Domain Market

Mike Mann attacks New gTLDs again

Mike Mann has been attacking New gTLDs again in the past few days with posts on Facebook and some tweets. He ended by posting one *******club.com sale.

I will start with what he said yesterday: “Before you blame me for taking out the new gTLD snake oil scammers, keep in mind they started it; its like a Trump thing with Rosie O’Donnell.”

Mike said in November that New gTLDs are dead.

Here is what he has said over the past few days:

“Super premium .Com domains will keep going up in value due to scarcity (flight to quality) and the expansion of the global internet, and the companies requiring great branding; the values of those fluctuate a lot due to a variety of conditions, and are not liquid. Ones beneath those best are super risky, bad investments, like all the gTLDs or any crappy .Com”

“New gTLD domains are good for owners of .Com, but bad for owners of gTLDs themselves”

“Super premium .Com domains, which predominate in DomainMarket.com’s 250,000 domain portfolio, will keep going up in value due to scarcity (flight to quality), the expansion of the global internet, and millions of global companies, people and projects requiring great branding perpetually. Ones lower in branding quality than the Super Premium .Com level DomainMarket.com specializes in are too risky for investment, like all the new “gTLD” domains, or very low level .Coms.”

“The reason I can potentially predict the domains your companies will want in the future is because people are creatures of habit and nostalgic and want things with the same characteristics that they have enjoyed all along. Serious companies wont be using crappy new domain ideas, just super premium .Com”

“The People spoke: Said no New Coke, No New Domains”

“Keep in mind there was nothing wrong with New Coke at all, tasted fine, and new gTLDs are awesome also, it’s just that nobody will use them.”

“$100M+ spent mktg. new GTLDs; Ask your neighbors if they have any idea what’s up?”

And finished today with:

  • “Which is a better investment “Solitaire.Club” domain or SolitaireClub.com?”
  • “this was once a serious debate, now just a joke”
  • “You are kidding right, sold SolitaireClub.com $7000. Purchased 8/29/12 $8”
  • “Nobody will ever give a rat’s ass about the other except the investors losing money on it.”

Mike Mann is the owner of DomainMarket.com that offers more than 250,000+ premium domain names for sale.

Sold.Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

79 comments

  1. of course he live in denial, he has so many .com domains, only people with huge .com portfolio hate gtld domains

    • Mike is spot-on.
      I laugh when people say, “You and your brother don’t like these gTLDs because you have such a killer dotCOM portfolio.”
      My brother and I are not married to dotCOM. We invest solely in dotCOM simply because the public couldn’t care less about these gTLDs. Believe me, if they did we’d be all over them. However, I don’t see the public going for them any time soon, if ever (and spare me the dotXYZ stats).
      Regardless, the better the new gTLDs do the better dotCOM will do because it will always be the gold standard and it is the ONLY one that will ever be a bonafide global brand.

    • I agree with him in some sense and least for the current generation of domainers. .COMs are so ingrained in our brains – even the Chinese are on board. .net is crap also. I would rather have .org than .net, but I would rather have whatever will make me money in the end. whose going to remember a .Club domain unless it is for a club of some sort, virtual or other. Many have limits on the types of words that fit well with them. Only one of the new gTLD’s that provides significant memorableness with it is .COOL. Who wouldn’t want to go to a “cool” place / website? It beckons the curious to check it out. The TLD fits with many words and the first two letters of the TLD are the same as .COM, which takes some getting use to when typing initially. And in lists they standout more than the .COM. I don’t understand why this TLD has not gotten much press. It does cost ~2-to-3 times that of .COM and some names come with what donut.co calls “premium” pricing such as VEGAS.COOL, HOSTING.COOL, TRAVEL.COOL, 82.COOL, BC.COOL, etc. are really …. very naturally cool.

  2. Not every COM is created equal. And not every new GTLD is created equal. Conclusion: It depends.

  3. Mike Mann is a preacher preaching for his own interest.

    If i had the choice between SolitaireClub.com and Solitaire.club . This last one with be the first choice. Why botter with the .com when you can have shorter.

    With new gTLD’s , why botter with search engine? Want to read news about New York city? Just type “News.nyc” or “nyc.news” it s simple…no needs in using a search engine. But, you still can search on your favorite search engine for “new York news” and then, sort all those “newyorkcityjournalnews.com”.

