OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Today is EAP day 5 for 5 New gTLDs from Donuts that are travel related: .vacations, .flights, .villas, .rentals and .cruises. Did you get any yet or will you get any in general availability?
Donuts domains are getting more and more expensive by the week. I got 4 domains today and might get 2 more in GA if these are still available on Wednesday.. 2 of my domains are sub-$50 premiums and the other 2 have regular pricing. I am not buying a lot of domains as premium renewal prices have skyrocketed. I am not buying anything above $200 and 99% of the time nothing above $50 per year. Just look at the most expensive domain I found that is still available!
luxury.villas at $13,500 per year
Here are a few more (all prices are from 101domain.com):
$4,500
discount.flights
island.vacations
usa.vacations
golf.vacations
mountain.vacations
$1,600
london.vacations
tennis.vacations
ski.vacations
beach.rentals
great.vacations
$800
holiday.flights
firstclass.flights
coach.flights
book.villaspool.villas
forsale.villas
exclusive.villas
holiday.villas
thai.flights
$400
e.vacations
i.vacationssearch.villas
tuxedo.rentals
utah.rentals
villa.rentals
miami.rentals
frenchriviera.villas
The ones that are crossed out have been registered. Pretty much all geographical domains in these 5 new gtlds are low to high premiums.
Which ones didya get?
Domenclature.com I am a bit shy. 🙂
Come on, tell us, don’t be shy. I promise I won’t say anything.
Some of the above are available in .NET:
TENNISVACATIONS.NET
COACHFLIGHTS.NET
BOOKVILLAS.NET
FORSALEVILLAS.NET
IVACATIONS.NET
FRENCHRIVIERAVILLAS.NET
Konstantinos
its only $9,300 at Hexonet
Cheap!
Kosta,
you missed Greek.Vacations 😉
Another greek guy grabbed it! 😀
I didn’t miss it. At $150/year I am not interested.
I got 4 cheap ones.
I was just kidding of course 😉
That’s $4,000 to register a domain name, beats the hell out of the $1 profit margin of a .com for a registrar
Gold rush for fools gold you guys don’t realize unless you get the premium term your investment will always be diluted when a new extension comes out. You see guys like Berkwna register them, but they do no cost them anything, just rolling consulting funds into new gtlds, it’s a wash if it doesn’t work out. The way all the different registries work, and the rules do not work with mass consumer fundamentals, just to many working parts to be the norm. I wish all you investors the best regardless, but it can’t be that easy, those premiums are unsustainable.
Exactly what I think @Dan. I just don’t see the economics of it in a competitive environment. unless you own islandvacations.com and you’re registering island(s).vacation as a defensive strategy, I don’t see how island.vacation gives you a compete level especially if you’re not the first mover.
Having the liability of educating the public to adopt the domain extension later on have to figure out a competitive strategy is too much work for any business. I am hoping that whoever is paying that money attended an economics class. Every new extension is a potential competitor so the rules of scarcity aren’t applying in this case. Fools gold indeed.
I am staying away from eem all.
For that $13,500 domain I think wholesale will be at about $8,000.
I didn’t reg any, but since i just saw this article i felt the need to check arctic.vacations which is available and premium. So instead i just regged arctic.holiday 🙂
At a fraction the price! I wonder how the arctic.vacations buyer thinks he/she will get a leg up you with your arctic.holiday. tikal.holiday is available for $39. Just came from there 8 days ago and its big business. Thank me or curse me later 😉
These are mine
1stclass.vacations
amalficoast.vacations
dog.vacations
firstclass.vacations
fortlauderdale.vacations
french.vacations
good.vacations
great.cruises
greekislands.cruises
italian.vacations
lowcost.vacations
movingtruck.rentals
newyorkapartment.rentals
nycapartment.rentals
positano.vacations
southbeach.rentals
sports.vacations
the.cruises
the.flights
the.vacations
upgrade.flights
LOL @lowcost vacations, I have never heard of that term , Cheap.Vacations is much betters, it may be premium.
