It’s .Club 1 year birthday and in celebration Godaddy.com is offering .Club registrations for just $1 (plus $.18 ICANN Fee) for just today, with no limit (so is Moniker.com)
Here is the press release from .club celebrating its birthday:
“While much media attention has been focused on the defensive strategies that celebrities and brands are taking against the new .sucks and .porn domain names, there have been several new domain extensions enjoying widespread success, being registered and used by hundreds of thousands of individuals and businesses. One of those successes is .CLUB, the most popular new domain extension, celebrating its one-year launch anniversary today, maintaining its position as the best-selling new gTLD (generic top-level domain) on the Internet today.
Exactly one year after its 2014 launch, .CLUB has shown that there is demand for domain names that are short, easy to remember and that add meaning to whatever is on the left side of the “dot” in a web address.
After just one year, .CLUB has accumulated impressive results:
More than 220,000 .CLUB web addresses registered worldwide
Nearly 40,000 live, active websites using a .CLUB name (not parked pages)
More than 73,000 unique registrants
Over $1 Million in premium name sales
Active in 128 countries worldwide
Thousands of existing golf clubs, country clubs, tennis clubs, fitness clubs, social clubs, nightclubs, Rotary, Kiwanis and other clubs and communities have adopted the use of a .CLUB domain name for their online address.
In addition, many high profile celebrities have also joined the .CLUB, including legendary rapper, actor and entrepreneur 50 Cent (50InDa.Club); singer Demi Lovato (Lovato.club); Indian cricket star Virat Kohli (ViratKohli.club); Miami Heat player Tyler Johnson (RealTJohnson.club) and others, all good examples of the value of a .CLUB domain name for any type of community or fan club.
Entrepreneurs and startups have also been active with .CLUB names, including music site TheDrop.club, which was launched by serial entrepreneur Justin Kan (Justin.tv, Twitch.tv); subscription and membership business such as Coffee.club, Shaving.club, Soap.club and many more.
Premium .CLUB domains have out-sold all other new domains as well. Wine.club sold at auction for $140,000,Coffee.Club sold for $100,000, Vegas.club sold for $100,000 along with others, totaling more than $1 million to date in premium name sales.
Colin Campbell, founder and CEO of .CLUB Domains is quoted as saying:
“While a lot of the attention in this space has been directed toward the defensive positions brands are taking against .sucks and some others, it’s important to remember that there are a lot of really great new domain extensions now that are helping companies better market themselves, more effectively use their brands and own a category online in ways that haven’t been possible since the early days of the Internet,” said . “As we celebrate our first birthday, we’re proud to say that .CLUB has launched more entrepreneurial sites that any other new domain, including subscription-based services, fan clubs, and more.”
.CLUB’s success has not been limited to the United States. Nearly 70% of its total registrations are outside the United States .CLUB is among the top five new domains in more than 28 countries, including Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, Taiwan, France, Spain, and more; and is the #1 selling new domain in Canada, Brazil, Singapore, Italy, Malaysia and many others.
“A big part of .CLUB’s success is that the word `club’ is spelled the same and means the same thing all over the world,” added Campbell. “So no matter the language, the alphabet or the culture, .CLUB has logical context and recognition all over the globe.”
A typical .CLUB domain name registration costs approximately $10-$15 per year. .CLUB domains names are available at 112 registrars worldwide including GoDaddy, 1and1, Name.com, Web.com, 101Domain and others.
So .club is testing the .science and .party strategy? Renewals must be not be going well…
From the article:
“In addition, many high profile celebrities have also joined the .CLUB, including legendary rapper, actor and entrepreneur 50 Cent (50InDa.Club); singer Demi Lovato (Lovato.club); Indian cricket star Virat Kohli (ViratKohli.club); Miami Heat player Tyler Johnson (RealTJohnson.club) and others…”
So, they’re bragging about two mid-level performers (50 Cents & Demi Lovato), along with some Indian cricket player and one pro basketball player…yeah, these guys (.club) don’t seem desperate at all…
For one isn’t just some Cricket player:
He has 21 million Facebook followers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virat_Kohli
50 Cent has over 38 Million followers on Facebook as does Demi Lovato
So those three have over 100 million followers on Facebook
So putting your product in front of 100 million fans is a pretty significant
Cricket isn’t even a real sport…next you’re going to tell me .club is promoting website owners from the “sports” of Quidditch, Calvinball, and Golf.
