We are now coming up on the three year anniversary of the first 7 new gtlds to be launched. .bike, .clothing, .guru, .holdings, .plumbing, .singles, and .ventures. These 7 are no longer “new” they are just gtlds now. Of course many more extensions have been launched over the last 3 years.
When looking at NtldStats.com they show the following stats:
Domains:27,381,539
TLDs:1,214
Registrars:353
Parked Domains:16,422,462 (59.98%)
So what are your thoughts about the new gtlds ?
Do you love them ? Hate them ? Somewhere in the middle ?
What do you believe the future holds ?
Feel free to give your true feelings, the one thing that will not be allowed is ad-hominem attacks at another commenter. You don’t have to agree but keep the debate to the extensions and leave people out of it.
Really like them. Excited to see what the future holds with all of the new possibilities.
Definitely still like .com of course, but am an advocate of the new extensions.
Well said. Ditto.
Fantastic opportunities are there if you select the right ones and know how to turn them into income producing assets.
money waster. only the top 0,2-1% of domains registered will make money on the resale side. good luck getting them.
For developers and end users there are some interesting combinations. However the registries have generally priced the ones which make sense at levels which are very risky for investors. Even in 2017 many end users will opt for inferior reg fee domains and spend corporate resources elsewhere.
The whole release process was botched, to many opertors, each with their own rules, and pricings.
Just an absolute mess, nobody is going to spend $60,000 pear year to renew domains.
Corporate greed ruined what could have been a viable option for many.
RIP
It is lucky that I called my website gTLD.club instead of newgTLD.club š
I truly think that new gTLDs make sense but what is really sad is the lack of innovation. Many applicants got there with one single idea in mind: “sell domain names” but nothing comes with it. Is this the reason why some of them have difficulties “selling”?
I think an example to give is the legacy .TEL new gTLD which just announced that it is going get rid of the innovation it brought to domain names. I understand this choice because .TEL domain name registration volume is decreasing and – whatever crap I hear – what makes a registry stay alive is the number of domain names sold.
I am certain that innovation – the way .TEL brought it to domain names – can change the number of domain names sold and it is what is missing today.
.TEL brought a domain name and a platform but far too many clicks to be able to do something “fast”.
When buying a domain name, bringing a service to the registrant (the person to register a domain name) which allows him to generate an income is the future to me. Amazon or Google: call me š
You are right. The owners of .TEL had a great product on their hand but did not know what to do with it and did not promote it. .TEL could be a great platform for people to create a business card that can be updated in minutes, or a simple directory. The beauty of it was that you could call a business directly from your directory site without dialing. To this day only .TEL can do it one click on a phone number and you are talking to someone.
People instead of using it they way it was supposed to be used registered it only to sell it.
This is the best example of ruining a great idea
Hate them, they are products with near zero end user demand sold to naive investors and legal departments.
I joined in on the bandwagon three years ago and bought into a few new G’S when they came out. I was excited to get the exact ones I wanted. I still like the new GTLD’S I got, but the excitement has dwindled a little. As time passes, I am becoming concerned about the possible price increases of owning them. There is no way of knowing what the renewal rates will be in the future. I will hold onto the ones I got because they are great names, but I do not plan on buying into anymore new G’s. I don’t even like “web” anymore. If there was more awareness or promotion for them, I would feel better about investing in them.
As an end user I love them, but the big bugbear is cost of renewals which makes me wary of developing them should the registries choose to increase costs down the track.
Replace your .com they say, find a short and meaningful name they say, these things I agree with…
…but…
…I have had names seized back because the registry decided after the fact that they wanted to reserve the name, in some cases leaving me out of pocket, in other cases they have jacked up the price after registration from standard renewal to what I view as an exorbitant increase (from $25 to $3,000) and while I appreciate not have domains previously registered jacked up in price when a registry decides to increase costs of new registrations, it does leave you feeling like crap when they decide to drop prices with you feeling like a fool for not waiting (of course, then your domain may not have been available)
Then you have the registries that premium pretty much all decent names for their extension out of reach for the average joe so why bother.
And of course the fact that renewal prices aren’t listed on domain markets or sale pages, seriously, get your act together people. You want to sell your domains, you might not want to put down a firm sale price, but you could avoid wasting your own time by providing details on what the renewal price is.
So yes, I love the new extensions…but they are a mess and the industry that supports it comes across at times as little more than amateur hour
I think an example is in order:
Travel.Agency was acquired by the great flippa broker Ali in EAP for like $2K.
He marketed it the heck out of it, there was a double digit page regarding his Flippa Flip od the domain on namepros, with some mentioning this was a six figure domain.
