What will be the biggest flop in '08?

[jacal1]

By the way, this IS an "official" thread - in case you were wondering :hehe: .

My guesses for biggest flops:

dictionary words with no commercial connection

.us

.tv

"brandable" nonsense words

LLLLs in anything but .com

all but the 4-5 biggest silent auctions (or was that '07?)

.biz (or was that '06?)

 

[Rubber Duck]

More Hindi related news Hot off the Press.

http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/21bahl.htm

Raghav Bahl is on a roll. From a struggling, niche business channel, his recently re-branded Network 18 has blossomed in ways that few could have imagined.

It promises to become one of India's few media conglomerates, straddling not just multiple television channels but also films, the Internet, wire services, magazines, newspapers and perhaps radio and gaming as well � a range that no one else straddles.....

In the last few weeks, he has signed up with Jagran Prakashan to start a joint venture that will start a Hindi business newspaper -- Bahl's first foray into the competitive newspaper world, but also innovative in that it is in a language new to business newspapers.....

Before print, it was diversification within television, beginning with the masterstroke of luring Rajdeep Sardesai away from NDTV to start the rival IBN news channel, followed by the acquisition in stages of Channel 7 (now IBN7), the Hindi news operation which had been started by Jagran. With these, he straddled the television space as effectively as Prannoy Roy's NDTV, covering general and business news, in English as well as Hindi.....

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/businessline/blnus/15181205.htm

Google mulls Indian version of cross-language info retrieval

MUMBAI: Internet giant Google may come up with Indian version of its cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) facility, which searches queries in English pages and gives result in native language.

"We introduced this facility in 15 international languages in May and it has been extremely popular. Looking at its success, there is a possibility that Google may introduce the same in any of the Indian languages, depending upon its usage,'' Mr P Nayak, Member, Technical Staff, Google, told PTI here on Tuesday. Though he declined to confirm the language, he said it could possibly be Hindi or Tamil since they were two widely used languages in India.

 

[tbh]

Lol well said,I will slam some myself : two words (and over) composite domain name as search engines will be used more an more, then some minor countries with less then 50 millions inhab ext such as .pl, .ro etc

.ro will never die.

 

[markfromslo]

I love .info names. But only good ones. I paid $3900 for Menopause.info and sold it within a month I think for $10,000.

HOWEVER, you have to be very selective in your info selection. I think they have to be dictionary words that someone can build a reference site for. For example, I could have built a great site all about Menopause. BUT, I subscribe to the email notification at Afternic of all new .infos submitted each day, and I cannot believe the crap names that people are registering and putting minimum bids of $1000 on. These will never sell, ever.

Dictionary .info names will appreciate significantly, but the majority of info's will be huge flops.

 

[Mike]

I love .info names. But only good ones. I paid $3900 for Menopause.info and sold it within a month I think for $10,000.

HOWEVER, you have to be very selective in your info selection. I think they have to be dictionary words that someone can build a reference site for. For example, I could have built a great site all about Menopause. BUT, I subscribe to the email notification at Afternic of all new .infos submitted each day, and I cannot believe the crap names that people are registering and putting minimum bids of $1000 on. These will never sell, ever.

Dictionary .info names will appreciate significantly, but the majority of info's will be huge flops.

Agreed, i also love .info names.
My best producer HelicopterTraining.info and my latest acquisition: BusinessLicensing.info has tremendous potential. Both fit the extension to a "T". Ultimately, my portfolio rearrangement will be geared towards: .com/.info/.us ...

M.

 

[Kate]

HOWEVER, you have to be very selective in your info selection. I think they have to be dictionary words that someone can build a reference site for.
...
Dictionary .info names will appreciate significantly, but the majority of info's will be huge flops.

Exactly my thoughts. It's a good TLD but you need to be picky with they keywords. For example dictionary words/travel names would be great but most are probably worth next to nothing

 

[jmcc]

1: miniflop hits .com and .net
Dell court action succeeds and triggers other court actions against domain tasters and dropcatchers. The orders locking domains at registry level slows growth in .com dramatically. As the domain tasters have been eliminated, the cost of frozen domains (they have passed their five day grace period) will bankrupt the affected tasters.This will lead to a major hit on .com and .net from October 2008 onwards.

2: Lemming Domains (LLLL.com/.net)
The rush to register LLLL.* was not driven by any real business plan but rather by a herd mentality. Most of these domains will be dropped when they come up for renewal in 2008.