    .com are in decline…and growth are with new gtlds.

    • Logical, but most people don’t think that way. Reality is quite the opposite. Michael is correct but says it in a way that can be offensive to many that want to do things their own way. He put his money where he believes he will make the most return of investment. He has been, so far, correct.

      In 20 years you could be correct. Just don’t spend a fortune trying to find one.

    • The average jack or jill doe not even know about most of these new extensions, If they were to type in random domains in the hope of something coming up they will still be there next tuesday! News.Nyc does not resolve …… why waste your time when Google offers a plethora of choices ….. search results

    • Sorry Ben, you’re on the wrong track and it will end up costing you dearly.
      I got sucked into the relaunch of .TV, and also bought a few .mobi’s, in the 2000s. Dot TV from time to time kicks some goals, but only with exceptional names. If such a powerful extension can’t dominate the domain name world then you can forget about Dot Others. Dot Travel, which at the time of launch way back around the early 2000s I seem to recall, was considered a winner, but it was in fact a dismal and disatrous flop. And Dot Mobil, well, what can you say about that? It was snake oil from start to finish.
      The reason .Com will always win out is that 99% of the world’s leading companies hold the rights to their company or corporate name as a Dot Com. That is not going to change, except get stronger. That’s because the Dot Coms have age, and with age comes search engine ranking, branding and reputation. Even my great granny, who knows nothing about the Internet, knows what Dot Com is. If you are sitting back waiting for younger generations to change the landscape, then forget it because it’s not going to happen. In order to do that they would have to convince the 99% of the world’s corporations and businesses to dispense with their valuable and incredibly well-established position in cyberspace. Even if all new businesses were to completely go away from Dot Com, and that’s not likely, it would take two generations before the new gLTDs would have any affect on the Dot Com sphere. I learnt from my mistakes with Dot Mobi, and to a lesser degree Dot TV, over a 10 year period so I urge you Ben not to waste the next 20 years of your life looking for a miracle to happen with gTLDs. Not gonna happen.

  4. Mike is right. Proof is in sales stats everywhere. Some systems cant even process the new extensions for email use,. Do you want your business to be the guinea pig?
    Not me. cctls’s and .com, simple.

  5. The new gTLDs are probably having a detrimental effect to his bottom line, and he is probably pissed about it.

    Assume Mike owns Keyword1Keyword2.com. Before the new gTLDs, he could price it at whatever he wanted.

    Now, the potential customer is likely to compare the price of that domain with the price of the new gTLD Keyword1.Keyword2, and if the difference is too high, the customer may end up choosing the new gTLD.

    I have seen multiple sales of Keyword1.Keyword2 new gTLDs in the four-figure range, where the owner of the equivalent .com was asking high five or even six-figure amounts, and that is probably why the customer ended up with the new gTLD.

    So, while he may be right that .com is still preferable, he now has a “limit” to what he can charge for many of his domains.

    • Most of his keyword1keyword2.com domains are not available in new gtlds. I don’t think what you say has much effect on him.
      He even believe that is good when it happens as his .com goes up in value.

      He is actually selling pretty cheap most of his domains. Sometimes .com domains are cheaper. Or cheaper in the long run with the high renewals.

      • If he sells cheap, then I agree with you that it may not apply to him.

        However, the point still stands for .com sellers that price their domains too high compared to the corresponding new gTLD (where one exists, of course).

  6. He’s good at the .Com business, but he’s on a perpetual rant about anything he doesn’t personally love. Screaming that the new batch is worthless won’t make it that way. Come on, they grew by something like 200% last year. He may not like them for his particular strategy, but a lot of other people do.

  7. Michael is basically correct. .com is the gold standard, that does not mean there aren’t other valuable options. That’s his strategy and it works.

    Reality is dictated by numbers. The numbers show that the big money is in .com Reality also shows us that the yearly cost of 250,000 domains is no less than $2.5million before any profit is made. He is obviously making at least that much a year in sales. That is the power of his investment in .com.

