USA Today just covered new gTLD’s in a story entitled “Start-ups see gold mine in burst of Net Domains”
“Visit GoDaddy for a new Internet domain name and you’ll be greeted with an advertisement for one of at least 16 new domain alternatives to .com, .gov or .edu, descriptive of whatever it is you’re trying to do”.
“Are you an expert? There’s .guru. Starting an organization? Try .club. Opening a restaurant in New York City? Consider .nyc. Running a daily news site? How about .today?”
“After seven years of international discussion and debate, and billions of dollars of investment are pushing these and hundreds of other new names into the market this year and next. And Internet enthusiasts and experts predict they’ll cause the next online gold rush.”
“This will be true in particular for small businesses and start-ups, they say. Why? Because, just like in the bricks-and-mortar world, location matters. Businesses are only as good as a customer’s ability to find them. And with 270 million Web addresses already claimed — 110 million of those .coms — it’s getting harder to snap up a good one.”
“That opens up two major opportunities for start-ups: creating new registries around the new gTLDs, and registering domains (through registrars like GoDaddy) and building businesses around them.”
Famous Four Media who raised $100 million in venture capital” is mentioned in the article as is Punto 2012 which are the registrars for .bar and .rest, and Luxury Partners of Beverly Hills, Calif., who owns the .Luxury. Registry.
.CLUB Domains also got a shout out as “having raised $7 million to create the .CLUB registry, and so far has sold nearly 50,000 names to become the second most popular of the new domains (behind .guru with 56,000). Besides registering new names, the Florida start-up also offers tools to help start, grow and manage clubs and organizations, not typical offerings for a domain name registry.”
“Despite GoDaddy’s ads, consumers are still generally unaware of the change to the domain name system. And Google, though it applied for nearly 100 of its own gTLDs, hasn’t yet announced how it will rank the new domains in its search engine.”:
“”The word of caution (is) not many day-to-day Internet users understand that these TLDs exist,” he says. “If you build up a business around one of them, will your consumers understand?”
Andy Churley of Famous Four is quoted as saying:
“It’s like a rebirth of the domain name system, There is the opportunity to grow at a phenomenal rate and redefine how the domain name system works in the future.”
It’ll be interesting to see how new gtlds (mainly .over 3 char-random word) catch on with the startups. Seems most go with unique spellings/made up words on .com, or with generics on .co & .io. Then eventually they end up paying 6-7 figures for the .com.
For the record, I’m neither for nor against nTLDs. I buy some, recommend some, and plan to continue buying and recommending some.
But this article is a deplorable example of a newspaper prostituting itself. Obviously, it’s nothing more than a paid advertorial — a press release masquerading as reporting.
Journalism — at least with the big newspapers — is dying a slow and shameful death. The money they used to count on from classified ads has been diverted to Google AdWords. So in their doomed struggle to stay commercially viable, newspapers more and more whore out their articles to whomever will pay them for their lingering appearance of objectivity. Reporters who once researched evidence, interviewed multiple sides, and weighed the pros and cons before assembling careful conclusions are being replaced by mere mouthpieces for hire. With newspapers like USA Today down on its knees for a buck, the future looks pretty bleak.
@Joseph Peterson
Like you, I’m neither for nor against the .gTLDs.
This is an example of the new “native ads”, as a way to boost news media revenues, which have been in a free-fall. Basically a Press Release rewritten as an article.
I also saw a similar “article” this past week which was “against” the .gTLDs. Was that one also a “native ad”? Maybe.
I agree 95%!
I should probably clarify the 5% infraction; that would be the very top sentence about buying, and recommending some new gTLDs. I don’t do those. That doesn’t mean that I’m a carping critic.
But, yes I agree with everything else you stated, Peterson.
It is maddening to have reliable sources play this game. The line between Journalism, and Editorial pages should never be bridged!
However, Peterson, you must also chime in on the role being played by the owner of this blog, Berkens. It is far more damaging. Many times he’s fair, and balanced. So that makes it more dangerous when he is not, and goes about promoting his sponsors in the guise of journalism. Take a look at even this piece, .CLUB got 4.3 lines to Famous Four Media’s 2.2 lines. Sure there was the additional quote later…
Over all, there’s bias here. Bias on this blog. Bias on the launches. Bias even among the new gTLDs themselves. Berkens may be unbiased 7 times, but he is biased 3 other times out of 10.
Shocks! The above comment, and high agreement value, is for Peterson’s first comment, not the post itself. Sorry
@Domenclature,
I don’t blame Michael Berkens. The world would be too strict by far if all promotional material were judged as dishonest. Sales pitches are important, and there’s no shame in enlarging on good PR. It would be hypocritical fo me to condemn something like that. When I’m selling a domain name, I write a sales pitch — emphasizing the benefits, sidestepping the alternatives or drawbacks (if any). Now, I’m much more comfortable as a consultant than I am as a salesman. But that doesn’t mean that sales pitches or PR are a bad thing. On their own, they’re beneficial.
Promotional copy is fine so long as there is a critical department of society prepared to dissect it for the public good. Journalism should remain separate from and critical of sales pitches. At the very least, newspapers ought not to disguise sales pitches as reporting. Too many people have fought for generations (centuries even) to build up the practice of independent journalism for the tradition to be perverted in this way. Let the advertisements remain explicitly designated as advertisements.
Celebrities may sell their opinions for commercial endorsements. But journalists have a special obligation to refuse bribes.
Michael Berkens has some responsibility to his clients to show them in a good light, and that will inevitably mean some emphasis on promotions as refraining from certain criticisms. His responsibility allows that, and it’s very much in the open — which is fair. But newspapers have the OPPOSITE responsibility — namely, to consider facts and to criticize propaganda.
P.S. Michael Berkens will (I’m sure) allow my negative comments to stand. And that should earn him some respect.
Wait a minute! I was wrong: Famous Four Media got less than 1 line!
My God!
More like a lead mine for some.
Confusing title, say burst in “Net” domains, to me implies “.Net” domains, probably the second most popular TLD