.info .biz .info ??

[Grrilla]

What is your thinking on these exts, which one do you prefer for the short term, and what do you think the long term prospects are for each? Also interested in hearing from the naysayers-those that think either one of these TLD's should be avoided.

During a recent search/analysis of names in a technology group, I found a definite trend towards.biz popularity -biz being taken w/.net and .info still available-particularly where name could be identified w/ product or sector of industry.

In general searches, I have been finding .info available w/ some very good names, which are appropriately matched w/ .info, but where the .com or .org are already filling the niche. Has made me somewhat retiscent about picking up .info names (unless keyword is very, very good).

Additionally, where do you see .us fitting into the scenario? More and more, I'm viewing .us as being a final resort option for picking up the strong names (ie nothing else left, but the name is too good to pass up). Also feel that .co.uk is outdistancing .us in popularity.

Any observations?

 

[Grrilla]

If that happens, we would in effect have only one TLD, which would be worse than when we started with only com/net/org/gov/edu/int. I can't even begin to imagine why we would take such a backward step. That woud be totally illogical!

Again, this is only a rumor, (something I picked up off of a thread at another discussion group). I don't think it would be you or I (or most others at NP) who would take the step. It falls more in line w/ a changing of the guard, ie the United Nations or another international group taking control.

I love the .com only guys who proudly tell you they have never owned a .info and never will, then proceed to tell you that there is no market for them.

My first contact w/ other domainers was through the Usenet group "alt Domain Names for Sale" where, at least back then, the strongest, most vociferous posters were in the .com only group. I now realize how easily influenced one can be by others opinions.

My recent "housecleaning" included my 3 .ws names based, in fact, on being swayed by the opinions of others in a thread here at NP. http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10632
I appreciate the balanced input that this thread is receiving.

 

[jj2ii3344]

Agreed with Tippy, I wouldn't mind getting sex.us, but even 3 letters ones like qqx.us is out of my interest!

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Personally, I think .info will be the upcoming star TLD in the future. It has better universal acceptance as the first 4 letters are the same as the translated spellings of "information" in many languages besides english. This I don't believe to be true with .biz. People go the internet for information and info fits real well. Many of those people use the information to make a purchase decision, so I think there is noting wrong with giving information to intice a sale and do business.

I agree it would be hard to take serioius a major company using the slang expression for business. It sounds to "showy" or hollywoodish like "show biz". Personally, I think .inc or .corp would have been much better for big business. .info is a lot less pretentious.

.us is great for an american company or a US division of a company. However, it may lead one to believe a comany doesn't care about the rest of the world if they only have a .us name. used to differentiate local offices like sedo.us vs. sedo.co.uk and sedo.de, I think is a good business approach for many. The US situs rules bar (or should bar) many from using them though.

I am a little biased since I recently purchased several hundred good dropped info's. However, No, .info is never going to be to domains what real estate is to downtown New York. However there is plenty of room for companies to do business in other cities just as there is room for cyber companies to do business in the .info realm. I think .com is king for trademark names, but other extensions are okay for more generic uses.

As an example, there is no way I could have gotten a name like retirementplans.com. Maybe I could get retirementplansavings.com or retirement-plan-services.com. However, I think I have a much better chance marketing retirementplans.info, which I got in a recent drop. For the right name like this, there are hundreds if not thousands of potential users from brokers, banks, individual companies, cpa's, or legal firms that could effectively use this name. You just have to watch what you pick to market. On the other hand a name like uraniumprocessing.info would have few customers and few potential buyers (hopefully) to make it worthwhile as an investment.

I think info will be in a race for second with .net, and for informational international sites. I see many more .info deletes being picked up than I do .biz domains. I also see a lot of pretty fair .infos where the .us is not even registered yet.

I already see .org finding it's niche going back to it's non-profit or organization structure use and falling out of favor as being used in business. Even though technically every corporation is an "ORGanization".

.biz may find a niche with smaller businesses that just want shorter email addresses than available in .com. I have a few of these where the market is broad and the extension fits well.

I've recently put my money on .info over org/biz/us. however, I wouldn't pass on the same name in net or obviously com.

