discuss No! .com investors are not threatened by new gtld’s

[equity78]

So I read an article on the Flippa blog by Max Guerin that seems to want take shots at .com investors, Rick Schwartz and the "traditional domain press." In an article titled "The Rise of Alternative Domains" Guerin starts out the gate with cheap shots, Some domain investors have been complaining about new gTLDs (new general top-level domains) seeing in them a threat to their almighty … [Read more...]

 

[biggie]

Hi Ray

I prolly miss a lot of "not news", by not visiting flippo ​

but to me, the biggest threat to current .com investors, is new investors

cuz....they bring more competition to the game and can drive prices up for many names, that should close for much less.

but on other side of that coin,
those new investors can be a new source of buyers for your names as well.

imo….

 

[equity78]

Hi Ray

I prolly miss a lot of "not news", by not visiting flippo ​

but to me, the biggest threat to current .com investors, is new investors

cuz....they bring more competition to the game and can drive prices up for many names, that should close for much less.

but on other side of that coin,
those new investors can be a new source of buyers for your names as well.

imo….

Good point Don, the Flippa article is talking about the rise of alt extensions and how .com domainers like Rick are scared.

 

[biggie]

folks act like Rick is the only domainer
they must think that, what he thinks and does or doesn't do, moves and shakes everybody else

no dis on him, but the domaining world don't revolve around one mofo

but I guess it draws attention if his name is mentioned

imo...

 

[loredan]

Excuse the ignorance but WhoTF is Max Guerin?

 

[equity78]

Excuse the ignorance but WhoTF is Max Guerin?

From the article:

Max Guerin founder of Claim.Club a domainers club which has celebrated its 10th-anniversary last year and over $1 million dollars in profit. His new venture D.NA is a premium domain boutique aimed at Blockchain entrepreneurs and other crypto startups. Max is most notably known as the “domain hacker” for having registered hundreds of (now premium) domain hacks at registration fee as did the .com pioneers in the 1990s.

 

[Internet.Domains]

Lots of folks try to unfairly pigeon hole investors into one corner or the other. This is quite unfair to those that invest in all types of domains, while understanding .com is still the top prize.

The .com extension is the most sought after, the most liquid, it is the gold standard. It is the blue chip stock of domain extensions. It is hard to argue its reign on supremacy.

Other extensions, whatever they may be, are more of the silver standard. They are the small cap stock. More risk, yet still a possibility to profit.

Some people diversify their financial investments, some don't. Financial advisers look at risk tolerance when deciding the ratio between blue chip and small cap stocks. Domain investors should do the same when looking at .com vs. other extensions.

Financial advisers don't look at blue chips and small caps as competitors. They understand all of them contribute to the market in their own unique way.

Domain extensions are no different than stocks, they all contribute to the market in their own unique way.

 

[biggie]

Excuse the ignorance but WhoTF is Max Guerin?

good one @loredan
no dis to him either
but he was a nobody to me too



imo….

 

[myfavorite]

Com is still king, others are it's subjects. It calls the shots.

 

[korganian]

I find it humorous that a guy I have never heard of who has a so called domainer's club that I have never heard of is proclaiming that I am scared of extensions that I never even think about. The truth is that I would be overjoyed if people would buy and develop every single extension there is. It's flat out retarded for anyone to say that .com investor's are afraid of the new extensions because every one of them that is developed will drive traffic to our .com domain.and increase the value of the .com domain. The fact is that the buyers of new extensions should be afraid that every dollar they ever spend on marketing will lose a big portion of their paid traffic because people automatically type .com behind every domain name and even forget it's supposed to be another extension even after you have told them otherwise.

 

[biggie]

I find it humorous that a guy I have never heard of who has a so called domainer's club that I have never heard of is proclaiming that I am scared of extensions that I never even think about.

lol

that made me laugh out loud

imo...

 

[offthehandle]

The blog author is just another clown and Carnival barker in the fake domain opinion big top.
Here are some real stats not just opinion. Thanks to @jmcc

https://www.namepros.com/threads/is-there-a-future-for-new-gtlds.1133844/page-3#post-7212889

 

[Peak.Domains]

The more extensions there are, the less demand there is for any given name in .com, right? Since there are other options.

