In 2010 & beyond; What will constitute a TLD then?

[newdomainer.mobi]

The internet has changed a great deal since those first faltering steps just a few years ago....

I think there have been some TLD's that have not been adopted as well as was hoped & some have established strong niche appeal, the internet is expanding exponentially and I have a few on the extensions that will be strong through 2010 & beyond;

.com = Computer

= The number 1 extension, it is non-geographic (worldwide).... Generally speaking is a trustmark that the site has global appeal / relevance - weighted to the US but is seen as a trustmark that the site is respectable, global & available for all.
Virtually all .com sites are set-up for the best user experience via a large screen desktop PC although being accessible by many other devices subject to software compatibility, specific device set-up / mode etc...
There is nothing to stop all .com sites rendering well on a small screen device; it just means following the same rules for site development that .mobi has... but with billions of pages of older style pages out there .com will always be synonymous with the 'desk-top' computer & long may it reign as desk-top King.


.mobi = Mobile

= The number 2 extension, it is non-geographic (worldwide).... generally speaking is a trustmark that the site has global appeal / relevance - it's the new kid on the block & isn't showing any particular geographic bias as yet but it is a trustmark that the site has been set up to offer a good user experience to viewers on any device whatsoever, specifically small screen portable (mobile) devices but astute site building will allow a 'full screen' experience on a desk top too.
The extension has nothing special about it, it is simply means that you will be viewing a site that will be rewarding whatever device you use.... the same way a cc takes you to a site in a geographic region, an info site takes you to an information site.. a.mobi will take you to a multi-device friendly site... in todays ever more mobile world, it's an extension to look out for.

.cc = Country Codes

= The number 2 extension (collectively), acts as a trustmark that the site is based in the country in which you are looking. Great for businesses looking at their home markets & NOT beyond.. These will always have great value... of course there's little point in buying a portfolio of French generics with a .co.uk suffix or German keywords with a .us suffix... but following those obvious limitations these extensions are very popular indeed; even hosting regional sites of multi-nationals outside of a 'head site' on a .com...

.net = Internet

A secondary extension to .com because it is little more than an alternative to a .com extension; it doesn't act as a trustmark for very much else; weighted towards more tech / programmer / software use but so diluted by other usage that this means little. Still a global extension, not as well known or liked as .com but at present comes in at 4th place.


.info / .org /.biz = self-explanatory niche extensions

Of little commercial value except for some high value generics / keywords that have value in just about any extension... much maligned but an absolute perfect fit when used correctly, in a way it is surprising that .biz hasn't performed as well as the registrars had hoped; it seems ideal for businesses on the internet & maybe it will come of age.... by own opinion is that the abbreviation 'biz' is simply seen as a bit tacky / 2nd rate & this won't have been lost on the marketing folk of the business community...

.EU / .Asia = again, self explantory.

I'm not sure about these? They are neither country codes nor global.... they don't reflect the populations of these areas by religion, race etc.. they cover multi-racial, multi-language, multi-faith regions & whilst I see that .EU has a value based on businesses operating within the European Union (being a natural extension of a European country code) I cannot see the value in .ASIA except as part of the activity of 'domain collecting' but I'm sure others will see it differently.

.pro / .job etc. etc. = Very Niche indeed

I don't know enough about these to comment; they seem to be somewhat elitist, leaning towards being restrictive in who has access (as with any site; a site can be constructed with restricted access whatever the extension but these seem 'fit for purpose' in that respect).

.TV = Niche

I quite like .TV, I have none in my portfolio but I can understand that its an effective way of seperating the wheat from the Chaff.... domains that suit this broad niche will be valuable, domains that are not suited are simply 'collectables' & little more.


I have only listed the main ones that I have a view on... there are now 100's (most of which are CC's) but I do believe that there are only 4 TLD's that are of any significance when it comes to e-commerce / marketing / culture.