I regged ZERO. So far I am down to 3 gtlds domains 🙂 and feeling proud
$100
the.cruises
southbeach.rentals
$150
french.vacations
sports.vacations
the.vacations
nycapartment.rentals
movingtruck.rentals
$400
great.cruises
$800
the.flights
I have one issue with new gTLD Sunrise Registrations, that has not been resolved satisfactorily yet.
It has been emphasized by various Registries that their main concern is to get domain names in the hands of end-users that will develop them, akin to founders program; for example, we know that DOT CO gave Bahamas.Co to Elliot for example.
So, how do we know that all these names that Zournas often list as sold in the thousands of dollars were not arranged for the end-users to get them for free, so they can make good use of the names, it seems unlikely, but plausible. I find it strange that these Companies will waste such amounts of money registering these names, and after the names get to General availability, they stall, and stop.
Something ain’t right.
Sunrise or EAP registrations?
Donuts has no founders program from what I know. And if it had, all these domains I list were purchased after the new gltds entered the EAP GA.
What do you mean by stall and stop?
They stall or stop under 60,000
This should not be treated like the great landrush.
This is a marathon. New gTLDs will be slowly registered mostly by people that are starting a new business or are new to the internet.
There is no point in everybody registered all their domains in new gtlds. Especially since most of them are a niche.
Do we have any examples of new business(es) using them now? Surely some new businesses have mushroomed he last 3 or 4 months.
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/03/26/news/donuts-launches-new-featured-sites-webpage/
And several others. Search my blog and google.
The Registries, including Frank Schilling (on DomainInite), stated that the high prices and renewals, were to discourage ‘Domainers’ such as yourself, from buying and parking their domains thus diluting the extension, which means that an authentic End-user could get their domains for FREE or usual registration price, if the Registry is convinced that it’s good for the extension overall. Therefore, I am still unconvinced that this effort to recruit these ‘authentic’ end-users couldn’t come from the beginning of the process? They could solicit this end-user before launch, during launch, or after. You don’t know. I don’t know.
They are not regulated.
This just bullshit. What they said about domainers they said it just as an excuse to put high renewals and reserve domains.
No one is getting a free domain unless they are some very high profile entity and their domain is worthless anyway.
Like MetropolitanPolice.london or something like that.
And of course that is only true for new gtlds that are owned by cities because they will probably have no premium renewals etc.
If they wanted to keep domainers away they could just sell luxury.villas to a company named “luxury villas” for $10 but that ain’t happening this century.
No man you don’t have to worry about that. Competitive markets work in amazing ways. Domainers alone are causing day one and pre-reg prices to go up as they are competing with each other for premiums.
The statements that registries really care about end users purchasing and using domains are just reassurances for impulsive buyers. The registry business is to make sales and thats all that matters.
Ok, i couldn’t resist so i just got the following;
24h.villas
24h.rentals
24h.flights
total waste of money, advice for you, delete and get a refund!
@sukhjin
If i listened to all the people who knew it all better i’d probably be collecting cans in the street by now 😉 So do me a favor and go advise yourself to give less advise to people you have no clue about.
@ Pax
You just might be collecting cans at renewal times, I know you were all over some of those early premium names, when donuts was sleeping a bit, but don’t fret donuts has an equalizer plan that you will see at around new years, some of those names you think are cheap now, will most likely be ramping up to premium renewals with reclassification of those premium terms. Yes, then you can renew 10 years out, and they will have 10 years of revenue on something that doesn’t have legs to stand on.
Two sides to every point, yours might be right, but right now you are more wrong, than right.
@Robbie
You are making bold predictions about an innovating industry with alot of people and corporations behind it. To me personally it’s investing and that comes with risk.
