If .com is still The Future, and the future of the new gTLD program is so uncertain (or doomed from the start, as many would argue), why is it that so many of the largest companies in the world are jumping aboard, rather than waiting it out from the sidelines? It's a very expensive endeavor, and it's not like anyone else is going to scoop up .NFL or .NETFLIX. Clearly, they aren't buying the whole .com is all that matters! hogwash.
Honestly - for a lot of them, it's more about internal politics and empire buildling (or empire defending) than anything else. Or creating jobs that are secure for a few years. Most big corporates (and certainly the ones detailed here) have brand protection agencies safeguarding their IP. So the brand protection agency will have called the internal counsel saying "look, there's this thing, you need to plan for it, it's a few years away yet, but we're not sure how it will go - ring fence $250k and we can protect against it no matter how it goes." Generally speaking, a brand protection agency working for a major international corporation like this could be on a retainer of $10k+ per month - and will almost certainly have discretionary spending power of that much again.
So the agency calls up and speaks to internal counsel, who then talks to the IT guys and they go "yeah, we've heard of this, we should probably do it just in case..." The real motivation here, of course, is that the IT team can then unlock some budget/headcount for the implementation.
I'm not trying to be rude here, but I honestly wonder how many people posting/responding here have ever had experience at executive level in big corporations. A $185k spend to hedge against a potential intellectual property/brand/security issue is NOTHING. Like nothing. It's tiny. I've worked with companies where individual employees (not executive level - project director level) spend that much a year in travel.
Disney reported $52.5 billion in revenue for 2015. $185k is 0.00035% of that. It's a note in a line on an excel sheet attached to an email that nobody read. The NFL did $12 billion. Marriott $14.5 billion.
These are all multi-billion dollar companies. For companies like this protecting their brand is paramount, and the costs of NOT protecting it, and something going wrong, FAR exceed the $185k they needed to pay to secure this risk. ICANN knew EXACTLY what it was doing when it rolled out this "initiative".
As a footnote to this - these same brands also spent a FORTUNE acquiring multiple domains at sunrise in relevant new gTLDs as they launched. Most of these domains will never be used. Apple has around 14,000 active domain registrations. Disney has nearly 17,000. Nearly 400 gTLDs have launched so far. Many of them had really quite high sunrise pricing - $100+ during sunrise. Assuming that major brands acquired multiple domains in new gTLDs as they launched (which they did - I know this for fact as I was monitoring the zone files as gTLDs launched) then at a conservative estimate, at the conclusion of the gTLD launch (ie when all new gTLDs currently under discussion have launched) then I can easily image that some major brands will have spent $150k+ registering their trademarks in gTLDs that they perceive as being a threat to their business.
Why? Because it's cheaper to register than to recover later: remember - you have to enforce trademarks (including cracking down on infringing domain names) or you risk losing them.
So - suddenly, the $185k is just another line on the legal department's budget.
You just listed a bunch of brand gtlds and I don't even consider them generic. Ones that we can't buy and sell. Ones where the companies already own the .com and probably most aren't changing.
Brand gTLDs and publicly available gTLDs are two very different creatures. I would not even call these .brand domains gTLDs - they are not generic, they are VERY specific.
The whole point is that most of these companies wouldn't be lining up to get them in the first place if they didn't see a non-com future........ but that clearly went right over your head in your mad dash to defend your beloved .com.
See my opening response in this post. They weren't queueing up - it was hedging against a potential risk, and it was almost certainly a decision just rubber stamped by a series of disinterested lawyers/executives.
Consider carefully that the most common TLDs have been going for years. .org has been going since 1985, 31 years. Why are they not high value like people say the new TLDs will be? Given its perfect potential usage, why isn't .info selling like hot cakes for high value?
This is one of the best points that I've seen shooting down the hype over new gTLDs. .info was a disaster, as was .biz - .org is GREAT and has a very clear purpose - but as an asset class .org falls WAY behind .com
Even if all this has some explanation, new TLDs don't necessarily bring more value, the sheer amount of them just brings more end user choice for cheap as you have nothing unique to sell anymore.
New gTLDs don't bring value - they bring confusion and uncertainty. And when people are scared and confused, they turn to things that they regard as familiar. That's human nature. So - the confusion of choice devalues the new and strengthens that familiar. That's basic human psychology.
The comparison of brands' owning their own nTLDs is completely irrelevant to everyone on namepros who invests in nTLDs. None of those companies are using .vip or .top, nor are any people able to invest in .bmw or .landrover. Don't try to make something out of nothing
.bmw and .landrover are already recognised and familiar brands. drive.bmw makes semantic sense. experience.landrover does too. They're not only familiar but authoritative: when you visit drive.bmw you know there is NO CHANCE that you're going to be phished, hijacked, or infected with malware. Security online is a huge and growing issue - and I think in coming years .brand TLDs will come into their own. If I'm interested in BMW cars, going to ownersforum.bmw is much safer than going to bimmerownersclub.com/forum - and maybe I can trust the people posting there a bit more, and can feel secure that they are moderated and I'm not going to be trolled and abused - another hot topic online these days.
They also give the brands room for creativity, unconstrained by the limitations of what domains are available. They don't have to worry about whether they've registered the right domains when they launch a new product - because they already own them. HTC's Vive product is a great example - they had htcvive.com but just spent money to acquire vive.com
I still think vive.com is better than vive.htc - but you see my point.
FYI it has something to do with the snowball effect....
