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

Bob Hawkes said:

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.

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But the other 30% is a drunken ramble with no connection to the ccTLD values you cited.

Plus, you know the value of an introduction, and his has 0% in common with the subsequent content.

DomainRecap said:

Plus, you know the value of an introduction

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I am slowly learning

kriss05 said:

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%.

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I never heard of him to be honest and I've been playing with domains for about 15 years or so. After I asked WTF is this guy I was somehow glad to see some other old timers had no idea who he is. If he is quite famous, well kudos to him, wish him all the best with his emoji domains.

Aside from seeing that he is really confused when it comes to ccTLD's and new gTLD's what really bothered me was the fact that he took on Rick Schwartz. It looks like anyone who wants to get "famous" and drive some traffic to his website have an innocent desire to mention Rick in a way or another.

Bob Hawkes said:

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

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as I said in first post

biggie said:

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

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and already know about cctld's value

loredan said:

what really bothered me was the fact that he took on Rick Schwartz. It looks like anyone who wants to get "famous" and drive some traffic to his website have an innocent desire to mention Rick in a way or another.

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yep, that's about the same thing I said earlier

imo...

The owners of most of the other extension are equally helping com to remain king by competing with domainers by way of the so called premium domains.

They are yet to realize the number of dropped domains has already made huge income for the dot com owners

DomainRecap said:

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

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Another two brand name new gTLDs (owned and operated by companies for themselves rather than the public) went dotBomb this week as they've been made inactive. Most of the new gTLDs that have been terminated to date have been brand name gTLDs. Some of the public facing new gTLDs haven't been doing well. The only one that appears to have officially gone dotBomb is .WED and that had a rather novel approach of actually deterring renewals as part of its business plan. It has been in EBERO (gTLD Zombieland) since January 2018.

Can't say that I've ever heard of Max Guerin or his club but I pay more attention to the statistics rather than personalities. Some of the new gTLDs are actually domain name hacks and do run the risk of losing traffic to the .COM version (i.ie example.newgtld to examplenewgtld.com).

I've spent the last few days reading back through registry reports from the mid 2000s as part of research for a book I'm writing about new gTLDs and legacy gTLDs. The more I look at the numbers, the more obvious it seems that it wasn't the new gTLD registries that screwed up with their projections but rather ICANN in first failing to make the right decisions and then making the right decisions at the wrong time.

Quality-wise, there are some new gTLDs that are doing well but many of the unfocused ones are struggling. The renewal rates in some of them are quite terrifying because after the first few years, the bulk of a registry's revenue comes from renewals rather than new registrations. For people who are holding what may in .COM, be premium domain names in some new gTLDs, they may have to hold on to them for a long time if they expect to see some serious returns on their investments.

Regards...jmcc

Bob Hawkes said:

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).

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There is a big problem with a lot of these sales, Bob,
They aren't domain name sales as such but rather business sales. The business may be valued at $1B but not the domain name. The curious thing about ccTLDs is that the more successful they become in their home markets, the more inward facing they become and the percentage of unique domain names that only appear in the ccTLD and nowhere in gTLDs increase. Domain hacks might work but they are always under the control of the ccTLD registries and they can change the rules very quickly. When Libya was destroyed a few years ago, some .LY domain names were deactivated. Some people in Northern Ireland were using the Nicaraguan ccTLD (.NI) for their sites and e-mail. The registry changed the rules and these domain names were deleted.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc said:

I've spent the last few days reading back through registry reports from the mid 2000s as part of research for a book I'm writing about new gTLDs and legacy gTLDs

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That is exciting news. I look forward to reading your book once it is complete and published, @jmcc Your evidence based contributions to NPs add a lot to community discussions, and I think many of us would look forward to the depth of a book.

jmcc said:

it wasn't the new gTLD registries that screwed up with their projections but rather ICANN in first failing to make the right decisions and then making the right decisions at the wrong time.

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This is an intriguing comment. Are you at liberty to fill us in a bit more on it, or best to keep it for the book? Totally understand if you feel that.

jmcc said:

They aren't domain name sales as such but rather business sales.

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I am sorry if I was probably confusing. Yes of course the $1B sale was for the business, but his point was that it had grown to a company worth that totally on a .ly domain hack name. I apologize to him for not being clear on what he said.

jmcc said:

Domain hacks might work but they are always under the control of the ccTLD registries and they can change the rules very quickly.

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Totally agree. I am frankly concerned that some general purpose extensions have grown so strongly, since in many ways I see the strongest new gTLD as probably more stable options.

I should point out that within the general country code there are different models. For example, he talks about a number of .to names, and my understanding is in that case they are run out of Toronto here in Canada (https://register.to/) and are essentially like a company running a new extension. Others are of course still under control of the country. Some are mixed, with significant country use, while others are from thinly populated regions and totally dominated by the general world use.

Thanks for your insightful comments.

Bob

The evidence of being afraid is clear with the trolling of gTLD postings. There are sales now so those dot com only investors that had a clear window they could have jumped into left it so now their only recourse is to rubbish those investments.

equity78 said:

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...]