Cricket isn’t a real sport?
“Cricket is played by 120 million players in many countries, making it the world’s second most popular sport.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket
Well thought out and powerful response
This is interesting, I will try and grab mine.
Someone regged a few well before this that I thought of and really wanted now. Didn’t think anyone would have yet either. There’s a number of .club’s I wish I had been interested in pursuing before.
This is fabulous and I’m glad Colin Campbell and crew at .Club have done this. If other registrars can give such discounts and people can sometimes reg .com’s for .99, then let .Club do this kind of promotion in a way that makes sense, too. This is a fabulous new extension that I truly like as a publisher who was originally more of a new TLD naysayer and I can’t say that about the vast majority of new horses in this race. But this one’s a thoroughbred. And if you Google “thoroughbred” now to get the right spelling like I just did, you find that “The Thoroughbred **Club** of America” is the second to the top listing on the page. Maybe someone should contact them about TLDs. 🙂
I will not register any. club, even if they were for free.
Me either
That’s ok,i just registered 111 names
congrats
.club?
Is that $1M in sales or $1M in “sales”, including lease deals?
Has Wine.Club even been paid for yet? The ownership has not changed.
Is is customary for a party to be allowed several months to pay for an auction win?
Brad
Not when it’s a “real” auction…
I think .club would be very worried about this anniversary period in light of how donuts tlds have gone. If they start seeing declining registration totals then they are likely to have a lot of trouble raising more equity. This company is in a very risky position in my view given the number of staff/costs in relation to their revenue.
It’s funny how so many domainers see an unlimited $1 sale as something to sneer at. Is it a sign of registry weakness or stupidity? Who cares! Let the registry lose money. Are we investors in registries, or do we invest in domains? Ideally all registries will charge us $1 per domain.
A registry’s motivation is worth considering. It is relevant if such unlimited sales are being used to inflate numbers. But it’s only relevant when discussing those numbers. As an investor, I care far less about the number of domains a registry has under management and far more about the resale value of the much smaller number I have under management.
Of much greater interest to a domain reseller, I should think, than a registry’s motivation for throwing a sale, is a short-lived opportunity to buy low in order (perhaps) to sell for more later on. Those who see no value in any .CLUB domain whatsoever will abstain, and that’s fine. I, for one, figured .CLUB has enough potential to justify a little experiment.
As I saw things, if I register 100 .CLUB domains and just 1 out of 100 of them is worth $100, then I break even. Even if I lost the $100, then I’d have a large sample of .CLUB domains – large enough to know whether or not to invest in .CLUB at full price later. And if I flip enough domains to profit, so much the better.
During the past year, with the rollout of the nTLD program, domainers have become much too interested in what registries are up to. I celebrate the fact that they must compete against each other to drive down my costs as a buyer. Let them outfit us all as a cavalry! I’m no gift horse’s dentist.
Joseph@ Great points of view 🙂
Back at the time of this $1 sale, I decided to experiment with over 1000 .CLUBs. 1 of them just sold on Sedo while I was backpacking in the desert. That’s the first of the fruit to ripen. So 4 months in, I broke even.
With 8 months to go, I’ll probably come out ahead. No promotion whatsoever to end users nor to domainers; so if I can be bothered to tell people the domains exist, then they can sell at a brisker pace than 3 per year.
While I’m confident that those I picked are passively profitable at a renewal rate of $1 per year, it remains to be seen how much active promotion is required to keep them profitable at a standard renewal rate.