  8. There is some anger in his voice. I am not sure why. I do think he is getting hurt, but maybe not directly yet. Since it is true, .com is great but there is limited availability of “Super Premium” Domains as he refers to them. gtlds give options to where there is seemingly no option. Which it does benefits .com, it also can benefit some gtlds. His view is very black and white, if its good for .com it cant be possibly good for gtlds, which seems to be a mistake vision.

  9. Mike Mann is no dummy, if GTLD’s were so great they wouldn’t be discounted for pennies to dollars three years into the program.

    He is right, when .blog came out they really made the .com owners very happy with their asking prices, to bad there is no end user demand for such an extension in any decent range.

    We played both sides, GTLD’s are kind of sucking it right now, to much supply, and to many options. Either you own the best, or own nothing at all. As well the premium pricing being charged in 2016 is outrageous for a newly minted web domain, without any history, and a lack of proper consumer rights. Pricing is a major concern, almost a guessing game.

    The registries are sort of messing up the releases, I have no idea why .cars is still over 2 grand per reg fee name.

    • YOU NAILED IT RICH! The Mann just used the wrong word – the GTLD’s are DYING, preying on the gullible to recoup as much losses as possible before throwing in the towel. Domains are like Russia, the king .COM will always reign supreme.

      Not even talking about .COM – GTLD’s are so worthless, I would take a .co any day over a GTLD. Give me a GTLD and the same .co and I will take the .co

      .co sells extremely well, new GTLD’s dont!

  10. Three years later, new extensions are far from mainstream. In fact, mindshare among the public is minimal. But who is surprised ? Not domainers. Sadly, there is no market for all the pigeon shit™ brought to us by Icann.

    Twenty corpTLDs have already been retired:
    https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/gtld-registry-agreement-termination-2015-10-09-en

    Barclays has switched to home.barclays but the online banking section is still on .co.uk (I wonder why).

    Google have launched a few sites like domains.google but they use plenty of different extensions, even .xyz that they don’t own.

    My impression is that even the backers of new extensions aren’t showing a lot of confidence.

  11. With all due respect for the “Aged” “Premium” investors,
    The worst thing an investor can do is “become attached” to their investment.
    There is no question the Legacies will retain some “Status value”
    There is no question all domains will remain high risk. This is just the beginning of part 2 in a 3 part cycle. Domains may not even get to the third cycle.
    One has to wonder why the experts aren’t beating a path to the doors of companies
    that are 100 times more successful to advise them what a big billion dollar mistake they are making.
    They are playing a numbers game just like Mann and other high profile investors. He’s a small investor
    in comparison. New investors are playing too with smaller numbers.
    The only thing dying is legacy investor’s myopic views of relevance. .Com is not immune.
    The New “Gen” market buyers will decide what is relevant.
    This game isn’t new, everybody knows there will be investors that succeed and investors that will fail.
    Mann is smart enough to know the train is reaching its destination. The final test for an investor is: how close to the top can you walk away? A few of the best have already done that. Kudos.
    Which one has the highest ROI? English.Club 17500 (2014) / SolitaireClub.com $7000. (2016)
    (best available comp in price and length)
    IMHO the experts that shun, create dissension and confusion are doing more harm than good even if the intent is good.
    Cheers

  12. He is simply scared

  13. “[P]eople are creatures of habit and nostalgic and want things with the same characteristics that they have enjoyed all along. Serious companies wont be using crappy new domain ideas, just super premium .Com”

    If Mike Mann is right, then he COULDN’T have sold Football.co for $50k.

    Yet he did sell it lately. Therefore his statement above is wrong.

    • He probably owned of the best .co portfolios, next to the .co registry’s reserves.

      • @Rich,

        Yes. Mike Mann bought high quality .CO domains and has waited 7 years to sell this latest 1 of them. Others .COs he bought years ago he will sell in the future, after waiting even more than 7 years.

        So what prevents someone else from buying high quality nTLD domains and waiting 7+ years to sell? I know people who have already sold nTLD domains for similar amounts similar to Mike Mann’s. Infrequent, sure. But so are his top-dollar .CO deals, and he has waited longer.

        Point is, what Mike Mann says is demonstrably false. His own recent sale refutes what he’s saying: “Serious companies wont be using crappy new domain ideas, just super premium .Com”.