It sells on Flippa for $10K, happy times for the buyer, they figure they got this generic gtld that could be worth six figures for just $10K.
Well it did come with a $500 renewal which was stated, and +2 years was added to the renewal
So now early 2017 the buyer needs cash for something else, maybe he has exhausted all marketing of the domain, with no end user interest.
He puts it into Namescon auction, it resells for $3,000 less 25% commission due to the auctioneer.
This sums up the GTLD program, good solid domain brand, big renewal, wide eyed newbie during good times, life gets rough, needs some cash, ends up taking a $8,000 haircut, all int he course of 15 months.
Maybe someone should ask him what he thinks of GTLD.’s, he also had a friend advertising the auction, some good it did him.
This is what used to happen with .tv, if it has got a $500 renewal then the name is a lemon. When the current owner resells it it will likely be for even less again, no domainer will want to pay that $500 long term..
I am going to state something here that is going to sound negative but it is reality. It is hard to make money even using a .com much less a new gTLD. Many people buy lots of domain names in order reach a larger market and hopefully flip them. These names are costing a lot of money for upkeep while investors wait for a profitable sale. If you have 1000 āaverageā .com domain names and your yearly renewals are at least $10, that is $10,000 a year. You would have to make at least that much a year in sales before you make a profit and buy something for yourself. After 10 years, renewals are probably going to be at least another $100,000. The unsold names that you are sitting on are not an investment, they are a burden.
That cannot be said for premium domain names that are highly liquid, be it .com or any other extension. The ultimate return for any investor would be to highly sell-able names that increase in value every year. Do you know or do you “think” your names are going up in value every year? I believe most people will find that they are losing money in the long run.
Look at your bottom line and assess your inventory. In my opinion you should engage in just several meaningful and well thought-out acquisitions. They may cost more money most likely will bring a return without the costs of mass registration.
Like Vegas, the big winners are there for show and there are few. The buildings there are for show also but are built on the backs for many losers. As Iāve written previously; Donāt spend a fortune trying to find one.
Well maybe these guys should be smart like HugeDomains, stockpile 3M domains, have a register, and a dropcatch service, get customers within the industry, then bid against your own customers at Godaddy, and push prices of average domain acquisitions up.
Most of you are your own worst enemies.
The carrying inventory argument at least has a shot at .com with a $8.50 renewal, when you are paying $25-$500 per year for renewals, than I would say your a newbie who followed all the other lambs to the slaughter.
What was stated above is correct, how much money are you really making. In today’s marketplace you have domainers paying more than end users for purchases. You have always needed to make like 10X to sustain all the lowers in a big portfolio.
We can almost call it Mike Mann syndrome.
what do you mean?
I don’t like them, I think the market have been watered down because of the saturation of these gtld’s but I think a hand full of them that have short 3-4 characters could be used maybe as a lead page or forwarded to a targeted business while monetizing…. Maybe, but it should be 1-3 keywords that fits the extension. I just think that the only way to either monetize or sell them is if the keyword match and connects to the extension. Why would I buy CheeseBurger .gay? Is that burger gay? Is there a gay club called CheeseBurgers somewhere? Just me.
I have said this before. What these names all add up to be is a big penny stock that has billions of common shares outstanding. When you issue more domain names the overall value of the market for that stock goes down IMO.
Now if your a preferred shareholder of these domains you will get paid first aka .Com:) I agree with Michael Castello even with a great name it is still hard to build out a website and make money. If you got 1000 names you better have a sale ratio of 1-2% and at least of an average selling price of $2500-3500 to cover costs and time. The same applies to 100 names.
Don’t get me wrong these new GTLD’s they will have a place in the future and companies will use them but the overall value will never reach the value of a single word .com. Lucky to reach 5% of a .com it has already been proven with .co and the rest. The risk and reward for that investment has been reduced drastically.
The .com has a trust factor and prestige that will not go away for many years if ever. If you don’t have the time to wait for the GTLD’s to gain traction you may want to think about invest ing in 5 or 10 good .com names at 2-5k each.
Donny:)
DomainPad.com
In just 5 words: Waste. Of. Time. And. Money.
Nothing but coffin domains … even folks who bought these not-coms TLDs are bailing on them. Rest assured, many are going to follow.
Fact: There are no premium new TLDs. None. And never will be. Ever.
I had a few GTLDs, but I’ve dropped them all except for a few premium .cam names.
We did some A/B testing and our targeted customers/users were real confused.
on another note, I registered dozens of .ai (country code) premium key word domains, and I’ve had offers from major companies and orgs.
I develop AI products, so I’m holding my .AI names unless the offers are very high,
Per GTLD: I like .club, .app and .web and .cam
But I concur with Michael Castello — the market is awash in domains — more nice to have than must have extensions.
