Jennifer Wolfe published an article on ClickZ that used an analogy that I myself have thought about to a certain degree when it comes to the new gtlds. Will the new gtlds be to the Internet what Cable TV was to Television ?
There is something there, COM, NET and ORG would play the roles of ABC, CBS, and NBC, but the comparison imo doesn’t stay completely true, that is because when cable tv started we all got to know who the new stations were. Whether you were young or old, you quickly came to know MTV. If you were young you loved it, those who were much older said turn that noise off. Either which way it was known by everyone, same thing for CNN, ESPN and later down the road Comedy Central and E.
There was a tv guide, we could quickly learn what the new stations were and what they were broadcasting. There was a need, there was a hunger for more content. Domain names are different, you can broadcast sports on a .com, .tv or a .website, along with 1000 other extensions when you include cctlds.
There was no need for new gtlds from the public at large, there was a hunger for ICANN to make a lot of money, there were industry veterans who had a desire to be the casino rather than the gambler. But Ma and Pa Kettle, were not at home on their rocking chairs with a hankering for .Guru.
I still thought Jennifer wrote a good article, and look everyone, for the most part, has an agenda, Jennifer makes her living providing consulting to brands and IP strategy.
From the article:
The love affair with .COM was so prolific it created a new industry – the domain name industry. These “domainers” saw the shift coming before most companies and bought up key words in .COM. When companies later wanted those valuable digital addresses in .COM, the limited supply of keyword-driven names drove up prices. Over the next 20 years only a few other possible channels of the Internet were introduced, like .MOBI or .BIZ, but by the time that happened the paradigm shift of companies wanting to be in the .COM space had taken over the advertising and marketing industries and no one saw the need.
The introduction of hundreds of new domains ranging from .APP or .DOG to .SOLUTIONS or .BIKE and Dot Brands like .TIFFANYS or .BMW is really no different than the television evolution to cable. The splintering of .COM into categories and segmentation are adding more choice and options to create digital spaces tailored to your needs as a consumer. You are no longer limited to one channel, but now hundreds more are available.
You may still be asking, “Why should I care?” The most important benefit for you as a consumer is that when a company or brand you trust operates their Dot Brand, you know it’s really them. If it ends in .JPMORGAN or .PFIZER, you don’t have to worry it’s a counterfeit or fake site – it’s real – you can trust it. When Johnson & Johnson promotes HEALTHY.BABY, you’ll know it’s the trusted brand. This is the biggest benefit for a consumer – a way to clearly know if it’s real or fake. You may also be able to build out your own pages within a brand you like or trust, for example: MY.LIFE or JENSCLOSET.MACYS. You’ll likely be able to remember certain digital addresses or campaigns more easily.
Read the full article on Clickz
Fake supply to satisfy excess demand [for good e-realestate].
Unfortunately fir the new G’s it aint gunna be that easy.
Eventually markets sort themselves out and in my opinion people always want THE BEST.
What is the best in ths situation?
If the purveyors of all this .junk really think they can sell their wares because its better than why havent they marked down the prices on their .coms?
Guess they will sell anything to anyone with ‘a line’. Something for everyone. Collect the $$$$. Thank you very much !
sigh.
“Will New gTLDs be to the Internet what Cable was to Television ?”
I don’t see how one can equate the two. The mechanisms are completely different. Currently, we can think of any popular word or brand.com and find what we’re looking for using the web address bar (URL). That is the miracle of .com domain names and the English language. It’s intuitive.
Flipping through hundreds of channels on my cable TV is not natural. I would have to use the channel guide and I may only remember ten channels of where my favorite shows are located. I can remember thousands of words that can get me to a virtual place on the internet. Go to Sinatra.com or peanuts.com, its there, just type it in the web address bar. Let’s find a cable channel on Sinatra or WWII. Be it cable or television we are limited on intuitive access to content. The internet has everything. How you get to that information is where the money is made.
The dominant language of commerce is English, The dominant mechanism for branding and instinctive marketing is .com. Likewise there are other languages and other gTLD that have great reach. If you just looking for information, use Google. If you want to build a business and evolve into the virtual world, you better use what gets you there most effectively and efficiently and intimately gives you the most control.
BTW, I’ve switched all of my mobile devices to use Bing as the default search engine. As Jennifer wrote: “If it ends in .JPMORGAN or .PFIZER, you don’t have to worry it’s a counterfeit or fake site – it’s real – you can trust it. ”
Jennifer, how can I trust it If I can’t even see their address in Google’s mobile search results?
