new gtlds Headless.Domainer in a Topless.Bar

[betthelot]

Now I got your attention. I'm going to burst some myths about the new gTLDs. Its been nearly 2 years since the launch and what have we learnt.

The Registries (UniRegister, Rightside, Donuts, Tucows, Mind + Machines......)

1. ALL of them over estimated demand.
Remember, Mind+Machines saying in 2013, dot COM will be dead in 10 years. Their share price has halved since early 2014.
Frank Shilling said dot COM is going to be like AM radio in 20 years. Does anyone still believe that. Said in DNJ after the first year that he had been over enthusiastic about demand.
Donuts said renewals would be 80%, didnt happen, so they stopped giving out the data.
Rightside, again stock price has halved since early 2014. This month they said, to calm investors, that they will be spending $2million dollars on marketing to make up for the lag in lower than expected registrations.
Tucows Colin said they will get 1,000,000 registrations in first year. Was nearer 300,000. Great company, great marketing but way over estimated demand.
And Verisign stock, the registry for good old .com has increased 50% since the launch of the new gTLDs!

2. The Registries PROPAGANDA. (biased or misleading information)
@DanielNegari gave away names to inflate registration numbers and now is selling them at a loss, for 40 cents at some registrars. Anyone can sell a $10 bill for $9. Of course hes looking to make money on the renewals. All ccc.xyz have been brought out. Who the hell is going to buy 6j3.xyz on the aftermarket. Only one person, a headless.domainer in a topless.bar.

Frank Shilling the Evangelist of the new gTLDs. Smart guy but Im here for the domainer, so I will call him out.
Remember the build up to the launching of the new gTLDs, he was going to make all of the dot link names available at the basic registration price. So you domainers can get an amazing name at reg fee. Didn't happen. The good names he either reserved or registered them himself, to be sold at a premium. 360˚about turn or just misleading?
This is important Frank always says this
Big brands placed their internet presence on .com as it meant commerce, smaller brands and companies followed them into .com
Now we are going to see the same thing to the right of the dot , as big brands leads the way with smaller brands and other companies to follow leading to tens of thousands of new gTLDs.
Its a certainty.
Its Not Going To Happen. BMW will use .BMW and the much touted FOX NEWS will use NEWS.FOX. So what, it means nothing to us domainers. When the public see News.Fox, first they wont remember if its Fox.News or News.Fox and just go to FoxNews.com. They certainly are not going to be thinking this means there is a .online or a .link or a .xyz as I am from the next generation. Now the public see youtu.be or no_url_shorteners and just think its a clever hack but will still go to youtube.com and no_url_shorteners (Yes they had to changed their destination home page from the Lebanon ccTLD .ly to .com in 2011).
This is domainers number 1 hurdle when it comes to selling these new gTLDs, other than to headless.domainers, convincing a business to go with Furniture.Shop when there is a competitor on FurnitureShop.com.
number 2 hurdle is convincing them to put their online presence in the hands of an unknown, untrusted and unestablished TLD.
number 3 hurdle is telling them not to worry about emails going to [email protected] rather than [email protected].
BMW and FOX are fine they got the .com.
These are the 3 reasons why there has been little or no aftermarket sales by domainers to End Users.

3. Confusion - Imagine an enduser seeing .photography, .photo, .photos, .pics, .pictures, .camera .digital, or because he believes he is a genius goes for photography.guru or is it .ninja.
Its overwhelming and confusing so hes sticks with .com because that's what he knows and trust.
No no, lets say that he is that elusive enduser and likes the look of wedding.pics and you being the skilled salesman has got him over the 3 hurdles above. What is he going to offer, with so many options available $1000, why should he offer more. Then you hit him with the bombshell the renewals are $200 a year on this beauty.

4. Fools Gold - As the Evangelists keep saying they look good, they look natural. Yes to us domainers they do but to the general public they look like a hack, a shortner, a tinyURL, they will automatically believe you have the .com. Its ingrained in the public psyche. They dont look at them and think great I dont need to type .com, they really dont care.
This is going to be the hardest and I say an impossible task, is getting the general public to stop thinking only of .com or ccTLD and see and understand the new gTLDs, if you cant do that, businesses will shun the new gTLDs and keep using .coms. They only look good to us.