        Oh, yeah? That implies Mike Mann thinks his $50k buyer for Football.co isn’t a “serious company”. If they’re able to spend $50k on that domain, then I’d humbly submit that they ARE serious. He took their money. If he thinks he sold them a “crappy new domain idea”, should he be really be saying so publicly? And if he doesn’t think that, why say it?

      • Work.place sold for $50k+ to facebook.

      • @Konstantinos,

        Facebook – not a “serious company”.

      • Well although I know you are being sarcastic, I don’t think that highly of facebook. 🙂

    • .CO is not a new G, additionally, Football is the most popular sport in Colombia according to FIFA,
      .CO is the country code for Colombia, thus, Football.CO is a great, if not the best, name/extension combo for Football in Colombia.

      • But Football is not called like that in Colombia, the Spanish word for this sport is Fútbol. So it’s not the best combo for football in Colombia. It’s not even close to be the best.

      • Football isn’t popular in Colombia sino el Futbol.

        “.CO is the country code for Colombia, thus, Football.CO is a great, if not the best, name/extension combo for Football in Colombia.”

        You do know they speak Spanish, right?

  14. It is good to remember that nobody kicks a dead dog.

  15. Mike has reasons to say what he says.
    Frank Schilling has the reasons to say something opposite.
    I agree that humans are creatures of habits but the world is not still. Everything changes and these days much faster than before.
    If it was not the case there would not be facebook, youtube twitter, smartphone, planes, cars, roads, electronic books, MP3, Digital Magazines, downloads, …
    We would not even use cutlery to eat. Everything around evolves: medicine, technology, science,……. Even dominating is not as it was 10 years ago.
    You cannot stand still. You are either moving or you will find yourself behind.
    I have some views on newTLDs but they little different from Mike`s and Frank`s.

    Regarding Mike`s view It reminds me one thing. Some years back I invested in one domain extension, many people were saying that is not the good extension.
    But somehow for 5 years, year after year I was making 6 figures from this extension owning only about 350 domains in this extension. I quickly realized that if you do not invest in something plus you are negative about it you really do not know what is really going on under surface.
    You do not spend time to investigate it.
    When you say No about something your No block your thinking, you will not spend time to dig deeper to see a real picture, to understand more. Why should you do that when at the beginning you said it is not worth it.

  16. I agree “.com” can be good investments but new domains allow to identify better. The only thing that I read here which pisses me off is that I agree: only real cocacola is good.

  17. This guy sure makes a lot of noise for someone who clearly thinks new TLDs are so worthless. If he’s so convinced about their inability to succeed, then perhaps he should just let those of us who do think they have some validity and commercial worth just get on with it. Each to their own. Fine, Mike, you don’t think they’ll succeed, then great. You’re entitled to your view. But methinks he doth protest too much.

  18. I love what he says , it scares some people away from the better gTLDs and some drop really good names . I hope he keeps on . I will continue to buy what I consider the best of the best .

    But anyone that has followed mike for more than a year or two knows how he articulates his thoughts over and over , in one post he actually stated he is just trying to protecting his investments with thiis noise . If I say I’m 7 feet tall over and over some may believe it but it doesn’t make it so. I wish him much success in his current buisness model , like he says he will be retired before the new batch of mike manns show up with consistent sales of the new G’s . Make your own descions , but as almost every succeful domainer in the past has said a good domain is a good domain a bad domain is a bad domain in spite of the string .

  19. The average person sees: Solitaire.club and has absolutely no idea that it’s even a domain name.

    The same person sees: SolitaireClub.com and they know it’s a domain name.

    Case closed.

    Until the public starts *recognizing* gTLD’s as gTLD’s then they will be relatively worthless. And if you have to write “http://” before it so that people understand, then: FAIL.

  20. Mark my words. This will be exactly like Kodak’s Eastman saying to Steven Sasson: “Who would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set.” Kodak sunk eventually and it never came back to it’s former glory.
    .com is declining anyway just as Michael Berkens from Thedomains correctly noticed back in December.
    And of course, just like Kodak’s decade-long planned journey into digital era, it will take a little more while for Mike Mann until he will realize he is not that correct. But he likes to be how he is and it seems that other people like the way he is too. Just my 2 cents

  21. People learn fast and people forget fast.

    First it was:
    http://www.solitaireclub.com/
    …and if you left out the “http://” at the beginning, the domain would not resolve.

