Jay Westerdal blogged on Tuesday about Microsoft co – founder and billionaire Paul Allen going with a .Fish domain. Allen chose to go with SmartCatch.fish instead of purchasing SmartCatch.com. Allen registered the domain at the end of March and regged it out til 2020.
The interesting thing about this story for us here at TheDomains.com, Mike Berkens and his company Worldwide Media Inc. owns SmartCatch.com, registered in 2004. If Mike starts getting offers I think the price quote will be pretty high, but he can answer that in the comments.
Westerdal wrote “The Smart Catch program is going to be advertised in all menus and doors of the participating restaurants. The logos and URL will be getting a lot of public attention so this is good for all new TLDs.”
He also gave what he called his most important takeaway:
The most important takeaway I had from Smart Catch, is that “.com” is not the most important extension because clearly if it was, a billionaire could have purchased “SmartCatch.com” from Sedo where it has been advertised for sale for several years. Why go through the hassle of buying a domain for hundreds or possible thousands of dollars from a domain speculator when you can buy a .fish for $30 retail!
Billionaire does not equal “will pay anything”. I doubt the price quote was in the hundreds or thousands. The comments about .com not being the most important is nothing more than flame bait by Jay.
not even a billionaire can move the market 🙂
Another example of a new gTLD domain making a negative impact on the keyword+keyword.com. That’s why I don’t see that many decent 2keyword.com sales nowadays.
you mean .com devaluation ? i think not ..
Exactly. keyword.keyword is much better that keyword+keyword.com
what is the need of the .com in such case ? no meaning added but just longer name.
It is like ShopOnline.com vs Shop.Online or Online.Shop vs OnlineShop.com
Gtlds are making more sense to me and they give me choice to target my business niche and be more branded in my field.
.com domainers are just greedy, they want everyone to buy their names for millions. a new startup can not afford or not willing to pay so there are more choices available. do not be mad, that is what Gtlds are about.
It will still drive more traffic to the the .com and .fish is somewhat confusing. Is this for just fish on a menu or is his goal to promote, create awareness of the lower level extensions. With .com you don’t have to be part of the public awareness program, you have the brand.
It’s amazing how stubborn dot-com enthusiasts get as more and more big brands and influencers adopt new gTLDs. How on earth is smartcatch.fish more confusing than smartcatch.com? Read both of those domains out loud then tell me which one more accurately describes a program to bring fresh FISH to the tables of restaurants.
The whole idea behind new G’s is to promote choice in the domain space. Paul Allen chose to utilize a marketing-friendly domain that directly describes the product of his program…somehow that baffles dot-com defenders.
When you say smartcatch.fish, 99 percent of average internet users will browse to smartcatch.com or smartcatchfish.com the next day.
You mean %99.99 of people google smart catch and click on the first result ? OH !!
I do not spend 2 seconds on a .com parked page. but i spend more time on a real website even if it is .info
Agreed.
Agreed on what Jack said.
You sure he got smartfish.com? I see its taken already.
“very small pond”
“The Billionaire” did not even inquire as to the price of the .com.
If the statement was made by Mr. Allen: “Why go through the hassle of buying a domain for hundreds or possible thousands of dollars from a domain speculator” don’t know how he could make the statement when he didn’t try to buy it.
Also we should note that “The Billionaire” didn’t buy a premium priced new gTLD either.
So its not great news for the New G’s registries either, most of which make a lot of their profit from the sale of premium domains for a one time fee or for a premium registration and renewal fee nor for new gTLD investors who have bought those type of domains, even standard priced new gTLD’s who hope to sell there New G’s.
A Billionaire thinks that a dot fish suffices for a startup. How is that not good news for new the new gtlds ?
Just cuz he’s a billionaire doesn’t make him smart. He just stuck his pricey little head in a guillotine and we all know what happens next. The gtlds are a waste of time and have no chance of success.
Agreed.
Let us talk about any person in general, let us say myself. If i do not inquire about something, it means i do not give a shit about it.
