Comments

1. johnuk says

   January 22, 2015 at 12:30 pm

   “first 20 days of “2014” ” , Ah but we are in 2015 now lol. I keep doing that as well.

2. Acro says

   January 22, 2015 at 12:38 pm

   The new gTLDs are not meant to be treated as investor fodder. I mean, good luck getting all the best keywords in every single one of the 400+ new extensions. Those that did or do will soon drop more than 80% of their registrations. The gTLDs are for end users, and in that sense .com is indeed stale, when the keywords are taken, sat upon or priced at prices end users that want to develop can’t afford. The quicker this is realized by domain investors, the faster they’d understand the position of gTLD registries.

   • Raymond Hackney says

     January 22, 2015 at 12:48 pm

     Are you lowering your prices on your .coms Theo ? You wrote a good article this morning on why to never list a buy it now, that is to sell for higher prices right ?

     The position of new gtld registries is to sell their product, they are not saving the world, they are selling a product, I think some of them make sense and are intuitive and others don’t make as much sense.

     Registries going after .com like Mike mentioned I think is a mistake, someone is trying to tear down .com. The position for end users makes sense, when it rolls over into resale value for domain investors that is different.

     The pricing on some new gtlds is just as outrageous for premium renewals and some upfront premiums that are $10,000 to $60,000.

     I think Roger Kay made an interesting counterpoint to Donuts.

     http://tldinvestors.com/2015/01/roger-kaywhy-even-after-a-year-theres-still-no-land-grab-for-new-internet-domains.html

     • Acro says

       January 22, 2015 at 12:54 pm

       Raymond – I’m stating exactly what I said I’d do: minimum investment in gTLDs. Never did I say that I’d go all crazy – like Mike’s list of gTLD’s for sale suggests.

       The difference is, the .com spectrum is by all means full. Sure, domains are being bought and sold in the original triad of TLDs, but young entrepreneurs do have a choice for an alternate domain that does rank well and comes at ‘reg fee’.

       The Forbes article is a joke, simply a collection of articles attempting to stereotype and devalue meaningful keyword+gTLD combos.

       • Raymond Hackney says

         January 22, 2015 at 1:06 pm

         Oh I was in no way implying that you were going nuts, I thought your line about domain investors meant you thought they should lower prices on their .coms.

         I think Kay said so far, and so far a lot of that is true when we look at some extensions. I talk to guys who see the YoYo outfit and think oh there is a lot of cybersquatting. I say not a lot but there are some people that just don’t get it.

         • Acro says

           January 22, 2015 at 1:31 pm

           Raymond, my reference to domain investors is that those that went all out in a feeding frenzy over gTLDs, aren’t doing themselves a favor – the majority of registered domains for sale is questionable. On the other hand, those that register gTLDs with content development and business or personal presence in mind, are doing just fine with gTLDs.

           Each gTLD should be treated as a separate entity in order to gauge their success or failure, and that won’t be determined until years from now.

       • Mike Jones says

         January 22, 2015 at 1:13 pm

         Isn’t that what you dribble on a daily basis, hilarious

         Only thing is forbes doesn’t sponsor you, so no kind dribble

         • Raymond Hackney says

           January 22, 2015 at 1:14 pm

           Me Mike ?

       • Mike Jones says

         January 22, 2015 at 2:09 pm

         No Acros, Raymond you always tell it how it is, no sponsor shielding

         • Acro says

           January 22, 2015 at 2:10 pm

           Get lost, trollface.

3. Aldis Browne says

   January 22, 2015 at 12:59 pm

   Attacking .com is insane. As soon as GTLDs learn they can cooperate with related dot-com addresses in order to provide direct links to sub-domains and sub directories, everybody will win.

4. Raymond Hackney says

   January 22, 2015 at 1:43 pm

   “Raymond, my reference to domain investors is that those that went all out in a feeding frenzy over gTLDs, aren’t doing themselves a favor – the majority of registered domains for sale is questionable. On the other hand, those that register gTLDs with content development and business or personal presence in mind, are doing just fine with gTLDs.

   Each gTLD should be treated as a separate entity in order to gauge their success or failure, and that won’t be determined until years from now.”