    Then they “fixed it” and suddenly:
    http://www.solitaireclub.com
    …would work fine.

    Then servers were starting to get configured to handle domains without a “www.” in front of the URL and you can now simply leave it out:
    solitaireclub.com

    So, is anybody still typing in “http://” or “www” in front of a domain? I don’t think so. Why would they?

    Let’s see – what has “.com” to do with “Solitaire Club”? People are generally lazy and like to take the shortest route. They learn new things fast and forget old things just as quickly.

    Now people can omit the unnecessary “.com” at the end of a domain and just type the shorter and much more read/write-able domain:
    Solitaire.Club

    Developed sites using new gTLDs are already popping up in the Alexa 10,000 rankings. How long do you think will it take before regular Janes and Joes will just skip the no longer needed and unnecessarily extented “.com” domain, when they can just go to Solitaire.Club?

    Thanks,
    Brandon

    • Some websites don’t work without www. It is the way the hosting is configured.

      • Hi Konstantinos,

        Always a pleasure to talk to you! Please show me ONE developed site that only works with a “www” prefix. I’d really like to see it and check it out.

        Making a domain name not dependent on either the existence or lack of a “www” prefix is usually done by the Domain Name System (DNS). This is achieved by simply adding one CNAME record named “www”.

        This does not interfere with any other CNAME entries, for example of sub-domains that should go elsewhere. Additionally, it is a good idea to add a wildcard CNAME record to catch and redirect any typos such as “wwww” or “wwe” to the main IP address instead of throwing the potential site visitor an ugly error message he probably won’t understand. Don’t underestimate the amount of typos people regularly make.

        You are correct that this can also be achieved from the server side where the domain – or better said, the IP address/website is hosted at. But 99% of all hosting companies nowadays do this automatically when they set up your server or virtual account.

        Because eventually, the client will notice and contact them with “why is my website not working” taking up human resources time (Customer Support -> Tech Department -> Customer Support -> Client) and that is very expensive compared to programming it once into the server/virtual account setup program.

        As pointed out before, your comments script replaces any domains/URLs starting with “www” and automatically adds a “http://” prefix. That’s why the 9th line of my original post doesn’t make sense, so here is the “escaped” list of the website addressing system’s history – or at least, the part we were talking about:

        http://www.solitaireclub.com/
        w w w . solitaireclub.com
        solitaireclub.com
        solitaire.club

        I hope the list above gets through unaltered this way.

        All the best!

        Thanks,
        Brandon

      • I have been to many but I don’t keep track of them. I remember a .gr that is misconfigured and does not redirect properly but goes instead to its hosting provider without the www.

      • I see that you are declaring UTF-8 charset in the header for outputting this page. Unless your script filters and replaces decimal or hexadecimal Universal Character Set/Unicode, this should work and look like it should.

        Let’s give it a try:

        http://www.solitaireclub.com/
        www.solitaireclub.com
        solitaireclub.com
        solitaire.club

        Thanks,
        Brandon

      • Yes, it worked.

        Thanks,
        Brandon

  22. Sorry, the 9th line should read:

    http://www.solitaireclub.com

    Thanks,
    Brandon

  23. Maybe all domains are just not really needed anymore as people just build more and more apps. You can call an app anything you want and people will goto google and type in bla bla app and Google will pull it up in the first result with a domain like blablasupercool64now.com and they only had to pay a whole $8 for that domain and it works perfectly!

  24. Great, your comments script is automatically adding the “http://” to a URL starting with “www.”.

    Brandon

  25. Every single thing about Domains are SUBJECTIVE, this is why I do not do appraisals on my domain names, I could get a domain appraised at 5K and if that one person out there wants it they will pay double or even triple that. Domain age, appraisal and even as far as what TLD it is are ALL SUBJECTIVE, what it means to one person it may not mean to the next. It’s like they say opinions are like ***holes everyone has has one, and even opinions themselves are SUBJECTIVE but the human nature in is us finds it necessary to argue so that’s what we do.