3: .asia (miniflop)
A possible downturn in the US economy limits the amount of cash available for speculative registrations. There will be some high profile generics sales but it will not be the mess that .eu was. Growth in .asia may resemble .mobi (steady but small) rather than .eu.

4: .eu (Rotten Registry Flop)
Many people did not understand the Stone Age Belgian registry system used by .eu/EURid. Consequently, domains that would have been dropped at the first anniversary of the landrush were not dropped. At the second anniversary (April 2008) the drop rate will be high. Cyberwarehousers, who possibly hold over 1M .eu domains, decide to cut their losses. More court actions follow and EURid does not have registry contract renewed due to incompetence.

5: Toolbar Wars Hit Direct Navigation
The rise of ISPs diverting NXDOMAIN (no such domain) traffic to their own sponsored search pages increases through 2008. Toolbar software also begins to redirect users to search engine results pages when domains are on a "parked" blacklist. This will be billed as "improving" the user experience.

6: Astroturf Sites Get Hit Hard By Search Engines
The trend of some large scale domainers to build sites with content backfires because the search engines tweak their algorithms to distinguish these astroturf websites from real websites.

7: A High Price Sales With Many No Sales
There will be some high value sales in 2008 but most of the domains at auction will not sell at anything close to their reserves. This bloodtrail of sales failures disturbs confidence in the high end of the market.

8: Keyword + Geo domains
Improving search engine algorithms integrate a Yellow pages function with the search engines to such an extent that they provide the phone number and location of the nearest plumber/lawyer/flowershop etc.

Regards...jmcc

 

[markfromslo]

2: Lemming Domains (LLLL.com/.net)
The rush to register LLLL.* was not driven by any real business plan but rather by a herd mentality. Most of these domains will be dropped when they come up for renewal in 2008.

I agree only on unpronounceable names. Any old series of letters (456,976 combinations) is useless. However, pronounceable LLLL are great and will increase in value as companies want trademark-free unique, easy to remember and say names. Look at all the names of web 2.0 companies, like my own MeVu.com, that are trying to use naming conventions like this.

 

[jido]

8: Keyword + Geo domains
Improving search engine algorithms integrate a Yellow pages function with the search engines to such an extent that they provide the phone number and location of the nearest plumber/lawyer/flowershop etc.

Regards...jmcc

If that happens wouldn't that have the opposite effect, ie. increase the hits for this type of domain?

At the moment if I am looking for a service I need most of the time to visit a site like yell or upmystreet that is akward to use. If I could just type the search and get the results I want it would be much more convenient. And the address bar is just a tab away from the search bar...

 

[-REECE-]

I'm still confused where the reason for an LLLL.com flop are... Take a peak at my UUOU.com auction on Namepros... It's all of 1 hour old and look at all the bids and interest for UUOU.com

Pronounceable? Not a chance. Unique? Definitely!

I love it how most of the guys denouncing LLLL.coms are simultaneously praising LLL.coms.

XQJ.com certainly has less potential uses than a large portion of non-premium LLLL.coms.

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

My prediction is that;

.com will stay at the top....
strong CC's (.de / .co.uk etc..) will remain stable...
.net will be around to take up the slack where .coms aren't available &
.mobi will continue to build momentum - especially once the die-hards start to see what the extension is all about (slowly, very slowly
Clue for those that don't 'get it': People don't want a full web site on their mobile device, whether they can have it or not!
The .mobi extension will be built out on the back of concise, functional sites that pass the Ronseal test! - They do exactly what it says on the tin... nothing more, nothing less...

.tv is just for relevant sites to the .tv target market, any unsuitable names will fail, the same goes for .info & .org & all the other extensions..... they have a purpose; names fitting that purpose will succeed... There are just far too many appallingly bad names regged in all extensions.... 2008 won't change that, but it's going to be an important year to help us see where it's all headed... so many new technologies on the horizon... laptop / desktop sales slowing, PDA's, web enabled mobiles growing exponentially..... either the 4 small screen devices to every large screen device sold will come with a free magnifying glass or mobile content will be developed that is more relevant, targetted & easier to read

2008 is going to be a very interesting year.... one way or another!

Regards

Gary

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

Fox.mobi - this reassures me that I am on the right tracks!

 

[Jeff]

Fox.mobi - this reassures me that I am on the right tracks!

Given developed FoxMobile.com, I don't see how this can be reassuring IMHO.

If Fox continues to promote FoxMobile.com (as well as m.fox.com), then it's just another nail in the 2008 .MOBI Coffin™, in my view.

To each is own, I guess.
-Jeff

 

[mkylut]

Given developed fox.mobi, I don't see how this foxmobile.com (or m.fox.com) can be reassuring IMHO.

