Forget .com, here's .coke

[Debt.tv]

Here is an article I found on CNN this morning. I think it makes sense for big companies but for anybody else....FLOP!

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/20/technology/dot_brand_domain_name_icann/index.htm?iid=Lead

 

[interestedenough]

Alien51, "soda" was an example. In fact, I chose the most bland example I could think of. Please don't focus on the details and look at the substance of my question.

Companies DO spend millions of $ on generic terms. Again, "soda" is just an example. The juice of what I was asking, is:

If a company is willing to spend top dollar for a generic domain .com name, what would stop them from spending the same king of money (or less) on a whole gTLD. Why would you pay $3 Million for Soda.com when you can have all the .soda for $1 Million. So, do gTLD costs effectively become a cap on .com prices?

Again, I am not advocating "soda.com" or ".soda", it is just an example used to ask my question.

 

[Kate]

Ask yourself:

why the airports and related businesses don't use .aero
Why the cooperative don't use .coop
Why the museums don't use .museum
Why the "professionals" don't use .pro
Why Asian companies don't bother with .asia
Why .mobi is shunned by the relevant industry
...

Those who are already branded on .com don't need a registry.
As for the others:
It's because... they know better.

And obviously owning one's own TLD will not put an end to cybersquatting.

 

[Ms Domainer]

If i'm the CEO of Coca Cola company, my primary question is: What kind of tangible return-of-investment do i get from spending that kind of money?

I already own coke.com and coca-cola.com, why spend millions on .SODA??? If .SODA doesn't exist, people won't stumble upon it. Evenif .SODA does exist, nobody can register coke.soda or coca-cola.soda anyway, since i can get my battalion of lawyers (who are already in my payroll) to sue them and pay me monetary damages for infringment.

After all, it is absolutely pointless for Coca-Cola to run the .SODA registry. Should they sell the domain PEPSI.SODA to their competitor? That's ridiculous. So what use is .SODA registry when i should just get all my Coca-Cola products under my coke.com and coca-cola.com domains and further enhance their domain value and preserve search traffic and ranking.

So in summary, there is no need to go through the economics math of running a registry. The company can save dollars by sticking to its .COM domains. And writing subpoenas or getting cease-and-desist orders, won't cost an arm and a leg if the whole issue is just about "brand protection".

*

Also, in the Midwest, "soda" is called "pop," so that's yet another TLD to buy.

:hehe:

I do think it makes sense for companies to snag their brands as a TLD, but I have real issues with the the generics, such as .music.

Even .apple would be problematic, given that it's also a generic term; I don't see a slam dunk there.

Too much of a monopoly.

*

 

[DnEbook]

.pop would be considered to be a music extension in most parts of the world

 

[mwzd]

Just keep in mind that a registry rarely loses money, not even .aero or .museum from what I understand.

Also, you can't get extensions less than three letters, or similar to existing extensions, so .fb / .coke / .con etc are just pipe dreams.

People investing in new extensions are the new homesteaders, albeit in corporation form, they are buying land where the future generations will build, not existing generations.

After all, how many here even own 1 name in the top 10% .coms?

And does a $1.8mm cap seriously affect 99.99% of .com owners?

For those with a few days to waste:
http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/rfp-clean-30may11-en.pdf

 

[Kate]

Just keep in mind that a registry rarely loses money, not even .aero or .museum from what I understand.

True, most are viable financially, they just need a healthy amount of defensive regs - after all the TM holders will always be left hostage :lala:

That being said, .travel has been on the verge of bankruptcy. And no doubt the proliferation of extensions will increase the odds of registry failures.

It is a fact that new TLDs have all performed below expectations. But it is amazing that people are still engaging in that kind of venture without learning the lessons from the past.

For those who think that running a TLD is a licence to print money, the experiences of gTLDs introduced since 2000 suggest otherwise. In the past 10 years, .com’s market share may have declined from approximately 50% in 2001 to 44% in 201013, but in real terms .com registrations have nearly quadrupled. In contrast, the domain intended to offer direct competition (.biz) has stayed level at around 2% of market share. The most successful of the new gTLDs, .info, with 7m domains after 10 years of operation, has only just overtaken its original “moderate” projections for 5 years.
According to ICANN economic analysis, .mobi’s relevance had declined with advances in device aware web-technologies, and this may have contributed to a low renewal rate (37%) . The study warned that “failure to take potential alternatives into account can result in a significant over-estimate of the likely benefits of a gTLD”. Even for restricted domains, such as .museum, the study found that only 1.4% of eligible registrants (ie museums) had registered in the domain. Similarly, low registration figures in .aero indicate that “airports have not perceived significant benefits from the gTLD”.

https://www.centr.org/main/6255-CTR/version/default/part/AttachmentData/data?branch=1&language=1

 

[DnEbook]

i think the only value is for the first BIG company to get it out there and get all the ....... Free Press

 

[omniscient]

.COM will still be the best! :D