own domain….they use FB.
That said, do you remember the super bowl? Mike Berkens made a big deal about how businesses were using #hashtags instead if their own (DOT COM) urls. My point on that post was why should they? That entire night was about being social. Super Bowl parties aren’t about football; they are social parties. The hashtags are the headlines for the topic of conversation and are used across all social media sites.
Why would McD, Toyota, Best Buy, Fox, CNN, Target, etc etc use dot social?
@Ramahn,
The social media landscape is quite fragmented, actually — far from consolidated under one roof. Check out this infographic:
http://www.whitecrossroads.com/seo/social-networking-seo.html
Even if you disregard all the smaller or niche-specific social networking sites, most websites today feature buttons for 3 or 4 at a minimum — mainly Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al.
.SOCIAL could be used in lieu of hashtags in advertisements in order to simultaneously promote all the social outlets for the business, while directing people to a branded domain for that purpose. I see some very enticing advantages in this approach compared to either promoting the business’s home page or promoting, say, Twitter as such.
I didn’t think this was difficult to understand, but maybe I didn’t communicate clearly before.
@Peterson,
Who are you talking about then?
You guys are trying to re-invent the “long established working mighty fine wheel”
for fix a non-existent problem…
Look at the top of thedomains page (right corner)
what do you see?:
Follow me here…
Like me there…
Social buttons, all sites big and small have them…why? because they work.
Nice to see all those defensive “forced choice” registrations…
the registries “thank you”
In the meantime the New gTLD’ Aftermarket still nowhere to be found, more elusive than the Holy Grail.
(another Big Disconnect)
Next…
Kevin, Joe Blow knows net and org. That said, since we’re specifically talking social media, most if not all businesses have their Social media links, promotions, contests, (or link to said media) etc on their homepage. Why make your customer think and do what’s not natural or that they haven’t been conditioned to do? Why spend money to make things difficult for your customer? Simple is better.
I agree 100%.
@Ramahn – Did Joe Blow know about net and org the first 4 months they came out??
You’re right, today’s people have been ‘conditioned’ what to do, however this (new gtld’s) is not about ‘today’s people’, it’s about ‘tomorrow’s people’ and what they’ll be conditioned to do. Kinda like those that were ‘conditioned’ to use land phones, their children ended up being conditioned to use wireless phones! And the same with so many other things in life that the world simply got ‘reconditioned’ to.
@Kevin M,
Since you’ve conceded ‘today’s’ people, I assume by tomorrow’s people you’re referring to a generation or more, or like the time period akin to land phone and wireless phone (a period of over 100 years), with some contemporaries, there’s one nagging question from a domain investor’s perspective:
How do you rule out extra-ordinary developments in the intervening period, such as the internet going Dot-less? While you’re waiting 30 years with a shit-load of new gTLDs, perhaps 6, 7, 8, 15, 22 years from now, the internet could go dot-less. You have to have an iron-clad guarantee that such a development, or even a rumor of it coming, at least for the duration you are projecting, which in the case of land phone to wireless phone, is a Century!