Pinky Brand wrote an article on his blog that is a good read for anyone interested in the domain industry. Whether registry, registrar or investor, Brand gives some decent insight into the new gtld program and doing business in China.
Brand noted that the new gtld’s would have to “kill it” to meet his projections for global market share. Currently they have not killed it.
From the article:
Especially for China. China is HARD.
You will not be successful there, as a foreign registry operator, at a minimum, unless you understand that you will likely lose money or barely break even for several years and are prepared to deal with that reality. You must be in it for the long term. Long term, at a minimum, is 5 years of sweating it out (flying back and forth on a near monthly basis) before things *might* work out.
Over the short to medium term the domain industry is likely to shed inefficient registry and registrar operators and investors, especially some of those who banked on new domain extensions (new gTLDs) that have no real consumer traction—which are many— and can no longer, or are just unwilling, to fund the basic holding/operating costs, let alone fund any marketing team or person.
Read the full article here
Not sure the new gTLD’s can be judged by a single country (E.g. China). While they may have a big share in domain investing, we can’t rule out the combined shares of other countries that are making great headway with new gTLD usage.
The article talked about far more than China. Great read, thx for posting this article.
Not only have the gtlds not “killed it”, but they ended up killing many of the sites with which they were foolishly associated. Stupid is as stupid does.
The only one who made “a killing” is ICANN.
$100 million in fees collected from all these suckers. They still don’t know what hit them, lol.
Majority of those New gTLD are waste of money and investment even for long term
The domain Industry is in a mess right now because of some new gTLD’s and businesses and I’m pissed off about it!
It’s embarrassing to be honest. They have set the domain Industry back years! Suckered new Investors out of money. They will not come back to the domain Industry now! Thanks for that!
People and businesses that did this to the domain Industry should be ashamed of themselves.
That starts at the top with the domain Industry regulator, right down to registries, registrars, domain websites and Investors, who were trying to pump nTLD’s and shove them down everyones throat.
It’s cluster f**k mess right now and there is no need of it! Greed, greed, greed!!!
Then, to add insult to injury, some of these people and businesses, drop the domain Industry like a bad habit and go spend their DOMAIN money on crypto-currency. WTF?! Thanks for the drive-by!
Then you have some domain people telling the whole world that 99% of registered domain names are worthless. Now there is a PR nightmare! Hey everyone, don’t buy domains from us, because they all suck! Yeah, that’s going to sell yours and everyone elses domain names! Think before you speak. Why don’t you just close the domain Industry down while you’re at it!
Everyone knows the domain numbers, but let end-users decide if they want to buy domains or not!
Oh, lets not forget about NJ shill gate thing either, what a f***ing joke. I’ve never seen a publicly owned company cover something up over and over so much in my life, like NJ has with shill bidding! Absolute bull****!
Some people need to be fired and fined over this, plus more! That includes NJ employees and domain sellers on NJ too.
Over and out!
Mak, what did you expect, something different?
And regarding people stating 99% of domains are worthless, that is a fact! Telling people anything but is a lie.
The “money grab” model of releasing them has mostly “killed” it.
Probably
Registries must love when a naive domainer talks about a long newTLDs investment.
It means a steady income for them for a long time.
The question is, are you willing to keep renewing gtld’s that are over prices to begin with and hope that in 5-10 years you can make your money back on your investment? They renewal price on .click just went up by $3.00 per domain, from $7.99 to $10.99. Like a fool I renewed the 5 .clicks I bought a year ago. Great single word names, but doubt they will stand the test of time. My advice is to stick to the old school .com, .net, org, .biz, .info.
Gary T
Thanks for your post Raymond, and for the link to my article.
For the record I don’t think the new gTLDs are dead. There are folks out there heavily involved in the new gTLDs who are smart, patient and not swayed by fringe elements and blow-in actors to the industry. They are resilient, passionate about what they do, understand there will be ups and downs. They are in it for the long haul. They know who they are. I sincerely hope they succeed.
The industry offers varying revenue/investment opportunities depending upon your business plan and appetite for risk. What’s good for ICANN, a registry operator (RO), and/or maybe for a registrar/reseller/affiliate may not be good for a domainer.
Yes ICANN has rolled in quite a bit of dough. Some folks don’t like to see that when they see the current state of affairs. However the current state is largely defined by the lens you are using to view it. No doubt a correction is in process. Some may need to correct their vision.
“They are resilient, passionate about what they do, understand there will be ups and downs.”
Way more downs than ups Pinkster!