Absolutely - I do not deny that .brand TLDs will help familiarise people with these new extensions. But - as I said - when faced with the paralysis of choice, people turn to the familiar. Which means, in the short to medium term, .com still wins. These .brand TLDs will help introduce people to the idea that there are other extensions out there - but I honestly think that what we will see happen is that there will be a divide - .brand TLDs will be seen as secure, reliable and authoritative, alongside .com and (for example) .co.uk - and other ccTLDs. The other new gTLDs will be seen as flighty, unreliable and untrustworthy - the domain of spammers, chancers and fly-by-nights. When there are substantial numbers of GOOD sites living at new gTLDs and they've been there day in day out for 5 years plus then maybe people will trust new gTLDs. But who is going to build those sites? Would you build a business on a new gTLD? I wouldn't. I'd use them as keyword funnels, or domains for specific landing pages, but by their very nature, gTLDs don't lend themselves to branding - because they have an implicit association. Part of the power of .com is that it's neutral - it doesn't contextualise or otherwise comment on what is to the left of the dot. Sure, there are some others that also have this neutrality, but many have a "specific purpose" - and indeed that's the spiel of many. Think of .club, the poster child of the new gTLD revolution. If I'm an accountant, will I be looking a this? Almost certainly not. If I'm a gymnastic club, does .com still make sense? Definitely, yes.
This actually helps companies. They can care even less about squatters and playing whack-a-mole with all sorts of domains. All they need to do is build their .brand network and skip .com entirely. Then there's no question: if you go to an official .NFL site (for example), you'll not have to worry about being scammed. VISA will use .visa for official sites..... etc! It's soooo simple.
Absolutely correct about not worrying about being scammed - but they WILL probably still have to play whack-a-mole with all sorts of domains unfortunately. Certainly where anyone is actively infringing their brand.
However, as I said earlier, I think the authority of .brand TLDs is going to be very high, and that in itself will actually make the authority of all other gTLDs weaker.
Personally I think that $185K for brand marketing is peanuts for Fortune 500 companies. So saying "hey they bought it because one day they see a non-com future" doesn't fly with me. Those companies have poured millions (and sometimes billions) into advertising their .coms. $185K equals maybe 1-2 months of marketing money for them. Plus, some of these companies have actually bought .com(s) for amounts exceeding $185K. So why would you think that spending $185K means they may drop their .com one day? Makes zero sense to me.
It's a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of money for the types of companies we're talking about. As I said earlier - I know people working for companies like these where $185k is their personal travel budget for the year.
Look at it this way - in London's financial district, premium office space goes for about £75 per square foot. I did some work last year with a well known consumer brand who have an enormous office in a prestigious sky scraper. They had 12 conference rooms - each one must have been about 300 - 400 square feet. Each time I went in for a meeting we would be put in one of the conference rooms - and I only ever saw 3 others being used at the same time. So a lot of the time they had 8 to 10 rooms - 3000 square feet of office space - sitting unused. This was apparently very common. "Why do you have so many conference rooms?" I asked. "Well, there are a few days each year when we need ALL of them - when we are launching new campaigns, or preparing the global end of year figures, or if we have a law suit or something. It's cheaper than renting external meeting rooms, and more secure." Cost of that unused space? £250,000 per year.
If you can't grasp how URL's like drive.bmw will eventually help lead to a greater awareness and acceptance of the new gtld's, I think it's safe to say that you have very little understanding of psychology.
It won't be very long before the average internet user is well aware that many other options exist, and, consequently, the hesitation to recognize and accept alternative URL's will quickly erode in the coming years.
They will 100% lead to greater awareness. Acceptance though, I'm not so sure. See my point above. I think this is more of a double edged sword than you appreciate. I think it's safe to safe that you have a rudimentary understanding of psychology but perhaps haven't thought this one through to its ultimate conclusion.
I think they will recognise alternate URLs - that resistance will definitely erode. Whether they will trust them and use them is anyone's guess. But MY guess is that .brand TLDs and existing incumbents (.com .co.uk .fr etc) will still hold a trust far above new gTLDs.
what is a better domain? name.uk or name.co.uk?
It seems like a no-brainer. Name.uk is better. Looks better. Is shorter. The .co isn't needed.
Strangely in the real world it turned out that most businesses don't care about the .uk and did not switch to .uk when it became available. They still don't buy .uk domains. At the same time, since the .uk launch .co.uk has become stronger than ever.
See, this is interesting - and pretty much reinforces the point I'm making. No-one here in the UK cares about .uk - and, in fact, most of the time they think that it's a mistake. If people see somedomain.uk they pretty much think that the .co bit has been missed out - so if they are manually typing it they will add it in, and potentially get the wrong website. This is why the .uk names HAD to be offered to existing registrants first. Furthermore (anecdotally) I know that if people google something and see somedomain.co.uk and somedomain.uk they would be more likely to click somedomain.co.uk - because it looks more trustworthy.
There are PLENTY of GREAT new gTLD's.... for those with a little foresight.
I think this is true - but they are generally keyword domains - london.accountant or gymnastics.club
Whether they are "investment class" domains is very different. My opinion is that they are not.
Sex.Live sold $160000
Porn.Live sold $120000 lately
"Citation needed".
Just like .club announcing some extraordinary sounding prices early on, I am very skeptical indeed about this announcement. I think it's more likely that the names were given to the new operator for a "consideration" of $120,000 - or, in other words, no cash changed hands. But the value of the PR that they gain from this is great. And, as people have said for years, the internet is shaped by the porn industry.