I also obtained a couple rather expensive .aero domains recently for personal development (you can't sell them). I have plans to develop them into active and profitable sites. There aren't a lot developed yet, but being a closed industry they have more credibility.

(side note: I got books.aero, photo(s).aero, airplane(s).aero, planes.aero, privatepilot.aero, and CFI.aero which is the acronym for "certified flight instructor".)

You can and have to be more picky in the secondary TLD's. To use another analogy, .coms are like diamonds with even bad ones having prestige and some value in industrial use. The .info and .biz are like rubies, opals, or other gemstones. Good ones are valuable, and bad ones are just useless colored rocks.

 

[RJ]

Originally posted by mole
Neither can I :]

http://www.hewlettpackard.biz

That's a good example of a defensive registation, but how about a Fortune 500 company that is really putting a .biz to good use or uses one for their primary web presence? Hewlett Packard uses hp.com

Originally posted by AdoptableDomains
Personally, I think .info will be the upcoming star TLD in the future. It has better universal acceptance as the first 4 letters are the same as the translated spellings of "information" in many languages besides english. This I don't believe to be true with .biz. People go the internet for information and info fits real well. Many of those people use the information to make a purchase decision, so I think there is noting wrong with giving information to intice a sale and do business.

Great post Mark. Your observations about .info are spot on.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by -RJ-
but how about a Fortune 500 company that is really putting a .biz to good use or uses one for their primary web presence?

For every Fortune 500 company, there are hundreds of thousands of other companies/SMEs/SOHOs in this world who need, or will eventually need, some form of web presence.

.BIZ was created as a namespace to establish new virtual terrain for these companies/SOHOs who continue to stream onto the Internet everyday as it becomes increasingly more a part of everyday life.

The issue is not one of whether .BIZ can replace .COM, but the right of every business netizen to secure a decent sounding name without having to take a mortgage with the bank.

It is good that speculators don't see .BIZ worthy enough to work out a sweat over. Well stay away, let the people who really need these names for their businesses have a fair crack at them for reg fee. This is after all, 'restricted' namespace for bona fide business usage, and not for cradle-to-death reselling.

Originally posted by AdoptableDomains
I agree it would be hard to take serioius a major company using the slang expression for business. It sounds to "showy" or hollywoodish like "show biz". Personally, I think .inc or .corp would have been much better for big business. .info is a lot less pretentious.

It never ceases to amaze me how the business vernacular has evolved over the years. Fact is, biz is a very common vernacular used in the corporate world and business publications - to conveniently abbreviate the word business. It is easy to get blind-sided if your day-to-day job does not expose you to the numerous occurances of that term, but that does not mean its not bizzing (sic).

I would understand if someone was a fish monger all his life. Such a word would be simply ridiculous to his/her ears, just like .ORG was to me back in 1995.

I would, however, be extremely puzzled by someone who watches CNN and its BizNews everyday, and thinks .BIZ is a coloquel slang used by the wannabe riffraff to sound level with the corporate glamor of the white-collar world.

If don't believe how commonly occuring the term biz is, just put it up as a single keyword on Google Adwords. I used to get 150-200 click throughs PER DAY for that term, let alone the thousands of impressions it was generating every 24hrs. Boy, was that an expensive exercise on my credit card!

 

[AdoptableDomains]

Originally posted by mole
I would, however, be extremely puzzled by someone who watches CNN and its BizNews everyday, and thinks .BIZ is a coloquel slang used by the wannabe riffraff to sound level with the corporate glamor of the white-collar world.

I mentioned it is somwhat of a slang term for business, but didn't say it would stay that way. I do think it's gaining acceptance and will continue to do so over time. Right now I think it's a nice extension for smaller business, but I really think BIG business will pony up the money for the dot-com name they want rather than adopt a .biz name. I do own some .biz names, but I think .info has better near term potential and .biz is another year or two away from it's time in actual use of the domains rather than just protective and speculative use. I'm just a little more picky with .biz domains. A few of them I do have are extermination.biz, jobplacement.biz, wrecker.biz, digitalcopier.biz, and blueprinting.biz. All of which are industries that smaller players can participate.