If Fox continues to promote fox.mobi, then it's just another nail in the 2008 m.xxx.com Coffin™, IMHO.

:hehe:

 

[hawkeye]

Fox.mobi - this reassures me that I am on the right tracks!

I share your optimism, but this is 'Fox', and of course they try to put everyone on the 'right' track!!!

 

[Jeff]

Given developed fox.mobi, I don't see how this foxmobile.com (or m.fox.com) can be reassuring IMHO.

If Fox continues to promote fox.mobi, then it's just another nail in the 2008 m.xxx.com Coffin™, IMHO.

:hehe:

:bah:

Link: http://m.yahoo.com

Link: http://m.comcast.net

Happy New Year ... and see you on April Fool's Day '08! :D
-Jeff

 

[Andrei P.]

I don't see any reason why to use .mobi for mobile site... Any big company should have autodetection of mobile devices and redirect visitors to a proper page. If I know that there is a company ABC.com I will go to ABC.com because I don't know about ABC.mobi anything. It can belong to any other company or more likely to domainer and is a parking page. If ABC.com would want a mobile version of the site I think they would create it at m.abc.com and simply redirect mobile visitors to it silently.

Domainers didn't give .mobi sites a single chance. The number of developed mobi sites is so few that it's even worse than .biz

 

[Jeff]

Eloquent ...

I don't see any reason why to use .mobi for mobile site... Any big company should have autodetection of mobile devices and redirect visitors to a proper page. If I know that there is a company ABC.com I will go to ABC.com because I don't know about ABC.mobi anything. It can belong to any other company or more likely to domainer and is a parking page. If ABC.com would want a mobile version of the site I think they would create it at m.abc.com and simply redirect mobile visitors to it silently.

Domainers didn't give .mobi sites a single chance. The number of developed mobi sites is so few that it's even worse than .biz

Rep. added.

-Jeff

 

[Kate]

Domainers didn't give .mobi sites a single chance. The number of developed mobi sites is so few that it's even worse than .biz

Well we have to admit .biz has been around for 6 years.
And a TLD should be driven by the market, not by domainers alone. If it doesn't take off don't blame the domainers, they have already done all they could to overhype

 

[hawkeye]

:bah:

Link: http://m.yahoo.com

and.. Link:http://yahoo.mobi your point??

Musta killed you when RJ picked up NamePros.mobi, and even moreso that's it's up and often used!

Hammer, Head, Yours!

 

[Jeff]

... your point??

Yahoo is embracing m.yahoo.com ... and the link you provided is simply another redirect to a promoted .COM mobile site, IMHO. :red:

Musta killed you when RJ picked up NamePros.mobi ...

He's protecting the #1 Namepros Brand™, it was a wise move (and I love both RJ and Namepros)! :tu: :hearts:

Happy New Year, friend! :santa:
-Jeff

 

[mkylut]

Namepros.com is embracing namepros.mobi IMHO. That's why in the front page

"Mobile users, visit
namepros.mobi"

 

[Jeff]

™

Namepros.com is embracing namepros.mobi IMHO. That's why in the front page

"Mobile users, visit
namepros.mobi"

:bingo:

PS. Have you fellas been to mobile.quote.com yet? It's a GREAT mobile .COM site! :tu: :imho:

-Jeff

 

[Alan Glennon]

Namepros.mobi needs a button for me to "logout". Is there one?

Namepros.com is embracing namepros.mobi IMHO. That's why in the front page

"Mobile users, visit
namepros.mobi"

 

[mkylut]

I prefer quote.mobi...only one "dot" and shorter, and advertised on radio too!

 

[hawkeye]

Yahoo is embracing m.yahoo.com ... and the link you provided is simply another redirect to a promoted .COM mobile site, IMHO. :red:

....so? it works doesn't it. hehe

He's protecting the #1 Namepros Brand™, it was a wise move (and I love both RJ and Namepros)! :tu: :hearts:

Happy New Year, friend! :santa:
-Jeff

So what you are admitting here is -

-either the 'other' extensions are 'useless' too, and weren't/aren't worth it or needed to 'protect the #1 Namepros Brand™'... (as NP doesn't own them)

or

- that .mobi is the only 'real extension' that worries those that need to 'protect' their brand!

It definitely is an extension that has you so 'threatened' that you need to antagonize with your negativity and insults for over a year and 3 months!

A big flop of 2008 - Jeff's negative .mobi ragging!!! (oh yeah, that was in 2007 too!)