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My personal
opinion is that a flood of new extensions will have little impact on
the well established TLDs that preceded them (I elaborated on why I
think this will be the case in a pair of posts in our Lowdown
section June
26 and June
27). In a nutshell, past history has not been kind to new
TLDs and I see little reason to believe that dumping a massive number
of them on the market at once will be any more or less successful than
ICANN's previous strategy of releasing new extensions in a slow,
deliberate manner. The domain buying public and the major corporations
(whose advertising and promotion of their .com domains made
that extension the business standard and, by far, most popular
extension in the world) failed to rally around any of the
previous new TLD releases in a significant way, preferring to stick
with the extensions the man on the street is already familiar with.
|
Rick
Schwartz |
T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference co-founder Rick Schwartz, who has a pretty
good track record for predicting future trends in this
business, told members of his private discussion board
(printed here with his permission) "This is the biggest
nothing I have seen in quite some time. It won't affect
anything for 10 years and when it all kicks in, it will
cost traffic to .com...ZIPPO. It may even increase it
as folks become more aware of the browser bar and direct
navigation."
"I am amazed with the
energy going into this, but that same energy would be better
spent dealing with the here and now while our
"Partners" are giving us the shaft. THAT my
friends is 1,000,000,000 times the threat that this nonsense
will ever be. This is not happening tomorrow. Odds are it won't
even happen next year. There will be serious opposition. There may be lawsuits filed. The devil is
in the details and this is not user friendly. Much ado about nothing from where I sit right
now," Schwartz concluded. |
Schwartz's
reference to "Partners" being a bigger threat to domain
investors than potential dilution of specific TLD values is related to
registrars and other service providers that Schwartz and others
believe are competing unfairly against their own customers. One
specific and currently high profile example of this allegation is a
dispute between registrar Tucows.com and several of their
customers over domains Tucows auctioned off, then, claiming a mistake
had been made, took back from the winning bidders. One of the bidders
especially angry about that situation is attorney Michael Berkens,
a pioneer domain investor, who has generated a lively discussion about
this incident on a pair of threads at his popular blog, TheDomains.com.
The first
thread is his account of winning 23 domains in a Tucows
auction then having them all taken back by the registrar and the
second centers on the response from Tucows.
| Back to the topic
at hand - many of those who welcome a wave of new domain
extensions are hoping this development will open up new
investment opportunities and perhaps even break
|
| .com's
stranglehold on the public's affection, giving latecomers
a bigger share of the domain aftermarket pie.
Brian Berke of MCB-TV,
a forum member with the
handle Poodlejoey, started a busy thread at DomainState.com,
saying about .com, "What is considered “beachfront
today” is not guaranteed forever. The virtual world
is governed by different standards then the real world. If .RealEstate
takes off and is marketed nationally by agents, then guess
what? Now this is “beachfront property” for this very
valuable niche that suddenly erodes the value of .com real
estate related domains. This is business 101. If .NYC
is used and developed and branded by the City of New York
and it takes off, then suddenly that is “beachfront
property.” Content, development, real world marketing and
branding is what will carry the day." |
Will
ICANN's wave of new TLDs open
up new beachfront property on the web? |
|
Of
course those are some big "ifs" and some of
those who own great .com geo domains that could face
competition from new extensions like .nyc don't believe those
ifs will ever be realized. Dan
Pulcrano, the CEO of Boulevards New Media
(owners of LosAngeles.com, SanFrancisco.com and Dallas.com
among others) told us, "ICANN should be creating order |
|
Dan
Pulcrano
CEO, Boulevards New Media |
out of chaos. They
should be managing the system like Ben Bernanke
at the Fed. This will be a boon for IP lawyers, arbitrators,
domain auctions and registrars, from whom ICANN presumably
gets upstream benefits. It is good news for premium
brand holders. The more clutter, the more fractured and
divided the addressing schemes, the more the gold standard
is worth."
Pulcrano added, "I
recently dissected the Quantcast 1000 (a ranking of the
top 1,000 U.S. websites). Of the 1,000 most visited domains,
more than 88% are .com's. 3.9% are .net, 2.5% are .gov,
1.8% are .org, 1.5% are .us (all but 2 are state government
sites like ca.us and ny.us)...In short, among the most visited
sites, US consumers prefer dotcoms over its distant
second, .net, by more than 20 to 1. And, among sites in
this group, they prefer .com over all other TLDs
combined by more than 10 to 1. The TLD .travel doesn't
even appear on the radar. Even in the top 25,000 sites they
have yet to make an appearance. This should give pause to the
cluttermongers, who want to litter the net with a
proliferation of new suffixes that will be hard for consumers
to remember, spell and use." |
|
| Michael
Castello, the CEO and President of Castello
Cities Internet Network, Inc. (owners of PalmSprings.com
and Nashville.com, as well as many others) told us,
"The new TLDs will be the death knell of the
domainers name game in my opinion. It is basically a kill
pill. The markets within markets of domain speculation are timing out and so many new extensions will only
confuse the masses. Most domainers only talk to domainers and do not
understand the logic on the street. Domainers are thinking way too much and in reality success in this business
is very simple. Search engines will help with the clutter of these
new vTLDs ("vanity" TLDs, a term coined by
Michael's brother and CCIN partner, David Castello) but in the long run .com is the easy way for people to
navigate. They will drill down more to relevant content with a
trusted name. There will also be some great .tv, .us,
.org, .space, etc. that will succeed but they will be
exceptions."