If there was only .com, prices would be *much* higher since there's no alternative. Following that line of thinking, the more extensions that exist, the less demand there is for the .com, even though it's still the best of all of them.

People have the option to settle for less, I don't see how that can be waved off or disregarded. If there was only Cars.com, nobody could settle for Cars.net, Cars.co, they'd all have to compete to buy the .com.

 

[wurdd]

How many companies that have the very best version of their company name in dotcom or cctld are worried about losing business if they don't acquire an ngtld extension of the company name?

As in, we've got the dotcom, but man, if we don't get the dotcrap we're gonna go out of business!

I'll answer it for you - NONE. I understand defensive regs, but no one frets about getting a ngtld after they have the best version of their name. NO ONE.

The smartest and most successful companies (at least the ones that understand branding and image and security and relevancy) are forced eventually to acquire the best dotcom version of their name. I'm sorry, it just doesn't happen the other way around.

And, until that happens I will only invest in dotcom.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for alerting us to the article that I would not otherwise have seen, @equity78. And I fully agree with the points that you made that there is not any 'com domain media' and that new and country code extension sales are as covered as legacy by all our main sources of sales information.

It is probably unfortunate that Max's article starts with the paragraph that you quote since that masks the fact that almost all of the article had nothing directly to do with new gTLDs but was talking about cases where country code extensions used as domain hacks had both sold for good amounts and had significant real world traffic. That part is good reading.

I admit that I had not heard of Max Guerin previously but that probably is more a statement of my depth (lack thereof ) rather than about him. If I understand correctly that he is 30 years old and started ClaimClub 10 years ago and as the article notes has made $1 million in profit over the ten years, that is impressive. I personally agree with this sentiment he expresses in his closing paragraph.

I want to have more choices not less so I welcome and celebrate new (and older) extensions...

Bob

 

[DomainRecap]

The major threat to .COM investors is Huge Domains (and the continued domination of GoDaddy in the expired market), not new gTLDs.

 

[DomainRecap]

I want to have more choices not less so I welcome and celebrate new (and older) extensions...

But you can always have too much of a good thing.

A few new gTLDs like .WEB and .INC would have been fine, but 1200+ and counting is patently insane and the market simply cannot absorb those kinds of numbers - it's a pure money-making scam by ICANN, and has virtually nothing to do with "more choice" and everything to do with "more money".

And there will be a reckoning, with a good percentage of these new gTLDs going under over the next few years.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

But you can always have too much of a good thing.

Never too much of NPs for me (oh wait, am I off topic? )

Being serious, while I could see a universe with very specialized extensions in lots of things, I agree that the new extension space, and domains in general, would be better served by a smaller number of vibrantly successful extension alternatives.

I think the line I quoted, at least how I interpreted it, was a reaction to the "there is only one worthwhile TLD" that he sensed being pushed particularly of late. I see many purposes for domain names, to many types of end users, and it is in that context that I feel having a fair amount of choice is a good thing.

I think the most important contribution from Max's article is he points out that for a variety of reasons some were looking for an alternative to .com, and they turned to country code hacks in some cases, that there were and are some impressive sales in those, and some of them did well as end users (such as the musical(ly) case he mentions becoming a $1B business before being bought out).

I learned a lot about some of the categories using generic country code (e.g. .to is used for torrents related), and a deeper dive at significant sales from a number of them. Had the first two paragraphs been omitted from his harticle (which they should have been), I suspect that there would have been strong praise for the article.

Bob

 

[ksusha64]

NEW GTLDS ARE DELUSIONAL. THEY WILL GO BROKE

 

[eurorealtor]

How much of the new gTLDs would survive without domain investors? Just handful of them made a large sales, otherwise most of the regs are made by domaines. Many new domainesrs who can't afford to buy decent .com domains as an investment, just reg this new crap and dream to get rich of it.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I hate to be a broken record, but are people reading the original article?

