50 companies changed their .COM to a new gTLD

[Fancy.domains]

Hello,

An article with examples of companies using a new gTLD, rather than its original .COM address:

http://blog.europeandomaincentre.com/why-50-websites-dumped-com-for-new-tld/

 

[sOliver]

They might have more options, but here is an interesting study about the domains used by startups.

http://dngeek.com/2015/07/most-popular-domain-extensions-for-startups-in-q2-2015

After analyzing 449 newly funded start-ups that raised a combined 5.2 billion dollars in funding during the first quarter of the year we’re back with a Q2 report which is based on 748 newly funded startups who raised a whopping 10.9 billion dollars in funding during the second quarter of this year.

.COM was selected by over 75% of startups, which means it is actually increasing its lead.

How are the new gTLD doing among startups?

The big surprise for me is the increasing popularity of .me and .tv. Both of these extensions prove to be more popular among funded startups than all the new gTLDs combined. With a measly 6 startups that launched with one of the 329 new available domain name extensions the new Gs only take 0.8% of the pie.

TV is so popular because the entire TV industry is coming online. Not only Google wants a piece of the pie. In a few years all TV networks will be online I guess.. maybe they will all have their own platform like watch.hbo or watch.amc or whatever.

I know of three eSports comapnies using TV, two of them startups
- Azubu.tv
- Hitbox.tv
- Twitch.tv

Streaming services are popular companies so it makes sense that TV goes up in usage. Probably one of the fastest growing markets at the moment. Possibly a lot of Youtubers also register TV domains .. every kid on the block wants to be a Youtuber these days


Edit: Interesting study, wondering where they get the data from. In a few quarters this could change quite a bit, it's simply too early to tell

 

[Enfant]

Very interesting thoughts... I believe that years matter, but people will remember something meaningful.
Com is meaningful, TV is meaningful (plus easy to remember), and how meaningful is co, what do you think?
As for me, I will always confuse co with com

 

[sOliver]

Very interesting thoughts... I believe that years matter, but people will remember something meaningful.
Com is meaningful, TV is meaningful (plus easy to remember), and how meaningful is co, what do you think?
As for me, I will always confuse co with com

I actually like CO .. because a great deal of companies are using it for their company name, e.g. BrandSupplyCo LLC... Its shorter than COM and business owners actually know it stands for company. People just dont know that COM means company.

If it wasn't for DOT COMs recognition, I would prefer supply.co over supply.com or I would prefer software.co over software.com. It's short and it works and stands for the very same thing: COMPANY

But DOT COM is not just any extension. The brand trust associated with it is why businesses around the world prefer it.

The internet has been around long enough for consumers to develop an "affinity". They know a great deal about how the internet works now and are willing to embrace novel ways to consume content.

It is no longer the 90's when only geeks knew what the internet was. Everyone knows what it is and many even know what cookies are, what protocols are, what a firewall is. That knowledge has developed over time. Only geeks knew that stuff. It sounds ridiculous but consumers just didnt care about cookies until privacy issues entered public domain.

So, what we have now is an educated consumer who can recognize www.mycompany.me or www.thisservice.co - they know its something they can enter into their browser. It's not so difficult too imagine that they will soon embrace new gTLDs. When Google makes that change I spoke of, it will be right in their face every single day. When that happens the awareness will explode. What we have then could turn into a major event for the entire domain industry and Google has already announced a date range.

I am seeing type-in traffic for domains already and it's great. I own a few ultra premium keywords like software in some extension and consumers are actually entering it into their address bar. I havent quite figured out how it works, because when I enter "software tips" into the address bar, I dont land at software.tips - I get redirected to Google instead. So I will need some time to further dig into that, but the development is very exciting and I couldnt be more happy with my early adopter investments, especially since I already have offers in the 4-figure range. But I will sit on my names for a few years before I sell anything. There's money to be made here, a blind man can see that. This isn't the end of the story, it's the beginning and DOT COM owners are afraid. Change is always "scary". But as I pointed out, owners of premium DOT COMs have nothing to fear because of 30 years of building trust and recognition. That just doesn't go away over night, that would take a decade or a technological disruption.

 

[brandnow]

.Co will forever be called "the typo domain" though, no?

 

[sOliver]

.Co will forever be called "the typo domain" though, no?

