A new infographic was just released on the first 30 days of the new gTLD .VIP and what a 30 days it was.
Over 418,000 registrations, total billings exceeded $6 million dollars, and 48 .VIP domain names have sold at auction with an average selling price of almost $23,000.
The infographic has plenty of information highlighting this most successful launch which did not include any free or almost free domain names and was prepared by Allegravita on behalf of Minds + Machines the registry behind .VIP
Interesting that it is referred to as a successful launch. Brand holders and domainers just lost $6 million.
I guess success always depends on the point of view.
Interesting comment drf. So the domain name investors who purchased inventory and have already sold it on the Chinese aftermarket for a profit –in numerous aftermarket transactions on well-known platforms held over the last 5 weeks– have lost money?
I guess math always depends on the point of view.
There will always be profitable flips. As whole the group of buyers must have lost millions which is not a success.
“Must have”? On what evidence, anonymous internet commenter gentleman/lady?
I think it’s pretty self evident. The excitement is already fading. We have had this many times before .
No reason to assume that it will be different this time.
I am sure that the majority of domain investors would agree with me.
Just got this in my mailbox from Dn.com
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It began with an interview with the title of Domainer Chen Invested 30 Millions CNY on .xin Domains. For the record, Alibaba is the big boss of the .xin extension. .xin domain was just launched in 2015 and has impressively ranked 11 among all new gTLDs according to ntldstats.com. “Xin” means trust(the primary meaning of the domain suffix promoted by Alibaba), new, heart in Chinese .
The story didn’t stop there, it developed when the famous domainer Guanren, CEO of Jinpai.com, wrote an article saying Domainer Chen, You Will End up with Losing Every Penny.
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This gTLD will likely never hit 5mm registrations, nor should it; because its very being is about exclusivity and not targeting ‘the masses.’ And yet it’s almost ironic that investors from China – a place that has 1.3bn people -, immediately “get it” when it comes to .VIP.
For certain categories (e.g., private jets, clubs, events, music, food) .VIP is absolutely going to be used in by REAL businesses. And to not recognize that is what a lawyer would call ‘willful blindness.’
So why do the naysayers keep trying to warn us about wasting money on these names?
If domainers purchase a .VIP name that (i) isn’t all about ‘exclusivity’ or short (numbers, letters), or (ii) wouldn’t be a good fit for an actual site, then they did waste money. But there are definitely a few million potential names associated with .VIP that will make for a fabulous, online destination – and Brand.
Millions? Seems very optimistic.
Let’s say approximately 5% of domains that are registered have premium value. For simplicity 5 million .coms out of 100+ milllion .coms
That is the entire namespace that is sustained and made possible by end-user demand.
If millions of .VIP domains would make for a fabulous online destination and have resale potential, that would be something like half of the existing premium namespace! We aren’t talking about a generic extension but a niche extension… even just 10% of the existing namespace, 500k would be unrealistic for a niche, one of hundreds that we have.
So do the math how many of these 400k registrations can have resale value realistically speaking?
Can’t be that many.
Excuse me, this is a VIP event.
I’ll let you do the math on the potential for .VIP, but, when doing so, be sure to include – at least – these:
– all first names in the world
– all last names in the world
– all number combinations up to (at least) 5-digits, probably 6-digits
– about 1/4 of all dictionary words (to be conservative) – in all major languages that have characters allowed-for by the DNS
– all food-related names and words [again, in multiple languages]
– Tens of thousands of restaurant names – worldwide
– Tens of thousands of hair and nail salons – worldwide
– Hundreds of thousands of services companies (e.g., computer repairs, plumbing, electrical, moving, shipping, storage, painting, photography, artists, consulting, marketing, etc.)
– Hundreds of thousands of online hubs (e.g., stores, gambling sites, escort sites, dating sites, etc.)
– Tens of thousands of healthcare providers and consortia (e.g., doctors, dentists, mental health, Chiropractors, surgeons)
– Tens of thousands of childcare/daycare providers and facilities
– Tens of thousands of commercial buildings in urban settings – worldwide
– Tens of thousands of residential buildings – worldwide
– Tens of thousands of travel agencies
– Many thousands of taxi/limo companies – worldwide
– all country names in the world
– all major city names in the world
There are tons of businesses throughout the world that already use “VIP” in their name, so for them this is an easy and instant brand upgrade. And every business wants to stand out in some way from the competition. So if you really don’t think that the pool of potential users for .VIP is large enough for you to play in, then just move on to something else.
But if all of these had potential top sell VIP+Keyword.com or Keyword+VIP.com would already have been registered long time ago. So seriously 10% of the existing premium namespace is keywordVIP.com ?
I’m not sure what you mean by “10% of the existing premium namespace.”
– There are over 1,000,000,000 websites in existence (http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/)
– The VAST, VAST majority (98%+) of site operators do not yet know that .VIP even exists…after only 5 or 6 weeks since its launch — it’s only domainers and TM attorneys that have been following the whole gTLD rollout
– The VAST, VAST, VAST, VAST, VAST majority (99.999%+) of the 7,000,000,000 people on the planet know little to nothing about gTLDs
– It’s going to take some time educate even site operators, entrepreneurs, corporate professionals, blue collar workers, and hobbyists on the value of .VIP…and that’s a role that needs to be played by domain name investors (too)
Just to make this clear. I was not talking about total possible registration numbers but the number of domains in an extension that are premium (worth more than registration fee) and that can be bought by a domainer and resold for profit.
I do believe that this number is limited and if investors buy hundreds of thousands of .VIP they wouldn’t make any money as a whole because they bought far more than what the market could support.
It’s not that 5-10% of what domain investors hold in .com is keywordVIP.com
So here we are at the one year anniversary of the launch of .VIP, and according to nTLDStats, there are over 815,000 .VIP names registered (https://ntldstats.com/tld/vip ).
So, contrary to what many predicted, i.e., that at the anniversary tons of names would drop, the number of .VIP registrations continue to steadily rise.
I personally don’t see that number exceeding 1.5mm, simply because it’s intended to be a niche extension — but a very important one.
The table above notes that ‘THE NEXT .VIP DAY’ will be July18th and ‘AUCTION WILL BE HELD ON THE 18TH OF EVERY MONTH’. Sorry I missed the information, but where will these .VIP Day auctions be held on the 18th of every month? At which website may I register for these .VIP auctions?
Interesting