discuss Indian airport using gTLD

[Arpit131]

I was traveling recently through Hyderabad(one of the metro cities in India) and came across a board that said www.hyderabad.aero
I was amazed at the new gTLD adoption in a country like India.

What are your thoughts on this?
Do you see gTLDs growing further this year? Does this kind of thing indicate a trend?

 

[handpicked]

With more than 10K airports globally the prospects seems good IMO. The name aero looks so good when printed, sounds good, and also implies airport so well. Thanks @Arpit131 for the pic.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

.aero exists 100 years already...
It has no any relations to nTLDs.

 

[guillon]

Yep, it was delegated in 2001 but that's a good indicator, it could mean that it takes 20 years for a new Top-Level Domain to find its usage

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

My airport uses it since 2011...
https://lwo.aero/en

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.aero
Restricted sTLD.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Just in case not realized by any readers, .aero is only open to those with validated aviation interests and is not available for domain investors.

https://information.aero/about

In the age of phishing, I see more organizations turning to industry credentialed or brand names. The .coop extension, another credentialed alternative TLD, has got some major organizations using it in my region.

As @Jurgen Wolf pointed out this is not a new gTLD as ICANN define term.

Bob

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Technically managed by Afilias.

 

[capybara]

Like @Jurgen Wolf said, airports using .aero domains is not new, there have been many airports and various air contractors' sites using this domain for ages. Just put site:.aero query into Google and browse through dozens of results.

 

[HotKey]

What are your thoughts on this?
Do you see gTLDs growing further this year? Does this kind of thing indicate a trend?

Growth is inevitable, everyone who sees a new G in action loves it. There are also other threads showcasing real-life usage. In my eyes, gTLDs have the same staying power as we see in the most famous extension of them all, but haven't gotten the same exposure.

But whether it surges beyond waiting for the tide to roll in and into a wave we can surf, will depend on a few big names other than airports to adopt AND promote. Although one can argue an airport is a good start because of all the eyes/traffic, I'm not so sure about the lasting impact a name has there as it would have with being introduced by say, a celebrity.

 

[Henry Y]

It doesn't matter whether it is a ngTLD or not. It shows that the end user chooses to use an extension that best fits his business. This is why ngTLDs exist, and it has become a new trend in domain selection.

 

[Arpit131]

.aero exists 100 years already...
It has no any relations to nTLDs.

Sorry, I wasn't aware of this.

Yep, it was delegated in 2001 but that's a good indicator, it could mean that it takes 20 years for a new Top-Level Domain to find its usage

hahaha. You sound like a consultant, are you? :p

Like @Jurgen Wolf said, airports using .aero domains is not new, there have been many airports and various air contractors' sites using this domain for ages. Just put site:.aero query into Google and browse through dozens of results.

Thanks for the valuable inputs! Noted!

 

[Arpit131]

Growth is inevitable, everyone who sees a new G in action loves it. There are also other threads showcasing real-life usage. In my eyes, gTLDs have the same staying power as we see in the most famous extension of them all, but haven't gotten the same exposure.

But whether it surges beyond waiting for the tide to roll in and into a wave we can surf, will depend on a few big names other than airports to adopt AND promote. Although one can argue an airport is a good start because of all the eyes/traffic, I'm not so sure about the lasting impact a name has there as it would have with being introduced by say, a celebrity.

Agreed! What do you think about so many new gTLDs in the market? Only a handful would last, isn't it? What all do you think - like your top 5 maybe?

It doesn't matter whether it is a ngTLD or not. It shows that the end user chooses to use an extension that best fits his business. This is why ngTLDs exist, and it has become a new trend in domain selection.

New perspective!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

What do you think about so many new gTLDs in the market? Only a handful would last, isn't it?

I disagree. I mean, yes, I wish they had introduced fewer and slower, and some had never been released (yes .sucks I am looking at you, among others!).

But I disagree that a large number of new extensions cannot coexist. I think it is possible, in fact I have anecdotal information we are already there, that those outside the domain industry may come to assume that most reasonable words are an extension and guess one.

Also, I think startups will begin to look at what is available when they first name accordingly. For example, you are starting a venture fund. You see that .ventures is a TLD. You get Name.ventures and name your company formally Name Ventures. I agree we are nowhere near there yet, and that in US and in some other parts of the word there is an assumption companies will be on .com, but I think it is at least possible that will happen.

While I said in another post I hope ICANN pauses before any new approvals, because way too many were introduced, but I don't see that only a few will survive.

What is needed is more real organizations using them effectively. That will add respect. Some new gTLDs have done much better than others in this regard.

I think also that new gTLD could learn something from the restricted legacy extensions like .aero and .coop (originally .pro was one as well). If you have a very specialized extension it might make sense to require use by those who have status in that field. This is difficult to enforce, however, and would push domain investors out of that TLD, probably.