It is also not true that Donuts can change price or reclassify already registered domains. If you don’t believe me check the agreement / terms which are also available on ICANN. Or just send Donuts an email which might be faster 🙂
@Pax,
It seems to me that Robbie is bang on. I recommend that you take the time to read an extensive comment posted by Stahura, the CEO of Donuts a year ago here:
http://www.thedomains.com/2013/10/11/donuts-to-start-sunrise-period-for-9-new-gtlds-on-october-29th/comment-page-1/#comment-129717
In there, he makes it clear that the most important aspect of bringing success to ther new gTLD proram was getting the domains in the hands of End-Users, not domainers, followed by promotion, in fact here’s a quote from the discourse:
“We think that usage of names in our .camera helps our .email. Why? Because .camera gets a bit more word out that new TLDs are here, that there are a large number of these TLDs now. When there is just a hammer (“miscellaneous”), a tweezer (“.museum”), and a toothbrush (“.info”), most folks will pick the hammer because it can do many things like pound in that screw, and chip away at that tree, and because a screwdriver and saw are unavailable. When people see that a screwdriver is available (because for example, they see someone using a screwdriver), then I think they’ll “get” that a saw may also be available, and they’ll really get it when they see a toothpick, an allen wrench, a pipe wrench, a feather duster, a pencil, a pen, a drill, a thermometer, a stethoscope, an oscilloscope, and 1,000 others. They won’t use that hammer as much as they used to, especially when every time they pick up the hammer it costs more than picking up the screwdriver.
Besides use, we at Donuts also think marketing is very important – but I’ll save that topic for another day”. – Paul Stahura
Clearly, he understands that “Use” or adoption, is the deal. Therefore, it is logical to assume that they will do “everything” to bring this about. If “Domainers” game their first year and end up with choicy names, contrary to their plans, it is within their “Agreement” to keep doing stuff, including the options postulated by Robbie, until they achieve their aims and goals. So, I wouldn’t rule anything out, if I were you.
@Pax,
and here is a more relevant quote from Stahura, on the issue of use:
“But second, Like Ballmer saying “developers, developers, developers,” I say “users, users, users.” And by users I mean folks who use these names, put them on business cards, use them for email, put up a website, use them in Google ads, etc. Our premium names will, by and large, not be priced at more than $5K per year, and in most cases, way less. That includes single-letter names. I see that that does not seem to be in Donuts interest, so why would we do that? The simple answer is: use”.
They will price the domains at the highest price that they think these will be sold.
Not a penny less.
That is why they keep increasing renewal premiums.
They only care about money, money, money.
I picked up i.flights e.vacations i.vacations
Nice ones but what do you think about the ~$400 renewals?
how much did you pay for each?
About a $1,000 each with a $400 renewal per year.
I thought all single and double character domains were forced to be held back by the Registries. This has been relayed to us from different sources on more than one occasion.
1-char are free to register if the registry allows it. Donuts allows it.
2-char are reserved by ICANN.
With the single letter e @ i for the category of flights or vacations I still feel it’s an absolute no brainer! I feel these are the some of the best names of all the tlds so far.
ivacation is an active TM, many of you are not looking into TM, you will have issues when companies catch wind of your registrations, with recent reg dates, and UDRP hands your domains over.
Robbie, I checked and it is not a trade mark along with the fact that if it were … Vacations is a generic tld and I is also a generic letter in the English alphabet …. I’ve never had a Udrp.. And I’m not looking to start now.
good luck to you.
Phil, iVacation isn´t a TM? Check out USPTO nr 86067096.
Just checked again … Nothing … Went to the search.uspto.gov searched your number and Ivacation … Nothing …. I did a search on a different site and it showed a non active for Orange County country club but promotional items ..l but that was all.. But even that being said …. .vacations has been assigned as a genetic tld and the letter I can’t be trade marked . It is short for international vacations .. Or several others… It has a completely different context than the non active “I vacation”
Actually single letters can be trademarked. That is one of the problems of the trademark system.
Forgive me , I guess I meant to say you can’t trademark a single letter that is an all encompassing tm … If you have a unique mark like E! Or a special design for the letter O and tm for a specific purpose like a magazine .. You can … But Apple lost their attempt to get a mark issued for i , and the latter part of this thread was basically implying I would be at risk for a udrp for trademark infringement .. So I was just explaining my purchases and why I felt that wasn’t a fair comment about me not checking trademarks before buying them at a premium.
http://www.tormey.pro/letter.htm
I think this is what is reffered to:
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:xk71d1.2.5
Although the usage description is very vague since it’s hard to see it has to do with vacations 🙂
The link expires after a few minutes.