I think .biz does make an excellent portal domain relating to business and have registered all the available .biz names of local cities, towns, counties, etc. for developement as business directories or portals.

I think the market pretty much agrees that the demand for .info is currently greater. This is demonstrated by the number of drop services that support .info and not .biz (yet). I hope namewinner will add .biz support soon.

 

[why.biz]

Originally posted by AdoptableDomains
II think .biz does make an excellent portal domain relating to business and have registered all the available .biz names of local cities, towns, counties, etc. for developement as business directories or portals.

Your sense of namespace use is probably sound, adopt. .BIZ is more suited for B2B applications than B2C. The B2B target audience thinks differently when wearing a professional hat.

 

[Ron Jackson]

Originally posted by mole
For every Fortune 500 company, there are hundreds of thousands of other companies/SMEs/SOHOs in this world who need, or will eventually need, some form of web presence.

This is an important point that people should not overlook. How many people in this business have EVER sold a domain to a Fortune 500 company? The fact is that 70% of economic output is produced by SMALL business. That is why I target my efforts at that sector and it has paid off very well.

Until very recently my opinion of .biz was identical to -RJ-'s (in fact I think I have used the exact same words to describe it on more than one occasion). However, the market is forcing me to soften my position. Sales are occuring in .biz, especially in Europe. Adoptable is correct that .info is selling better. To give you a hard number, Sedo tells me that generally a .info will bring about 25% more there than the same name in .biz (with exceptions for things that are obviously bad fits in one extension or the other), but if $1250 is good, that doesn't mean $1000 is bad.

I am also seing biz used more often in mainstream media and language does have a way of changing and adopting new terms fairly rapidly. As an Old School guy, I still don't personally like the look and sound of it, but I am willing to put my prejudices aside if it is going to benefit my business.

My opinion is that info, biz and us are all going to get respectable shares of the domain market over time. There is already enough activity in those extensions to make them profitable for those who choose names carefully, but the best really is yet to come...and I can't wait!

 

[RJ]

I never said the .biz extension is worthless. Just like any other (second rate) TLD, the good names will have value.

I'm all for new namespace and the opportunity for SME's to get decent sounding domain names for their business, but "biz" doesn't emit a professional aura.

Perhaps they are best suited for SME's and SOHO's as mole mentioned. In that case they are an excellent fit. However my experience tells me that most businesses setting up shop on the web, even one man companies, like to give the impression that they are big business.

RJ
(Not a .com guy)

 

[Grrilla]

I've been doing extensive searches in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemical sectors w/ particular emphasis on names w/ potential for product branding and corporate identity in new technology; names that would appeal almost exclusively to big business. My observations, in this specific area, albeit unscientific, are that: 1) .biz names are being purchased on a widescale basis within this sector. 2) .biz is being used discretionarily- where .biz fits, it is frequently being selected before other TLD's including .net. ie. (for the purpose of analysis, only) a. biochemical.net is available and biochemical .biz has been selected or b. chemco.net is taken and chemco.biz remains. Example a. is a generic industry name better suited to .biz and example b. implies a company name where .biz doesn't fit.
.info is also being selected discretionarily, although for different reasons that reflect the .info TLD's intended use..:gl:

Addendum: My searches have centered on the.com TLD's for new, cutting-edge technology ( in some instances, too new and too speculative to be of immediate value), w/ .biz and .info being investigated only where names are above avg+ to VG+.. .US has not been much of a player in this niche unless name is Very VG+ to excellent.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by -RJ-
However my experience tells me that most businesses setting up shop on the web, even one man companies, like to give the impression that they are big business.

Sure. I think the key point is this - you can't simple mix a .BIZ into the same dish with .COM hoping they will turn out tasting the same. Just like you can't use a .ORG the same way you use a .US or .CO.UK or .DE.

An extension is most effectively used carefully matched with a relevant and specific context and business/social/personal role. Can you imagine CARE.org taking on CARE.com? You could, but the meaningfulness of the name is lost.

