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Colin CampbelI, founder of .CLUB, has officially challenged Daniel Negari, CEO of .XYZ, to a debate at THE Domain Conference that takes place this September in Florida.
Colin is debating that free or nearly free domain names doesn’t make a TLD popular.
Colin Campbell send the following tweet today:
Daniel says .XYX is #1. Let’s discuss what makes a TLD great for domain investors
Colin also send several other tweets including:
Too many mainstream journalists look at stats without understanding whether the names were bought or offered for free.
If free or nearly free names made a TLD popular than .TK would be the 25 X more popular than .XYZ and 100 x more than .CLUB.
Based on recent court documents it appears Verisign’s case against .XYZ is much stronger than first thought
exhibit showing 3 million payment. He created a perception that it was demand and they were most popular – not true in my opn
I am proud to say that .CLUB maintains it ethics in an industry with such questionable players
Fact is: .CLUB won almost every award, survey, used by celebs, and #1 by far generic on Godaddy + other registrars
It all started (again?) when the exhibit and witness lists for the Verisign vs XYZ trial were published by the DomainNameWire. A representative of the .Club registry will be a witness for the plaintiff. That kicked off a series of tweets between Colin Campbell and Kevin Murphy from DomainIncite.com. Colin then continue to tweet more about .XYZ. (see above)
I have read the documents from the Verisign vs XYZ trial yet so I can’t make a comment as to if the lawsuit has any merit or not. But I have seen that several of my articles are in the exhibit list such as “.XYZ is DEAD – DISASTER! Daniel Negari Exposed! .XYZ down to 34th place! Where is Deals.xyz?” that is one of my most popular articles lately and I now realize why. (Google choosing abc.xyz for its Alphabet website had a part in the sudden popularity of the article as well.)
I think that the debate should not only be about what makes a TLD great for domain investors only but what makes a TLD popular and successful in general. .XYZ and Deniel Negari have not responded to the challenge yet.
Colin made a couple of other tweets late last night that I believe he doesn’t want to be seen as I can’t find them today. These were probably deleted by Colin, right? 🙂
All I can say it that Colin challenged Daniel one on one!
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Excellent story, Kostas.
It seems that your opinion about XYZ remains as it was before the results of TheChallenge despite you being the judge.
And you’re right, the debate shouldn’t be about what makes it great for investors — at all.
It’s obvious that Mr Negari has hit a nerve. Also K our name you picked to win the .xyz Challenge
GreatBuddies.com was just featured front page first row center in the BrandBucket newsletter out of 20,000 names.
Colin CampbelI is going to eat that kid for lunch and bring him to his knees.
“BullS” bows to Mr.Campbell!!
Every new born Greek will get a free dot xyz.
So is $4.24 for a .club reg a fair price to set the ethos bar of a popular name?
My main problem is with free domains. Even $1 domains are way better than free. Free domains invite scam, spam and criminals.
That was last year wasn’t it? They would be renewed or dropped by now.
All of my spam is .com
$4.24 is a promotional price with one registrar. I highly doubt they will continue for too long. Every popular registrar gets their round of promotional deals.
Also, I agree with KZ that $1 is much better than free. Prime example: GoDaddy
I challenge Shane Cultra to a debate…..LETS DEBATE!……Make Domaining Great Again!………..
Let’s move that to NamesCon please… I can’t miss all good debates!
So the trash dump is going to challenge the vagrant’s mobile park to a debate? Color me stupid, but all gtlds suck, do they not?
No, not all.
Is 50 cents still count as a celebrity?
I like both these registries, but IMO .club should just ignore .xyz and focus on their own registry instead of tweeting a bunch of negative things about a competitor and challenging them to determine which gTLD is better for domain investors.
I would have more respect for the .club registry if they didn’t do things like this. To me it all comes off as unprofessional and immature.
I wonder which celebs he is claiming use .club? 50cent? Paying celebs to use something is little different to xyz giving domains away, both completely hollow.