I don’t blame the folks for getting in on the GTLDs — they took a risk. Maybe it will pay off for some.
.
Momentum is building, I banked on .red for that vanity url/domain hack/url shortener potential.
I’d be interested on what value anyone would put on the following examples?
ado.red
autosinsu.red
carsinsu.red
dicove.red
enginee.red
enqui.red
healthinsu.red
pleasu.red
powe.red
treasu.red
wate.red
whispe.red
wonde.red
Groovy
$0
Their value is exactly what you paid for them or less, minus annual renewals multiplied by the number of years you try to chase your losses.
Value <= $0.00 for all your .red
Actually value is negative taking in what you spent
WAY in the negative when factoring time spent.
To the buyer above: You may want to consider exiting the domain game…you really don’t “get it”
chee.rs y.ou comic.al dumbass.es
Groovy
Hi
would u like some more ?
xx9.red
big8.red
8sz.red
88qq.red
romance.red
hitman.red
85ideas.red
waijing.red
clicks.red
translate.red
donuts.red
fwiw.red
l8r.red
fomo.red
avatar.red
vlog.red
woodfloor.red
kaskus.red
xbiz.red
porndoe.red
yonimassage.red
indiegogo.red
premiumname.red
premiumnames.red
premiumdomain.red
premiumdomains.red
cantonese.red
mandarin.red
sakai.red
trump2016.red
vrporno.red
loveyourtits.red
donald.red
pornstars.red
zlatan.red
yamaxun.red
maotuying.red
julia.red
lemonade.red
hustler.red
sexyin.red
seks.red
hyuna.red
Franka, PLEASE STOP !!!
I don’t think you understand, but hey chee.rs dumbass
Absolutely ZERO value!!!
Utter garbage!!!
Total waste of money!!!
fc.uk .al dumbass.es š
0
NOTHING
A quick look at ntldstats.com and you’ll clearly see that new gTLDs are currently undergoing their first sustained fall in registrations. There will be some major drops in the coming months, then the real registry pain will set in. The whole experiment has been an abject failure; there was nothing wrong with .net, .biz, .info and any of the existing alternative registrations, so why throw in another 1300 extensions?
As much as I’d like agree I don’t see it. Look at the chart and there has been similar falls over the last couple of years.
Tire.Solutions dropped so I registered it tonight for less than 1/4th the cost of a Walmart bicycle tire. Having worked at a DC area landfill in 2003, my job was to inspect each truckload of debris making sure no used tires were dumped. Tire.Solutions mission is tire RECYCLING and creative re-use applications such as roofing material and shredded tires for mulch.
Yeah right, the mission of the domain will be to sit unused in your GoDaddy account.
Build a wall out of used tires. Fill it with concrete to fireproof it and to prevent the tires from being inhabited by thousands of live snakes.
Another $5 domain purchase from this week that won’t be sitting unused is Toilet.City
What is a city other than a compressed collection of stacked bathrooms? Not every toilet is sold by HomeDepot & Lowes, but as of now the number two easiest name to remember is Toilet.City
I like them but they are not for me, I gave out about 5 of them for free already and the ones I have now I’m trying to get rid of them and just stick to .com, .net. .org, .info
Well I have a few of the gTLd’s. Since I already own TabooInk. com, I took a chance on Tabu. ink. As the years go by
there is going to be a shortage of .com .net. org single word domains. Only in time will see where all this goes.
I do believe that their are far too many new extension out there.
1. Cant stop evolution and expansion of domain names.
2. There is money to be made with new extensions.
3. Mike Mann with 300,000 mostly .com domains has an average holding time of 5 years. New g’s arent even that old.
4. Crappy domains in any extension are not good.
5. Great domains in any extension are good.
6. Market will drive renewal costs down.
Good analysis.
there is money to be made, the problem is finding the way…
better spend the time, effort and money searching for opportunities in .com
NewTLDs are great opportunity.
Just ask Frank Schilling.
Honestly, what do you prefer?
London.Tours or LondonTours.com ?
Serviced.Apartments or Servicedapartments.com ?
Dining,Guide or DiningGuide.com ?
I guess the nervousness about some, but not all, of these new gtlds is the profitability and the long-term viability of the registry that runs them and the subsequent consequences.
When I scroll down the registration figures of some of the new gtlds on websites like https://ntldstats.com/tld I see total registration numbers of some of the new gtlds in the few hundreds and I think ā you paid $185,000 application fee and youāve got running costs and other costs. How are you staying afloat? It would appear that the usual answer is that itās a long term market and you need to take the long term view. But if after up to three years since launch and all the initial hype and euphoria the take-up isnāt that great – why should next year be better than the last, especially as some domainers having piled in at the beginning might be having second thoughts about renewing?