What we are seeing today is the next generation of Internet addressing gradually seeping into the mainstream consciousness of the Internet user eg http://www.lowermanhattan.info http://www.mjnews.us

New namespace is similar to a lump of wet clay, waiting to be moulded by developers eg http://www.gamesindustry.biz

What has destroyed this momentum to a massive degree are the persistent swarms of speculative locusts who swoop down at every landrush and gobble up all the best names and then hold them for ransom to those who may have wanted to take a chance and given their blood and sweat to build them up. It is already difficult to convince the boss to try out a new extension, let alone pay $5k for it. It's a vicious cycle. Nobody willingly wants to pander to the profiteering ways of namespace squatters.

New namespace will flourish faster if it is allowed to rise to the surface of development with minimum impedence, and not stuck deep in the mud with the bottom feeders that make up the majority of the domain reselling industry. That will never happen, unfortunately.

The Internet will continue to get better as people learn - more targeted, more focused, more rationalized. .COM will continue to be a gateway to the majority of these experiences. But what fate lies after that, is totally in the hands of developers, not blood leeching resellers. :kickass:

 

[Grrilla]

leech:
1 archaic : PHYSICIAN, SURGEON
2 [from its former use by physicians for bleeding patients] : any of numerous carnivorous or bloodsucking usually freshwater annelid worms (class Hirudinea) that have typically a flattened lanceolate segmented body with a sucker at each end
3 : a hanger-on who seeks advantage or gain
synonym see PARASITE
transitive senses
1 : to bleed by the use of leeches
2 : to drain the substance of : EXHAUST
intransitive senses : to attach oneself to a person as a leech

mole:
1 : any of numerous burrowing insectivores (especially family Talpidae) with tiny eyes, concealed ears, and soft fur
2 : one who works in the dark
3 : a machine for tunneling
4 : a spy (as a double agent) who establishes a cover long before beginning espionage

What motivates an individual with a strong bias against domain name resellers to become a member of a domain names forum that is obviously populated w/ a fair number of domain name resellers? Harboring a wee bit of resentment, are we? Need a little platform from which to vent, do we?

Rather than wasting my time justifying the DN resellers market (which requires no justification), or being lured into a sophomoric Econ 201 debate about free enterprise, supply and demand economics, and what contstitutes an ethical or legitimate service within the marketplace, I'm going to go out and purchase some more .biz DN's and perhaps do some touch up work on one of the sites I am developing.

And when I do business w/ one of these virtuous, young entrpeneurs - the "Rodins" of the internet - I will have, hopefully, dealt w/ my inner- leech, thus, not stifling their creative growth or inhibiting the development and success of their altruistic business endeavors. :]

 

[mole]

Originally posted by Grrilla
What motivates an individual with a strong bias against domain name resellers to become a member of a domain names forum that is obviously populated w/ a fair number of domain name resellers?

:lala:

 

[Ron Jackson]

Originally posted by Grrilla
when I do business w/ one of these virtuous, young entrpeneurs - the "Renoirs" of the internet - I will have, hopefully, dealt w/ my inner- leech, thus, not stifling their creative growth or inhibiting the development and success of their altruistic business endeavors. :]

You mean these people who develop websites are in it for the money too?! I guess the .biz should have tipped me off, but I just didn't put 2 + 2 together.

You're a pretty smart guy for a gorilla...and I've never seen a Mole get his knuckles rapped before. :D

P.S. Mole is a good guy - I would guess Pool failed to get one of the .biz domains he wanted today so he's on the warpath!

 

[mole]

Originally posted by Duke
I would guess Pool failed to get one of the .biz domains he wanted today so he's on the warpath!

Actually, they got me a .org today duke :gn:

The 3 other .biz which I am targeted were afterthoughts post-LL and are on hold and haven't dropped yet.

2 more .biz are currently being negotiated with private owners.

Once they are all in, I'm set to go. :hearts:

Yeah, the pressures of expectant babies just kills my patience with people

 

[Grrilla]

Is that "mole" as in the "burrowing insectivore" or as in "a spicy sauce made with chilies and usually chocolate and served with meat".
:hi: Hi there mole!

 

[mole]

Originally posted by Grrilla
Hi there mole!

:p