No doubt there will be domainers that make money from these new gTLDs but most will lose money. I see on here awful names and the charge into .xyz or .top but outside NNN.xyz or Keyword.xyz or LLL.xyz there is virtual no chance of an enduser sale and you are relying on the headless.domainer in a topless.bar.

 

[kgul]

I think you have certainly made some good points about the new TLD's and you are spot on with most of the new TLD's being highly hyped up and over estimated in terms of value.

I do think that it's also important not to throw all the new TLD's in to the same category/basket. I actually think that out of all the blah blah blah new TLD's like .ninja / .xyz / etc... the two that stand out the most to me that could and will very likely start to increase in value are .online and .club , reason being is purely on the brand-ability of these domains. I mean for example. BMW.online - I think it can actually work from a branding point of view. Companies could start doing thinks like have their main website on their normal .com domain and their monthly/weekly newsletter or magazine on their .online domain and maybe like in the case of bmw they could have a "owners club" for existing BMW owners and that could be done on their .club domain.

There is no way of predicting whats going to happen and even so called experts don't really know for sure whats going to happen, nor can they predict what the market is going to do. I've learned that domaining is much like stocks/forex/economy as much as their are experts around all over the show they really don't know whats going to happen for sure.

This is why I think that .online and .club domains have a chance of actually taking off, is it guaranteed? HELL NO!! nothing in life is guaranteed. I do feel there is strong chance of them doing exceptionally well in due time. All it takes if for companies and people to start considering the possibilities and branding potential of TLD's like .online and .club - much like I have illustrated in the above BMW example. Thats just an example that I though of in a few seconds while typing this post ...I'm sure that once people start thinking out the box it will start catching on. The beauty here is that we don't need everyone to start climbing on board. The beauty of this is all it takes is for one or two large brands to climb on board... like BMW for example. Lets say they adopt the example I used above then once they start advertising their .online / .club domains and webportals and other big brands see this as well as their competitors....guess what happens? They are all essentially "sheep" and they will simply follow suit. Sorta like the "Monkey See, Monkey Do" mentality.

There are good 2 systems for that function already... names are subdomain and folder. club.bmw.com and bwm.com/club so no need to pay any money for another extension. Actually 1 domain is safer method to protect huge bmw company website for It department. In this case there is more important thing for me...i have a small business and i have to collect and buy and renew all extensions to protect my Brand name ! This is crazy ! Trademark thing working slowly and need to hire a lawyer ! If anybody got ur brand name with new extensions before you...Am i have to buy all of them ?

 

[deez007]

There are good 2 systems for that function already... names are subdomain and folder. club.bmw.com and bwm.com/club so no need to pay any money for another extension. Actually 1 domain is safer method to protect huge bmw company website for It department. In this case there is more important thing for me...i have a small business and i have to collect and buy and renew all extensions to protect my Brand name ! This is crazy ! Trademark thing working slowly and need to hire a lawyer ! If anybody got ur brand name with a new extensions before you...Am i have to buy all of them ?

Yes you are certainly correct, that the sub-domain and folder options already exist. Whilst these options can and do work. I would still prefer to have them all on separate domains. It works better from a branding perspective. As far as safety is concerned, I do not see a single domain name with subdomains and folders being any safer at all than 3 domains. As far as trademarks and having to buy off all the extensions to protect your brand....that's a matter of choice...we all have different levels when it comes to peace of mind and feeling safe. If you are constantly obsessing with your brand being hijacked then chances are you would want to snap up as many domains TLD's as you can that are related to your company name. This might give you a sense of security or peace of mind. However you might also get peace of mind from just grabbing the main ones and not worrying about all the others, whatever you need to do give you peace of mind. Consider the fact that most of the largest brands in the world have not snapped up all the TLD's related to their brand. I mean there probably isn't a Cocacola.ninja or BMW.ninja or Audi.Ninja ...and there are millions of small business owners around the world who are not snapping up every single TLD that comes out to protect their brand from being hijacked. Understand that if someone wants to hijack ur brand they will do it and they do not need a new TLD to do so. Simple ..com naming variations could suffice. Like for example, lets say your comany domain is: yourcompany.com they could simply go with your.company.com / yourcompanyx.com / yourcompanyonline.com / yourcompany1.com / etc...the options are endless... even without a new TLD.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

...
That 2 out of the 3 big companies are just using them as forwarders to their .com.
...
As far as Frank and new gltds, and this has been gone over many times. A lot of newbies are pointing to Frank and what he says about new gtlds, want to be like him, admire him etc. And I think he's one of the best, if not best domainer.
...

