- Impact
- 62
Emoji domains have become a recent phenomenon online- at least within the relatively small niche that is our domaining community. Although, that's not to say that emoji domains haven't seen a wider adoption among well-known companies like Coca-Cola and Honda. Coca-Cola's experimentation with emoji domains on billboard campaigns is probably the use-case most referred to by the even smaller sub-section of us domainers that invest in emoji domains.
This post isn't one that will explain the benefits of an emoji domain for an end-user company. Instead its a small taster of a larger report, Emoji Domains by the Numbers, that we published at EmojiName.com to give speculative domain investors a guide to this newly forming opportunity.
Nearly all of the single emoji domains have been taken. It's been this way for a while but there are still a few that remain open for registration. Don't get too excited by that statement though because they are all obscure country flags like that of Wallis & Futuna [xn--j77h7a.ws if you want to register it] I'm sure it's a very nice place but perhaps not the wisest emoji domain investment.
Although you could reach out to the original registrants of the more powerful single emoji domains like the diamond or the credit card to strike private deals, the remaining hand-registration gold lies in the double repeating, triple repeating and double combo emoji domains. To pick up any meaningful double repeating emoji domains you'll likely have to be quick. Some of the more commonly used emoji like the 'face with tears of joy' have been registered in multiples up to 10. So, you'd have to register 11 if you want to be next in line. This type of long repeating registration makes no sense to the investor that wants to mitigate some of the risk and reminds us of the increasingly lengthy domains registered during the entry of the Chinese investors into the numeric and character markets in 2015.
Not all repeating emoji are senseless though. There are some clever uses of the double repeating category. Take the company Fish Friender whose app acts as a log and social sharing service among recreational fisherman. You can keep your fishing location private or invite a friend to fish with you. The social aspect of this company makes their emoji domain, [fishing pole + fishing pole], a neat indicator of what they're about as well as a quick link to their services from social media and messaging apps.
From an emoji domain investor's viewpoint the repeating doubles may have some commercial applications for companies. By holding a portfolio of double repeating emoji domains could you limit the downside of the individual $22 yearly registration fee and actively reach out to prospective end-users to make a profit?
Another category of double emoji domains is the combo category. These domains are made of two different emoji eg. sun + house. This particular emoji domain could represent solar roofing or solar powered housing. Either way the domain investor needs to take extra steps to lock down the category and sell the domains as a package to an end user. There are two different sun emoji and three different house emoji. So, first an investor would have to register all the sun + house combinations. Then of course you have to register the reciprocal of each emoji domain, all the house + sun combinations. To avoid confusion, a business needs to secure both sun + house and house + sun. This way, if a customer sees the domain used on traditional physical advertising and is forced to type it in later, whichever way round they have remembered the order of the emoji, the company has directed that customer to their service offering and not a competitor's.
With this style of investment the capital needed to register and renew each year can quickly stack up. At $22 a pop securing an emoji domain combo and its reciprocal comes in at $44 a year. To secure the entire sun + house niche it would cost an investor $264 a year. Here are a couple of pertinent questions to ask yourself before you pull the trigger
Another sure fire way to increase your yearly renewal fees is investing in the emoji that have modifiers and ZWJ sequences. An example of a modifier is a skin tone. An example of a ZWJ sequence is a profession. So, in our report we use the example of the emoji domain, 'Woman Health Worker: Medium Skin Tone'. Nice, catchy name. An emoji like this is actually made up of three elements combined by 'zero width joiners' [ZWJ] to allow it to show as one emoji on your phone. This example is made up of woman emoji + medium skin tone emoji + medical symbol emoji.
The problem for an investor lies with the skin tone modifier. There are too many of them to realistically secure the niche across a broader selection of emoji domains. Unless you are convinced of the health worker vertical as a prolific user of emoji domains you might want to concentrate in other areas. Our example comes with 5 other accompanying emoji domains and a business would want all of them in one package:
This is just some of the speculative advice we've outlined in the EmojiName.com report, Emoji Domains by the Numbers. We get a little more in depth in the report and run through some numbers that might surprise you as well as guiding you through some of the evidence that show emoji domains as a viable business asset and some of the potential threats to the emoji domain opportunity as it stands plus other potential threats to your investment dollars.
Have a read and feel free to let us know your thoughts.