The worry is that in a situation of declining revenues, the temptation is to jack up the renewal costs of the few hundred customers still remaining. Which is a sort of downward spiral.
What many people would like is a simple explanation of the mathematics of running a new gtld registry with just a few hundred customers. With some having so very few registrations, how can they afford to keep running and what happens if they cannot?
I find it so funny how everyone wants to argue about if GTLD’S are good or bad, GTLD or any TLD for that matter are all SUBJECTIVE, EVERYTHING about domaining is SUBJECTIVE. A buyer may buy a GTLD for crazy money cuz that’s what they want and on the other hand not everyone looking to start a site and purchase a domain name are necessarily looking for a premium TLD . Just like appraisals when have you ever seen someone sell a domain for it’s appraised value?, not often at all that’s because appraisals are SUBJECTIVE and a waste of time and money if paying for the evaluation. A price a domain sells for can only be the price the buyer is willing to pay for it and their use of domain such as if it is an investment or for a startup. I have seen some pretty stupid in my opinion domains sell in the millions but the company that purchased it was looking for that exact domain and paid big for it, again all SUBJECTIVE.
Opinions?
this is not like gambling with the lottery, notwithstanding people always making that comparison.
you can get lucky in any extension and with any domain. but you don’t build a business just on luck.
It is exactly the right analogy. Everything in life is a gamble. Successful gamblers take educated risks. Most lose from it, some make a living from it and very few retire with a jackpot. That is the nature of life. The lesson here is; don’t go to Vegas and gamble with your rent money.
it isn’t because it diverts people’s mind from where the focus should be, that is taking educated risks. most people don’t do it and just gamble, hoping to get lucky with one of the bets. there is no business built just on luck but most domainers seem to hope in that to be true.
IMO nTLDs are the future of Internet unless Internet, as we know it, disappears for any reason. Those who buy best nTLDs now and who can afford multi-year renewals will be millionaires.
Michael
“”Everything in life is a gamble. Successful gamblers take educated risks. Most lose from it, some make a living from it and very few retire with a jackpot. That is the nature of life. The lesson here is; donāt go to Vegas and gamble with your rent money.””
Unless you put it all on black and you win
Franka
They all suck
So I would not like more nor would I have wanted to even see those
Now I will agree with Michael on his comments here:
I am going to state something here that is going to sound negative but it is reality. It is hard to make money even using a .com much less a new gTLD. Many people buy lots of domain names in order reach a larger market and hopefully flip them. These names are costing a lot of money for upkeep while investors wait for a profitable sale. If you have 1000 āaverageā .com domain names and your yearly renewals are at least $10, that is $10,000 a year. You would have to make at least that much a year in sales before you make a profit and buy something for yourself. After 10 years, renewals are probably going to be at least another $100,000. The unsold names that you are sitting on are not an investment, they are a burden.
That cannot be said for premium domain names that are highly liquid, be it .com or any other extension. The ultimate return for any investor would be to highly sell-able names that increase in value every year. Do you know or do you āthinkā your names are going up in value every year? I believe most people will find that they are losing money in the long run.
Look at your bottom line and assess your inventory. In my opinion you should engage in just several meaningful and well thought-out acquisitions. They may cost more money most likely will bring a return without the costs of mass registration.
Like Vegas, the big winners are there for show and there are few. The buildings there are for show also but are built on the backs for many losers. As Iāve written previously; Donāt spend a fortune trying to find one.
“Unless you put it all on black…”
In what scenario would a person put it all on black or red.
I can imagine only a life/death scenario:
For example:
Exorbitant monies needed to pay for a life-saving “out of network” medical procedure.
Ransom for a loved one, with time constraints.
To pay for an “exit visa” to escape the Nazis in Casablanca, as many expats did in the movie — if I recall, Rick fixed it one case, so the House lost and the young couple received their exit visas.
Is domain investing gambling? To a degree, yes. As would flipping houses, equity markets, but there’s also risk-adverse domain investing, calculated domain investing, and wild speculative investing (these domains investments rarely pay off, but when they do, they can be high….parties that owned fb.com, jet.com, meet.me, vacationrentals.com, social.com, 360.com….although all of these domains also were sound investments that had super ROIs, so can’t really say they’re speculative)
I hope none of us ever have to put all our chips on red or black as a last resort attempt at getting a necessary windfall.
