Dot Web Sold for $135 Million to Verisign or Google?

[betthelot]

Oh my God $135million, has to be google or verisign (through the back door) brought it. They are the only ones to have the infrastructure to squeeze that amount of value out of .web
How the hell are you going to get a return on that investment. The truth is end users are not interested in all these new gTLDs and businesses that aren't mom and pop or start ups are shunning them.
It appears its vanity which is driving the purchase of .web not business sense.
Crazy I own Electronics.web and leaking emails, business to ElectronicsWeb.com.
The domain world has gone mad in the belief there is a second coming a new mountain to mine.
Its an illusion and the last 2 years have proved that.

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Updates:

• ICANN announces .web auction results
• Verisign confirms it did fund $135 million .web bid

 

[Name Trader]

I put my hat on Verisign being the buyer.

They must be in it for the long haul. It is probably the best of all the nGTLD's. But $135M is a whole lot of money to recover. Even if it is the best nGTLD. $135M can hang like the Sword of Damacles over your head for a very long time.

 

[betthelot]

Good shout Stub makes a lot of sense

 

[maya-zir]

Somebody knows the date of release?
And posible reg fee?

 

[betthelot]

You are right Stub just issued by Verisign
Company incurred a commitment to pay approximately $130.0 million for the future assignment of contractual rights, which are subject to third-party consent. The payment is expected to occur during the third quarter of 2016.
Likely they well sell in the same manner as .com, same fee no matter what the name and the same renewal for all domains
This may be the one and only extension that domainers can make money from, its certainly the best chance but I suspect to get 135 million payback they will adopt an auction type release, I will only participate if they are retailed in the same way they manage .coms.
Could be a winner though for domainers at last and it will eclipse .xyz which will seem like those xyz investors just woken up from a bad dream when .web is launched.
Verisign hold your nerve by understanding domainers are part of the eco system and sell on a first come first serve basis. Don't do what you did with .TV and kill it before its started, go for mass adoption, at least one new gTLD try this strange model.

 

[DnEbook]

A great defensive move by the registrar

 

[wot]

Verisign have more money than Warren Buffet put together and have a great guarantee of income already.

.web will just be another pretty gtld that will suck in more domainers, see big sales direct by the registrar and at "special" auctions and conferences.

End users will likely be notable by their absence. But as ever, I am just an old cynic!

 

[betthelot]

A great defensive move by the registrar

Yep they must see dot web as the only potential gtld to put a dent in dot com, the rest being non starters.

 

[jmcc]

With the experience of Verisign behind this, it looks like .website, .site, and .online are, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed. Of course things may turn out differently and the gTLD may not be competitive.

Regards...jmcc

 

[N-A]

I'm more interested to see ICANN's CEO Fadi Chehade's income for this year. Surely, he's worth more than $80,000/month after this, eh?

FY13: $78,000/mo; FY14: $74,900/mo; FY15: $66,200/mo (counting special compensation)

 

[GoKaizen]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/28/someone_paid_135m_for_dot_web

An unnamed organization just paid $135m for the rights to sell ".web" domain names. This is three times the previous record of $45m for .shop, and seven times the average auction price for top-level domains.

 

[ecalc]

Verisign have more money than Warren Buffet put together and have a great guarantee of income already.

Verisign does alright but you might want to pick a different comparison. VRSN market cap 9.14B (source), Warren Buffet net worth 64.9B (source). My crystal ball says after a lot of hoopla .web and .net will divvy up .com crumbs.

 

[Mr Dobalina]

I call dibs on spider.web

 

[wot]

Verisign does alright but you might want to pick a different comparison. VRSN market cap 9.14B (source), Warren Buffet net worth 64.9B (source). My crystal ball says after a lot of hoopla .web and .net will divvy up .com crumbs.

It was a reference to Singing in the Rain.

 

[ecalc]

My mistake wot, you have my stamp of approval!

 

[jmcc]

WEB / WEBS

233 27 July 2016 1-1296-36138 NU DOT CO LLC*
$135,000,000

Regards...jmcc

 

[daica85]

when does it release? Does anybody know?

 

[wot]

My mistake wot, you have my stamp of approval!

I wonder how many others got it? A great line!

 

[garptrader]

My view - if none of the new TLDs had ever been released and .WEB was released / promoted sort of like .CO, I believe .WEB could have been rather popular among investors, startups and small businesses as a cheap alternative when .COM and .Net were already taken. At this point though, we have 20 million plus new TLDs that did not exist a few years ago and more than 90% of those are investors. How much money has been spent between initial registration and one or two renewals on 20 million domains (some with premiums)? Most reported new TLD sales are registry sales - not domainer sales. So how much more speculative money is still on the sidelines for another TLD which still has not been released? Will those who loaded up on .XYZ, .TOP, .CLUB etc still go for .WEB? What happens to the registration base of these other TLDs if they do decide to invest in .WEB as well?