In order of relevance I forecast that the top 4 TLD's of 2010 will be; -

No.1 = .Com
No.2 = .mobi
No.3 = .cc
No.4 = .Net


The others are specifically targetted at niches.... for reasons synonymous to their names; .info being one

What else is afoot? Have I missed something? Do you disagree or agree.....?

Regards

Gary.

 

[Jeff]

Wrong forum!

...you are just a small minded old fool

Gary's personal assaults and clear .MOBI Agenda™ are - as we're again witnessing first-hand here in the general Domain Discussions™ Forum ... alive and well ... even after having been warned on these exact same infractions just a very short time ago, IMHO.

Threads (closed):
http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/416796-is-this-forum-going-dogs-jeff.html

http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/414367-fresh-look-dot-mobi-mobile-web.html

I've reported his immature, inciteful, and off topic behaviour here as well! :gl:

Thank you, and apologize to the rest of Namepros Nation© for the interruption ... in your regularly scheduled programming. :talk:
-Jeff

 

[sashas]

this thread should belong in the .mobi forum. Clearly the comparision with other TLDs was just a way to promote .mobi

If you really believe that .mobi is the second best TLD, you're bullshitting yourself. If you happen to compare TLDs based on reseller market trends, then you're bullshitting yourself even more.

How many .mobi names registered, compared to .net or .org?

Do this one thing in the Google search bar: "Site:.net", "Site:.org" and "Site:.mobi"

And then come back and tell me which TLD ranks where. The reseller market doesn't determine a TLDs viability. Period.

 

[Len]

now you are talking about the domainer world and something completely separate.

again, i ask you... since mobile devices can now and will be able to render full websites, such as namepros.com... there is no need for a streamlined version of these websites?

and im not talking about just mobi... i mean ANYTHING that is created specifically for mobile devices. there is no need for these now?

even Jeff knows this is not true... just check out his signature which reference things like m.yahoo.com, m.comcast.net and mobile.google.com.... all designed specifically for mobile devices... you know, the things with smaller screens and for the "mobile" context.

I am actually talking about the real world...Outside of the domainer's realm! tell me how many people you know of, that are not domainer's, that know of .mobi? I have spoken to many people at work, friends and family and I can honestly say that not one of them knew what .mobi was before I told them!
This, my friend is what you are up against.....Not me, not Jeff, not anyone else on this forum.
In answer to the question about anything created for mobile devices and it's usefulness, of course there are going to be useful tools on hand held mobile's that is a no brainer! However when there are devices around that are presently capable of delivering the .coms/.nets/.orgs websites then you are going to have a hard time convincing the public at large to navigate these devices using .mobi.

 

[HappyBunny]

There are a lot of sites out there built for small screen users... there are many sites being released every day... the truth is that there will be 100's of thousands by the end of next year & potentially millions within a few years.

But... this is all speculation, right?
How could you say "the truth is ....."

There are many sites released every day -- this is true.
I am interested to know how many "mobile websites" are created every day, compared to "non-mobile websites".

As I said earlier, which extension will prosper, depends much on mainstream adoption... No one can say "the truth", we can simply "guess"...

 

[mjnels]

I am actually talking about the real world...Outside of the domainer's realm! tell me how many people you know of, that are not domainer's, that know of .mobi? I have spoken to many people at work, friends and family and I can honestly say that not one of them knew what .mobi was before I told them!
This, my friend is what you are up against.....Not me, not Jeff, not anyone else on this forum.
In answer to the question about anything created for mobile devices and it's usefulness, of course there are going to be useful tools on hand held mobile's that is a no brainer! However when there are devices around that are presently capable of delivering the .coms/.nets/.orgs websites then you are going to have a hard time convincing the public at large to navigate these devices using .mobi.

dude... im not talking about the .mobi TLD now.

you originally said "the problem for .mobi is the fact that it is totally associated with internet delivery over a mobile device."

then you mentioned that the iphone came along and enabled any TLD to be viewed on a mobile device (it was actually before this, but ok.. iphone popularized it)

so effectively what you are saying is .mobi, exactly like m.domain.com, mobile.domain.com, domain.com/mobile, or ANY other way to denote "THIS SITE IS FOR YOUR MOBILE" is now pointless because of devices that can render any website, regardless of whether it was designed for mobile.


btw, i own an iphone.