Castello added, "Here is something of interest. When you think of a movie star or a
prominent contributor in history these are some of the names in
"memory"; Elvis, Sting, Madonna,
James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, |
Michael
Castello
CEO, CCIN Inc. |
|
Cher, Ted Williams, Bob Hope, The Beatles
and a list that goes on and on, every one of them has a great
.com site. The public understands it and these businesses understand it. They
have met half way and the perception is complete. That is not going
to change, it is going to advance much further into the future." |
When well
established .com owners like Schwartz, Pulcrano and Castello make
their points about new TLDs, a common retort is that they are just
trying to protect their territory - but their expectations are shared
by many who don't own high profile .com assets.
One of the top
young domainers, Kevin Ohashi, who will be heading to Sweden
next fall to begin his Master's Degree program in entrepreneurship
at Lund University, has a personal blog on a .info site
at Ohashi.info. In an extensive and well thought out article
there titled Why
New TLDs Don't Change a Thing, Ohashi wrote, "The
late night commercials really reinforce what I believe anecdotally. I
see this "make money from home" stuff at 4 am where they use
some set of keywords of their brand with a number in .com. They could
use anything, but they are using .com and buying bunches of them to
track, because obviously, they, whether consciously or unconsciously,
believe that users will be more likely to go to the .com. It's that
notion and behavior, a familiar feel, even a sense of trust that makes
.com and why it will keep it's crown for years to come. No newcomers, no
matter how successful, will really impact it."
|
|
When it comes to
the idea of a new extension replacing .com as the king I have
to agree, it's too late - that train has already left the
station. I say that as someone who also appreciates several of
the previous new TLDs (I own many .info, .biz
and .us domains and .us happens to be a personal
favorite as I believe ccTLDs are in a great position with
local search and identification becoming increasingly important
on the Internet). It would certainly benefit me personally if
new TLDs achieved more widespread recognition and did it
quickly, but I also think you have to look at things realistically.
Well chosen names in new
extensions can certainly be profitable as recognition of those
TLDs gradually increases (returns from mine have grown year
after year), but this is a process that takes time.
Another thing I have learned is that growth for any new TLD
does not come out of .com's hide.
A lot of my fellow new TLD
investors root for .com to be knocked off the throne,
thinking |
| that
will enhance the value of their assets, but in my opinion .com
has been much more of a friend to new extension owners than an
enemy. A primary reason why you can make money with well
chosen names in some of the new TLDs is that as .coms have
gotten more expensive, many small businesses and individuals
elect to go with alternate extensions to get the keywords they
want at an affordable price. .Com is the engine that
has been pulling the entire train, including the boxcars
filled with new extensions. When the big wave of new
extensions starts hitting the beach, in my opinion that is not
likely to change. |
|
| No matter what
happens it will be an interesting new era to watch unfold. As
a reporter, change always keeps things fresh and exciting
and I'm looking forward to seeing how things will play out.
There are many different opinions out there and it will be years
before we know whose opinions prove to be closest to the money
on this topic.
Too many things beyond our
control can happen for anyone to be sure what lies
ahead (if any of us could do that we would be at the horse
track right now rather than reading - or writing - this
article). Because of that I don't spend a lot of time debating
what the future holds. In general I consider it a waste of
time that could be better used on more important issues that
we face right now. However the fact that I, and so many
others, are debating it, shows how the concept of
unlimited TLDs stirs the imagination. So, even though it
doesn't amount to much more than an entertaining parlor game,
I had to take a turn at the ouija board too. |
If
any of us could really tell the future
we would be at the horse track |
My wish is
that all of today's commentators, no matter what they see over the
horizon, enjoy great success in the years ahead. We're pretty
much all on the record now, so let's come back in five years (and then
again in ten) and see how things have played out and which observers,
back in 2008, made the most accurate predictions. If I end up missing
by a mile, it won't be the first time and I'm glad that's the case -
things would be pretty boring if we didn't have some surprises along
the way. We are all fortunate to be journeying through a business that
is like a great book that you just can't put down. I don't know about
you, but for me every new chapter is so interesting I don't want to
know exactly how it ends until I get to the last page.
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