   I am full agreement with that, I keep using the .com as the hub and a great new gtld that you could never afford or get in .com as a satellite for campaigns or certain subsets. Did you read that article back in October Wolfe Domain did about the homepage is dead, microsites are the future ?

   • Acro says

     January 22, 2015 at 2:12 pm

     While I don’t agree with the “com is dead, gTLD is the furure” or the inverse either, I see how everyone seems to be taking a stand on the issue, bringing arguments that lead to a healthy debate. Of course, the exception is anonymous trolls like this “Mike Jones” here.

5. BrianWick says

   January 22, 2015 at 2:08 pm

   “Those that did or do will soon drop more than 80% of their registrations”

   more like 95% or more

6. Michael Berkens says

   January 22, 2015 at 3:32 pm

   So as I said there are 280 million domains registered actually more since the numbers last released by Verisign but the new gTLD program at least for me wasn’t something to be judged in 1 year maybe in 5 years but probably longer.

   Its not a zero sum game where registries can only win if others lose.

   So Donuts who has around 1.2 million domain names registered can get up to 2M 5M and 10M and still have .com growing.

   One of the major purported reasons for the new gTLD program is there are 6 billion people on earth and 280 million domain names registered, take into account people like me that owns 80K guys like Frank and Mike Mann that own 300K corporation which have thousands of registration even if most are defensive and the number of people on earth that actually own a domain maybe more like 30 Million.
   ‘
   So there is a lot of room out there for people who don’t own a domain to get their first one.

   There are billions of people that don’t own a domain name.

   You don’t have to get people to give up there .com to get a new gTLD registration.

   It can be a win-win situation where .com continues to flourish and many new gTLD’s can flourish.

7. Paul Stahura says

   January 26, 2015 at 4:29 pm

   @Mike
   On a number of things, we see things the same way (such as when you said above “You don’t have to get people to give up their .com to get a new gTLD registration” and re “negative selling”).
   But on the topic of 115M .com names, we see things differently.
   You seem to see 115M names in .com and say that is a good thing for .com. I see the exact same number of names and say its a bad thing for .com.
   The more names a TLD has registered the fewer good names are left. Its not like we are making widgets where each one we make is the same as the last one. Each domain name is different. Sure its counterintuitive (usually, the more units sold of a popular widget is testament to the widget’s quality and utility, and therefore, the conventional thinking goes, the next unit produced of that widget is of the same high quality and value as the previous), so I can completely understand why some hold this point of view. But, in our business, due to the globally unique nature of each domain name sold, the later units sold are of worse quality from the earlier ones. That’s not negative marketing, its just how I see the state of the world (see below for more on marketing). The good names go first. In any TLD, not just attacking .com. Its just in .com, with 120M names registered, its the most exacerbated. Its like an oil well where the last barrel out of the well is full of crappy high-sulfur oil. After 115M units sold, great “hand-reg” names in .com are extremely hard to come by. Simply stated: the good ones are gone – and long ago. I think even newbie domainers understand that.

   So every time I read “115M .com names sold”, I’m thinking the .com mine is played out, not it still has a great run left. Plus, I know most of the new .com registrations are previously registered names. This year saw many millions of names registered that were previously registered 2, 3, 4… 10 times already. Registered, dropped, registered, dropped, and registered and dropped yet again and again.
   As one of the pioneers of the .com drop more than 10 years ago, and as the founder of NameJet, I can tell you of the approx 30 million new .com names registered each year (to replace the 28M or so deleting) its mostly domainers going through other domainers tailings or otherwise re-registered names. Sure (even now, not more than 10 years ago in 2002), maybe there are some flakes of gold yet to be found re-panning already re-panned tailings, but in my opinion there are easier gold nuggets (of semantic value not traffic value) to be found in new TLDs precisely because fewer names are already registered there, and none of them were registered in the past and “thrown away” even once.