 

[Len]

dude... im not talking about the .mobi TLD now.


so effectively what you are saying is .mobi, exactly like m.domain.com, mobile.domain.com, domain.com/mobile, or ANY other way to denote "THIS SITE IS FOR YOUR MOBILE" is now pointless because of devices that can render any website, regardless of whether it was designed for mobile.


btw, i own an iphone.

Correct.... IMO search engines will be ultimately used to surf the "mobile" net and it will take some serious SEO for any "Mobile" tld to dislodge the big boy's.

 

[Alex]

I agree with sashas and Jeff, and the thread should be moved, because OP's sole intention was to promote the extention, and it was not based on any research, furthermore it even gave inaccurate information (like .com stand for computer...)

Regarding .tv and .mobi. No one is actually needed. But for branding purposes .tv specifies its market far better than .mobi.

And here are my opinions:

1. .tv is more descriptive, you know what a tv is, but don't know what a mobi/moby/mobeey is.
2. .tv does not restrict its content only for some users, while .mobi would want to restrict itself only to mobile users.

I have to say I am not an investor in any of these tld's.

Regarding the first post, really where is .org? When I started browsing the internet, 50% of the sites I visited were .org, and only 30% were .com (rough estimate)

Why would one of the most trusted extentions not live in the future.

And regarding .mobi, even if it will become an established niche extention (which is not sure atm), how would a curren $xx.xxx investment in a generic .mobi return its investment?

Classical mobile screen devices are very limited in purposes. They can be hardly monetized. Well, but this issue could be resolved, but cannot see why would people care to remember another extention, when the technology (IMO) will evolve faster and faster. Where were mobile phones 15 years ago? Where they will be in 15 years? I think capable of multiple functions that mobile phones are today.

 

[mwzd]

With due respect to the .mobi lobby - pro and anti - here is my list of top TLDs in order of importance for 2010. This is based on my own research, whatever little there has been and is also entirely my own opinion.

gTLDs
====
.com
.net (underrated star for 2008/9)
.org (and not the other way around Sir Jeff )

.info
.tv -->> not a gTLD but universal enough to be included
.pro
.mobi

And yeah, I think a .pro will be worth more than a .mobi and just for the record - I own 3x .mobi than .pro

ccTLDs (most popular in respective countries)
===========
.us --->> could surprise everyone by 2010.
.co.uk
.in (in use by russians and germans also)
.de
.cn
.xx >> undetermined
.xx >> undetermined
.ws

Why .ws, well just because if Godaddy actually gets down to promoting it there is a huge upside potential.

You may/may not agree with me, but I'm putting my money where my mouth is... at least in terms of my portfolio.

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

Ffej

I don't know about you but I read numerous threads & often find that my time has been wasted... all 15 - 30 seconds of it... when I come across a thread I like; I follow it... when I don't I disappear (why waste my time)

So, Ffej; how about disappearing if this doesn't interest you.. you're not a moderator here & you are frankly just trying to wind me up so that I step out of line so you can report my posts & get me suspended again...

Well, bully for you.... now **** off. (**** = 'push' if you're interested)

There have been some good replies from others & I respect their views on the other extensions... your comment that .mobi's window of opportunity is just mind blowingly niaive & due to the degree of your sheer ignorance regarding this matter I will retire from this thread before I really do say something worthy of a suspension...

To all the others; the anti-hype regarding .mobi is delivered to you by a hard-core community of investors with a lot at stake should .mobi be a runaway success so their views are as biased as mine... I became pro .mobi prior to buying a single one of them for my portfolio.... Then I started to build a portfolio..... quite simple really.

Invest in domains that you believe are right for you, don't let me persuade you to invest a bean in .mobi unless you see the same potential that I see but likewise don't let the likes of Ffej persuade you not to until you have fully researched where this extension could be heading.
A basket of investments is always the best approach... always a few of each & a lot of those you believe in most.

