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Wednesday's
"Big Reveal" Day
when
ICANN will officially announce who has
applied to run what new domain extensions (new
TLDs) is capturing a ton of press attention
from both domain industry blogs and mainstream
media outlets (from the latter category Paul
Sloan's piece at CNET.com
does one of the best jobs of breaking it down
for readers on Main Street). I've been
fielding calls all day from reporters ranging
from National Public Radio to Politico
seeking comments on what is about to go
down.
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Despite
the critical role they play on the
Internet, domain names rarely get this
much publicity in the outside
world - a fact that is often lamented by
domain investors. Ironically, now that
domains are in what may be their brightest
spotlight ever, the least
interested spectators of all are domain
investors! On his popular industry
blog Elliot Silver ran a poll
Monday asking readers if they even
cared about new gTLDs. As of this
writing 60% have replied no.
Unlike
in the past when domain investors were
the first to scoop up the most
attractive domains in the newly
introduced extensions most swear they
are going to sit out the
impending tsunami of new extensions.
Many saw their investments in previous
new TLDs evaporate from lack on interest
in those |
Image
from Bigstock |
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extensions
and they believe that having the market flooded
with hundreds of new extensions at once
will make the new arrivals even less
attractive for those who only want
to buy and sell individual names. |
The
consensus seems to be that the people who will
make money this time around will a few who run
registries based on the most popular terms or
those who provide backend registry or consulting
services. Make no mistake, there is plenty
of excitement among the people in that
corner of the industry - a remarkable contrast
to the mood among their individual investor
compatriots who seem to be bored silly by
the whole affair. In the latter's eyes, the new
gTLDs are DOA even before they get out of the
gate.
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Image
from Bigstock |
Wherever
you fall in the spectrum, one thing is
for sure - an unprecedented amount of
money is flowing into the domain
space. Love them or hate them new gTLDs
may make money for you whether you
actively get in the game or not. There
is a large school of thought that the
sudden onslaught of so many new
extensions will only sow confusion,
further driving up the value of the gold
standard - .com and some of the
better-known legacy TLDs like .net,
.org and the major country code
domains preferred |
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by individual
investors. If that happens the new gTLDs
may become your best friends even if you
don't want to take any of them on a
date. |
Whatever
happens, we are going to have plenty of fireside
chat fodder in the months and years ahead as we
watch how the world reacts to so many new gTLDs.
A lot of people on both sides can't wait for
their chance to say, "I told you
so." What will be interesting is which
side will get to say that? Or better yet -
in a scenario that few seemed to have considered
- the possibility that both sides
could end up coming out ahead.
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