OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
The first few hours of general availability had about 19,000 new gTLD domain name registrations but that trend didn’t continue in the next 24 hours. Despite Europe and Asia getting into action, the New gTLD registrations slowed down with just 5600 domains registered in the next day.
The real (no EAP) general availability started on Wednesday for 7 new gTLDs offered by Donuts.co: .holdings, .ventures, .singles, .plumbing, .bike, .guru, .clothing. General availability started at 16.00 GMT, a time when most of the European companies were closing and it was night in Asia.
It appears that either most registrations were done by advanced pre-registrations or that the US (with Go Daddy featuring .guru on it’s homepage) is more active in new gTLDs or that Europe and Asia did their registrations at 16.00 GMT. Or all of the above apply.
Here are the results:
(Registrations on the day before general availability -> Registrations after a few (about 9) hours of general availability -> Registrations on the next day (9+24 hours))
.guru
2890 -> 12435 -> 14950
.clothing
1016 -> 2866 -> 3695
.holdings
328 -> 975 -> 1290
.ventures
387 -> 1685 -> 1990
.singles
340 -> 2083 -> 2587
.plumbing
232 -> 1099 -> 1345
.bike
483 -> 3751 -> 4695
Total:
5676 -> 24894 -> 30552
(+19218)-> (+5658)
(I got the data from the zone files of the 7 new gTLDs. The numbers are not exact or final and include the last few hours before general availability (the Early Access Program (EAP) pricing) where domains were sold for about $175. Also domain names without nameservers don’t get listed in zone files. I maybe off a couple of domains since I include nic.newgtld, donuts.newgtld etc. that are owned by the registry.)
It may slow down further with successive launch of other new TLDs. Registries need to create a lot of awareness among the targeted end users.
Don’t forget that the registries are keeping domains and buying each other’s so it’s partly a cannibal feast.
Don’t buy into the hype — fools rush in.
Seems like .guru is a lot more popular than the others. So I bought one! 🙂 Call me crazy – it cost $30.
Do you write good resumes?
Lol – the best, that’s why I’m self-employed !
Okay, all of the suckers throughout the universe have been summoned to beckon the gtld call. They are now all officially accounted for and have all paid their recurring $25 dues. Maybe a few stragglers will still wander in, but less than a handful. In a day or two, it will be obvious that the registration numbers have fallen off of a cyber-cliff, that the application predictions of most registries were not even close to reality, that the gtld program was an absolute bust and that tld history has, once again, repeated itself.
Brace yourself for some registry backpedaling and exit strategizing.
What a dumb idea this was. Do we really need to watch innocents lose even more money in the process? Can’t we just abort this ill-conceived idea now without going any further and causing more damage? Can we learn anything from O.Co’s shortcut failure in which the Overstock board told disappointed shareholders that their anticipated traffic leakage was a killer 61%? Or, how about the failures of .Mobi, .Travel, .Coop, .Museum, .Biz, .Name, .Tel, .Pro, .XXX, .Asia, .Cat or .Jobs? Seriously, I’d love to hear someone …anyone…tell me why these silly and super-long-assed gtlds are going to be any different. I think it will unquestionably end in exactly the same way, but take far less time to get there.