    If you like this post please check out some of my blogs at http://www.vinja.domains/blogs

  26. New gTLD haters can say whatever they want… Who cares!?

    Only time will tell the real truth! 😉

    • Only Money can tell the real truth and if you follow the money, you’ll quickly learn the sad truth. The lovers of New G’s are just like the lovers of Obama, no matter how bad of a record or how low the economy can go for years, and welfare can soar, he is still a godly savior to them.

      Then Trump has to come in and clean up the disaster, but who is going to clean up the big mess with the New G’s? A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money investing in domains no one except the person invested in knows about.

      U prefer blackjack over the New G’s any day, higher chance of making money in a short period compared to waiting 5 years only to see the new extension go belly up!

      • I am sorry but the Obama-Trump comparison doesn’t hold water. Just comparing it to the current economical – political situation is another subjective matter that can be debated forever. It tells me one thing though, there probably is going to be money in some new gTLDs that make sense.

      • @Reuben,

        “New G’s are just like the lovers of Obama, no matter how bad of a record or how low the economy can go for years …”

        Some Trump supporters have a worrisome habit of spreading misinformation and living in a universe of make believe. Please prove that stereotype wrong. Don’t just repeat what you hear without looking it up to see if it’s remotely true.

        You are entitled to your own opinions, your own values, and your own vision of the future. You can admire Donald Trump if you feel so inclined. You have a right to speak your mind. But nobody can invent facts. The numbers are publicly available. You can check for yourself.

        “… how low the economy can go …”

        According to Forbes, during Obama’s 8 years, “the U.S. stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, returned 235%, or 16.4% annualized.” For every dollar you invested when he took office, you’d have $2.35 today. Now the stock market is about to reach an all-time high. Under George Bush Jr., it “fell 30.6% from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2009.” It simply isn’t true that the economy is “low”.

        According to Time.com, the economy had a net gain of 11.3 million jobs during Obama, compared to 2.3 million under Bush. To be fair, the Clinton years added 22.9 million. Still, 11.3 million is decent. There are only 330 million Americans, after all; and that’s counting children, students, retired people, and stay-at-home moms.

        You’re definitely not alone in being misinformed. 67% of Trump supporters think unemployment increased during Obama. Why? Because they’re told that constantly. 39% of them say the stock market went down. (That’s according to PPP.) But, as you can see for yourself, the market went up by nearly 2 1/2!

        As for unemployment, when Obama took office, 7.8% of Americans were unemployed; and the rate was going up. Today it’s just 4.7%. And that’s below the historical average. Since 1948, unemployment has been 5.6% on average (median). The USA is actually doing pretty well, as the numbers clearly show, even though the new president insists (for his own political gain) that it’s a post-apocalyptic landscape of “American carnage”.

        Personally, I would criticize Obama. Admittedly I loathe Trump. I’ve never voted for anybody – Democrat or Republican. Would have supported Mitt Romney over Hillary Clinton. Political leanings don’t matter. People can argue about policy, about values, about taste. But Facts are facts are facts are facts are facts.

        Please understand that I’m NOT saying you’re stupid. I know whenever I mention that a Trump supporter is wrong, they tell me I’m an elitist. You’re not dumb, and I’m not wise. From where I’m standing, I can see some data that’s blocked over where you are. That’s all. I’m talking to you as an equal because I believe most people can see clearly once an inconsistency is pointed out.

        Right now, in the USA, people are swimming up to their eyeballs in propaganda. Depending on where you live and what media you’re tuned into, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s true while bombarded by so much disinformation. Selling inflammatory nonsense with a partisan tilt is great for TV and radio ratings. Makes people rich. Gets people elected. And once elected, they make their rich campaign donors even richer. Whether Clinton or Trump, you still end up under the thumb of Goldman Sachs, for example.

        There’s room for people of every political persuasion. But we ought to try to be more skeptical and check the facts. Whatever your values and world view are, we’ve got to begin with reality as a starting point. Stock market numbers aren’t a matter of personal belief.

      • Funny, but I’m nTLD “lover” but Obama “hater”.