I don't see it as such. More companies use CO in their actual company name than COM. No company uses COM in their company name. That's why I personally would prefer the extension CO over COM if we would take recognition and trust out of the equation.

 

[Potential.Domains]

I believe that years matter, but people will remember something meaningful.
Com is meaningful

Unless I completely missed your point in the above statement; can you or anyone in the community, explain how "Com" is meaningful?

Take into consideration, "Com" is not TV, Club, Website, News, and other meaningful extensions.

 

[sOliver]

Unless I completely missed your point in the above statement; can you or anyone in the community, explain how "Com" is meaningful?

Take into consideration, "Com" is not TV, Club, Website, News, and other meaningful extensions.

That's a really good point many domainers miss. COM is an abbreviation, whereas most new gTLDs like DOT TIPS are not.

In my opinion, meaningful, short names will survive like: tips, web, club, me, site, estate, news, today, ..

We'll have to wait and see how annoying consumers will find it to type in long extensions, but then again type-in traffic is rare and SEO is the way to drive traffic these days. That's when people realize there is actually more value in owning a .COMPANY name or a .TIPS domain name rather than a COM for certain business models like lead generation. For SEO work it's just brilliant.

 

[JB Lions]

can you or anyone in the community, explain how "Com" is meaningful?

Because it's well known, accepted, used. It has a history of success and a future. There is a reason why it sells for what it does. There is a reason why it gets 19 out of the top 20 sales - http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

So what do all these people and companies get, that a lot of domainers don't? Why do you think these new gtlds have been underperforming? Not hitting ICAANs earlier predictions, not meeting individual new extensions predictions?

That's a really good point many domainers miss. COM is an abbreviation, whereas most new gTLDs like DOT TIPS are not.

That's something new I've been thinking about. Another way to look at it is, .com looks like a url, the others look like run on sentences. You say, they have meanings because they're words, as if words don't come before the .com.

That's yet another tired argument a lot of you guys make. It's an abbreviation or it doesn't mean anything etc. Let's pretend it hasn't been working or straight dominant.

 

[Kate]

I don't see it as such. More companies use CO in their actual company name than COM. No company uses COM in their company name.

It is a moot point really. The bottom line is that the public is familiar with .com, not .co (except in Colombia proper maybe).
A number of countries still use third level domains in the form .com.tld or .co.tld. For instance, the UK where consumers 'expect' to see.co.uk. Many will assume a .co domain is a typo/incomplete domain.

 

[Potential.Domains]

Because it's well known, accepted, used. It has a history of success and a future. There is a reason why it sells for what it does. There is a reason why it gets 19 out of the top 20 sales

@JB Lion — What does the meaning of "Com" extension has anything to do with its popularity, history, success and sales?

Your comments further proves my earlier assertion regarding your one-sided point of view in defense of .com. Learn to be objective for once, pls.

Just so you know, I have more .com domains in my portfolio than newgtlds, but that does not mean I should be biased in favor of dot-com in my views.
____

Read @sOliver's comment above (or below), which does not only makes sense, but is also relevant to the question asked.

That's a really good point many domainers miss. COM is an abbreviation, whereas most new gTLDs like DOT TIPS are not.

In my opinion, meaningful, short names will survive like: tips, web, club, me, site, estate, news, today, ..

 

[JB Lions]

@JB Lion — What does the meaning of "Com" extension has anything to do with its popularity, history, success and sales?

Ugh, what's important to businesses? Success, history, consumer awareness etc or that you pointed out it's an abbreviation? If you want to talk about something that's meaningless, it's that reason you just gave. You call my views, one-sided, I call them level-headed. You're also forgetting the whole domain. Shoes.com isn't meaningful? Hotels.com isn't meaningful? You want to pretend as if something doesn't come before the .com.

You double downed on your argument that .com is an abbreviation and that is supposed to be meaningful by quoting Oliver

"COM is an abbreviation"

So what? You actually think that comes up when deciding on what extension to build a business on. "Hey look .com is available but it's an abbreviation so maybe we shouldn't get it. Who cares it's the most well known extension in the world, the biggest businesses to the smallest build on it, it's ............an abbreviation, oh noooooooo"

Be real. You're trying to find some weakness in .com, when there isn't any, and it's an abbreviation is the best you can do? Or "it's not a word". It's silly.