Here it is:
Word Mark IVACATION
Goods and Services IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Developing promotional campaigns for business. FIRST USE: 20130725. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20130725
Serial Number 86067096
Filing Date September 17, 2013
Note that it has not yet been registered.
Remember this information is public before he registered. He should just delete and get a refund. its easier.
I don’t think he should do that.
My concerns are the reg fees, and the defensive fees at a time when most .com owners think .whatevers are an assault on their .com properties. I see a lawyers not touching your case under $5k and what if ivacations claims to promote vacation products as part of their product promotions scope of business. More headaches than the expected return value 10 years from now. But hey its just my opinion.
Bul they can’t claim that.
I have defended all my UDRP cases myself and have also defended a couple for clients.
So no $5k but of course my time.
But there is some legal costs involved in any investment, domains including.
Just ask any domain investor with high quality 1 word .com. They have received and will receive plenty of UDRPs.
But unless we fix UDRP then that will always be the case.
I ddont think a non registered filing for a different word with a county club would have anything todo with my use as a travel site focusing on international travel.
You are correct. (not on the non registered part)
They couldn’t get a trademark for ivacation on anything that had to do with travel or vacation so they got it for something irrelevant like “Developing promotional campaigns for business.”. As long as you don’t use it for that (and why would you?) you are safe.
But of course there is always the case of UDRP from some mad man. But you could easily defend yourself.
I have seen cases that are much stronger lose than this, the registration dates on UDRP’s showing 2014 are going to be a huge issue.
ivacation could say similar term of their mark, and to not use a vacation name for promotion purposes makes it pretty much useless. I would be careful in handing out legal advice, as so many of these cases have gone sideways. After spending $1K, plus $400 on renewals, once ivacation has their registered mark, they could certainly make a case for i.vacations if they are infringing on their intended use, certainly not out of the question. If he deletes it someone else will pick it up, just the risk of owning such terms, before doing tm searches before.
You are right, you could put up a case after investing another $5k in legal fees.
“I have seen cases that are much stronger lose than this”
Sure this has happened but we just can’t be afraid of our shadows.
If that would be true then all 1 word dictionary domains would drop and no one would register them.
@Domenclature.com
Can’t reply anymore on the sub-section so i’ll just make a new reply 🙂
Anyway, what i said, you can either check at ICANN or contact Donuts. No need to copy / paste some stuff from 2013. You want a real answer if you don’t believe me, contact Donuts yourself and they’ll confirm what i explained.
Here’s how to keep replying in the full subsection (as you can I see, I posted a reply after you had trouble therein):
Simply identify an earlier comment that still displays “Reply” in that subsection, and click that, and it will place that comment at the bottom of the full subsection.
On your referral, I may do that, however, history is relevant. Don’t dismiss the mind of the new gTLD genius, and one of the biggest applicants of the scheme, because it was 7 months ago. At that time, when he descended down to earth, we were able to pierce through his defenses, because he was vulnerable at the time. Take your time, and look at his epic comment.
Thanks, i thought there was some limit in replying or so 🙂
But feel free to post the reply if you decide to check from the source directly. I think the more transparancy there is the better for everyone in the industry.
Ok
I was giving you advice but I guess I will take up on my advice, I didnt register names like you did when the better ones are avaliable, but any case I have only 3 gtlds names anyway.
But Let me reaffirm and can also bet.
You will never be able to sell
24h.Rentals,
24h.villas,
24h.flights
Those names does not make sense, I think you still got few hours to delete and get some nicer ones if not try luck on the upcoming extensions.
But I can tell you 200 percent, the names above you regged, will NOT Be Sold, and will be dropped by you eventually
@sukhjinder
The fact you are using “never” and feeling somehow people should take your advise as gospel says enough.
I couldn’t care less what you think. Hell, i could even sell them for 1 dollar to demonstrate your silly predictions 🙂
We don’t see much potential for a new gtld aftermarket in the near-term. Register those that you are willing to develop into beneficial resources in order to add value over the base domain.