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I haven't seen a single CH ask for anything other than .com .co or ccTLD's in about 100 SH competitions.

lock said:

The evidence of being afraid is clear with the trolling of gTLD postings. There are sales now so those dot com only investors that had a clear window they could have jumped into left it so now their only recourse is to rubbish those investments.

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I don't think those people are afraid, there are many .com only investors that believe new gtlds are garbage that ICANN is corrupt and that they should have never been allowed to be released. I can say for sure that Rick is not afraid. @bmugford is not afraid, Nat Cohen is not afraid, and many more.

What is sad is that both sides of people who believe in a singular strategy, either no new gtlds or no .coms, cannot just go about their business and make their money without slinging mud at the other. (To be fair, there are many who are running their mouth that are not earning a living wage selling either, they just like to roar).

I wouldn't think Rick is afraid either but he doesn't troll just influences with his popularity always some agenda for blogging. I don't think for a second he couldn't do the same with another extension he just chooses not to. We seen extensions come and go but it isn't going to stop.

When are we going to stop calling them "new gTLDs"? They're not new anymore. Going on 5 years. In the world tech, 5 years = ancient history.

I hate to say it but part of that article might actually hit a nerve...

I have mentioned previously that I respect Rick Schwartz for what he has done to date. I also think he really knows his business and part of that is to protect his assets. He is naturally going to talk down the new TLD's because he has a portfolio to protect.

To that extend the article does hit a little part of truth but it's no different from the Mercedes-Benz salesman laughing at the Hyundai salesman. One day though the Hyundai is going to be a viable alternative.

So it is inevitable that the new TLD's will make an incursion into the .com space, but there will always be the people with big bucks to spend that want the Mercedes. In the case of domains that will be .com's

The really smart money goes with the investor that sees the value in both.

Personally I'll go after the Mercedes sales but I'm not too proud to sell a couple of Hyundai's on occasion.

Bob Hawkes said:

That is exciting news. I look forward to reading your book once it is complete and published, @jmcc Your evidence based contributions to NPs add a lot to community discussions, and I think many of us would look forward to the depth of a book.

This is an intriguing comment. Are you at liberty to fill us in a bit more on it, or best to keep it for the book? Totally understand if you feel that.

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It is the numbers of domain names, Bob,
Basically, external events killed Domain Tasting rather than ICANN and one major event hit it harder than ICANN and changed things. In one month, the number of domain names tasted in .COM was about 87% of the entire number of registered .COM domain names. After those external events, things started going down hill. By the time ICANN finally got around to doing something about it, it was effectively dying. There are also issues with legacy gTLD registry reporting from 2009 to 2014. If they are not errors then the whole new gTLD programme and its expectations could have been built on sand.(I'm still checking this out.)

I am sorry if I was probably confusing. Yes of course the $1B sale was for the business, but his point was that it had grown to a company worth that totally on a .ly domain hack name. I apologize to him for not being clear on what he said.

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It wasn't a criticism of your post. It is just that when a high value sale is publicised, it is often a business sale rather than purely a domain name sale. The domain name is the brand but the business is separate and the way that the .LY domain name was integrated into another product demonstrated this. An undeveloped domain hack might be on sale for a large amount but that doesn't mean that anyone will purchase it.

Regards...jmcc

One thing that people who are fighting don’t realize is that the whole space of Internet is growing steadily and as such there is going to be room for all viable extensions to grow as more and more people and companies want to get online. What all these competition has done is to reduce the number of pigeon dropping domains across the board, otherwise good domains in viable extensions are thriving and most likely will see an increase in demand as long as the prices are reasonable.

We all know that most newbies start their domaining adventure by registering a lot of worthless domains and have to go through a learning curve in order to become better domainers, but what people don’t realize is that most Industry veterans and pros who applied for the New gTLDs a few years ago also acted like newbies by wasting 185k a pop on some not so viable extensions and as such we shouldn’t bunch up all New gTLDs in one group because not all are of the same quality and potential. Sooner or later the New gTLDs (and perhaps all other extensions too) are going to have to go through a correction quality and price wise (if not already for some), but for the ones that survive the future can be very bright as global demand for good domains increases across the board in all viable ccTLDs, New gTLDs, and the popular legacy extinctions such as .com (less an unforeseen shift in technology). IMO

tomcarl said:

When are we going to stop calling them "new gTLDs"? They're not new anymore. Going on 5 years. In the world tech, 5 years = ancient history.

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Agree I said this on Twitter a few months ago, and some people were like no they have to be called the new gtlds.

oldtimer said:

One thing that people who are fighting don’t realize is that the whole space of Internet is growing steadily and as such there is going to be room for all viable extensions to grow as more and more people and companies want to get online. What all these competition has done is to reduce the number of pigeon dropping domains across the board, otherwise good domains in viable extensions are thriving and most likely will see an increase in demand as long as the prices are reasonable.