But if you follow our Twitter feed @thedomains and see what domains have sold, not that one’s that are just for sale, you can get a feel for what is saleable and what is a dream sale.
if you own 1K domain names and they are like the type that sell regularly then you’re on the right track
If not then hop off the train and find a new track
The elephant in the room.
It seemed such a simple question that you would think there would be a rush of answers, but there wasn’t.
“With some new gtld registries having so very few registrations, how can they afford to keep running and what happens if they cannot?”
Good question. When I go to the dentist for a root canal, there isn’t enough time for the doctor to bring me up to speed on the overhead involved operating a profitable dentistry practice. With only a highschool diploma I understand this. Get connected for free with EducationConnection.
A 1 terabyte hard drive is $50 today. The cost of memory is so low, not sure how to calculate price per megabyte anymore because it’s below a penny. Don’t let me oversimplify and diminish the complexity of running a valuable registry. When I look at TheInternet’s main computer, each TLD is a directory on root of the C:// drive and each domain registration is a file within a TLD. The cost of running a registry isn’t hardware and software, it’s people.
Not bad considering you’re not paying for a professional answer here.
Some will fail and likely get acquired by larger registries. I don’t think it matters much, nobody is really banking on any of these extensions. If .rich fails, who really cares? It will get bought out and worst care scenario it ceases to exists, the 3 sites that use it need to use something else. That is bad for those 3 sites but in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter much.
.News and .Live are going be huge, you only need one of each.
Great drops originally registered in 2014 appear everyday in .Center, .Services, .Systems
Especially desirable is .Solutions – – These 4 work great for many types of business names.
They’re like toothpaste once it’s out of the tube it’s all getting used!
Michael,
Have you ever taken a closer look at the .STUDY registry ?
I call it the registry that has a single registrant.
Every name i look at in this space has “Creative Radius Telecom Services” as its owner and creativeradiustelecom@gmail.com as contact email address.
They are currently adding 100 domains a day to their zone.
That makes me laugh when Donuts guys (or others) proudly claim there are 27 milllion new gtlds.
New gtld Registries are ghost towns with manipulated numbers of DUM (domains Under management), some in the 10,000’s, some in the 100,000’s and some in the millions, either through free or 1 cent domain prices or worse, by registering domains through entities controlled by registries themselves.
If you remove free domains, domains registered by registries, domains registered by investors and domains registered by companies only to protect their brands, there are maybe less than 1 million new gtlds in the hands of real end users.
In my opinion, the .STUDY deserves its own blog post.
If you remove free domains, domains registered by registries, domains registered by investors and domains registered by companies only to protect their brands, there are maybe less than 1 million new gtlds in the hands of real end users.
/////////////////
Why not just remove the “real endusers” aswell and call the total zero?
The business model of most registries is to sell to domainers and legal departments, they are the “end users”. The key point I think is how much money are the registries making. Domainers and corporates aren’t going to suddenly disappear. Look at .mobi, .info, .biz etc. They still have decent revenue years after most domainers would concede they have failed to take off.
Take .mobi as an example, probably the biggest “failure” of the lot but 50% are still paying.
http://www.registrarstats.com/TLDHistoryChart.aspx?TLDName=MOBI
Tonight for $5.17 you can be the original registrant of the domain name Crucial.Solutions
Never been registered, with an annual renewal of about $17 after 40% discount.
I did a quick check of TESS and there are no US trademarks for “Crucial Solutions”, so your development options are wide open.
Many Start-ups would not object to having a name like Crucial.Solutions, (HAD THEY ONLY THOUGHT OF IT) And in the near future their only option will be to pay you much more than $5.17 for it. Tonight is your first and last chance to register it. I bet it’s gone within 7 days now.
And in the near future their only option will be to pay you much more than $5.17 for it.
/////////////////////
The obvious option will be to buy something else. Very unlikely anyone other than a domainer would even pay $5 let alone trying to buy it on the aftermarket.
Nevermind, I got it. You’re out of $5.17 options Snoopy. Go buy Obey or Pose .com for a million bucks.
Thank you for such an enlightening answer. There would appear to be an element of obfuscation in your reply to this simplest of questions.
Despite this enlightening reply, the elephant is still sitting in the room.
Iām going to pick just one new gtld at random. Iām not going to pick .horse as mentioned in Ricks Blog 20-Year Post Part 2; gTLDās http://www.RicksBlog.com There are many but just for example letās pick say .markets
According to https://ntldstats.com/tld .markets currently has 515 registrations. On the internet anyone can register a .market domain name for $15.99 per year.
Simple mathematics 515 x $15.99 per year = $8324 per year.