These are the celebs Colin mentioned in one of his tweets:
“Demi Lovato, BombayBicyle, RTJohnson were just a few”
Fiddy and Kohli were the ones sponsored by .club.
““Demi Lovato, BombayBicyle, RTJohnson were just a few””
Maybe I’m getting old but I’ve never heard of any of them.
Me too but I just checked and Lovato is 23 years old and a singer. She is using lovato.club for her members.
I typed her name into google and she looks to be using demilovato.com, .club nowhere to be found.
Eventually I found it by typing lovato .club though it seems the site isn’t exactly doing well being now closed to new members,
https://www.change.org/p/lovato-club-please-don-t-close-lovato-club
The important thing is whether the free or nearly free domains will be renewed for a normal 8-9 dollar fee. Only time will tell. And it won’t take so long for us to see the results.
In the spirit of promoting the overall domain space and domain name usage generally, may I suggest that it would be more useful to all concerned if each registry would simply continue their advocacy of their respective TLDs / brands , and the merits of the gTLD space rather than arguing about the marketing methods of a peer.
.Club and .XYZ, and others might benefit from looking at the competition between the Hertz and AVIS rental car.
Remember, Hertz is #1.
https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/emember/join/overview.do?learnMore=n1
AVIS … We Try Harder.
http://www.projectrebrief.com/avis/#page=original
The .Club and .XYZ TLDs, are two of the more useful TLDs in my opinion. Each for different reasons.
No one is going to have long-term gains in market share by bad-mouthing a great competitor.
I’ve registered a few of each.
Great move by Colin Campbell of .CLUB!
As for that miscreant Daniel Negari and the .XYZ registry, they lose if they debate him and they lose face by not answering the challenge.
Some might argue that any disagreements within the industry or among registries will rock the boat in a way that’s bad for everybody. I disagree. Here’s why:
(1) I’d rather work in a domain industry that values integrity enough to criticize acts of fraud. Wouldn’t you? Consumers distrust the domain industry already. And I don’t blame them because I distrust it too!
Professionals like you and me are automatically viewed with suspicion because our peers – from cybersquatters to the .XYZ Registry – so often exploit the public. Seeing the better half of the industry stand up against the worse half would help consumers identify companies that don’t cheat them.
(2) The domain industry is often described as the Wild Wild West because it is barely regulated at all. If we don’t police ourselves, some outside agency eventually will. Ask yourselves if you want that to happen at this stage.
(3) There’s a very good chance that the .XYZ scandal will catch up with the nTLD program as a whole. Once the general public realizes that registration numbers have been faked, they’ll probably lump all nTLDs together and dismiss the success of companies like .CLUB as just another bogus .XYZ story.
So I’d argue that it’s very important for every registry that has NOT artificially inflated its numbers to distance itself as much as possible from .XYZ beginning right away with public statements. When the average person hears about fake registration numbers, it might help companies like .CLUB enormously to be mentioned in the same breath with .XYZ as THE nTLD exemplar of honesty and popularity.
Hello and thank you for your lengthy post but could you elaborate on the fraud that you’ve accused the .xyz registry of and please be very specific it’s a very serious charge. Also why would Google align itself with a company involved in any type of fraud as you’ve accused .xyz of here on this blog? Thank you.
@John,
Seriously?
What domain industry observer believes Daniel Negari DIDN’T cut a deal with Network Solutions to artificially inflate .XYZ registration numbers?
Who HASN’T seen Negari pointing to those numbers disingenuously as evidence of “success”, encouraging naive consumers to pay his company money on the basis of that “success” and persuading journalists to repeat the same tall tale?
In this litigious society, I’d only make myself a target by getting into the specifics. But we all know the underlying truth here. Whether the legal definition of fraud sticks in this case or not, I believe the ethical case isn’t up for doubt whatsoever. And I trust that either a court of law or investigative journalists will bring to light the details we’ve all suspected were there ever since Daniel Negari began evading Rick Schwartz’s direct question, “Were you involved?” over 14 months ago.
