New Top Level Domains!

Archangel said:

Seriously, if I (an individual with no Pepsi connections) tried to get .pepsi, what are my odds of getting it?

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Zero.

And thank you for your application fee donation. They are non-refundable. lol

Precisely lol

I've read a lot of things in this thread. With websites like SEDO, dnsalesprice.com etc, we can see some really nice sales. Truth be told: It is possible to turn a $10 hand-reg into $10,000. Improbable but perfectly possible. Things like this pull noobs into the domain game. The allure of making a lot for little is the dream at which many seek. Us more experienced domainers know to not jump the gun but noobs aren't that savvy. Look at it through a noob's eyes: If sex.com could fetch over $10 million, it's be illogical for sex.biz to sell for under $10mil, right? We know the answer. Most noobs don't.

That said: When a new extension comes out, every word domain will be regged (because every single dictionary word is worth a lot of money, right? lol) and every strong keyphrase, the same. A year later, there will be a lot of drops but don't believe for a second that these will all go unregged. More noobs will see them and take them. Many worthless domain won't be dropped since the noob owner would believe it'll have value (Hey .pro & .mobi owners, I'm talking to you!) down the road, value that'll never be realized.

This had happened with every extension with public regs & not ccTLDs (and many of those are even in the same boat). Fanboys and noobs can kill an extension faster than many of you realize.

alien51 said:

Zero.

And thank you for your application fee donation. They are non-refundable. lol

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OpenRegistry wins .gent registry deal

OpenRegistry wins .gent registry deal

the_poet said:

OpenRegistry wins .gent registry deal

Code:

http://domainincite.com/openregistry-wins-gent-registry-deal/

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Ghent is Belgium’s third-largest city, with 250,000 residents, so we’re probably looking at a relatively low-volume TLD.

The “Gent” spelling is Dutch.

Yeah, good luck on that. Seems like an obvious complete waste of money.

Brad

There's likely to be lots of sharp suited salesmen pushing new gTLDs for small towns/cities/areas to uniformed consumers, uninformed small businesses and uninformed local government people. It's also likely in some cases local tax payers will end up footing bills for new gTLD consultants and salesmen.

A responsible ICANN would prevent or at least make it clear where a new gTLD is unlikely to be sustainable beyond the easy money from the defensive and speculation periods.

bmugford said:

Ghent is Belgium’s third-largest city, with 250,000 residents, so we’re probably looking at a relatively low-volume TLD.

The “Gent” spelling is Dutch.

Yeah, good luck on that. Seems like an obvious complete waste of money.

Brad

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Seems like and is are two very different things.

I'm sure that a business team in Belgium (I'm assuming, I didn't research) cares very much what a domainer in the USA thinks and will take your opinion under advisement

I'm not sure they (or many) are going to follow a domainer model. You need to think a little differently and look beyond the "keyword" mantra.

I know you invest a lot in non .com so you are a not a typical herd follower and have already gone past the ".com mantra" so I know can do this

defaultuser said:

Seems like and is are two very different things.

I'm sure that a business team in Belgium (I'm assuming, I didn't research) cares very much what a domainer in the USA thinks and will take your opinion under advisement

I'm not sure they (or many) are going to follow a domainer model. You need to think a little differently and look beyond the "keyword" mantra.

I know you invest a lot in non .com so you are a not a typical herd follower and have already gone past the ".com mantra" so I know can do this

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$185,000 application fee + legal fees + admin fees + $25,000/year.

250,000 is not enough people to support an extension.

That is like some mid tier US city like a .Plano extension.

Brad

bmugford said:

$185,000 application fee + legal fees + admin fees + $25,000/year.

250,000 is not enough people to support an extension.

That is like some mid tier US city like a .Plano extension.

Brad

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Opening an Einstein Bagel shop costs more.
Rent is probably $100/sqft pcm for a small store.

The value isn't necessarily in domains.

Think of it as a water source for thirsty customers. You can capture most of that 250,000 market just as a mall does. They won't buy domains but they shop, they travel, they do business.

