news Michael Berkens' Thoughts on Verisign’s $135 Million .Web Acquisition & What It Means for Domainers

[News]

.Web in my opinion since the announcement of the new gTLD program has been the only possible new gTLD that could possibly threaten the original Top Level Domain’s market share; .com, .net and.org.

I would argue Verisign getting .web (which they did not apply for) was simply a brilliant move and I would argue that if they did not get the extension it would have been gross negligence on their part.

The ICANN auction, which lasted more than a day, was a step auction, which means one or more other applicant was bidding along with Verisign and drove them up to the $135 Million price.

Who was the 2nd place applicant?

Well IMHO there is no way Verisign was going to lose this auction, and no one else could pay as much as them except for Google.

For .com domain investors my guess is that Verisign’s acquisition of .web is that best thing they could have hoped for, but only time will tell.

We might expect Verisign to use .web to make a play quite different from its contractually obligated pricing of .com and .net with premium pricing for registrations and renewals which at the moment they can’t do with .com’s and .net’s...

What does the $135 Million acquisition of .web mean for future rounds of new gTLD’s?
Combined with .Shop $40+ million auction, Google’s acquisition of .app for $25 Million; the next round of new gTLD’s will not go unnoticed.

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[Mr Dobalina]

Verizon owning .Web won't protect the value of .com lol. Explain that to me

 

[mad409]

Verizon owning .Web won't protect the value of .com lol. Explain that to me

If anything it just helps the future of new g's with a company like Verisign jumping on board.

 

[Addison]

Google (Charleston Road Registry Inc.) was the second highest bidder.

No other party could come close to pushing the auction price that high except Google and Verisign.

 

[wwwweb]

Verizon owning .Web won't protect the value of .com lol. Explain that to me

What are you attempting to say .web hold more weight than the trillions of dollars that .com has produced in sales, and marketing?

Amazon is going to go dark on the .com, in order to go live on .web?

The G's for the most part when it comes to large end users have really only been about brand protection to date. No major utilization across the board in a unified manner has been seen.

I own both GTLD's, and .com, but people only want to sway the way of what benefits them, namepros comments, will not define the gtld space.

 

[mad409]

The G's for the most part when it comes to large end users have really only been about brand protection to date. No major utilization across the board in a unified manner has been seen.

I agree, a lot of brand protection along with ULR forwarding going on with the new g's but we have seen many new sites being launched too.

The fact that Verisign has the insight to invest this kind of money tells me that they understand the future of new g's and went full steam at the one they wanted plain and simple.

.com may be king but even Verisign understands change, 135 million worth of change with .web!

 

[garptrader]

People still register crap .COM over other TLDs. Saturday I was at an event where there were a few small companies advertising their businesses. One company had a two-syllable one-word domain with a hyphen between the syllables. It was likely a reg fee domain but looked odd. The name itself was not really a keyword associated with the business' products.

 

[garptrader]

I was helping a friend this weekend who is not internet savy with a concert ticket reservation and came to the realization that people are more willing to spend money on concert or sports events tickets (that last a few hours) than they will on a domain name which serves as a brand for their business for years.

 

[DomainVP]

I was helping a friend this weekend who is not internet savy with a concert ticket reservation and came to the realization that people are more willing to spend money on concert or sports events tickets (that last a few hours) than they will on a domain name which serves as a brand for their business for years.

Instant gratification paired with the ignorance of basic business marketing concepts.

As for .web... let's take a trip back to Nov 23, 2013...

.Web is the most likely TLD to do well and be a permanent fixture. Everyone calls the internet the 'web', it's more inherent that any site should be a .web, .website is just too long.

Now that Verisign owns it, they should bury it like Eastman-Kodak did with the digital camera. The acquisition of .web only adds to their business portfolio, they don't have to do anything with it at all.

 

[pfj]

The fact that Verisign has the insight to invest this kind of money tells me that they understand the future of new g's and went full steam at the one they wanted plain and simple.

Or that they were prepared to spend really quite a small amount of money, in terms of their business, to stop anyone else getting it.

 

[joro001]

Or that they were prepared to spend really quite a small amount of money, in terms of their business, to stop anyone else getting it.

If any one line sums up the situation, this is it.
Bang on!

 

[bigbagofbricks]

It's the only extra extension I'm excited about for a website I'm developing. I wish it would drop now so I had the chance to use it

 

[brandnow]

come on Verigisn don't mess this one up.. for the sake of all nGTLDs

 

[doubleU]

Great news for .com owners as Verisign will make sure it stays on top !

 

[pfj]

Great news for .com owners as Verisign will make sure it stays on top !

Exactly. Anyone who thinks this is a positive signal for new gTLDs is forgetting that Verisign has a vested interest in maintaining the value of .com. They will make good money from .web I'm sure - but not at the expense of their core asset.

 

[brandnow]

Exactly. Anyone who thinks this is a positive signal for new gTLDs is forgetting that Verisign has a vested interest in maintaining the value of .com. They will make good money from .web I'm sure - but not at the expense of their core asset.

Considering 80% of my portfolio is .com and 10% .org. It's always good news.

 

[Mr Dobalina]

.Web itself may not drastically hurt .com valuations much but it isn't going to help.