In any city there are only so many people looking to rent an apartment or buy a home or condo. If investors build a hundred times more properties than people need to live, there will be a massive number of vacancies. Investors will be unable to find buyers as real estate demand stems from people looking for a place to live.

Ultimately end users are needed to justify investments in domain names. There just are not enough end users willing to pay a premium price for unknown extensions to justify these massive registration volumes.

 

[WilsonM]

Looking forward to see how this pans out.

I think there could be a hype around this but then again it could become a trend as well.

Personally I am just not so kicked about .web.

All the madness that it might lead to... and after the dust settles I feel people would be back to valuing .com more.

.club and some other extensions I have some hopes on.

But as the saying goes, we will see.

 

[Name Trader]

My view - if none of the new TLDs had ever been released and .WEB was released / promoted sort of like .CO, I believe .WEB could have been rather popular among investors, startups and small businesses as a cheap alternative when .COM and .Net were already taken. At this point though, we have 20 million plus new TLDs that did not exist a few years ago and more than 90% of those are investors. How much money has been spent between initial registration and one or two renewals on 20 million domains (some with premiums)? Most reported new TLD sales are registry sales - not domainer sales. So how much more speculative money is still on the sidelines for another TLD which still has not been released? Will those who loaded up on .XYZ, .TOP, .CLUB etc still go for .WEB? What happens to the registration base of these other TLDs if they do decide to invest in .WEB as well?

In any city there are only so many people looking to rent an apartment or buy a home or condo. If investors build a hundred times more properties than people need to live, there will be a massive number of vacancies. Investors will be unable to find buyers as real estate demand stems from people looking for a place to live.

Ultimately end users are needed to justify investments in domain names. There just are not enough end users willing to pay a premium price for unknown extensions to justify these massive registration volumes.

I would bet at a large amount of those 20M registrations are held by the registrars themselves as premiums.

It's hard enough selling a .com to an end user for more than regfee

 

[GoKaizen]

Ahhh soo true.

It's hard enough selling a .com to an end user for more than regfee

 

[pfj]

Verisign had to get this whatever the cost, to stop competitors getting hold of it - and, truly, Verisign is probably the only company that can TRULY monetize it effectively.

How will they recover their $135m?

Simple - they can extort existing .com owners (they probably call it leverage though...)

"Hey, we see you have example.com - you should secure example.web which Verisign has acquired, to help to protect the rights of existing domain name owners! Did you know that .web is the newest web address out there, and sure to be a hugely powerful marketing tool? No? Well, it is! So we can give you preferential pricing of $25 per year right now for the .web address that matches your .com address, or we can release it to the market, diluting the power of your existing name. Insure against someone else getting it by securing it today!"

If only 10% of the current .com owners go for this wheeze, then they've doubled their money straight away - and have recurring income of as much as $300m a year.

 

[Kate]

"Hey, we see you have example.com - you should secure example.web which Verisign has acquired, to help to protect the rights of existing domain name owners! Did you know that .web is the newest web address out there, and sure to be a hugely powerful marketing tool? No? Well, it is! So we can give you preferential pricing of $25 per year right now for the .web address that matches your .com address, or we can release it to the market, diluting the power of your existing name. Insure against someone else getting it by securing it today!"

Is that even allowed ? I don't think so. New extensions are independent strings, they are not tied to .com. There is no justification for giving .com holders preferential treatment.

 

[Embrand]

Verisign had to get this whatever the cost, to stop competitors getting hold of it - and, truly, Verisign is probably the only company that can TRULY monetize it effectively.

How will they recover their $135m?

Simple - they can extort existing .com owners (they probably call it leverage though...)

"Hey, we see you have example.com - you should secure example.web which Verisign has acquired, to help to protect the rights of existing domain name owners! Did you know that .web is the newest web address out there, and sure to be a hugely powerful marketing tool? No? Well, it is! So we can give you preferential pricing of $25 per year right now for the .web address that matches your .com address, or we can release it to the market, diluting the power of your existing name. Insure against someone else getting it by securing it today!"

If only 10% of the current .com owners go for this wheeze, then they've doubled their money straight away - and have recurring income of as much as $300m a year.

Network Solutions gave out .xyz to match your .coms registered with them without even asking. Maybe they will do the same with .web if web.com is the buyer?