After sleeping on this news and reading all the responses here, I wanted to try and give some reasoned and balanced thoughts regarding this new development..
I think this is a strong boost for the new gTLDs. Anyone who knows me, knows that I rarely appraise non-premium gTLDs for more than regfee (and own less than 5). But those who have had conversations about it with me, also know that I have felt that they needed a strong jumpstart from big companies if they were to ever do better. I personally think this might be the start of a jumpstart for some of them. Now, I know that Page stated "I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products". But I don't think this jumpstart needs to start with the consumers. I think it needs to start with the businesses that use the internet and spend a lot of marketing dollars to advertise the web. It wasn't the consumers that started the use of the dot com in the first place, but businesses creating websites. I think the impact of trusting one of the most powerful brands (it's still a brand even if not consumer-focused and will be the parent to Google) to a gTLD says volumes to other companies, especially startups. Google is looked upon to lead by example by many and sets many new trends (and fails to as well!). I think this will break open dot xyz as a bigger market for brandable domains (similar to dot io, co, ly etc). Some companies already used them, but not many. I think this will boost the trust in this extension. If more companies use this extension, consumers have a chance of coming on board as well (change takes time!).
Now that being said, I don't think most of the domains in this extension will just burst with value. One of the many reasons for using dot io, co, ly is that it is cheaper than dot com - companies can get a nice dictionary word or super premium MUP without paying the dot com price tag. Also, if they want a MUP or even LLLL there are a lot of good ones to handreg in these extensions... Sure, some of them still sell for big bucks, but many of them go for change on the dollar of what the dot com value would be. As more of these gTLDs get the limelight in the market, it only saturates the market more and devalues the other gTLD extensions. Whether it will impact dot com yet or not, I honestly don't know, but think it will be minimal if at all.
I think dot com will still be king for a long time to come (and not because I want it to be that way!) - there will need to be something much more radical to push it from the top of the mountain. As I said above, the value of dot xyz IMHO is more in the branding/naming of business and not so much keyword domains. Sure, premium keywords will have value, but many of the two word keyword dot coms won't translate to dot xyz and other gTLDs. They won't have the type-in traffic that dot com can garner. Something much bigger would need to change in the people's mindset (something that I believe will take years).
I think some of this initial rush of people getting offers on their domains is most likely to be other domainers hoping to cash in on what they think might be the next big thing. If they are right, they might find domains listed low that can now resell for more. But I don't think that should be a marker on the industry. Domainers take risks and hope things pay off. Often if 1 out of 3 of those risks pay off, they do well. But that doesn't mean the other 2 risks were well taken. I seriously doubt businesses are running out to get xyz the night Google announces they are using one. That being said, I think it would be wise to keep an eye out for low-priced premium xyz domains - this is probably the time to buy them (assuming people don't mark their prices higher). However, I wouldn't just get any domains. I would focus on premium keyword or strong brandables. I never want to base my investments on what other domainers are buying - otherwise I would end up with a lot of trash (see appraisal forum for proof).
Some final miscellaneous thoughts...
- I personally think that abc.xyz is pretty bad for their parent company url... wonder if it will change in the future...
- Google is invested in gTLDs (maybe not xyz, but in general) with their purchase of several of them.... I imagine that a huge part of them choosing this domain was because they thought it would boost gTLDS.... and I imagined they spent a TON of money researching which domain to choose for this impact... doesn't make them right - as others have pointed out they sometimes fail to get things to gain traction... but I think they have spent a lot more time than us thinking about this... also the fact that Page said "Don’t worry, we’re still getting used to the name too!" suggest to me it is more than they thought it was "cool"... he isn't 100% in love with it either...
- Dot XYZ is one of the better gTLDs for this purpose IMHO... very generic and short... doesn't lock you into a specific industry, but also not as long as "dot company" or something...
I feel like I am forgetting some things I wanted to add and I am sure I will add more to this discussion later, but I hope this provides some good food for thought!
Thanks!