@EnCirca
At least not a large new gtld aftermarket for the near-term. But if thought it would be i’d pick up daytrading in the stockmarket 🙂
How much would you think AmericanAirlines.Flights would be worth?
-$60 -courtfees = ~$25,060
That is just an estimate. lol
You have 4-5 days to delete it and get your money back or just delete it and avoid the UDS or UDRP or legal proceedings.
What were you thinking? Who would buy that thing?
AA maybe? I guess I’ll wait for them to proceed legally.
No they won’t. They will take in a heartbeat.
Why wait?????
The fact that you’re calling yourself “Domainer” while you make outrageous claims and justifications gives people reading this posting more reasons to call all Domainers “squatters”.
And by the way, everyone reading this guys posting should really look in the mirror to check if this is how the industry should do business. I was lucky to get in on this business with the help of help of people who knew what they where doing.
I have seen it all. I had the opportunity to learn what to do and what not to. Heck i am still learning on here and that is why this is one of my favourite no no sense domain blogs. But boy, if you’re too egoistic to understand what AA is capable of, try them and if you happen to be in the US, be ready to spend lots of money to defend yourself in a commercial court. Don’t be shocked that these arrogant postings are going to show up against any kind of defence you might make.
Good luck
Just spoke to GoDaddy and… I am NOT deleting it :). I will patiently wait to see what happen :).
Thanks for your advise anyway.
Why did Go Daddy tell you?
You know of course that you should not take legal advice from people that only have to gain if you register all the TM domains you can find. Right?
Are you testing the AA attorneys?
I guarantee you will not make a dime. Good luck.
I hope I can come back and prove you wrong :), otherwise that is still fine.
You should read this recent decision on how and why you could end up with the domain and how you couldn’t…
“The Panel accepts that a registrant cannot be “willfully blind” to whether the disputed domain name may violate trademark rights. The question however is what amounts to “willful blindness”. The primary obligation on a registrant is set out in paragraph 2 of the Policy and that obligation is to determine if its registration violates another party’s trademark rights. This is not however an absolute obligation, which bars any registration of any domain name if someone else, somewhere in the world, has a trademark (however obscure) corresponding to the name. The question of when the registration will amount to violation of rights is one of fact and degree, depending upon many factors, such as the geographical locations concerned, the nature and scale of the trademark owners business, how well known and/or famous the trademark in question is and so on.”
Given your knowledge of the AA brand, and your intentions to gain from the brand commercially, don’t you think you fall into the above?
He can just go at udrpsearch.com and search for american airlines. They have at least 54 cases.
I defended the most recent one although I had said to the owner that we will lose.
Well, he should listen to you. Learning is cheaper than discovery!
luxury.villas is now reserved and Donuts claims that it was a mistake that it was available for any price.
You be the judge.
No bites is all
I guess if it’s because the ICANN restriction on specific names then they don’t have much choice. The same what happened to the eco.* owners, i had a few myself. Donuts did promise they will assign them back in case ICANN changes their mind.
luxury.villas is not one of the collision names if this is what you mean.
.Eco is the acronym of an organization that ICANN reserved.
Ah I see, so they decided during EAP5 to pull back the luxury.villas domain for themselves ? Or was it the registrar which made the mistake of offering it while Donuts had it tagged as reserved ?
Donuts whois was reporting the domain as available so I doubt it was a registrar that made the mistake.
I now found another one like this…
Hmm, the funny thing with the whois db it might show a domain as available while it’s not. I won a .club in auction which is still in the transfer process. But when you look it up it’ll show nothing in the whois.
.Club is doing it different that Donuts.
.Club had a landrush so some domains go into auctions. Donuts goes directly into General Availability.
That sux, i’d be pretty disappointed if that happend to me in EAP5 🙁
I got hollywood.vacations, jacksonville.vacations, jacksonvillebeach.vacations, bollywood.vacations and sidewalkcafe.menu
What are your thoughts on future value of these?
I like hollywood.vacations. It could be hollywoord celebrity tour website.
Any rough valuation for AWAY.rentals? 4 figures, 5, 6, or 7 figures? Any travel giant can invest in this domain to open a platform like Homeaway or Airbnb