Lasvegasweekly.com just published a post entitled “Why The .Vegas Launch is a Ridiculous Racket”
So as you can guess from the title LasVegasWeekly.com is not a fan of .Vegas
It is probably as a scathing review of any new gTLD or the program in general that I have read from a non-domain industry publication.
Its Brutal.
Here we go with the highlights:
“Now that the inane hype and local media boosterism for the new “dot-vegas” top level domain name is beginning to subside, maybe someone with some sense will listen to the truth”
“It’s a racket, a waste of money and a doomed concept that someday will make a mockery out of all those civic leaders posing around that goofy .VEGAS sign.
Seriously. It’s going to make the Las Vegas Monorail seem like a good idea.
For the uninitiated, all Internet addresses have what are called “top level domains,” or TLDs. The only ones anyone actually uses are dot-com, dot-org, dot-net and dot-info. That covers more than 63 percent of the world’s websites. Even ones you’ve heard of and maybe used—dot-gov, dot-edu or dot-mil—account collectively for less than 0.1 percent of web addresses.
That’s the territory dot-vegas is and shall always be.
Here’s why: We’re set in our digital ways, and they work pretty darn well. The web has been a mass medium for nearly two decades now, and we know how to find what we seek. If we know a web address by heart, it’s because it’s simply a brand name plus dot-com. If we’re unsure—hey, it’s hard to spell!—we Google and our link appears in a blink.
Recent history proves it’s hard to break in new TLDs.
The Internet is getting a massive transfusion of new “real estate” that almost nobody in the business world actually wanted. ICANN was implored by major trade groups around the world, as well as several U.S. senators, not to do this.
It didn’t work.
Instead, ICANN is unleashing 300 new TLDs. Most are concept words like dot-church, dot-cooking and dot-horse; a few are geographic, including dot-vegas.
And that’s why this is a racket.
The Dot-Vegas gang—aided and abetted by a technologically inept political class—have proclaimed this the newest, hippest thing on what they probably still call the Information Superhighway.
Dot-Vegas Inc. CEO Jim Trevino predicts at least 300,000 dot-vegas registrations, a ridiculous figure.
Andrew Allemann of DomainNameWire.Com set the number closer to 10,000 (though I suspect Allemann underestimates just how many suckers are out there).
Who will buy the dot-vegas names?
Likely existing brands forced to protect themselves.
Did Caesars Entertainment need rio.vegas or harrahs.vegas? No.
Will it increase either web traffic or business? No.
But they’ll shell out $50 a year for those sites—for a little while, anyhow—solely to keep them out of the hands of, perhaps, an off-shore online casino site. Right now, those sites redirect users to caesars.com. Of course.
Dot-Vegas brass make big hay out of their efforts to work with copyright owners to prevent cybersquatters from snapping up well-known names. How, then, did planethollywood.vegas and mobmuseum.vegas end up in the hands of retired Navy pilot Greg Maguire? Why is Martin Svanascini from Chicago asking me to name my price for wynnlasvegas.vegas? Why did boyd.vegas, as of last week, point to a site with porn links on it?
Former Mayor Oscar Goodman, who probably doesn’t know oscargoodman.vegas is owned by former restaurant manager James Milner, has parroted the notion that dot-vegas is great for local businesses.
The Dot-Vegas gods want you to think their crappy real estate is the next Fifth Avenue.
That’s the free market.
But make no mistake
It’s not Fifth Avenue.
It’s Siberia.
I have double checked the story and can confirm that legendary Rick Schwartz is not the author.
Vegas is a great TLD and Jim is a true entrepreneur. The world needs stop underestimating the drive of the entrepreneur. They would do better with Weekly.vegas.
Colin.club
@colin@nic.club
“They would do better with Weekly.vegas”?
That’s not a nice thing to say, nic.club.
Dotclub came to the industry with a more friendlier approach, if I recall the interview on DomainSherpa, nd I recall likening it to “To Serve Man” Twilight Zone episode. I hope you are not out to start bashing dot com like all the others. LasVegasWeekly.com is a perfectly good name. A lot of cities have a weekly in that format, such as LAWeekly etc.