 

[sOliver]

It is a moot point really. The bottom line is that the public is familiar with .com, not .co (except in Colombia proper maybe).
A number of countries still use third level domains in the form .com.tld or .co.tld. For instance, the UK where consumers 'expect' to see.co.uk. Many will assume a .co domain is a typo/incomplete domain.

When you're quoting me, don't quote me out of context. I have already acknowledged that DOT COM is more valuable and will always be. And I specifically said "when we take recognition and awareness out of the equation".

But you are ignoring hard facts: New gTLDs have security advantages, branding advantages and meaning. What that means is that there will be a secondary market. COM will be the primary market for a long, long time, but there's money to be made here in the secondary domain market for people who just dont want to spend 16k on a COM domain today.

As you can probably tell I do not shy away from spending big money on DOT COM or DOT NET. I see the potential of new gTLDs and if it doesn't work out I only lost a few grand. No big deal. I have a business I can rely on, backed by great domains including COM and NET.

 

[Potential.Domains]

Ugh, what's important to businesses? Success, history, consumer awareness etc or that you pointed out it's an abbreviation? If you want to talk about something that's meaningless, it's that reason you just gave.

"What's important to businesses" as it relates to choice of TLDs is another topic of its own. And you can't speak for, or on behalf of every business. Neither you or I, know anything about other business' objectives or choice when it comes to the online identity of their business. ....

Whether they are going to weigh popularity over meaningfulness, or not. Cost of acquisition over sales and history, etc.

My question was, does "Com" extension has a meaning or not. This has already been answered by another member.

 

[JB Lions]

"What's important to businesses" as it relates to choice of TLDs is another topic of its own. And you can't speak for, or on behalf of every business. Neither you or I, know anything about other business' objectives or choice when it comes to the online identity of their business. .....

Actually, I can because it's common sense stuff here. Would you rather be on a known extension, where there isn't any guessing on whether it'll be successful or not or one where most can't even hit 10,000 regs. One where if you get, like your name, can be confusing to customers and they end up going to the .com anyway. Or one of the many other reasons gone thru before. Again, the question you ask, doesn't matter because it doesn't come up in conversation when choosing what extension to go with. "This has already been answered by another member." And I gave you the correct answer, the keywords that come before the dot is what counts. Use my examples and tell me how they don't have meaning, you can't. Hotels.com doesn't have meaning?

New gTLDs have security advantages, branding advantages and meaning..

Oh really?

DiscountShoes.com vs. Discount.Shoes

How is the second more secure?

How does it have more meaning than the first?

How does it have branding advantage over something known?

Try to advertise discount.shoes and you'll have people going to discountshoes.com. Advertise discountshoes.com, do you think somebody will go to discount.shoes? No. That's called a disadvantage when you confuse customers. It's a disadvantage when you try to build on an extension that most people have never heard of, will have low reg numbers which means low market penetration, means you'll have a harder time trying to get people to get your name right etc.

 

[sOliver]

I have to agree that a lot of extensions will in fact go out of business, so it is best to stay away from domains with like 10k regs. Thats simple math. They will never be profitable and will be shut down. So do your homework. There is some money to be made, but it requires strategy and research.

I dont think names like zone or xyz for that matter have a chance to survive long-term. Besides there is little value in xyz. But there are extensions that may generate sales in the future or have already done so on a small scale.

 

[Kate]

But you are ignoring hard facts: New gTLDs have security advantages, branding advantages and meaning.

What kind of security advantages ? I don't see any.
But I see a lot of problems with new extensions

• they are often more expensive
• they are not recognized by consumers and confusing
  
• the best keywords are hoarded/auctioned by the registries
• worse, the registries claw back on domains granted 'by mistake'
  
• and you don't know if they will still exist in a few years

is this what you call security ?

What that means is that there will be a secondary market.

There will be no secondary market where there is no primary market. Or does 2 sales a year count as a market ?

 

[Potential.Domains]

I have to agree that a lot of extensions will in fact go out of business, so it is best to stay away from domains with like 10k regs. Thats simple math. They will never be profitable and will be shut down. So do your homework. There is some money to be made, but it requires strategy and research.

That's true. But the fact is, most domainers buying newgtlds, are not doing so based on the strings' or registries' chance of success several; but rather based on the possibility of selling the (exact match) domain.