The application fee was $185000 and then there are running costs and other costs. Salaries arenāt cheap. Marketing, if there is any, isnāt cheap. With some new gtlds registrations are stagnating and even declining through non-renewals. So how do you recover your initial application fee costs and go forward and make money with the ongoing running costs. It isnāt such a difficult question to ask. People arenāt really interested to learn that A 1 terabyte hard drive is $50 today ā itās the simple fundamentals of how many years it will take to break even, if that.
So to be boringly repetitive āWith some new gtld registries having so very few registrations, how can they afford to keep running and what happens if they cannot continue to operate?ā
You’re the reason Tower Records and Borders Books went out of business. Instead of buying the book or the album you spend a whole bunch of time trying to figure out if anyone is going to buy the next book or album that hasn’t even been produced yet. When you go to the movie theatre do you ask the box office agent “How do I know the sequel to this one is going to be any good?” and if they can’t answer your question you just leave.
I bet if I owned a book store and put a sofa in there, you’d wear out my sofa, my magazines, and not buy anything.
Thank you for your so helpful reply. I was hoping for some numerics as to how long before some new gtld registries might be profitable. Numerics were lacking in your reply, however you tell me that I am sitting on some sofa. Thank you.
The world population is in excess of something like 7.4 billion. The example I quoted .markets currently has according to https://ntldstats.com/tld merely 514 registrations ā itās lost one registration since yesterday ā how sad. There are many other examples we could explore .boats with 176 registrations, .theatre with 161 registrations, .protections with 108 registrations.
As http://www.Ricksblog.com says .Horse averages about 3-4 registrations a day at best. And now I will make some cry. .Horse has nearly 200 gtld’s that are doing even worse! Kleenex anyone?
So, three years on from the launch of these new gtld domain names, there are only a meagre 514 .markets registrations compared to 7,400,000,000 all sitting on this sofa. Itās a very big sofa! And the question I ask again is why should tomorrow be different to today?
Thank you Ms. Dotty. Will you furnish a list of the extensions you think are going to bite the dust?
dust.solutions is taken. that is an awesome domain name
If you don’t purchase anything, isn’t that loitering?
While you are at it…
Is GM going to keep Saturn.com after all the 2010 Saturns complete their service life?
Should they get the .Net and reconstitute the brand with all that extra .Net traffic VeriSign
was talking about at Namescon?
You’re in the drivers seat Ms. Dotty, tell us, what would you do?
Many of the applicants who coughed up the $185,000 application fee plus several hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing, sponsorships and lobbying are not broke investors who need to recoup an investment overnight. Some had very deep pockets and could even subsidize a non-performing registry for years.
There is the novelty and clout that comes with running a gTLD registry and there is also a healthy dose of hope and expectations that the registry is eventually going to turn a profit or just break even and be sustainable. A registry owns an unlimited resource. With the right pricing and marketing, they will always recoup their investments as long as they have a good extension. Even .ooo is doing ok!!!
Many people laughed when GMO coughed $41 million for .shop but for GMO, .shop was a gTLD that had to be acquired at any cost because it fits nicely into their business-registry and ecommerce products such as ecommerce shop builders, ecommerce payment gateways and SSLs. With billions of dollars in the bank, they donāt mind if they donāt break even for 10 years.
Thank you for your explanation that āmany of the applicants who coughed up the $185,000 application fee plus several hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing, sponsorships and lobbying are not broke investors but with billions of dollars in the bank, they donāt mind if they donāt break even for 10 yearsā.
The fact that that some of these registries are willing to bankroll losses of 10 years or more before they breakeven will be reassuring to the companies building their online businesses on new tlds knowing that their websites will not go dark.
However surely not all registries have billions of play-money.
Iām looking at .wed with according to ntldstats https://ntldstats.com/tld just 106 registrations.
Atgron Inc the .wed registryās owner is Adrienne McAdory. According to the 2014 article in Planet Money http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/298989404/new-web-addresses-provide-alternatives-to-crowded-domains āMcAdory used some retirement money and her dad helped out, and finally .wed was hers.ā This doesnāt sound like the profile of a billionaire investor.
The article also says āShe figures if 6,000 couples buy .wed websites, she’ll break even.ā
So how does 106 registrations square with the 6000 breakeven?
She is quite a hard-nosed entrepreneur! According to namestats, she just has 89 domains in the namespace which is pitiful. .wed is a nice and short name that could have had the same success as .VIP, .CLUB, .OOO and it is also relevant for wedded couples, wedding merchandise or wedding websites. I think what she lacks is the money to market her gTLD to the right audiences and build the necessary distribution channels with big registrars such as Namecheap and GoDaddy. If she goes under, her registry will be grabbed by one of the bigger players. Someone like Daniel Negari is hungry for more registries to add to his stable. There is no shortage of suitors who could grab name like .wed. It is no .horse.