Thanks for understanding.

Gary

 

[Alex]

So, Ffej; how about disappearing if this doesn't interest you.. you're not a moderator here & you are frankly just trying to wind me up so that I step out of line so you can report my posts & get me suspended again...

This post deserves my first negative rep I ever give on a forum.

I am not interested either in your praised tld, but I think that my opinions, can represent something valuable to others, and that is why I "waste my time" too, maybe to help others.

But this is just too personal. Jeff (not FFej) always made valid points, and I agree that sometimes he is boringly repetitive, but you have to agree that there are always people reading his views for the first time (especially when you place a .mobi thread in the inadequate domain discussion forum).

Alex

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

Hey Alex

I have no beef with you & I hoped that my comments further down my post made it quite clear that I value & respect others on the forums.... I don't really look for trouble (or neg reps) but Jeff (I spell it the other way because I think he must be b***ward) is just a wind up merchant & our spats go back a good few months - that is why he can no longer post in the mobi thread which is one of the many reasons I wanted to post in the discussion thread (which I have now retired from so I make no further comment)

When you say the 'inadequate domain discussion forum' I take that as a Freudian slip to mean 'inappropriate'? Be careful; making accusations like that could get you in trouble

Thank you for understanding

Gary

 

[Alex]

Hello Gary,

I am not a native English speaker, so sometimes I make a mistake.

Even if I did not participate in the .mobi discussion, I read through it many times.

I stated my point about .mobi but this has nothing to do with it. Even if it would be about any other tld/niche, I do not like when people are fighting each other on namepros. This is a nice community that I love, and I do not appreciate seeing posts such as yours.

I agree that Jeff is sometimes repetitive, and I stated that. Sometimes I think he is RapidJeff (the bot), but besides posting again and again his views, I did not see him attacking another fellow member. And I like him because of this. We may have different backgrounds, we may have different views, but the respect for each other must exist.
You posted in the discussion forum, and you were accepting that Jeff posts here. And besides that, I think just a few of the persons reading this thread knew that Jeff was a very active participating member of the mobi forum.

Overall, this thread for me had no point, as it was just a way to start a .mobi discussion and not a discussion about tld's after 2010. But this is just my opinion, based on what I felt.

Kind regards,

Alex

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

Hello Gary,

I am not a native English speaker, so sometimes I make a mistake.

Even if I did not participate in the .mobi discussion, I read through it many times.

I stated my point about .mobi but this has nothing to do with it. Even if it would be about any other tld/niche, I do not like when people are fighting each other on namepros. This is a nice community that I love, and I do not appreciate seeing posts such as yours.

I agree that Jeff is sometimes repetitive, and I stated that. Sometimes I think he is RapidJeff (the bot), but besides posting again and again his views, I did not see him attacking another fellow member. And I like him because of this. We may have different backgrounds, we may have different views, but the respect for each other must exist.
You posted in the discussion forum, and you were accepting that Jeff posts here. And besides that, I think just a few of the persons reading this thread knew that Jeff was a very active participating member of the mobi forum.

Overall, this thread for me had no point, as it was just a way to start a .mobi discussion and not a discussion about tld's after 2010. But this is just my opinion, based on what I felt.

Kind regards,

Alex

Acknowledged

Respect.

 

[800ml]

just taking into consideration .com and ccTLD

i think in 2010 it will be

1) .com
2) .ccTLD

in some if not most countries
(this will hold true for countries in which the language and culture is more homogeneous than not)
it will be

1) .ccTLD
2) .com

as a simple proof i offer my own personal observations &
the comparison of searches .com vs .pl


http://www.google.com/trends?q=.com,+.pl&ctab=0&geo=PL&date=all&sort=0

 

[npcomplete]