For instance, voice.computer has a higher chance of selling quick (even before the registry folds), compared to a domain like freshfood.today

So, yes — strategy and research matters, with every investment.

Good domains will always get inquiries, and I'm actually surprised some of my newgtlds already receiving offers in less than a year, low to mid $x,xxx.

 

[sOliver]

What kind of security advantages ? I don't see any.
But I see a lot of problems with new extensions

• they are often more expensive
• they are not recognized by consumers and confusing
  
• the best keywords are hoarded/auctioned by the registries
• worse, the registries claw back on domains granted 'by mistake'
  
• and you don't know if they will still exist in a few years

is this what you call security ?

There will be no secondary market where there is no primary market. Or does 2 sales a year count as a market ?

Ok, first catch up on why Google invested 5 million into new gTLDs and what they intend to do with it. You seem to have little knowledge about the industry behind domains: Web development.

The security advantage is obvious. Only Google can control .google or .youtube and no other company. They can do things with those extensions you cannot imagine right now because you are not involved in web development. And many domainers are wrongfully neglecting the actual industry that has been driving sales for the past 30 years.

Read up on what Google intends to do with those TLDs and then really ask yourself: When Google does it, wouldn't it be a smart move on your end to at least dabble a little in it and develop a name or two? Because thats what real businessmen do, they develop.

Look at Rick Schwartz, he's not a domain flipper, he got into domains because they had actual business value to him: Increasing revenue from his vanity phone biz. He also doesnt make many sales, but when he does it's in the 7 figures.

There already is a secondary market. Only because you wrongfully believe that all domain sales are reported on DnJournal (which is a ridiculous assumption to begin with, sorry) doesn't mean there have only been like 20-30 sales. Do you believe that all DOT COM sales get reported? Do you think my sales were reported on DnJournal? No they werent, because I didn't report them and they were private sales. Confidential.

 

[JB Lions]

Ok, first catch up on why Google invested 5 million into new gTLDs and what they intend to do with it. You seem to have little knowledge about the industry behind domains: Web development.

The security advantage is obvious. Only Google can control .google or .youtube and no other company. They can do things with those extensions you cannot imagine right now because you are not involved in web development. And many domainers are wrongfully neglecting the actual industry that has been driving sales for the past 30 years.

So Google isn't controlling Google.com or YouTube.com? Who else can control them?

And you said - "New gTLDs" and when I read that, it's like you're talking about new gtlds that we can actually register, but what you're really talking about is companies and their own extensions.

You haven't made the case with my example above:

DiscountShoes.com vs. Discount.Shoes

How is the second more secure?

How does it have more meaning than the first?

How does it have branding advantage over something known?

And I've brought this up many times before, Google buying something doesn't always mean success. They failed with Froogle, they had to shut down the affiliate network they bought, Performics, etc.

 

[Kate]

Ok, first catch up on why Google invested 5 million into new gTLDs and what they intend to do with it. You seem to have little knowledge about the industry behind domains: Web development.

And do you think Google succeed at everything ? Years ago they were a .mobi backer and it didn't pan out well.
Everybody can use new extensions now, so why aren't they embracing them more eagerly ? I am more interested in reality and actual market trends, than hypotheses and projections.

The security advantage is obvious. Only Google can control .google or .youtube and no other company..

OK this I understand. But not everybody can have its own extension. Almost everybody else will continue to use a TLD run by some other party.
But just because an organization can run its own TLD doesn't mean it will be more secure. I mean hacker-proof. Of course, the infrastructure can still be outsourced. But the technical challenge is still the same.

But do you think google.com or youtube.com are at risk now, just because Google do not control the .com TLD ? Where do you think the risk is ? The US government ? It controls the DNS root anyway.

There already is a secondary market. Only because you wrongfully believe that all domain sales are reported on DnJournal (which is a ridiculous assumption to begin with, sorry) doesn't mean there have only been like 20-30 sales.

Of course the majority of sales go unreported. But do you really think new TLD sales are much more common in proportion to the other extensions ?
The sales charts are always dominated by .com and a few other extensions like popular ccTLDs. It's not by chance. That's all I need to know as a domain investor.

You wrongly assume I am clueless about web development. I also have a vague idea of branding, this is why I would rather stay away from new extensions, because I can do without unnecessary confusion. Good domain names cost money, but branding costs money too, and using an adverse domain is money down the drain (like the rhyme).