What! You are talking about the possibility of a registry going under? You mean FAIL?
This cannot be.
ICANN with all its money will surely prop up failing non-profitable new gtlds, wonāt they. They must do this because many people have built their businesses in good faith on these new gtlds in the belief that ICANN is backing them.
You say that āIf she goes under, her registry will be grabbed by one of the bigger players.ā Maybe the bigger players donāt want to be the hoover for all these small registries with such small below breakeven numbers of registrations because they probably want to concentrate on their own businesses.
If a bigger player doesnāt want to pick up the pieces, then what? Again, ICANN must be the safety net to keep these registries running.
Steve Brady asks āWill you furnish a list of the extensions you think are going to bite the dust?ā
The answer is ānot a clue, sorryā. All I can do is like anyone else can do which is look at the registration figures and multiple the registration figures by the registration fee.
I know that you said that Adrienne McAdory of .web is a great entrepreneur, but whether you take the .wed registration figures of 106 registrations according to https://ntldstats.com/tld or 88 registrations according to https://namestat.org/ letās not quibble about such small numbers, thatās a little of just over 30 registrations per year in a 3 year period @ $70 each. So 100 .wed registrations brings in about $7000 in a three year period.
You just have to repeat the mathematics for other registries. Admittedly these figures are distorted by some registries either giving away domain names for free or for 1 cent, and some registries would appear to register domain names in the name of an associated company.
I read a bit on Adrienne McAdory and I think the reason her registry is doing so badly is because she imposed some really ridiculous terms for registrants and registrars; otherwise she would be doing pretty ok with .wed. She was determined at first but seems to lack the expertise and business sense in running a registry. http://domainincite.com/16144-weirdest-new-gtld-launch-yet-wed-launches-with-a-single-registrar
Maybe they might put it up for auction. ICANN must have a procedure for handling collapsed registries in its comprehensive guidelines/bylaws. Canāt find anything online, though.
A flawed business plan. Not such a great hard-nosed entrepreneur then.
Hope she paid back her Dad.
Can’t wait for the new TLDs to collapse, 2017 is the year.
Best part is that .info and .biz etc will go down with them. .net will rebound and .org will continue its trajectory. But .info and .biz will tank even further.
40% of our spam comes from new TLD email addresses.
China represents more than 54% of all new TLD names registered. (After you apportion the Whois unknown category).
The internet is consolidating, just like the real marketplace (in the offline world). News aggregators, online retail aggregators, hotel booking sites etc are all doing to their verticals what MySpace and then Facebook did to online chat rooms. Consolidation is deeply rational and you cannot fight it.
Thus “more choice” in URLs is actually not needed at all. The best names go to those who put them to best use. Thus if you can’t afford a good .com or top 4 ccTLD (.de, .co.uk, .com.au, .nl) then what hope do you have online to begin with seriously..
Consolidation is actually GOOD for those who have invested in quality .com and top 4 ccTLD names. Demand for them increases as the importance of having the right URL increases.
Once the new TLDs have collapsed and the carnage has ended, perhaps by 2019, premium .com names (and to a lesser extent, premium top 4 ccTLD names) as an asset class will attract more and more attention from mainstream investors (traditional share investors, high net worth individuals etc).. Interest from these types is still quite minimal really.
Exciting times ahead!
Anyone who has succeeded with domain sales (eg. Schwartz) or who has been around since the 90s or early 00s should be able to see the new TLD collapse coming. I don’t care what Schilling says, the guy is registrar, a seller of new TLD names to investors, and has made more money ‘selling shovels’ then ‘digging for gold’ himself in my opinion.
Framer.com $250,000 … Who would’ve thought a name like that could achieve a price like that. -But it’s standard now. In 2001 sites like Great Domains would’ve given it a $10-15k valuation and you would’ve struggled to get an offer higher than $7k in my opinion.
New domains appeal to buyers who prefer an un-USED domain. When forced to choose from your premium asset class, buyers face the added expense of performing due diligence not knowing where it’s been. Domains issued after 2014 have a clean bill of health.
The market for un-used domains (new TLDs) is just like the market for newly released land on the outskirts of town. -It’s for those who cannot afford to enter the market and are desperate. More than 60% of new TLD names are held by desperate / greedy investors who missed the .com party, in my opinion. Most are bad in business (if they were good in business they would remain focused on their ordinary income producing activities) and thus fail to appreciate that supply does not dictate demand, it is demand that invigorates supply.