If i buy something, it means i like it. your jealousy and opinion do not matter because this shirt looks good on me. girls like it. i am not going to date with guys.
Jay uses dot com investors to build his fortune then stabs them in the back like this. You are entitled to
move on with your business and life Jay but without character you won’t get so lucky again.
You can’t call it Smart Catch. You’ll have to call it Smart Catch Dot Fish (longer to remember).
It is about the niche you are in. it is about making sense. it is about targeting a specific target.
Well it is not long when it is meaningful. what does the .com has to do with fish market anyway !
Choosing the .fish was a perfect choice for matching the brand he is on.
If Jay would like, I’d be happy to purchase his Holiday.com for $1000, so he can go fishing in the .fish pond instead of the .com ocean…. 🙂
Friend
You are already confused the domain he registered was SmartCatch.fish
The domain name we own is smartcatch.com
Smartfish.com is another domain that should be seeing some more traffic as Mr. Allen promotes his .fish domain.
Of course smartcatch.com can refer to a whole lot more than just .fishing including dating and investment just to name a couple of things.
Personally for a guy who doesn’t even take the time to inquiry about a domain then talks about the “hassle of it” when he spent years building his own $200 Million dollar boat which he is estimated to spend, $380K a week to operate which I think is a slightly bigger hassle, I think Mr. Allen should go.fish
http://www.businessinsider.com/crazy-facts-about-paul-allens-superyacht-2015-5
Michael, the quote about “why go through the hassle of buying a domain … through a domain speculator” was attributed to Jay Westerdal. The blog entry indicates that Paul Allen registered the domain. With compete respect to Raymond, whose entries are great, I think it would be better-stated that the domain was registered by a PM in Paul’s organization, Vulcan. I question the choice she made, especially not to back up the brand with related domains, however I don’t know the facts. Mr. Allen doesn’t need me to stand up for him, but the headlines that I’ve seen around this are excessive. As Ian Ingram states below, “I doubt Paul Allen took any part in the process of acquiring a .fish for his company.” I’ve had the good fortune to work closely with Mr. Allen. He is a humble and thoughtful guy, more interested in technology than marketing, and certainly not a cheap billionaire as extrapolated in a headline by our domaining friends who republished this post. Once Paul’s PM gets around to TM protection, you may still get a sale out of this — and it’s very likely that Paul won’t know anything about that purchase either. Best regards.
You should not cry if he does not want to give you his millions. Go find a buyer or just keep it parked and stop barking.
I doubt Paul Allen took any part in the process of acquiring a .fish for his company… One of his marketing guys probably made the decision to try to save some money & I’d guess Paul knows nothing about it.
Paul is an incredibly smart guy and even if this was just a marketing ploy he would have likely known enough to at least pick up SmartCatchFish.com for $10 for brand protection which was available until it was purchased by someone today.
your argument contradicts itself, how is paul allen so smart if he hires marketing guys who don’t know how to protect his brand.
the truth is that mr allen got lucky because gates fooled big blue. nothing smart about luck.
He likely didn’t hire the marketing guy or even the person who oversees him. He’s smart because he doesn’t have to.
What is smart?
A perfect SAT score?
An IQ of 160?
Convincing IBM the DOS would work on Intel chips when it didn’t?
Supposedly he can check those 3 boxes…
You don’t become a self-made billionaire through luck alone.
If someone asked me to put a sign in my window for SmartCatch.fish, I would say “umm, I have a QR code and still don’t know what it does.” Is this the same thing?
Did you handreg Smartcatchcom Mike ?
Shane
Acquired in 2004 on the drop for $54
If the .com was offered to the .fish owner even trade, he’d complete the swap then offer to buy the .fish back. “I knew I could live without the .com, but not the .fish”
Participation from chains matters to this “seal of sustainability” winning over diners. Approaching restaurant GM’s with “Did you notice we are dot com?”, or “Say hi to your new self-appointed supplier oversight” will meet the response, “Uh with what regulatory agency?”