Here I go again getting involved in one of those hype threads with an agenda. My list of domain order was based purely on "where is the money to be made?" (IMHO). I am a card-carrying capitalist, and could really care less whether mobi becomes more popular than .com based on emotion. I have found that the best way to make money is to remove emotion from investment decisions. I am only partially successful in that regard, since I also inject moral decisions into my overall portfolio planning, and morality should be counted as among the strongest of emotions. At this point I see no moral reason to favor .mobi, and certainly no *major* technical reason. As mentioned elsewhere, I have been buying domains since 1996 and have seen popular terms come and go. I have been trading stocks and commodities for close to 40 years and watched things come and go. I never rushed out and bought a pork belly contract based on some emotional attachment to pork bellies, I went long because I thought bellies (or whatever) were undervalued. If bellies go up I would take a profit and move into something else, since ALL markets move in cycles.

My career for the last few decades has been in the mathematics of distributed computing. There is a lot of research in the edge computing field, where we have low-powered edge devices operating on ad hoc networks. There is no question in the research community as to whether mobile computing will become a major field. The US government is heavily involved in research using mobile devices in a variety of applications. Nowhere is there any assumption in the research that edge devices will remain low-powered on an absolute scale, although they will remain low-powered on a relative scale. From a math and distributed computing perspective, .mobi has no greater performance needs (or benefits) than any other extension from a client or server perspective. Any perceived difference will disappear as the "clients" get more powerful. From a technology perspective that means it all boils down to things like convenience, customer preference, and existing market dominance providing "momentum". Obviously ".com" has tremendous momentum and market dominance. The .mobi tld is also gaining some market share, which is part of its saving grace. The other thing that makes it distinct is the restrictions that supposedly enforce a mobile friendly format. IMHO, this too will become irrelevant as technology at the client edge device improves. The question becomes whether this increasing market share alone at the present rate can overcome the dilution effects as new tld's come online, and become the latest fad gtld. So we have a dilution "curve" that will definitely increase with time and with the increasing rate of new ICANN tld production, which needs to be overcome by the market growth and momentum of .mobi. Presumably this growth will in the future be based primarily on the attrativeness of the "mobi" character string, since technology will make other issues largely irrelevant. It is impossible to rule out that .mobi might become some huge fad based solely on the attractiveness of the "mobi" string, since fads do not admit well to formal mathematical modeling (or any modeling). The only part that makes this a tough guess on general tld string trends is that 2010 is close, and politics have an unbelievably profound effect on markets - both world and ICANN politics. Longer term I strongly feel that priorities will shift, and that dilution effects from other gtld's will change the tld/value distribution.

I should clarify my comments on value ratios between com/other tlds. I think the ratio between com/net is currently much greater than 10. I believe that this ratio will decrease over time, perhaps to as low as 10/1 by 2010. For those of you that indulge in arbitrage in the markets, I would say that betting on a lowering com/net value ratio would be a good investment - too bad they don't have these investment vehicles formalized in the existing markets (yeah, I know about that stock/partial ownership thing). At some point market dilution will have an impact as other tld's are announced from ICANN, and the com premiums will be subject to the effects of dilution - like every other market has seen since the beginnings of markets.

Now talk is cheap, so here again are my investment priorities, from a stinkin capitalist pig, based on my guess of value:

1.) com (value ratio > 10/1)
2.) org
3.) net
4.) ICANN new popular gtld
5.) info
6.) ".idn" (total of all IDN tld's)
7.) .tv
8.) .cc's (total of all country codes excluding tv that allow gtld service)
9.) mobi
10.) .biz/pro/name

Again I would offer the comment that from my own perspective I might be inclined to move ".idn" up the list based on the 5 billion people that do not speak English. Now I love the English language, but if I ever get the chance to buy 上帝.יהוה I would leap at the chance. For now though, I am putting my 2010 bets according to the previous distribution, and based on the above reasoning.

Marc

 

[acc]

t... How many .mobi names registered, compared to .net or .org? .... Do this one thing in the Google search bar: "Site:.net", "Site:.org" and "Site:.mobi" .... And then come back and tell me which TLD ranks where. The reseller market doesn't determine a TLDs viability. Period.

