Business Insider: 10 Myths About The New Top-Level Domains

[Domainate.com]

10 Myths About The New Top-Level Domains

Got an article published in one of the most active mainstream business blogs regarding the new TLDs, essentially pointing out a lot of misinformation that's been going around most of the mainstream blogs regarding the new TLD program. Feel free to share your comments!

[EUROPEAN]

Good Article, I will sleep better tonight !

[lordbyroniv]

yup

[RTM.net]

Enjoyed the writeup... some sober reflection on the misconceptions & hype about "every" joe having their own extension. Good job.

[silentg]

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

[Domainate.com]

Enjoyed the writeup... some sober reflection on the misconceptions & hype about "every" joe having their own extension. Good job.

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks...I've seen more articles come out since that have made similar points, essentially downplaying the new TLD program and the impact it will have, but before I wrote that article I had been seeing an excess of "these new TLDs will take over the internet!" kinds of articles by mainstream blogs and news sources - basically people without an understanding of domains and that there IS evidence to suggest these new TLDs won't make the impact they're expected to.

[DomainsInc]

i'd like to know if you could set it up so you can visit a site by typing .whatever or just whatever, rather than having to always type something before the .whatever.

[Domainate.com]

i'd like to know if you could set it up so you can visit a site by typing .whatever or just whatever, rather than having to always type something before the .whatever.

The closest would be to use the domain www.whatever. These get a lot of type-in typically and have been very hard to get in existing extensions.

[DomainsInc]

The closest would be to use the domain www.whatever. These get a lot of type-in typically and have been very hard to get in existing extensions.

that seems lame. i'd imagine most people still typing in www. are novices. if they wanted to do this right the base tld should be able to have a site and be accessed just by typing in the extention, with or without the "."

[Tom K.]

Thanks...I've seen more articles come out since that have made similar points, essentially downplaying the new TLD program and the impact it will have, but before I wrote that article I had been seeing an excess of "these new TLDs will take over the internet!" kinds of articles by mainstream blogs and news sources - basically people without an understanding of domains and that there IS evidence to suggest these new TLDs won't make the impact they're expected to.

Completely agree. You just need to look at the history of biz, mobi, name, and us extensions as examples. None of these extensions lived up to the hype that preceded them. It is an insurmountable task to try to change people's behavior online. The only extensions with proven marketing staying power are the original 3 and certain cctld's. Thanks for the article.

[Domainate.com]

Completely agree. You just need to look at the history of biz, mobi, name, and us extensions as examples. None of these extensions lived up to the hype that preceded them. It is an insurmountable task to try to change people's behavior online. The only extensions with proven marketing staying power are the original 3 and certain cctld's. Thanks for the article.

Well the truth of the matter is there's nothing special about com, net and org other than they were the first extensions, but they were the first and pretty much the only extensions besides ccTLDs for certain countries that people had to choose from until .info etc. came out in 2001. Heck, the bubble already came and went by then!

That's a lot of history and familiarity to overcome. Now if the situation were reversed, if .keyword and .brand came out initially in droves, and then someone decided to come out with .com, .net and .org, they'd get laughed at. But the situation being what it is, being first and established for so long makes all the difference.

[katherine]

I think there is anticipation among domain circles, that consumers are going to become more acceptive of 'alt' extension, as a result of the vastly increased supply.
Essentially, I believe this reasoning is flawed.
Alternative extensions enjoy little mindshare today because they lack major players that will carry and enhance their brands (that's what TLDs are...). Think of it, what do the big players use.
I don't see how that is going to change. The corpTLDs ? How many companies will eventually own their TLD ? Just because ebay decides to own .ebay, and even uses it - doesn't make me want to set up my business on .buzz or else.
As usual, domain speculators will be hit the most in their vain quest for gold

[Anthony Ng]

Good job, Steve, esp. when it's published on a mainstream business website. I guess what the new TLD hits home is, the rules are changing, regardless of whether any 1 or 100 of them actually suceed, albeit quite a while from now. Some business people are still having a hard time digesting the "news" that the (business) world as we knew it has already undergone some fundamental changes: new platforms are emerging REALLY quickly while old industries went from slow to dead in just years. If there is anything we could learn from this (or CD, or DVD), it's that we are moving forward way much faster than our fathers and grandfathers did. Get this, or you'll be left behind.

[NameBrandable]

Good article, Steve. I just noticed it. We need to get the word out, since the dumbed-down mainstream press love the dot-anything headline. Though I am tired of having to explain this to every friend who thinks we domain investors are going to lose our shirts.