Yes, I wrote that - but using a domain as forwarder mean something.
ROLLS-ROYCE were regsitering their brand exactly with .top while they were not registering it with .xyz for example.
The same with OTTO.

I don't know who is Frank Schilling, I have my own view.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

I think both sides of the discussion are right, but correctly it all pan out around 2020.

Yes, again, as (I also) said - time is the answer.

 

[brindle123]

Yes, I wrote that - but using a domain as forwarder mean something.

Yes it means they don't want to use .top for a real website and they don't have any other use for it besides pointing it to their .com

You need to get over it. You reg'd tons of .top domains and are trying to convince everyone that .top is great when it is not.
Your examples prove the point. No real company uses them for anything besides pointing to their .com!
You need to diversify your portfolio kingot.top since you couldn't be the kingof.com

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Yes it means they don't want to use .top for a real website and they don't have any other use for it besides pointing it to their .com

You need to get over it. You reg'd tons of .top domains and are trying to convince everyone that .top is great when it is not.
Your examples prove the point. No real company uses them for anything besides pointing to their .com!
You need to diversify your portfolio kingot.top since you couldn't be the kingof.com

Currently they want to use .top for forwarding but you don't know what they will do in future with it.
Maybe they will change their .com against their .top someday, I never say 'never'.

No, I don't try to convince anybody that .top is great, I just say that I am convinced that .top is the greatest.
So I have no stress with my .top domains, I have time, I am convinced offers will come.

BTW, HITAO is a real company - a company from ALIBABA, one of the realest companies in the world
How 'realer' could it be?

And, as the owner of the domain kingof.top I am really not interested to be the owner of kingof.com haha this doesn't make sense, why should I prefer a .com TLD when there is a .top TLD exisitng nowww?
The time has changed.

 

[brindle123]

Why do they want to use .top for forwarding instead of building a real site to puts it to use? They just bought it to cover there butts and trademarks.

.top doesn't really make any sense for a gtld. Maybe china likes them because they are late to the game and just grabbing any new extension to come along. China won't be buying german keyword domains in .top!

Kingof.top you had to get a bunch of German .top domains! Why didn't you get the english version of .top? Where they held back or where they too expensive? Just seems like you are cleaning the bottom of the barrel.

.top is the greatest.

Keep dreaming!!!!
Your portfolio is .top heavy. You have a couple 1000 .top domains...of course you are going to say they are the greatest. There are only 6 .top domains in your portfolio with offers on sedo out of almost 4,000 domains. I wouldn't say that that is the greatest. If they were the greatest you would have more offers and sales.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Why do they want to use .top for forwarding instead of building a real site to puts it to use? They just bought it to cover there butts and trademarks.

.top doesn't really make any sense for a gtld. Maybe china likes them because they are late to the game and just grabbing any new extension to come along. China won't be buying german keyword domains in .top!

Kingof.top you had to get a bunch of German .top domains! Why didn't you get the english version of .top? Where they held back or where they too expensive? Just seems like you are cleaning the bottom of the barrel.
Keep dreaming!!!!
Your portfolio is .top heavy. You have a couple 1000 .top domains...of course you are going to say they are the greatest. There are only 6 .top domains in your portfolio with offers on sedo out of almost 4,000 domains. I wouldn't say that that is the greatest. If they were the greatest you would have more offers and sales.

Because 'top' means 'best' - that's why.
No, 'top' means 'better than best' - that's why.
Noo, 'top' means 'better than the better of the best' - that's why.
Nooo, 'top' means 'better than the better than the better of the best' - that's why.
And so on... ...'top' means simply 'top' - THAT'S WHY!

