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quote
John McEnroe, was "You can't be
serious!" That was my second
thought as well. .CA, which is
celebrating its 25th
anniversary this month, isn't going
anywhere. Actually, let me rephrase that -
with a popular ccTLD that is
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While
no one knows exactly how the hundreds of new
gTLDs that are expected to start arriving in
the next year or two will impact the various
segments of the market, there is one thing we
do know. That is that top ccTLDs
dramatically outperform non .com gTLDS
(which is what the new extensions will be) in
the domain aftermarket - a good indicator
of how buyers value the two options. In recent
years, the total $ volume of ccTLD sales
reported to us for our weekly
sales reports have been double
the amount spent on reported non .com gTLD
sales.
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If
you took the long established .nets
and .orgs out of the non .com
gTLD category, leaving only the previous
"new" gTLDS that
followed them, the level of sales in
that group would barely move the
needle. Like .coms, which
have become synonymous with the Internet
itself, ccTLDs representing major
industrial countries have some unique
advantages that cannot be erased. As
intellectual property lawyer John
McKeown told The Star about
.CA, “I think they’re well
positioned: they’ve got all the
benefits of a geographical top level
domain name, because for people who want
to be associated with Canada,
that’s the domain name of choice." |
Most
local businesses want to be associated with their
location and there is also a patriotic
appeal to using a national domain. That's
why new .CA registrations outnumber new .com
registrations in Canada (and why Germany's
.de, Great Britain's .co.uk and
several other ccTLDs are such powerhouses).
There will be hundreds and eventually thousands
of new gTLDs but there will continue to be only
one country code domain for each
nation. The
current non .com gTLDs look to be in a
considerably more precarious competitive
position. They don't have the unique geographic
edge the ccTLDs do and many of the new gTLDs
will have more narrowly focused meanings
than existing gTLD alternatives, something that
may make them more attractive to small business
end users (the most likely buyers of new gTLDS
as they are the ones whose preferred terms have
usually already been taken in .com and the
bigger ccTLDs). The
arrival of new gTLDs will certainly create some
interesting horse races, but unless you like
buying tickets on 1,000 to 1 long shots,
I wouldn't bet on any of them sending a well
established ccTLD like .CA into oblivion.
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On other
note today - in case you entered The
Lowdown from somewhere other than
our Home Page you may not know
that our new July
Cover Story was released
today. It is a fascinating profile
of United Airlines pilot/domain
investor-developer Bob Olea. It's
a story filled with more ups and downs
than a hang glider in a hurricane. From
being forced out of his childhood home
by a bulldozer to having his life
upended by the 9/11 attacks to
riding domains to redemption,
Olea has lived a life that would be full
for someone twice his age. If you don't
know Bob, you should - so allow us to
introduce you in this story: Course
Correction: Why Commercial Airline Pilot
Bob Olea is Now Banking on Domains as
Well as Planes.
By the way,
in keeping with the theme of today's
post, Bob's thoughts on the arrival of new
gTLDs are among the many topics
covered in that Cover Story.
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Bob
Olea |
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