Colin I fail to see what being a true entrepreneur has to do with .vegas other than making people believe pushing a GTLD for profit, or lining the pockets for the registry by making people believe it is an essential service they need. You yourself called yourself an optimistic entrepreneur, Obviously you will be biased, but with 8000 registrations .vegas has much to prove still.
Entrepreneur definition, a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
With all of the above in mind, here are the numbers we predict for .CLUB in 2014:
300,000 names within the first week of G.A.
1,000,000 names within a year of G.A.
766,000 by end of 2014.
We still haven’t heard from the mystery man who owns 7500 .club domains, and if they will be renewing this next year.
It is funny when someone goes against GTLD’s says something impartial, all the GTLD guys get jumpy, but when GTLD guys make outrageous estimates, and assumptions they seem justified. Still waiting on .moe and 200 million registrations.
I don’t think hype, or wild expectations, or the fact someone is a good guy can sell a GTLD, the marketplace has to want it, accept it, and build it out. Given most of the premium properties are being held back, or placed with crazy premiums it can only hinder development.
Richard,
If you follow DomainIncite I did bring down our estimates 30 days prior to launch to: beating .GURU in the the first week. Things changed between the Sherpa Interview and going live. As you know it was a much more challenging environment. The fact is we remain the most popular new domain extension to launch.
Since you have also been following my comments closely you will know that I strongly believe there is a dominant generic TLD and that is .COM. Outside the US. ccTLDs will also be dominant. That being said there is a place for companies to brand themselves with domains that have meaning. Could Luke Webster have bought shaving.com. Maybe if it’s not being used and he has a couple of million to spend. Shaving.club works because it is relevant to what he is doing.
There will be great concepts that launch using the Vegas TLD. In fact, Vegas even means something outside of the city supporting additional demand.
Colin
why were your numbers originally so high?
For an openly gay individual – according to Wikipedia – the author of the Vegas article is surprisingly close-minded.
Actually, with minimal effort in scrolling to the footer of the LasVegasWeekly, one can see this is a publication owned by Greenspun Media, who own Vegas.com AND who had a competing bid for a .vegas TLD that failed to even make it to the application phase.
If you consider the whole of the facts, it stands to reasonable logic that a scorned party might leverage owned media to preserve turf or retaliate. I am not suggesting that it the case here, but think about it.
@ Jothan Frakes said:
That was today! In the business section of the LA Times! Different subject, Michael Hiltzik calling out Chevron for the “community-driven news” website it founded,
The Richmnod Standard
richmondstandard.com/tag/peoples-climate-march
It said about the protestors on a train to attend the event
The Financial Times called the Richard Standard article, a prime example of “the invasion of corportate news.”
So, what you found, appears to be another example.
I like Nightly Business Report, but all the CNBC-produced shows walk on eggshells on the topic of corporate welfare, and hiding assets overseas as a means to escape US taxes.
Good that you mentioned this, it is pretty obvious that this is the case.
Then the article is a bunch of unbacked claims put together that are missing the point:
“The only ones anyone actually uses are dot-com, dot-org, dot-net and dot-info”
I suppose no one uses the ccTLDs
“Even ones you’ve heard of and maybe used—dot-gov, dot-edu or dot-mil—account collectively for less than 0.1 percent of web addresses. That’s the territory dot-vegas is and shall always be.”
.vegas was never meant to be an alternative to .com, it is a city TLD with an additional appeal due to its reputation
“If we know a web address by heart, it’s because it’s simply a brand name plus dot-com. If we’re unsure—hey, it’s hard to spell!—we Google and our link appears in a blink.”
Less and less people directly type in URLs, most use Google
“The Internet is getting a massive transfusion of new “real estate” that almost nobody in the business world actually wanted”
Except the owner of Las Vegas Weekly who apparently lost its bid for .vegas!