I don't know why you didn't see .top as the TLD with the highest sense of all TLDs.
It's not important from which country this TLD comes, it's a TLD with an universal meaning.
While you are saying 'China is late to the game' .top is making money

I wasn't really interested in english names, I know why I took german domains (BTW, my mother tongue is german).
I didn't said that all my domans are the greatest, I said the TLD .top (means the extension itself) is the greatest.
And I don't receive offers only via SEDO

 

[brindle123]

Sooooo why is .top the greatest??? Just because you think it is?
Look at namebio for .top sales. There isn't even a $100,000 sale!!! Almost all sales were thru Jiangsu Bangning. That doesn't sound like a german company either.

BTW, HITAO is a real company - a company from ALIBABA, one of the realest companies in the world
How 'realer' could it be?

As far as I know Alibaba means "thief". I don't think I would trust them. They are the registrar of .top so of course they will use .top in some way. Come up with a better example.

 

[JB Lions]

Many blog posts today about the firing of the CEO from Minds and Machines, some insight from the guy that got fired:

"And yet there are some signs of desperation out there. Demand for new gTLDs hasn't been what anyone expected. Many single-TLD registries, though not all, are hurting. Many registrars still do not fully support new gTLDs that aren't plain-vanilla .com clones. ICANN continues to treat registries and registrars as unpleasant necessities despite the fact that its sky-rocketing budget is underwritten by domain name sales. No breakout awareness of new gTLDs has yet occurred and until it does marketing new gTLDs may feel as useless as pushing a piece of string."

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20160222_i_got_fired/

http://onlinedomain.com/2016/02/22/...-van-couvering-was-fired-from-minds-machines/

http://domainnamewire.com/2016/02/22/antony-van-couvering-fired-as-ceo-of-minds-machines/

http://www.domaininvesting.com/antony-van-couvering-out-as-ceo-of-minds-machines/

http://domainincite.com/20034-van-couvering-ousted-from-mm-replaced-by-pr-guy-with-channel-focus?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DomainIncite+(DomainIncite.com)

 

[brindle123]

the ceo gets fired. HA HA classic. Just goes to show you what these companies are made of and how they are ran.

 

[itsmeyall]

Ha Ha what a schmuck I am, meant to type Libya.


You will see or hear the name for the first time and when you type in your browser you need to know the right of the dot otherwise predict will give you the .com and off you go to the competitor.

That is simply not true on mobile my dad was just so elated to get 2 ngtlds in his personal name one po in nts to the other to a cv contact page on both our phones browsers we only have type his name and the auto complete show only his pages and no .com

He could never hope 2 get his first name in .com coz too much money in aftermarket and was really super glad!

I think new gtlds are real good for development domains a lot of domainers actually do try to build out their names to add value and in this case there is a lot of room for value and creativity in the new gtlds i would say if you are a domainer who is attracted to them focus on building them out doing so will also foster their greater acceptance by the public when they start to see a lot of shining examples they will get their own ideas

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Sooooo why is .top the greatest??? Just because you think it is?

Yes, because I think it is and because of all those who think the same.

Look at namebio for .top sales. There isn't even a $100,000 sale!!! Almost all sales were thru Jiangsu Bangning. That doesn't sound like a german company either.

Look at DNPRICES for .top sales - there are many big sales higher than $50,000 - so what?
http://dnpric.es/?q=.top

As far as I know Alibaba means "thief". I don't think I would trust them.

What bizarre way of thinking.
It's simply a brand.

They are the registrar of .top so of course they will use .top in some way. Come up with a better example.

.top registry is Jiangsu Bangning Science & Technology while Alibaba is an other company - they registered their domain just through their own registrar company Alibaba Cloud Computing - but they are not the registry of .top.
Again, ALIBABA is one of the worlds biggest companies - like 'China's AMAZON'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group

 

[brindle123]

Alibaba does mean "thief"! Just pointing out the facts.

The registry sells the best of the best of their domains and still doesn't get a $100,000 sale. There's only 9 sales over $50,000. Not so great for the greatest gtld.