.fish sounds like the appetizing way to encourage voluntary adherence in a conservation initiative dedicated to seafood. It’s a fine development for domain investors even if this is the little fish that got away.
this is why Paul Stahura at Donuts.co is making a fortune on all his non dot coms.
SmartCatch.com will prevail if SmartCatch.fish actually ends up in print and heavily marketed.
And the marketing guy that likely bought the domain will be long gone when reality hits.
I had to do it.. I spend the $10 to buy smartcatchfish.com. I will donate any money made from the asset to an ocean fund and share the data. Curious, anyone want to do a DomainChallenge and guess how many visitors it will get over the next year? I learned changing generial human behavior his hard but like good causes..
Mike Mike -what day is it……
Hey, if you wear the Seahawks jersey in Florida, maybe he will buy the domain from you plus throw you a wild caught salmon.
Go HAWKS!!
Its learning capital, no intention to sell the url, would give it away if it does good..
If it was possible would you swap contrib.com for contrib.ute?
why not wear the hawks shirt in boston so we can all have a snigger, did wilson really dicuss the interception of the ball and ciara with god.
go pats, super bowl champions.
Now I’m even happier that I went to the Super Bowl and rooted the Pats on to victory.
It’s multi-Billionaire vs. multi-Millionaire…..I think this should be filed under “First World Problems”. 🙂
Paul Allen probably does not want to share millions of dollars from his personal fortune to Mike for a domain name. He is not cheap but smart guy.
smart and cheap aren’t compatible.
Though I ain’t a prophet, I confidently ‘prophesy’ that Paul Allen will eventually make a mouth-watering offer for Mike Berkens’ SmartCatch.com. It’s only a matter of time. Whatever anyone says, DotCom is still the king… until further notice, IMHO.
Well, i guess he could have done that earlier if he wanted to. LOL
I guess that the big error was not putting a price for the domain. Maybe Paul is a “cut the bullshit” kinda guy and he just wants numbers and not time consuming negotiations. If you sell a product, make sure to price it. Instead you went with inquiries thinking that you will hit the jackpot..
Well…
Salute you.
Paul bout a THREE keyword word domain name for 30.00. Very smart.
Get over the .com vs everything else. The playing field is leveling. COM is the legacy tld and will always be so. IMO that means it will always bring a higher price. How high? We will see. I am thinning out my coms and buying others.
Putting a sign out front of every restaurant telling patrons to look for the same food elsewhere, in addition to compiling a dossier of every fisherman/distributer based on input from proprietors, how long will it take? Call every coffee roaster and see how many consider the name of their coffee bean supplier a trade secret.
Drones will select fish that meet Paul Allen standards right out of the ocean then deliver air direct.
Registering a .fish domain instead of getting smartcatch.com doesn’t mean it is the right thing or smart thing to do just because Paul Allen did it.
.COM rules and it always will. I will never prefer a new gTLD over a .com. It is a cheap move. I suspect he will need to spend more than the price of smartcatch.com for advertisement. Not bright Paul 🙂
He is not spending on the marketing of .fish
He is spending on the marketing of his website ONLY. just like anyone does. it is not about money for him, that is a sure thing.
Well, his website is No 1 in search results. i could not dream of that for my .com websites.
Berkens is a genius. I’m sure he just hates it when billionaires come along to develop .whatever tlds corresponding to his .coms. He knwos he gets the traffic, the emails and the mega offers. Berkens is a true visionary and a brilliant man who knows that only the .com will benefit when a gtld is developed.
Exactly!
Amen!
Hallelujah brother! The gtlds suck and Mr. Allen is about to find out why.
I see no benefit of the .com parked page. i see potentials in the developed website of .fish
I see the .fish ranking No 1 in google.. what a B u l l s h i t !!
Either this guy is greedy that he can’t even buy the .com and just go with the .fish. Your a billionaire and can’t even buy a domain with just hundreds or maybe thousands with your money how pathetic.
Today I advised a pair of business partners rebranding their website. As I always do, I educated them about the hundreds of nTLDs they’d never heard of; but I cautioned them that building on one of these without ownership of the matching .COM entails risks.