The entire new TLD program is premised on the erroneous assumption that supply fosters demand. ICANN has done well out of it. Registrars have done well out of it. Have domain investors done well out of it? No. Because there is very little end user demand. Thus when the investment dollars evaporate and the numbers dwindle it will be the registries and registrars who suffer (listed registries and registrars may see their share prices decline significantly).
What goes up must come down.
All personal opinion.
“New domains appeal to buyers who prefer an un-USED domain.”
This sounds like something you’ve just made up rather than how buyers think.
If the new domains don’t collapse, don’t let it ruin your life. .News domains soon will be clicked on millions of times daily. .News usage will far exceed .Net … The only .Net that everyone uses is AAonline.net, and for a group dedicated to sobriety, they sure are obsessed with talking about alcohol.
Steve you say that āIf the new domains donāt collapse, donāt let it ruin your life.ā Do you mean āIf the new domains collapse, donāt let it ruin your life.ā?
Iām guessing but from your comment that you are not an end-user but a domain speculator, otherwise you would not have made this comment.
If youāve spent a few dollars or better still got free-of-charge domain names or 1 cent domain names by registries trying to bolster their figures, in the hope that you can flip the domain name to another domainer for a few dollars profit, then if the registry goes under it hasnāt ruined your life or caused any misery because youāve just lost a few bucks and had a bit of fun in the process.
The situation is quite different if you are an end-user building your business on one of these domain names because of the uncertainty. This is probably one of many reasons that real end-users are staying away.
CentralNic are shutting down various domain names. Here is a story of one distressed user of a CentralNicās .gb.com domain name that he has had for 16 years that will no longer exist in a couple of months time.. http://domainnamewire.com/2017/02/01/first-hand-account-forced-change-domain-name/ The disruption to his business is considerable.
He is considering a replacement domain name, a .design domain name, can you believe it, offered by none other thanā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦CentralNic!
As a separate issue, there has been some talk about what happens if a registry collapses. Instead of lots of opinions, can someone point to a definitive link about ICANNās policy on this.
“A new gTLD is never going to be āsunsettedā, if a registry fails then ICANN will transfer it to some other registry. Which is why they charge a security deposit from all registry operators. And this has been done in the past with registrars too, all the domains / clients are moved to another willing registrar.”
In the link you provided.
“In the event a new GTLD collapses, the extension is maintained on a backup registry while reallocation is sought to another registry.
Presumably existing domains registered under the extension can be renewed, though what the result of a new operator taking over as regards renewal costs is a concern, then again, such an issue exists for the original registry anyway as pricing is open to change”
The new gTLD registries do not need anybody’s crocodile tears or pretenses of worry. If the entrepreneurs fail, there is a procedure of ensuring continuity. In perpetuity.
Thank you.
A procedure of ensuring continuity. In perpetuity. This would be reassuring.
I was hoping for a more definitive answer. Maybe a link to a page within ICANNās website or maybe to an ICANN .pdf document.
ICANN actually has pre-selected Emergency Backend Registry Operators for such an eventuality before a successor registry is selected. These are Nominet, CNNIC and CORE Internet.
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/transition-processes-2013-04-22-en
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/faqs-2013-04-02-en
How does ICANN chose a successor registry to take over a failed registry. What if there are no takers. The clue is in the word “failed”. Failed means not a lot of people wanted what was being offered to make any money, so unless there are some incentives by ICANN there isn’t going to be a big queue lining up. If no other registry wants to take over a failed registry, does ICANN force a registry to take over a failed registry. Either willing or forced by ICANN to take over, with a Failed registry with insufficient customers to make the registry viable the immediate temptation is to squeeze, bleed those existing customers with much higher renewal fees. I read on the internet that unlike .com domain names there isn’t the same regulation with these new tld domain names. Is that correct? It all sounds horrible.
Successor is chosen through an RFP process in which the highest qualified bidder is chosen to run the TLD. In the unlikely case that there is no qualified bidder or no bidder at all, the TLD will be closed/sunsetted by ICANN.
RE-regulation, that depends on individual registry operator but given the amount of policy development work that went into the new gTLDs over several years,I can imagine there is a lot of rules and by-laws that the registry operators must comply with to avoid running into conflicts with ICANN.
Expect a fair number of “in trouble” registries to be bought out. A registry with say 500 registrants may well do a lot better under a large provider, e.g. if the names became available to a broader number of registrars.
Some will go under also, not many people will cry though, in the real world nobody cares about this. Registries can put the renewal up to $500, take back domains, close down, who cares aside from new tld domainers? It’s shitsville and the easiest way to avoid it is just don’t drive through shitsville.
What made that 3 year anniversary so unforgettable was 2 weeks of solidmumbojumbo.com from no names. Makes it possible for one person to register great domains like Comfort.Zone right out of redemption.
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