Bob

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

.aero is widely used in this industry...
More strange - if certain airport doesn't own its IATA CODE in .aero even as defensive registration.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I know about .aero since ~2008, when one of my past contacts (military aviator and domainer) mentioned it...
It is like standard/default TLD in aviation.

 

[Kostas]

Only a handful would last, isn't it?

Consolidation is what has happened and will probably continue, public tlds won't go dark because the absolute necessary costs to operate them are not high. Running a tld with less than 10k registrations costs less than $50k/yr for a large registry.
If we do the math, even a tld with 2000 registrations at $25/yr a piece makes economic sense to operate.

 

[golan]

I travel a lot so i visit airline and airport sites often and i can assure you that many airlines and airports use .aero.

 

[HotKey]

Agreed! What do you think about so many new gTLDs in the market? Only a handful would last, isn't it? What all do you think - like your top 5 maybe?

I think its both a nightmare and a virtual name buffet for investors, and absolute perfection for consumers. Although consumers might also see it as a challenge because of all the options. In a sense, less options = easier choice. But with the right lens it's easy to find a domain name tailor-made to meet one's needs, with the new gTLDs.

I don't know about what will last or what won't, I think there will simply popular extensions and less popular, defined by real-world usage or aftermarket appeal. Even less popular extensions can have some good fits, however, there could be some uncharted territory where a TLD is so unused it falls into obscurity. An example of this might be something like the .gripe extension. We haven't even hit the 10 year mark for any of the new gTLDs yet, but trends do come and go, and can even resurrect again. What might not be valid now could be 10 years from now, who knows.

For the most part, I would be weary of investing in extensions ending in .example+ing, or two-word extensions, ie .creditcard, or .forsale, because they don't have a lot of aesthetic value and I think that's an important factor with new gTLDs. Particularly in a place like an airport or something like a billboard, you want the name to be showy and memorable. My top one is .one (no pun intended), I don't really have a "top 5" as I tend to lean toward a good name rather than a popular extension, even if it means a compromise on consistent sales.

 

[Arpit131]

I disagree. I mean, yes, I wish they had introduced fewer and slower, and some had never been released (yes .sucks I am looking at you, among others!).

But I disagree that a large number of new extensions cannot coexist. I think it is possible, in fact I have anecdotal information we are already there, that those outside the domain industry may come to assume that most reasonable words are an extension and guess one.

Also, I think startups will begin to look at what is available when they first name accordingly. For example, you are starting a venture fund. You see that .ventures is a TLD. You get Name.ventures and name your company formally Name Ventures. I agree we are nowhere near there yet, and that in US and in some other parts of the word there is an assumption companies will be on .com, but I think it is at least possible that will happen.

While I said in another post I hope ICANN pauses before any new approvals, because way too many were introduced, but I don't see that only a few will survive.

What is needed is more real organizations using them effectively. That will add respect. Some new gTLDs have done much better than others in this regard.

I think also that new gTLD could learn something from the restricted legacy extensions like .aero and .coop (originally .pro was one as well). If you have a very specialized extension it might make sense to require use by those who have status in that field. This is difficult to enforce, however, and would push domain investors out of that TLD, probably.

Bob

But wouldn't be a loss making deal for new gTLD owners? Will they want to keep something that doesn't pay them well, or at all or instead, suck money out of them?

Consolidation is what has happened and will probably continue, public tlds won't go dark because the absolute necessary costs to operate them are not high. Running a tld with less than 10k registrations costs less than $50k/yr for a large registry.
If we do the math, even a tld with 2000 registrations at $25/yr a piece makes economic sense to operate.

There are other variable cost, marketing, participation in events, promotion, discounting and also the millions that they may have invested getting the approval.

 

[Kostas]

There are other variable cost, marketing, participation in events, promotion, discounting and also the millions that they may have invested getting the approval.

That's why I mentioned consolidation, for a small, one-tld, registry, of course it won't make sense to operate a tld with $100k/y in revenue, but for donuts for example, adding one more tld to their 200+ portfolio won't increase costs(other than the ones I mentioned in the $50k/yr, icann, backend). Also, shutting down a tld won't bring back approval/initial costs so that's a factor irrelevant to the decision of keeping a tld live or not.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

But wouldn't be a loss making deal for new gTLD owners? Will they want to keep something that doesn't pay them well

I am not quite sure which part of my reply this references. As I said at end, I think a rise in BRAND extensions may hurt domain investors, since they are shut out. That is true for both legacy and new extensions. It may, though, possibly, on the other hand help new extension acceptance in general, as people get used to the idea that right of the dot can be many things.

Obviously people will not invest in things, or should not continue investing in things, if prospects of return are minimal. I agree. The difficulty of domain investing is to see what the future holds. Also, it is important to realize that different people may be better in different things.

One might think that each new gTLD added must reduce prospects for the others, but I am not sure that is so. I don't think the domain market is a closed size one. For example, if someone sees a product marketing campaign around a phrase word1.TLDA that might spur others to think of something similar with word2.TLDB.

Bob