For now, though,
OUT
[The 'Emoji Domains by the Numbers' report was co-published by Steven Glick and John Harrison of EmojiName.com]
This post isn't one that will explain the benefits of an emoji domain for an end-user company. Instead its a small taster of a larger report, Emoji Domains by the Numbers, that we published at EmojiName.com to give speculative domain investors a guide to this newly forming opportunity.
Nearly all of the single emoji domains have been taken. It's been this way for a while but there are still a few that remain open for registration. Don't get too excited by that statement though because they are all obscure country flags like that of Wallis & Futuna [xn--j77h7a.ws if you want to register it] I'm sure it's a very nice place but perhaps not the wisest emoji domain investment.
Although you could reach out to the original registrants of the more powerful single emoji domains like the diamond or the credit card to strike private deals, the remaining hand-registration gold lies in the double repeating, triple repeating and double combo emoji domains. To pick up any meaningful double repeating emoji domains you'll likely have to be quick. Some of the more commonly used emoji like the 'face with tears of joy' have been registered in multiples up to 10. So, you'd have to register 11 if you want to be next in line. This type of long repeating registration makes no sense to the investor that wants to mitigate some of the risk and reminds us of the increasingly lengthy domains registered during the entry of the Chinese investors into the numeric and character markets in 2015.
Not all repeating emoji are senseless though. There are some clever uses of the double repeating category. Take the company Fish Friender whose app acts as a log and social sharing service among recreational fisherman. You can keep your fishing location private or invite a friend to fish with you. The social aspect of this company makes their emoji domain, [fishing pole + fishing pole], a neat indicator of what they're about as well as a quick link to their services from social media and messaging apps.
From an emoji domain investor's viewpoint the repeating doubles may have some commercial applications for companies. By holding a portfolio of double repeating emoji domains could you limit the downside of the individual $22 yearly registration fee and actively reach out to prospective end-users to make a profit?
Another category of double emoji domains is the combo category. These domains are made of two different emoji eg. sun + house. This particular emoji domain could represent solar roofing or solar powered housing. Either way the domain investor needs to take extra steps to lock down the category and sell the domains as a package to an end user. There are two different sun emoji and three different house emoji. So, first an investor would have to register all the sun + house combinations. Then of course you have to register the reciprocal of each emoji domain, all the house + sun combinations. To avoid confusion, a business needs to secure both sun + house and house + sun. This way, if a customer sees the domain used on traditional physical advertising and is forced to type it in later, whichever way round they have remembered the order of the emoji, the company has directed that customer to their service offering and not a competitor's.
With this style of investment the capital needed to register and renew each year can quickly stack up. At $22 a pop securing an emoji domain combo and its reciprocal comes in at $44 a year. To secure the entire sun + house niche it would cost an investor $264 a year. Here are a couple of pertinent questions to ask yourself before you pull the trigger
- Can the combination be confused with any others?
- How would a business treat this risk if they could only use one of them in a campaign?
Another sure fire way to increase your yearly renewal fees is investing in the emoji that have modifiers and ZWJ sequences. An example of a modifier is a skin tone. An example of a ZWJ sequence is a profession. So, in our report we use the example of the emoji domain, 'Woman Health Worker: Medium Skin Tone'. Nice, catchy name. An emoji like this is actually made up of three elements combined by 'zero width joiners' [ZWJ] to allow it to show as one emoji on your phone. This example is made up of woman emoji + medium skin tone emoji + medical symbol emoji.
The problem for an investor lies with the skin tone modifier. There are too many of them to realistically secure the niche across a broader selection of emoji domains. Unless you are convinced of the health worker vertical as a prolific user of emoji domains you might want to concentrate in other areas. Our example comes with 5 other accompanying emoji domains and a business would want all of them in one package:
- Woman health worker [This is the default yellow skin tone]
- Woman health worker: Light skin tone
- Woman health worker: Medium light skin tone
- Woman health worker: Medium dark skin tone
- Woman health worker: Dark skin tone
This is just some of the speculative advice we've outlined in the EmojiName.com report, Emoji Domains by the Numbers. We get a little more in depth in the report and run through some numbers that might surprise you as well as guiding you through some of the evidence that show emoji domains as a viable business asset and some of the potential threats to the emoji domain opportunity as it stands plus other potential threats to your investment dollars.
Have a read and feel free to let us know your thoughts.
For now, though,
OUT[The 'Emoji Domains by the Numbers' report was co-published by Steven Glick and John Harrison of EmojiName.com]
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