  27. Michael Mann is not actually wrong, except that his statement was better in the mid 90’s. In today’s reality, the market is different. Back them, guys like Michael Mann were visionary. Very less people invested in “domain name” back then. This is why , an individual like Michael Mann were able to built great portfolio like the Castello’s brothers, Rick Schwartz and Frank Schilling to mention a few. All this started over 20 years ago. You didn’t have many options with domain names. I doubt Michael Mann knew what is was buying when he bought 14,000 domain names or so in 24 hrs. He saw a good investment in the product of “domain name”. He didn’t make his choice on the extension .com really when at the time, you didn’t have all the new gTLDs. In today reality, you got many options at low prices to consider before buying a domain name. Even ccTLDs can be a great choice. Great if Michael Mann can sell Sex.com but, those are exceptional domain names. You also need to make the difference between an investor and someone looking to start his online presence. Also, the .com domains have 30 years ahead on the competition. In less than 3 years, new gTLDs has take 25% of .com and other extension’s market. It’s a lost. The growth is with new gTLDs. The next generation of internet users won’t invest thousands in a domain names when they have a multiple of choices who are as much as good or even better than some of the actual .com listed at an higher price. For sure, when you are buying a domain name, you must consider a few things like price. When people will understand what you can do with a name than just have it parked, then with education, the new generation of investors will surely look in all their options to make the best choice for their needs. Even if you have a great .com , if you don’t know what to do with it…it s worthless for the common of individuals. So, yes Michael Mann statement ain’t so wrong, but it s not adapt to the reality of today’s world. On this, hope my English wasn’t so bad.

    • Your English is perfectly fine! Of what use is a domain name if you sit for it for 20 years waiting for a six figure sale and denying entrepreneurs and creators an opportunity to build something on a good domain address! I think this is partly the reason why the new gTLDs were introduced. To give users great choice amidst scarcity. With 1000 plus new gTLDs, someone cannot simply buy and hoard 200,000 domains in each gTLD and wait for the big sale in 7-10-20 years. They will need $200+ million per year to hold that 🙂 and this is where the opportunity for users and other domainers has emerged. It is still early days but in a planet of 7 billion people and over 3 billion internet users, there is someone out there looking for your string, even if the domain name is http://www.sucks.sucks.

      The new gTLD is about choice and I don’t think holders of large portfolio .COMs should feel threatened by the new gTLDs. If a user wants a .COM, they will buy .COM no matter how many cool new gTLDs are out there. Ditto users who want ccTLDs or newgTLDs. They will buy a cool new gTLD no matter how “super premium” a .COM is. Choice.

  28. @Mike Mann, do you rather have sex.dead or sex.live?

  29. Spot-on

    ““.Com Will Become Like AM Radio”
    SEPTEMBER 26, 2013

    My Arse!

    Face up Frank S.
    You already made your money ‘who cares’

    1/3 down the journey and all New gTLD are nothing but worthless rolling tumbleweeds… All.

  30. The new gtld is too much to many to handle suddenly burst in to my face out of nowhere you don’t want to remember them and stuck them into your brain not unless it’s a .com. I’d rather use .info instead of those new gtld it’s more decent looking and relates more to almost anything like info on travel, games, education, music, quotes, ingredients, pastries, cars etc. basically almost anything. I bet .info would be really hot in the coming years next to .com crossed fingers.

  31. Given his track record of sales I don’t think Mike Mann is stupid or running away from money-making opportunities.
    He sincerely doesn’t believe in new extensions.

    Schilling defends the opposite position, but he’s hardly buying new extensions – he’s selling them.

    Even if I were confident in my ability to sell new extensions to end users, I would not take advantage of them to sell them stuff I don’t believe in. I could be wrong, but progress (the lack thereof) over the last three years is not encouraging.

  32. Deep thinking VS. Deep depression= severe depression = Zero progress=?
    Deep thinking= progress = ?

    Where are you?

  33. Michael Mann, Rick Schwartz, along with others Know what Google Knew years ago.
    Till just recently, wall street really had no clue on the .COM Equimoddity Asset Class. There is an awakening to the fact that Google/Alphabet Amassed a multi trillion $ war chest of cash, on the backs of the .COM Equimoddity Class Assets Back, Sourcing Trillions of $ from .COM Equimoddity Position Holders ,through the SEM Cartel.
    OCCAMS RAZOR !

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master) UseBiz.com

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