Dot com are selling for $millions so .top hasn't .topped that yet and NEVER will. Keep dreaming and trying to push your agenda! I don't see anyone else chiming in on how great .top is and all the big money sales they've had.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Alibaba does mean "thief"! Just pointing out the facts.

The registry sells the best of the best of their domains and still doesn't get a $100,000 sale. There's only 9 sales over $50,000. Not so great for the greatest gtld.

Dot com are selling for $millions so .top hasn't .topped that yet and NEVER will. Keep dreaming and trying to push your agenda! I don't see anyone else chiming in on how great .top is and all the big money sales they've had.

In which language 'Ali Baba' means 'thief'?
'Ali Baba' is an arabic NAME.
Maybe you know there is a fairy tale called 'Ali Baba AND the 40 thiefs' (1001 nights) - I am not sure if you mean it in this connection. But also in this connection 'Ali Baba' doesn't mean 'thief'.

You should rethink how old is .com and how young is .top - than you will see that those .top sales are really heavy. I will not ask you which prices the .com sales reached when .com was about 2 years old.
According to all current circumstances .top is on the way to top.
Call it agenda, I call it analyses.

 

[JB Lions]

You should rethink how old is .com and how young is .top - than you will see that those .top sales are really heavy. I will not ask you which prices the .com sales reached when .com was about 2 years old.
According to all current circumstances .top is on the way to top.
Call it agenda, I call it analyses.

Your analyses let you to believe there would be .com sales at the age of 2, before browsers/sites existed? First site didn't come out until like 6 years after .com. It's one of the funny things to me that people bring up. Well, look how many regs .com got in the first year, stuff like that. As far as .top and other sales people point to. A lot of those are registry sales or special sales, 2 character, special numbers etc. I would be more interested in your personal sales with the extension. Are you selling.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Your analyses let you to believe there would be .com sales at the age of 2, before browsers/sites existed? It's one of the funny things to me that people bring up. Well, look how many regs .com got in the first year, stuff like that. As far as .top and other sales people point too. A lot of those are registry sales or special sales, 2 character, special numbers etc. I would be more interested your personal sales with the extensions. Are you selling.

No, it was just an parable answer to brindle123's statement.
Comes time, comes sales - that's what I believe as a domainer.

 

[Kate]

Many blog posts today about the firing of the CEO from Minds and Machines, some insight from the guy that got fired:

I saw that. So while the registries will maybe blame Icann for their hardship, the domainers will blame the registries for not doing enough to promote their extensions. Classic. Reality is again settling in.

 

[brindle123]

Comes time, comes sales - that's what I believe as a domainer.

and how long have you been a domainer???
if time is the answer then .net and .org sales would be higher! Time is not the answer, the end user is the answer and they haven't like other tlds that much at all.
.top is just not that great. To me it reminds me of a kids toy.

What is the 5 best keywords that go with .top?
.topless is better than .top anyway

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

and how long have you been a domainer???
if time is the answer then .net and .org sales would be higher! Time is not the answer, the end user is the answer and they haven't like other tlds that much at all.
.top is just not that great. To me it reminds me of a kids toy.

What is the 5 best keywords that go with .top?
.topless is better than .top anyway

Why you are making three question marks after one question?

 

[brindle123]

because I can!!!

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

because I can!!!

Yes, but it's not the way I want to talk (write) with someone.

And why are you making three exclamation marks now?
I will answer your question/s only when you make one question mark at one question.
And not more than one exclamation mark at once.

 

[brindle123]

you don't have to answer anything..................

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

you don't have to answer anything..................

Thats right, good luck with your domains.

 

[betthelot]

Can we leave the .top discussion. Its like arguing with someone who believes there will be a second coming and all the believers go to heaven and non believers rot in hell. Its only a matter of time!
Kingof.top has unshakable belief like religious zealot.
Keep the faith kingof.top.
If I was to give you any hope, I would say by far the best chance of .top succeeding is in China. They understand the word and I have seen businesses use it BUT they only use Pinyin and numbers in their domains. So you need to bear that in mind for left of the dot.
There is no need to reply either take the advice or throw it away.

We had a big announcement today from MInd+Machines regarding the state of the new gTLDs, any serious investor both sides of the fence will be looking at the implications of that.