“Seriously” yes-actually very seriously. Joseph you seem to postulate this theory of Mr. Negari, and now you’ve included Network Solutions, in collusion to commit an act of fraud on an unknowing public. That’s fine but please,as asked above, offer some proof rather than simple rhetoric. You’re obviously a very bright fellow and you know that your statement “What industry observer etc” above doesn’t even pass the smell test let alone proof. Without proof you’re statement is nothing more than rambling innuendo. As to your “In this litigious society” comment, I highly doubt you’d have anything to fear by printing the truth here. Thank you for your reply.
My main problem with the .xyz/Network Solutions deal was not any false advertising, although it could be. I am not too familiar with US law regarding that so I will leave it to the court.
My problem was and still is that thousands of people were given a domain name they didn’t purchase (even for free).
They didn’t know they are getting a domain and they didn’t want the domain.
That scares me. And what scares me more is that a big registrar agreed to do it.
And also scares me the fact that ICANN, that is so obsessed with whois accuracy, allowed a registrar and a registry to register domains using the whois details from people that didn’t want the domain and of course didn’t want their details on whois.
@John,
You ought to be more careful in your statements. Where have I ever said that Network Solutions acted “in collusion to commit an act of fraud”? What I did say is that Network solutions “artificially inflate[d] .XYZ registration numbers”. And that, my friend, is universally acknowledged.
I assume Network Solutions was paid handsomely by Negari’s company for a task they performed in a straightforward way – i.e. stuffing .XYZ domains into the accounts of customers who hadn’t asked for them. So if I take issue with any false claims about those registration numbers, stated or implied, those claims are Daniel Negari’s responsibility insofar as they are his words or content approved by him.
Elsewhere, I’ve examined Daniel Negari’s remarks in some detail. Anybody may read what the guy has said. For instance, take his prophecy of a million .XYZ registrations. This occurred (if memory serves) immediately before the dubious Network Solutions registrations began. So if Negari knew that these registrations were UNWANTED by registrants yet was simultaneously encouraging the public to believe that such registration volume was proof of .XYZ’s POPULARITY, then he lied.
We all agree that registrants did not request those .XYZ registrations. So it’s only a question of whether Daniel Negari knew those domains were placed in accounts without people’s consent.
If you dispute anything I’ve said, then please be specific.
“I assume Network Solutions” etc. Joseph as I’ve mentioned you seem to be a bright young man and you know what they say amount “assume”. Have a nice day.
@John, I’m laying out the argument as a syllogism. If X and Y, then Z. In doing so, I state that X and Y are assumptions.
Assumption X:
.XYZ registrations were unwanted and artificial.
Assumption Y:
Daniel Negari knew this while telling consumers that .XYZ registration volume was a sign of popularity.
Conclusion Z:
Daniel Negari lied to consumers.
I state what I assume so that readers are free to assume it or not at their discretion.
John – Still a skeptic ? Try http://domainincite.com/19139-did-xyz-com-pay-netsol-3m-to-bloat-xyz
Hello Acro and thank you but yes I am still a skeptic. Last time I looked we don’t live in Nazi Germany here with no say in judicial hearings so we’ll let the courts decide. Also,and I thank you for this because I didn’t know and am very disappointed to see, that VeriSign would engage in “outing” the media in what appears to have been “off the record” confidential discussions. So we’ll have to agree to disagree and watching the outcome will be very interesting. Thank you for your reply to my post.
@John
You are entitled to disagree with me, and I personally admire anybody who doesn’t get swept away in the current. Still, maybe freedom of speech gives me the right to condemn dishonest acts by others without being (A) a judge or (B) a Nazi.
Obviously I was referring to the judicial system not anyone in particular. I would never do that but even if I were so inclined,which I absolutely am not, isn’t that why you served in the Navy and myself the Marine Corps? To protect freedom of speech. That said I understand your point and enjoy your well thought out posts,even if I don’t agree sometimes.
Long live cordial disagreements!
Semper fi. Have a great evening.
Thank you both for your services!