How many regs today and how many sites today is not the point of comparison in this thread's topic. The OP was to discuss the FUTURE, namely two years down the road in 2010.

Today it's .com/net/org/.co.uk/.de ... Next year it will likely be the same relative %s. ... But in the years after that - we will just have to see.

If you spend one week in the NP forums you know who believes in and supports .mobi and who does not. Everyone has their own agenda. It does not always have to degrade into an US vs THEM. Because the PIE IS GROWING. Every TLD's slice can get heavier at the same time as the pie grows. Relative %s are unimportant but for bragging rights and PPC parked name holders and domainers. The world prefers developed, useful sites, and they will get them served up in MANY different varieties on many different TLDs. Consumers will go to the websites that they are pointed to via promotion or hear of via word-of-mouth or word-of-hyperlinks.

I have gotten very tired of these pro vs con arguments about selected TLDs. Other than a brief mention NO OTHER TLD gets the dissing that .mobi does or the passionate following. That is because it IS DIFFERENT, was conceived and introduced with a different purpose - specifically to address the easy access via mobile devices. Give it time and watch if it is accepted and used. I just read a post on another forum that included about 25 different .mobi sites that spanned a W-I-D-E range of topics, industries, and most were non-redirects with companion full sized PC sites in another extension (com/net/cctld). To relegate this new extension to the dust heaps of .name/.aero/.coop because one dislikes it or feels threatened by it is just foolish. And to think it will unseat .com in this generation is as well.

The development restrictions (that some mistakenly point to as a limitation) require that .mobi sites guarantee access to them from all devices (by making small sized home pages to start) but subdirectories on these .mobi sites can be built out into full glory PC sized screen-filling, bandwidth-hogging, geeky-featured websites. Just like a .com can be fitted with a /mobile subdiectory, a .mobi site can contain /pc subdirectories. What is so difficult to understand ... or swallow ????

Well, I just spent (wasted) some time restating what should be obvious to anyone that really objectively thinks through the reason for the introduction of the .mobi extension. Although it is but one of hundreds of extensions out there, due to its being a GTLD, my opinion is that this one+ year old .mobi will find its way into and stay in the top ten of all domain extensions of the ever growing online web PIE. ... As Homer would say ... Mmmmmmmmm ... Pieeeeeeee ... (that's Homer as in Simpson, not as in Odyssey)

ccTLDs:
Many of these are just at the very beginning of their runs. With the established .co.uk and .de as examples to follow, many countrie TLDs have the opportunity to grow. The China policy requiring Chinese businesses to use the .cn extension will bring to light the existence of ccTLDs. Canada is adopting their .ca nicely. My hope and belief is that something will ignite the .us market one of these years because ccTLDs just make so much sense.

.Org:
Even though its popularity and use is growing, the one extension that makes me uncomfortable is .org. The safety moniker of a consumer being able to comfortably go to a ".org" site is being quickly eroded by its highjacking into just another commercial TLD by the domaining market and PPC site aggregators. It used to mean something to see a website with a .org ... as in non-profit organization (just like .edu = education and .gov = government site). Those were all trustmarks. Sorry to see that go.

 

[newdomainer.mobi]

Hi acc

Great post... neutral but sensible comments about the new kid on the block from someone who clearly understands the extension (hurrah!

.... as for .org; you have made a similar point that I made earlier but I didn't get much of an answer... I said that I liked .org & respected it as being fit for purpose (for use by organisations / charities etc..) I too regard it's commercial use as being counter-intuitive to what .org is all about...

Agree too about the growing pie... good domains that suit the purpose will always be sound... mobile sites will be developed to compliment sister sites on .com or whatever else... & these sites will be hosted using a variety of formats (I argue that due to the cost being so small in relative terms that most medium to large businesses will use all formats directed at one compliant site... choosing just one is not a commercially sensible decision to make until or unless one becomes the dominant route (which could take 5 years to identify... IMHO it can be compared to the question over Bluray & HD DVD players... manufacturers are now making machines that are compatible with both formats... I see the same happening with the mobile web (possibly).

Regards


Gary