gTLD's an my prediction on the future of domains.

[DomainVP]

There are a lot of new gTLD investors looking to cash in on the new gTLD launches. There have been many reviews and news articles that have been written as propaganda from then perspective of the wishful new gTLD investor.


I am not one of those investors, and I am sticking to buying .com, .net, .info, and .org domains for the long haul.


I predict come 2015/2016 that MOST of these new gTLD's will find themselves a new failed home next to .biz, .coop, and .mobi; which will only strengthen the value of the gTLD's that have been around much longer and that have been heavily used on the internet.


Most of the world knows that .COM means its a commercial enterprise, it has established its familiarity in advertisements worldwide. Even my 70 year old mother knows to type in theprefix and then .COM. .COM will always be king.


To map out the future of domains many investors use the example of zip codes and the expansion of mandatory prefixes as a road map to the future of domains, but this is logically flawed because phone numbers are numbers and people treat numbers differently then they do NAMES.


After all... domains are referred to as domain NAMES. Somewhere psychologically we expect a domain to conform to how we organize names.


PREFIX.EXTENTION FIRST NAME, LAST NAME


The new gTLD's don't change this arrangement however, we have to look at the evolution of names and the way we use them in our daily lives to appropriately forecast the future of these new gTLD's.


Last names (extensions) are expected to 'sound right' or make sense; if it looks weird and unfamiliar it will not be adopted by the masses and will die off. The same applies to domain extensions.


I am based in the U.S., with that said, one of the most popular last names in China is "Bjuwng" If I was reading a list of names and the persons name was Timmothy Bjuwng, it would look odd and out of place to me; and to most people in the U.S., and does not frequently occur. We understand that last names are varied,but have their proper place and adoption.


Recently I saw someone register SuicideHotline.luxury . In my opinion that makes no sense whatsoever and seems out of place.


What would make sense with that extension? Shoes.luxury you say? Or were you looking for luxury shoes. The language of it seems awkward and out of place.


The problem is that not many things will fit these new extensions logically making them awkward and unfamiliar. The names people are used to, and the ones that make sense will do well.

To pick on a few; .bible, .dad, .here, .vodka, .love; most of these are just silly.

Many companies use m.site.com for their mobile sites, and .biz is a joke. ccTLD's will do well because they are already a familiar part of the lives of the people in that region; however of you want to do worldwide business then you will need a .com,.web,.net,.shop. However .shop makes your site sound 'mom & pop' and most companies use shop.site.com and I think .shop will go the way of .mobi over the years.

I could go on and on, but you will form your own opinion; I hope that you have found some value in mine. Come back to this post in 2-3 years and give it a thumbs up if I was right; or just do so now if you agree.

Cheers!

 

[Biggie]

Hi

just wondering, who are you trying to convince?




imo...

 

[DomainVP]

Just sharing my opinion. I don't feel that I need to convince anyone; i'm pretty sure the sociology of logic and language will sort this all out and the aforementioned scenario will be it's result.

 

[DomainVP]

I think the eNom spam I just got says it best:

".net is the perfect way for your website to get found in search results without breaking your wallet." - eNOM

Then why in the hell should I ever buy a new gTLD that you just tried to push on me last week?

The thing is; they are right. Unless google one day decides that domain age (archived or registered) will not a factor in the SERP, then owning a .net is second to owning a .com and will be for some time until .web can get some legs under it.

 

[katherine]

The registrars are in the business of selling domain names, so they will try to sell you everything and anything.
Likewise cigarette sellers are not concerned about your health. Should they ?

And the right of the dot advocates have their standalone websites on .com domains.
Easy to preach water while drinking wine.

Don't fall for the hype folks

Anyway, I think the opportunities for domainers are very limited in the landscape of new TLDs. Domainers are still there but they are called registries :lol:

 

[MobileDesigner]

i don't know...perhaps it would help expand the online business sector. Some of the domains seem a bit useless, but others seem to have potential. .estate, .holdings, .today, etc. its helping creating a directory on the internet. seeing that the domineers pretty much grabbed all of the .com names and parked them, it gives others free-range to try and make something out of the new domains.

Initially had hope in .mobi and .asia, but they failed. I'm happy to have made a little profit from my investments. With all of the new gTDL names coming out, it could be difficult for the .com'ers to buy all the generic, 3-lettered domain names without making a crunch in their wallet. this gives way to others to potentially do something with them.

A bit secptical but am buying a few. would rather spend a few bucks buying some nice ones than say "doh!" and learning i could have made some cash.

