OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
The European Domain Centre published today the “Expert Roundup 2016” blog post that includes my personal view on where New gTLDs are heading in 2016
The post includes opinions from a wide area of expertise ranging from representatives from the new TLD registries (Donuts, Neustar, Rightside, DotClub, DotBuzz, Dot Ski, Dot Tickets, nic.br), domain registrars (101Domain, Blacknight Solutions), domain investors (Konstantinos Zournas) and consultants in the fields of domain names, branding and SEO (Bill Hartzer, Joseph Peterson, Jean Guillon, Kathy Nielsen, Christa Taylor).
The post was compiled by Christopher Hofman Laursen and you can find it at http://blog.europeandomaincentre.com/expert-roundup-whats-next-for-the-new-tlds-in-2016/
Here is my personal opinion that is included in the post:
It seems that the latest domain name buying spree from Chinese buyers has taken over the whole domain name industry. The whole .com vs New gTLDs debate has been put a bit to the side with domain investors focusing on “liquid” domains, shorts and numerics, wholesale prices and portfolio sales. But the Chinese phenomenon has taken over New gTLDs as well with a lot of .club numeric domain names being registered and many registry and secondary market sales happening in the past 2 months. The Sold.Domains website is reporting all these public New gTLD domain sales.
Rick Schwarz has been vocal lately mostly praising .web and not paying attention to most of the other New gTLDs except those with high numbers. Although he makes some valid points I don’t fully agree with him. .Web is a good extension but the future of New gTLDs does not depend on .web and .web is not going to be a game changer. .Web is contested and it is more than certain that the high auction price paid for the extension will lead to more reserved domain names and more expensive renewals.
The New gTLD program is about more options and better left.right combinations. I would prefer credit.cards over creditcards.web any day of the year. Even if .cards has 5,000 domain name registrations and .web has 500,000 or 1 million after its first year.
The number of New gTLD domain name registrations does not determine the future of the New gTLD program. But it might determine the future of a few small registries. .Brands will help with a boost in awareness and credibility that the New gTLDs are lacking at the moment.
The whole New gTLD program is not about finding the next .NET or the top 5 most registered extensions. It is about finding good domains that work no matter what the extension is.
Even in New gTLDs most of the good or average domain names are either gone in seconds after launch or reserved by the registry. The domain name industry should focus on building a New gTLD secondary market that is easy to understand by end users, is centralized and has enough good options for people to choose from.
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It seems you have invested too much money in good left.right combinations. So for sure, your renewals will be high. They are designed for end users. For domain Investors, its bleeding game. At the end, ROI will not justify your holdings.For eg, You bought Home.Delivery at $500 with $500 in yearly renewal. How much you think, you will sell it for ? Specially, when Homedelivery.com is sitting undeveloped from last 25 years.Too many uncertainties .
Nick
I only have 1 $500 domain. My average is nowhere near that.
I would buy home.delivery today 🙂 if you want to unload that heavy burden of renewal expense 🙂
I am with Phil on this, delivery is one of the hottest markets right now. And likely to get bigger/hotter, home.delivery is probably one of the best names in the category. 500$ is cheap for that name, he could probably sell it for few k now if he wanted just to domainer. To end user this name worth much much more.
Konstantinos – You knocked it out of the ballpark!!!…You made many great points!!…
Good post. There are many variations of the same meaning in the new gTLDs and web is no different, the Internet has had net since 1985.
I occasionally see TV ads for CreditKarma.com and personally view it as a poor branding decision – but it is a two – word. Com. I own what i view as a nice brandable credit. Com domain
The new Tld’s are more about transferring wealth from newbies to registry operators. Imo
Just read your contribution, Konstantinos. Lots to agree with. We even brought up some of things.
You make an excellent point by contrasting CreditCards.web with Credit.Cards. The former only repeats what can already be done in .NET and other legacy TLDs, while the latter does offer a new approach. Quality nTLD domains can and will often be such isolated cases of good “left.right combinations”. That’s why the whole emphasis on registration volume misses the point.
[Edit: should read “some of the same things”]
Registration volumes are mostly interesting to registries and their investors, not domain investors.
Domainers have been duped at least once by inflated registration volumes. So when they do care about volume, they get burned.
End users buying new TLDs will rarely care about registration volume. For if they did, they’d be buying .COM or .NET.
yep I think you are right it is not volume of domains that will determine the best investments. I think there are some great two/three letter .company ,business .global .agency domains that will do well in the future.
focus on building a New gTLD secondary market that is easy to understand by end users, is centralized and has enough good options for people to choose from.
Easy to understand
end users
centralized
great options
Let’s do it ! Great points, Rick, retire already.
Cheers to all in 2016 !
Excellent post ! Alot of stuff i’ve been thinking and saying right from groundzero is now also getting through to alot of domainers than back in early 2014. Still plenty of good deals available in the aftermarket for reasonable prices in case you missed the boat in 2014/2015, for now !
As for .web, i agree, it’s like an extra piece hanging to the name saying again “i am a website !”. Plus i also would prefer something like credit.cards instead of creditcards.web. I probably won’t bother with .web and the few i can think of now will be reserved or have a very high renewal.
I’m sure alot of people are tired of the “.com against the .newgtlds” stuff which pops up from time to time on all kind of places. It never was, at least for me, about that at all. The space expanded with more options and adding some great features like left.right making sense, short in many cases. Also i believe for speech driven interfaces it’ll make things a little more quicker to navigate to a domain.
nice article… new gtlds are changing the internet world now. it will be really useful and inspiring Thanks for the info.