We all know that most newbies start their domaining adventure by registering a lot of worthless domains and have to go through a learning curve in order to become better domainers, but what people don’t realize is that most Industry veterans and pros who applied for the New gTLDs a few years ago also acted like newbies by wasting 185k a pop on some not so viable extensions and as such we shouldn’t bunch up all New gTLDs in one group because not all are of the same quality and potential. Sooner or later the New gTLDs (and perhaps all other extensions too) are going to have to go through a correction quality and price wise (if not already for some), but for the ones that survive the future can be very bright as global demand for good domains increases across the board in all viable ccTLDs, New gTLDs, and the popular legacy extinctions such as .com (less an unforeseen shift in technology). IMO

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Agree OldTimer, I think as an extension now you want to stand on your own, if I am .club talk about .club only address me as .club don't put me in with .loan and .horse and .wtf.

In my opinion the goal of every extension should be to separate from the new gtld pack and stand on their own. Individuality not being part of a team of hundreds of nonsense extensions.

I completely understand Rick's view of ngtld's. I'm guilty as well. Maybe it's because I lost my a$$ on them. Maybe it's because I develop domains for a living and know what works for me and what doesn't work. Maybe I get offers weekly on my dotcom's and never once on a ngtld that I had. Maybe the prices went up 1000% the second year of registration. Maybe I've witnessed flat out lies promoted by certain extensions.

Whatever the case, I've sold .org, .net , .tv and .us names for good money. I develop, invest in and hold dotcom long term. Legacy extensions and cctlds are fantastic investments and have development potential. New tlds are neither good investments nor good for developing. And, the next person that says data leakage and misdirected/misaddressed email is a lie proves their ignorance. It confirms, to me at least, that they have no idea what they're talking about.

My advice is if you love ngtlds, develop something on your names! I mean really build a nice site on them, invest lots of money and time on them. Do something with your domains!

Rick, Brad, Lions, me and many others aren't bashing. Folks really shouldn't take it that way. We're trying to save people time and money, that's all. Been there, tried it, doesn't work. That's all I'm saying...

Internet.Domains said:

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.

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Internet.Domains said:

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.

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I think @Internet.Domains has clearly expressed an important idea that those who want to push only one side seem to ignore. I agree that for the foreseeable future .com will remain the "blue chip" domain. But that does not mean that it is the only domain worth investing in for all. Some will choose to diversify across legacy, new and country code, others will concentrate their efforts in only one category. That is totally fine. Each category bring their own risks and rewards.

I think we too often think only in one use for domains: the main domain for a big business. If you look at the total market for domains, or even the total sales, it is far more diverse than that. Yes, big sales will be dominated by global company main domain purchases, but the total number of sales is dominated by tiny businesses, organizations and individuals. Domains are not a one size fits all.

Thanks again for a fantastic post, @Internet.Domains!

Bob

wurdd said:

I completely understand Rick's view of ngtld's. I'm guilty as well. Maybe it's because I lost my a$$ on them. Maybe it's because I develop domains for a living and know what works for me and what doesn't work. Maybe I get offers weekly on my dotcom's and never once on a ngtld that I had. Maybe the prices went up 1000% the second year of registration. Maybe I've witnessed flat out lies promoted by certain extensions.

Whatever the case, I've sold .org, .net , .tv and .us names for good money. I develop, invest in and hold dotcom long term. Legacy extensions and cctlds are fantastic investments and have development potential. New tlds are neither good investments nor good for developing. And, the next person that says data leakage and misdirected/misaddressed email is a lie proves their ignorance. It confirms, to me at least, that they have no idea what they're talking about.

My advice is if you love ngtlds, develop something on your names! I mean really build a nice site on them, invest lots of money and time on them. Do something with your domains!

Rick, Brad, Lions, me and many others aren't bashing. Folks really shouldn't take it that way. We're trying to save people time and money, that's all. Been there, tried it, doesn't work. That's all I'm saying...

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Agreed. If you like them, great. I kept about 5-10 of mine.

As an investor, it doesn't make sense statistically as noted in my post below. If the domain registration is $30 per year, you'd need to average $3,000-$5,000 per domain if they sold like .com domains sell. But the only problem is, THEY DON'T SELL! So you basically need to put $20k price tags on each and pray a sale comes through.

I had close to 100 that I bought in the early stages when they were first released. Over a 5 year period, I only had 1 person that made a $1,000 offer, then backed out. Only rich people can invest in domains that never sell. I like being able to predict my sales statistically. And statistically 0% (or 0.01% maybe?) of any number is bad. In my post below I show why you are more likely to win the lottery than to be a successful gTLD investor, even if you are good at investing.

To me they were "boat anchors" and part of my $3,233 in savings over the last 3 months. Still have another 20-30 more to drop as their renewal dates approach. For 5 years I took $1,500-$2,000 per year in profits from my .com sales to pay for these gTLD renewals. Makes no sense. Drop and move on.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/af...ve-portfolio-until-2025.1136623/#post-7241041

https://www.namepros.com/threads/calling-all-com-owners-do-you-dabble.1130640/#post-7232875