 

[jmcc]

The problem with a lot of the new gTLDs is that they are solving the Domain Tasting problems of 2005-2009 by putting the Domain Tasting aspect on the right of the dot. That's not to say that some of these new gTLDs will not succeed. Some will do quite well. However the lag between market demand and the roll out of new gTLDs is cause problems because the market has shifted. (The .xxx is a classic example of a good idea from the early 2000s hitting the market late because of regulatory delays.) Some of the new services and product style new gTLDs are going to have more of an emphasis on geographical terms and will follow some ccTLD dynamics rather than .com dynamics. Some domainers will buy just about anything but there is going to be a focus on getting people to develop sites and actively use the new gTLDs. The new gTLDs that could be interesting will be the geos. They have ready-made markets but they will develop with ccTLD dynamics. With most mature ccTLD markets, the registrants don't even have to think about the extension because it is their country code TLD. This quite different from gTLDs like .com TLD. People remember the left of the dot in ccTLDs in the same way the remember their local bar or shopping mall. Many of the new gTLDs will be USA focused but it might turn out to be hundreds of 100K sized gTLDs with only a few 1M gTLDs. The problem for domainers is that the fanboys and fangirls will be out hyping every new gTLDs and claiming to be experts in domain trends and values that haven't even launched. And like every other new TLD launch of recent years, some people are going to learn very expensive lessons.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Focus]

Buy dot com's and .org's, sell everything else!

I have not spent one penny on the new .whateverthehellthenewflavorisnow and do not plan on it either, it's a money grab for ICANN and the registrars nothing more. If all you can have is the .sucksextension then fine so be it but the vast majority of real companies and online businesses will still be anchored securely at .com url's with the exception of some fringes and those are most likely only people/companies who register their own not buy them on the aftermarket. In that case they would go after a real extension like .com or .org

 

[mark]

I think some of the new business extensions like .land .enterprises, etc. will actually be beneficial to the .com market; let these individuals buy those new extensions, use the domains to start new businesses or adapt the new extensions to existing businesses by setting up a website where they might have never been able to do so before with the name desired. When they are advised (or figure it out on their own) that they will need to buy a .com to enhance/maximize their online position , they will seek out the owners of .com domains. It has happened many times in the past with other extensions, it will happen again with the new extensions.

 

[Gerry]

To make a prediction that most of the new soon-to-be-released 1900 new extensions will fail is hardly earth shattering news, hardly a "prediction", and hardly visionary.

The sheer number alone competing against each other is enough to witness a failed attempt for most.

The idea (for those that are "investing") is figuring out which will stand.

To use an example of SuicideHotline.luxury as being a bad registration goes without saying.

And to repeat the phrase A fool and his money are soon parted also goes without saying.

The advice anyone should be doling out is if you do not believe in it, don't buy into it.

 

[loupe]

It's heartwarming to see fellow domainers worry so much about those who dare to touch the new gTLDs <sniff sniff>

But seriously, one thing is for sure, people have now more choice. It's predictable that people who grow up with something will tend to stick with it while others who just get to take a peak in the world see things differently and might set trends Investing carries usually a risk, no one is forced to part with their hard earned money.

 

[katherine]

Well, if you wanna invest, maybe you should invest in registry shares, rather than be the small guy at the end of the food chain. The registries are the new generation of domainers.

There has to be a primary market, before we can even talk about a secondary market. No need to hurry, and if you think you're late to the game, the drops are less than a year away

 

[elius]

regarding choice, the more options people get (overchoice), the more indecisive they get. Combine this with risk aversion and people will simply ignore most of the new tld's because they rather not have that many extensions to choose from in the first place. You can categorize tld's to prevent confusion but most likely people will still stick with the categories and domains they already know. So the trick is to anchor a new tld as "known".

I have not seen that much effort from registries (or registrars) in this regard. And when the primary market makers don't put much effort in to their own market, the secondary market will be small to non-existent. There will be people that make money for sure, but the total sum of all sales will be low as long as there is no market acceptance.

 

[loupe]

We are actually just at the start of the new gTLd world. Registries don't need to blow their marketing budgets in a single bang while they still need to roll out the biggest part. They know domainers aka investors are their first clients and those are usually quite up2date without a flood of marketing. But i do expect to see the more we progress the more end-user marketing will be released, especially for potenially popular TLDs. At the end all TLDs will ride along with any marketing as people are curious to see what is available. Some people expect that just in these first few months there should have been a mass-hysteria of new registrants, floods of marketing and so on

Also most of these new gTLDs target a niche, so some will be more popular others less. So comparing numbers is just not done at this point without a proper amount of time and see for each niche how popular it is. Just like i expect for .florist a certain end-user and not people who offer cars on a .florist tld. If i was a registry with good backing, i'd do it like Donuts, deploy multiple TLDs and not bet on 1 or 2 as that might not provide a good profit unless those are some killer TLDs.