 

[sOliver]

Of course Google is controlling Google.com, you don't seem to get my point. Do you know what a homograph attack is? Can you imagine how an extension like .barclays would make it more difficult for those phishing attacks to happen?

You can fake this.com with IDNs and stuff but you cant fake this.barclays because you can't register this.barclays

Do you see the security advantage for corporations?

 

[sOliver]

Of course that security advantage doesnt apply to consumer extensions, but when corporations embrace new TLDs it will validate extensions like web, tips, estate etc simply by increasing awareness and trust in these extensions. That's my point and a fair point if I may say so that most will neglect or talk away.

 

[Kate]

Can you imagine how an extension like .barclays would make it more difficult for those phishing attacks to happen?

All right, just because Barclays now use .barclays doesn't mean that people will automatically distrust a link that is in .com or .co.uk... extensions that Barclays have used for over two decades.
Unless Barclays advise loudly all their customers that only .barclays domains are legit from now on. And make it official policy. Like: "do not ever ever give out your PIN code to anybody, even claiming to be from Barclays Bank".

In my view your reasoning is half valid: logic in theory, but not very relevant in practice.

Phishing works because people do not pay enough attention the the actual URL. I can still come up with a creative spoof like banking.barclays.online/login and there will always be people falling for the trap. In fact, the proliferation of new extensions provides phishers with more opportunities to be creative and mimic know, legit URLs.
By that POV, new extensions create security problems, or rather they amplify existing problems.

...when corporations embrace new TLDs it will validate extensions like web, tips, estate etc simply by increasing awareness and trust in these extensions.

I disagree. This is a fallacy that many domainers seem to believe, but it's wrong.
Just because some corporations use their own TLD, doesn't mean I will want to use whatever is available to me, like .top .web or .xyz, simply because I can't have my own TLD. To me the viable options are still the same as before. I will use .com and/or ccTLD, proven stuff.

CorpTLDs and vanity TLDs are not equally valid.

 

[sOliver]

I disagree. This is a fallacy that many domainers seem to believe, but it's wrong.
Just because some corporations use their own TLD, doesn't mean I will want to use whatever is available to me, like .top .web or .xyz, simply because I can't have my own TLD. To me the viable options are still the same as before. I will use .com and/or ccTLD, proven stuff.

That's your opinion and I have mine Just check the forums here, many people dont register names to make money. It's a hobby for them to get gratification. It feels good to say 'hey, I own this', thats how we tick. When consumers see .google and .youtube, they may want their own new domain. This could lure in business owners. Businesses go where consumers are, not the other way around. Businesses buy COMs because thats what consumers expect at this point. But you know how consumers are these days: Bored, want instant gratification, change opinions every other day, etc.....and they are more educated than ever before. They know what an extension is, what cookies are, what a firewall is. They are starting to 'get it'.

I never said that COM will lose trust, on the contrary I said that COM will always be the most trusted due to 30 long years of marketing. But I specifically said that a secondary market does exist and will continue to flourish. And if you don't want to participate, that's your thing. I still buy and sell COMs but I wont neglect this opportunity completely.

In a few years, you may regret not buying a few names when you've had the chance. You need think in terms of 10 years, not use data from a single year. That's not sufficient. That's why its called speculative investing, you make a hypothesis and you wait for certain things to happen. If they do, good. If they don't, then you cut your losses and move on. Definitely not for conservative investors, so it's not a good idea to invest much. Anyone who goes all in on this, doesn't understand how speculative it is. Anyone who neglects this and doesn't even buy 1 name is a close-minded pessimist who's afraid of change.

This is a historic change and it will affect the market in one way or the other.

 

[Kate]

It's interesting to look at the figures, then figure out the trends.
So far .com has grown more than all new extensions combined. It does tell us something.
Many of the new extensions have the growth rates of small ccTLDs, like African ccTLDs.

So does it look like new extensions are taking off ? I don't think so. The critical mass isn't there. Is there a shift taking place ? Hardly.

Rather than speculate on the future, why not consider the present first ?

Historically, the naysayers are more often right than wrong in this industry. I have ignored all post-2000 extensions with the exception of a few .info, and I am glad that I did not allow myself to be distracted. I believe more in the fast second principle than first mover advantage, so when and if things change it will always be time to adjust accordingly.