I don't know what their plans are but I doubt it's selling domains. It's a Financial Risk but it's cheaper than buying a store. It's INBOUND marketing.

defaultuser said:

Opening an Einstein Bagel shop costs more.
Rent is probably $100/sqft pcm for a small store.

The value isn't necessarily in domains.

Think of it as a water source for thirsty customers. You can capture most of that 250,000 market just as a mall does. They won't buy domains but they shop, they travel, they do business.

I don't know what their plans are but I doubt it's selling domains. It's a Financial Risk but it's cheaper than buying a store. It's INBOUND marketing.

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To start with the majority of people have no online presence, because they don't care or don't think it matters to them.

Some new gTLD is unlikely to change that.

Startup Costs -

$185,000 Application Fee
+
Legal Fees - ?

Then you are probably talking at minimum $225K/year to run the registry itself.

$25K/year renewal
$100K admin fees.
$100K employees (at least)

This does not include any potential legal fees such as disputes.

So you are talking about a $2M - $3M financial commitment over 10 years.

There is a big difference between a .NYC and a .Gent.
I don't see an extension like that being sustainable.

Brad

bmugford said:

There is a big difference between a .NYC and a .Gent.

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There's a big difference between New York and Ghent which is even more relevant.

The costs you mention are all offsettable with careful planning an delegation.

Do you know how much a single Fast Food restaurant costs to run? If you looked at those figures nobody would franchise one - EVER. You have to look at the potential revenue stream as well. We can't, obviously, but you can't ignore it and look at costs only.

Registry costs will decline rapidly over the next 2-3 years. There are already companies lining up to do this cheaper, better, faster.

I STILL have SIGNIFICANT doubts also even when I think of the overall benefits. I just think that we over simplify.

defaultuser said:

Registry costs will decline rapidly over the next 2-3 years. There are already companies lining up to do this cheaper, better, faster.

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The only fee that could change is the application fee (one time), which is a very small percent of the total cost.

The cost of employees, admin fees to run the registry, and legal fees is not going down.

Brad

bmugford said:

So you are talking about a $2M - $3M financial commitment over 10 years.

Brad

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Then you have to market them, that could prove tricky

Looking back on the last 10 years sales they'd be cheaper buying a quality .COM or ccTLD

ICANN & REGISTERS will make a fortune whether they flop or not but for most small businesses it'll prove way too expensive to run their own TLD.


.

bmugford said:

The cost of employees, admin fees to run the registry, and legal fees is not going down.

Brad

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They said the same thing about hosting.
They said the same thing about storage.
They said the same thing about computation.

Demand creates Efficiencies.
Standardization creates more Efficiencies.

ALWAYS.

defaultuser said:

They said the same thing about hosting.
They said the same thing about storage.
They said the same thing about computation.

Demand creates Efficiencies.
Standardization creates more Efficiencies.

ALWAYS.

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Therein lies the crunch

Demand....

Demand also needs to be sustainable over time. Without an underlying need/use it will simply descend into a speculative series of greater fool trades.

gpmgroup said:

Therein lies the crunch

Demand....

Demand also needs to be sustainable over time. Without an underlying need/use it will simply descend into a speculative series of greater fool trades.

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Yeah, I doubt the actual demand. It was not like this was created from a popular movement out of need.

It was ICANN creating a solution to a problem that did not exist with their financial self interest as the only real driving force.

Brad

I see very little demand for .gent I could never see the extension ever sustaining 100,000 regs aside from the keywords investors see the most cash in. Sure, you might see a poker.gent or a sex.gent but things like these might be it. And the won't ever be developed. Some .gent might be but most, like the big keywords, won't. When you have 98% of all .gent domains perpetually on a parking page, you won't see any hope established for the extension.

gpmgroup said:

Therein lies the crunch

Demand....

Demand also needs to be sustainable over time. Without an underlying need/use it will simply descend into a speculative series of greater fool trades.

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gpmgroup said:

Therein lies the crunch

Demand....

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Initial speculation appears to be that there will be around 100 - 150 TLD applications.

This is enough interest at (Brad's estimate of $200K to get someone interested in offering shared registry function, I'm sure). Neustar already does this for .CO and that's a far more complicated venture imho.