Ironically, I’ll bet Michael Berkens would have sold SmartCatch.com last year for a fraction of what Paul Allen will offer for it tomorrow. Paul Allen didn’t save money; he just obligated himself to a bigger expenditure later on – if not the purchase of SmartCatch.com, then a larger marketing budget for his Smart Catch project in order to compensate for the lack of that domain.
But a billionaire can afford to lose perspective on risk and make extravagantly wasteful decisions. Through all that insulating money, is a 5 or 6-figure expense felt even as much as the brush of a feather?
He made the decision man. he decided to innovate not to follow.
He is not going to buy the .com even for $10 . That was the whole idea.
@Name,
Wow! You just made 7 consecutive comments in a discussion that ended 9 months ago.
.FISH could not ask for a more devoted partisan than you, sir. I cringe in awe of your passionate dedication.
You’re at 12 comments now … without even waiting for a conversation partner. Just digging up last year’s comments like old corpses, one after another, to give each one a kiss!
Paul Allen (marketing/whomever), along with Bill Gates foresaw and predicted the Personal Computing revolution. I doubt he’s overly concerned with big blue or .com in this vein.
Revolutions are underway, they are gathering momentum. Innovation will triumph as always.
.com has a limited lifespan from an investment perspective, think luddites vs industrial revolution, canals vs railroads, blackberry vs iPhone.
Times change, the king has abdicated. Long live the new kings.
Groovy
“Innovation will triumph as always.”
That’s a weird religion.
Tonight let’s innovate paper wings and flap our way off the roof of the tallest building in town!
@Joseph ahahahah.. Brilliant idea 🙂
I am sorry, but all those people claiming .com will be overthrowned by new gTLDs are just delusional new gTLD investors. ICANN made a great money on these new extensions thanks to them 🙂
Apparently these new gTLD investors have no idea how bad the business has gone for new gTLDS since their launch and how many of them has already changed owners.
Sorry guys, but you better sell those 20 worthless new gTLD domains and try to get a decent .COM.
New gTLDs are bad for you 🙂
Just a friendly advise… 🙂
balance your portfolio already ! anyone investing everything in one thing is bound to …,
No, wake up. The KING is NAKED. Yes, the Emperor is wearing no clothes. The new gtld program is a complete failure.
You know what this means right? It means that Mr. Allen will try to promote the stupid URL for a few months before realizing that Berken’s traffic is surging faster than his own. For only $1500, he will then try to file a udrp case against Mike claiming bad faith and may even win it. That’s how this currently works.
I think Mike is very safe in this regard.
Groovy
Whoohoo! Someone is about to get a lesson in domaining from the master himself. You should never buy a new gtld if the .com is taken. Follow this case to learn why that is.
Always make hay while the sun shines.
Always plan what you are doing, next.
Understand that markets change.
Mike, will wear the new emperors new clothes.
Groovy
I do not see the new gtlds doing well. Mr.Paul made a big boo boo.
Nothing to be said when i google smart catch and found SmartCatch.Fish on TOPPPPPPPPPPPPP. No 1 !! And right away i click on it. That is it. end of story.
If you domain is a well developed website, you get high ranked in search results no matter what your dot is. it is all about the keywords and the website content. Google said the same thing by the way.
I can not deny that .com is a king as long it is a developed website. if it is just a parked page, then it is nothing but trash on the web and any dot could replace it with its developed website. .net .org or dot whatever.
I see the future in the arms of GTLDS. it is just a matter of time when the web has more developed and real businesses using them and it is already happening.
I know this conversation is old, but I just acquired r.fish, so I read all comments. I now have more than less confidence in my 1 character domain name: r.fish. It may not be the smallest fish in the pond…but it is one of the very shortest fish. Now…what to do with it? What would any of you do?
Actually Gtlds are about keywords matching the dots. like Fresh.Fish
However 1 L dot anything still have value because it could be used in many ways. R is initial for lots of words and names and one day someone might want it at least a domain investor who could pay you a bit more than what you did.
I would buy it from you but i see your asking price is very high for me. Good luck