The title of the article is
The Rise of Alternative Domains

He goes on to explain that he means alternatives to .com, and the success of the various country codes that have found wider use. All of the examples he gives are country code. All of them!

In the article he mentions, often multiply, domains with these extensions .io, .tv, .me, .ly, .et, .to, .ai and .am.

How many new gTLD extensions does he mention anywhere in the article? 0 (yes zero). He does mention briefly that he could see new extensions finding a role like the country ones did, where you could buy them hand reg 10 years ago and now they have value (that is how he made his $1 million plus profit).

So someone barely out of their teens figures out a domain strategy that leads to $1 million dollars profit. He has built a business around it for 10 years. Sure disagree with his ideas, complain about the cheap shot that @equity78 correctly calls him out for, but at the very least I think you owe it to the author to read his article to see what it is you don't agree with.

Bob

 

[DomainRecap]

I hate to be a broken record, but are people reading the original article?

Yes I did, and it's quite obvious that this guy doesn't even know the difference between a new gTLD and a ccTLD.

He moans and groans about .COM investors hating on new gTLDs, then goes off on a tangent describing ccTLD sales and domain hacks. It's like listening to a raging alcoholic at the local pub talk politics.

How many new gTLD extensions does he mention anywhere in the article? 0 (yes zero).

Exactly, so why the running diatribe on new gTLDs in his first 2 paragraphs? Did he lose his train of thought?

 

[eurorealtor]

Sorry Bob, don't even remember the original post. Just replying to the most recent ones ...

I hate to be a broken record, but are people reading the original article?

The title of the article is
The Rise of Alternative Domains

He goes on to explain that he means alternatives to .com, and the success of the various country codes that have found wider use. All of the examples he gives are country code. All of them!

In the article he mentions, often multiply, domains with these extensions .io, .tv, .me, .ly, .et, .to, .ai and .am.

How many new gTLD extensions does he mention anywhere in the article? 0 (yes zero). He does mention briefly that he could see new extensions finding a role like the country ones did, where you could buy them hand reg 10 years ago and now they have value (that is how he made his $1 million plus profit).

So someone barely out of their teens figures out a domain strategy that leads to $1 million dollars profit. He has built a business around it for 10 years. Sure disagree with his ideas, complain about the cheap shot that @equity78 correctly calls him out for, but at the very least I think you owe it to the author to read his article to see what it is you don't agree with.

Bob

 

[kriss05]

good one @loredan
no dis to him either
but he was a nobody to me too



imo….

He is quite famous among non dot-com guys imho. He sold cctlds/domain hacks for more than maybe 95% of dot com guys did. Or maybe even 99%.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Yes I did, and it's quite obvious that this guy doesn't even know the difference between a new gTLD and a ccTLD.

He moans and groans about .COM investors hating on new gTLDs, then goes off on a tangent describing ccTLD sales and domain hacks. It's like listening to a raging alcoholic at the local pub talk politics.

Well, we each can have our opinion, but I think he does clearly understand the difference. He sees the link in this:
[QUOTE} Yet this phenomenon is not new and not limited to new gTLDs. I see in the rise of these “new” domains something I saw before with domain hacks [/QUOTE]

His point was that there was a market for alternatives to .com (and along the way he made $1m million profit that way). He should have replaced the first two paragraphs with a more polite and directed indication of what it is responding to, but I presume it is the revitalized emphasis that 'there is only .com'.

One can legitimately argue what kinds of companies and organizations should use any kind of alternative extension (which he defines as anything other than .com and the country code of the company).

Ironically while I can see his point that there are some similarities to new gTLDs and the situation when the country codes began to be considered outside that country, I see those general country codes as key headwind for the new extensions taking off. Even if an organization find no .com is available at a price they can afford, and they find the ..org and the .net poor fits, there are a host of general country codes competing with other alternatives such as the new gTLDs.

Anyway the main point of my posts was that 70% of the article is nice summary of some high value general domain country code extensions, and a few end uses,, and we seem to be overlooking that content.

Bob