   And a related thing. Its also counter intuitive, but there is also limited domain name supply, because while its true there is a nearly infinite number of letter/number combinations (its 36^64 per TLD), its also true that there is a very much finite set of memorable and meaningful ones. In my opinion, even if say 25M names are yet to be registered in all new TLDs, that is not that many names. Its about 10% of the worldwide current DUMs count (domains currently under management). Its still a limited supply, as Frank said at his namecom keynote. And by the way, the most contested new TLDs haven’t even been launched yet: .web, .music, .inc, .movie, .LTD, .app, .blog, .news, .gmbh, and many more. Only 3M names registered in new TLDs so far… So 90% still left, plus, at a bare minimum, all the 2-character, all the “name collision” names still left in already-launched new TLDs, and *all* the good names are still left in each and every one of the 100’s of contested and uncontested un-launched TLDs.

   @Acro and @Mike
   I agree with you. Its about marketing (“positive selling” as Mike says) of normal (“standard”) names to be used every day. To Donuts, its not about premium names. Only about 3% of Donuts domains sold so far are what we call premium domains, while 97% are standard names. Donuts has spent more than $100M, so far, on obtaining new TLDs, and only about $500K (less than 1% of $100M), so far, on marketing. We are just one new TLD applicant. Other applicants have spent $100’s of millions as well. Google, M&M, DVP, Rightside, UniRegistry, Amazon, Afilias to name a few. Over $350 million was spent on TLD applications alone, with hundreds of millions more on TLD auctions. There is no way that that much money is being spent on obtaining the TLDs yet those same players will spend near zero on marketing.

   So why don’t we see that giant marketing spend yet? Its due primarily to these 2 reasons:
   1) We applicants have a higher use for the capital right now (and back in 2014), and that is to firstly acquire the TLDs themselves. Once these contested TLDs have an owner (most will be decided in the first quarter 2015), capital will transition to the next best use: marketing. You are just starting to see it at the namescon meeting. Its no surprise that it was the largest such conference in a long time. Its due to new TLDs. I expect the next namescon will be even bigger.
   2) Why market something that you can’t sell yet? Most applicants’ TLDs are still contested (and many Donuts’ TLD applications too), and the formerly contested ones have not launched yet. Prospective registries are waiting to know wether or not they’ll have the product they will be marketing.

   New TLDs are just barely getting going. Compared to the money spent on acquiring them, expect to see a signifiant percentage of that (or that again?) also spent on awareness and positive marketing of the new TLDs.

   We’ll provide more color on these topics and others on our company blog in the coming weeks/months.

8. Michael Berkens says

   January 27, 2015 at 8:57 am

   Paul

   So to respond:

   “The most contested new TLDs haven’t even been launched yet: .web, .music, .inc, .movie, .LTD, .app, .blog, .news, .gmbh””

   I have said exactly that many times on thedomains.com and also on the domainsherpa weekly discussion so are in agreement with you there.

   I own over 1,500 new gTLD’s so I’m a buyer and still believe in the new G’s

   However I’m still a buyer of .Com’s and getting more and better offers on my .Com’s.
   So its not a zero sum game.

   New G’s can do well and .Com sales can also do well.

   I do expect .com zone file to continue to grow along with the new G’s with all other TLD extensions to continue to bleed registrations, including .net.

   I would say that the best new G’s, the easy “gold nuggets (of semantic value not traffic value) to be found in new TLDs precisely because fewer names are already registered there” the vast majority of those are premium priced in the hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands a year, which is fine because then it becomes a consumer decision to buy accidentattorney.com for $750,000 or register it for $60,000 a year ongoing.

   You have referred to .Com domains that have been owned and “thrown away” being somehow less valuable than a virgin (previously unregistered domain).

   I will have to disagree with you there.

   Unless the domain was used in some illegal activity, then a used, thrown away domain, is just as valuable as they ever were.

   I get plenty of email from people trying to sell horrible new gTLD’s as often now as I get horrible lists of .Com’s.

   Its illogical but even with a new extension that has many great domain names available many people tend to find the crap to register.

   I just went through a list of 522 .com and 88 new G’s some guy has for sale and I wouldn’t register one on either list.

   So people will always find crappy and trademark infringing domains to register where there are 500 domains registered in the extension or 115 Million.

   As I have also said this is the bottom half of first inning of a baseball game.

   The question is how long will those who registered New G’s be able to hold out until there is an active aftermarket to sell their domains before they have to call the bullpen for a relief picture and maybe throwing their new G’s away too.