Hello Michael Castello,
R. E. = ” I don’t see how one can equate the two. The mechanisms are completely different. Currently, we can think of any popular word or brand.com and find what we’re looking for using the web address bar (URL). That is the miracle of .com domain names and the English language. It’s intuitive. ”
This is a comment by a Legacy .COM Stakeholder. We suggest you listen to Michaels SAGE ADVICE, Just Saying . Thank you Michael for caring enough to protect the unsuspecting. KUDOS
JAS 4/ 23/15
Gratefully, Jeff schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Michael is not protecting anyone, he is protecting his investment. To this point “you better use what gets you there most effectively and efficiently and intimately gives you the most control. ”
I get to Donuts.co just as quick as Donuts.com no benefit given to the .com address. Now if we want to say more people know .com I agree with that.
It is the public that will decide how popular the new extensions get, if they use them and like them, great, if not many will have just 10,000 registrations.
Gtlds are dumb.
I like and believe both .Com and gTLDs, as long as there are relevant to particular business…….
Not a great analogy as everyone is cutting the chord.
Interesting analogy but the history of development of Cable TV in the US does have some parallels. It wasn’t an overnight sensation and many of the early operations started out with small companies serving their local area because the local area was outside the range of transmitters in large cities. When the first franchises were offered, some people did buy a few but it took years for them to develop. The idea of the TV market developing as a simple “Broadcast versus Cable” one is quite simplistic. It does not include the massive impact of Satellite TV on the US market. Satellite TV and Cable TV allowed the launch of specialist TV channels so in some ways the launch of the new gTLDs is similar in that they are more highly focused than the original national broadcasters. But what makes Broadcast, Satellite and Cable TV successful is content. If new gTLDs have people developing sites and using them, then they will achieve success. If they don’t then they won’t. However to think of .COM/NET/ORG simply in terms of the main national broadcasters is wrong. The COM/NET/ORG are not single markets. They all consist of markets from multiple countries simply using those extensions. As a whole, there are hundreds of millions of domain names. But not all of them are registered in the US or aimed at the US (or a purely global market). This global and multiple markets nature of the legacy TLDs is something that a lot of commentators just don’t see. Applying the same kind of dotCOMmunist view to the success, or otherwise, of the new gTLDs will not give an accurate view of how these new gTLDs are developing. Now if you really want to extend the Cable TV idea to TLDs, then it might be better to look at how the multitude of Conditional Access Systems (scrambling and encryption systems) developed to monetise the content on Satellite and Cable TV.
Saying that .brand and .whatever bring trust is false.
If I get an email from a .apple or apple.ooo I will assume that its an hacker that cant send the email from apple.com and have to fake it.
What I have always told people is to check if the website in the email is a .com and that is correctly spelled.
I think at the end of the day I would say (1) As I have said before, the more “we” manage to sell .com to end users, particularly the big companies would will use them in advertising and get in eyes of the public. The problem in part might be that all of “us” have our idea of what a .com is worth and wont sell for less than that, which then means that the “.com” does not get the publicity it needs to stay popular and MAY end up being overtaken by “a” new tld that large companies will publicise . (2) Whether a new tld will become as popular as .com will depend at end of day how many of the large companies start using them ,on TV, online, etc etc Then I think .com will have a problem.
What I meant to say in (1) Was that the more .com we manage to sell to end users the Better the chances of .com fighting off challengers ,such as the new tld. As long as large companies need to go to other new tld’s to reflect their brand names then .com will be at risk of being overtaken.
I think that network TV/cable TV is a good analogy. But, even after all these years the major networks still rule the TV landscape. Maybe 10 years from now not so much though. Just like 10 years ago 800 numbers were still preferred, but now young people probably don’t care what toll free extension they call. For decade Las Vegas ruled the gambling world, now you can gamble at local casinos or online (soon to be much more widespread).
Everything changes eventually, but it is not just just the shift to the next domain extensions that .com owners need to worry about. It is the shift to mobile devices, where people don’t usually notice the URL or the shift to social networks where the domain does not matter. Or a shift to iWatches or virtual reality devices or whatever new thing catches on, most of which probably won’t feature .com domains.
None of this means .com values will crash. It might be the entire online industry expands enough to keep the values up for all extensions. It is hard to predict, but it is something for .com owners to worry about.