“How, then, did planethollywood.vegas and mobmuseum.vegas end up in the hands of retired Navy pilot Greg Maguire? Why is Martin Svanascini from Chicago asking me to name my price for wynnlasvegas.vegas? Why did boyd.vegas, as of last week, point to a site with porn links on it?”
There is the same problem in any TLD, and the URS is here to claim to domain back
Nice unbiased journalism, Steve Friess, I bet you got paid a nice amount to write up this piece of garbage
BTW I have 2 ideas that could help the new gTLDs. They may need to work together, or work hard, on one of them.
…and if implemented, they could sell out their inventory rather quickly.
backlash from on the non stop dreamland hype the new gtld ‘entrepreneurs’ are shoving down our throats via bought articles and other means..many of which will lose their asses when their backers realize how full of crap they were.
Agree with Colin. .VEGAS is an awesome string. It will be super successful over time. “We’re set in our digital ways.. it works pretty darn well.. ” OMFG – you gotta be kidding me. The author of that piece sounds like grandpa.
the only reason Las Vegas even cares though is because they get a cut. Just like anyone else promoting new gtlds. Either they run them, hope to profit from them or are paid to promote them. .vegas like many strings are highly limited to a few categories, tourism, local business and gambling.
RE: “the only reason Las Vegas even cares though is because they get a cut.”
no shit… gee… you know, the only reason i go to work is because i get a cut.
i am just saying all of this back patting and great job folks is much a due about nothing, the only people who care are those making money off it. the general public doesn’t give a crap. the major of las vegas doesn’t care (without incentive) nor does the mayor of new york or anyone else unless they get something out of it. if this was such a great advancement, a hope for the ‘new internet namespace’ shouldn’t there be a number of people out there who just think its great without their pockets being padded?
I like .vegas, .berlin, .gift. Let’s see when the dust settles that successful businesses don’t lose their websites from the oppressive terms the registries stipulate.
It’s not only the impact that could hurt, when a stranger’s got a 2 x 4 over your head. Just the mere menace that he’s got it, is unacceptable.
For a more dramatic effect, refer to the ‘sword of Damocles.’ Cue epic music and CGI effects.
you’re overthinking it and reading too much into each individual article, because thats what you choose to spend your time doing. its cool, but dont overthink it. a person tends to not see the forest for the trees that way.
its simple, before their used to be only a few TLD’s… now there are hundreds and different organizations are trying to get the word out. where was everyone on this great internet in 1996 when i got on? why did the kids at my high school think it was pointless and paid no mind? advertising different ways makes things popular and now there are different registry operators advertising different ways all at the same time.
rappers pay other already famous rappers to appear with them and then they get famous. you dont have to like it but it works sometimes. gTLD will definitely be used in the future there is too much brewing in the stew from different angles for them not to be used..
will the common traditional domainer make money from it like before? i doubt it.
is .blackfriday a silly TLD? seems like it at the moment.
I was surprised to see an estimate from me quoted in the article. Since Las Vegas Weekly hasn’t discovered hyperlinks, I had to go back and figure out what he was referring to. It was an article I wrote in 2010.
@Alemann,
This is why you must remain steadfast in reporting the facts, and not yield to advertisers on the blogs. You have been doing a good job of this, but don’t relent. It doesn’t matter if the article quoted is from 2010; 2+2 was 4 then, it’s still 4 today, and more importantly, tomorrow.
The puzzle of these new TLDs, and possibility of damage, not just to the wallets of domainers, but institutional investors, whose money is on the line here, is enormous. There were no need, want, or desire for these extensions, and there are still none…
Nobody is out to create them. If you think about it, it is absolutely maddening that these extensions are out, and charging unnecessary fees for these registrations, ranging from multiples of a regular dot com price to thousands! Right in front of us. Yet, there’s nothing anybody can do about it.
Yes, it’s absolutely maddening that people bitch and whine for things they don’t buy or have zero interest in. The new Lexus is overpriced and the dealership is making a sick profit from the buyers.
Such as .xyz?