Industry Standard Says "Latest Plan for Domain Names is as Doomed as .coop and .mobi"

[Ron Jackson]

ICANN's plan to flood the Internet with an unlimited number of new global domain extensions continues to be a hot topic. Following Tuesday's piece in USA Today, the Industry Standard weighed in today with an article headlined "Latest Plan for Domain Names is as Doomed as .coop and .mobi."
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2009/dailyposts/04-08-09.htm

 

[Jeff]

Latest Plan for Domain Names is as Doomed as .coop and .mobi

Thanks for DNJ™ "The Lowdown" post / news link ... the points are extremely valid, namely; confusion, and dilution (as each new extension historically dilutes the extension(s) that was previously "new" just before it), and also the real-world/usage importance of indexing and SEO (particularly in #1 Google; "Most Internet users have figured out that Googling the name of a company, person or organization ... "), IMHO. :gl:

The .eco (as well as, potentially, the very natural .web from prior discussions here in this space) is interesting, both in that it serves a specific niche -and- that it is short and very easily memorable / highly brandable - and may not add to the overall general confusion and clutter (particularly of long and unneeded TLD's; .info, .name, .coop, .museum, .asia, .jobs, .mobi, and .travel) of the likely release of new forthcoming gTLD's! :yell: :imho:

Best regards,
-Jeff

 

[jmcc]

A typical numbers free prediction. There's quite a difference between .mobi and .coop from the domain registration numbers. The others seemed to be too highly specialised and and too niche to be viable. The .asia gTLD should be an interesting one to watch over the next few months as the Junk Dump phase kicks in and domains start dropping. It can take a TLD years to get accepted and to get brand recognition. Sometimes, when the registry is incompetently run as in the case of .eu and Eurid, that might stretch into decades. However if a TLD does not gain critical development mass during the first two years of its operation then its long term prospects will not be good.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Jeff]

However if a TLD does not gain critical development mass during the first two years of its operation then its long term prospects will not be good.

I agree ... and we've seen historical evidence of this with the aforementioned .INFO, .BIZ, and .MOBI (as well as the ccTLD .TV), IMHO.
PS. I am seeing 837,826 .mobi domains in the current Zone File (according to RegistrarStats™). :gl:
-Jeff