If Ghent with a population of 250,000 sees a model - so could 1000's of other operations.

Demand doesn't happen instantly. There weren't 1000 hosting providers at first - because the cost/demand ratio was not favorable.

Efficiencies will ALWAYS be created.

Archangel said:

I see very little demand for .gent I could never see the extension ever sustaining 100,000 regs aside from the keywords investors see the most cash in. Sure, you might see a poker.gent or a sex.gent but things like these might be it. And the won't ever be developed. Some .gent might be but most, like the big keywords, won't. When you have 98% of all .gent domains perpetually on a parking page, you won't see any hope established for the extension.

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Consider a TLD like a COIN not like an extension.

The more interesting thing going on that might have an impact is Namecoin (different type of COIN)

So we should look at .gent as something that only collectors would be interested in, right? No end-users (which are what domains exist for, anyway)?

defaultuser said:

Consider a TLD like a COIN not like an extension.

The more interesting thing going on that might have an impact is Namecoin (different type of COIN)

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defaultuser said:

Initial speculation appears to be that there will be around 100 - 150 TLD applications.

This is enough interest at (Brad's estimate of $200K to get someone interested in offering shared registry function, I'm sure). Neustar already does this for .CO and that's a far more complicated venture imho.

If Ghent with a population of 250,000 sees a model - so could 1000's of other operations.

Demand doesn't happen instantly. There weren't 1000 hosting providers at first - because the cost/demand ratio was not favorable.

Efficiencies will ALWAYS be created.

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There are 100M .COM. There are 6.7B people on Earth.

As popular as .COM is, there is only 1 per 67 people on Earth.

I don't see some registry like .GENT being feasible with such a small target audience.

Even by ICANN's estimate, at best, the first gTLD won't even be live until November 2013 (2 1/2 years). That is at best.

For extensions that involve multiple bidders, disputes, legal issues, etc. it could be MUCH longer.

The established extensions will just become more established.

Brad

gpmgroup said:

Therein lies the crunch

Demand....

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That's a fairly effective TLD killer.

Demand also needs to be sustainable over time. Without an underlying need/use it will simply descend into a speculative series of greater fool trades.

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This kind of greater fool trades activity is quite evident in new TLDs as they approach the anniversaries of their initial Landrush phase. However if the demand for new registrations is not sustained after the second renewal then the TLD is in trouble. The first renewal always has domainers and others picking up domains that have dropped so a mini registration spike will happen just after these domains drop. But by year three, if there is not significant development and usage of the TLD, people drop registrations.

Regards...jmcc

Archangel said:

So we should look at .gent as something that only collectors would be interested in, right? No end-users (which are what domains exist for, anyway)?

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COIN = Community of Interest Network

In this case the community and interests are interlinked/common.

bmugford said:

There are 100M .COM. There are 6.7B people on Earth.

As popular as .COM is, there is only 1 per 67 people on Earth.

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It is dangerous to have a one domain - one person mapping because in .COM, multiple domain ownership is common.

I don't see some registry like .GENT being feasible with such a small target audience.

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It depends on the cost of the domains and their application and use. The .CAT TLD is a good example of a small and successful TLD.

Regards...jmcc

There are 100M .COM. There are 6.7B people on Earth.

As popular as .COM is, there is only 1 per 67 people on Earth.

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It's even worse because the majority in .com were registered for traffic and all new gTLDs will not get any traffic for the foreseeable future.

Plus a lot of the remaining names are held in large portfolios.

It depends on the cost of the domains and their application and use. The .CAT TLD is a good example of a small and successful TLD.

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Catalonia has an existing cultural identity with 7.5 million population to support it

jmcc said:

It is dangerous to have a one domain - one person mapping because in .COM, multiple domain ownership is common.

It depends on the cost of the domains and their application and use. The .CAT TLD is a good example of a small and successful TLD.

Regards...jmcc

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There is a big difference between .CAT and .GENT

I have friends from Catalonia so I am well aware of the extension.

When I was in Barcelona it was not rare to see it in use.

However, .CAT only has 50K regs and represents a population of 7.5M people, as well as a language and culture.

Brad