New gTLDs - Would you take one?

[domaino]

I'm interested whether seasoned domainer's on here fear the introduction of new gTLDs? I'm a bit of a sporadic poster, so I'm sure there have been a number of discussions on this topic. Only I've trailed through a number of threads and have come across few discussions I would describe as thorough.

Anyway, a few questions:

1. Would you buy into a new extension?

2. What, if any, extension would you like to see brought in? How about the old 7 that were never introduced? (.web, .rec, etc.).

3. Do you feel that some may profit from the "liberalisation" of the TLD? Obviously ICAAN will, but what about the average private company putting forward a business plan looking to make a quick buck?

4. As far as I'm aware, it takes no more than $185,000 to foot a new gTLD. Other expenditure costs excluded, that amounts to, very roughly, 30,000 domain registrations. Looking at .mobi, surpassing the 400,000 registration mark, do you believe there is a danger of market saturation?

 

[DotUSDomains]

1 thing i know for sure is the money men behind any of these extensions wont be selling for normal fees,

think .mobi, .me .asia all good names were sold to highest bidder.

it's all about money not need.

to early to say what going to happen, theres alot of lawyers, lots of rich companies, lots of hassle to go with it.

theres not a lot of domainers who will have the money to do this, and theres not enough smart companies out there who will do it correctly.

you need a full time/proffesional domainer who knows what he's doing to make even the slightest chance of a success with 1 of these new "extensions"

$185,000 is the start or so they say, how about a backend to operate this ? offices ? staff ? promotion ? lawyers ? fees ?

if you've not got a spare million then i guarantee you wont make it work.

to put it simply, i wont be investing a penny in any (maybee .llc) thats it

 

[Kate]

It's probably too early to tell but I think only a tiny fraction of 'vanity' extensions will find glory in the global namespace.
Problem with most newer sTLDs, they provide no added value, nor do they truly complement the current offering. They do not differentiate themselves. In my personal opinion .info is the only meaningful TLD ever released by ICANN. The rest are just cyberspace oddities.

I anticipate that most of them will be remake of .coop or .museum, that is virtual wastelands few people have ever heard of.

For a new TLD to succeed it should appeal to a wide audience (*), pricing should be competitive and it should be available with mainstream registrars. Not to mention powerful promotion.
Just because there is a shortage of good names in mainstream extensions doesn't mean consumers are willing to accept anything.
That being said, some developers focus on keywords for SEO purposes and don't mind odd extensions

(*) For that reason, the market for language-specific extensions will automatically be limited. Furthermore, if we had a .movie TLD for example, it would not appeal to UK users.

 

[DotUSDomains]

.museum never even knew it existed

LOL, goes to show you.

:hehe:

 

[MicroGuy]

Considering that every website on the planet could EASILY be hosted on a single second-level domain, I don't think we need any more TLDs period. I think we already have way too many.

 

[kemjika11]

As we invest in new TLDs, we also divest in the legacy TLDs. i hope domainers don't buy these new names en mass. It bleeds us, and helps the "money guys" ass we've already read on this thread. On the other hand, i'm slightly enthused at the thought of new energy in the industry, but i think it will be rather short lived.

 

[npcomplete]

I'm interested whether seasoned domainer's on here fear the introduction of new gTLDs? I'm a bit of a sporadic poster, so I'm sure there have been a number of discussions on this topic. Only I've trailed through a number of threads and have come across few discussions I would describe as thorough.

Anyway, a few questions:

1. Would you buy into a new extension?

2. What, if any, extension would you like to see brought in? How about the old 7 that were never introduced? (.web, .rec, etc.).

3. Do you feel that some may profit from the "liberalisation" of the TLD? Obviously ICAAN will, but what about the average private company putting forward a business plan looking to make a quick buck?

4. As far as I'm aware, it takes no more than $185,000 to foot a new gTLD. Other expenditure costs excluded, that amounts to, very roughly, 30,000 domain registrations. Looking at .mobi, surpassing the 400,000 registration mark, do you believe there is a danger of market saturation?

1.) sure, why not. I guess I just have a bit of gambler in me, and I like to develop.

2.) This has been beat to death around here, but yes, .web would be an "ok" tld, although it is a semantic equivalent to .net so as Kate says above there would be no real added value. I am hardly a neutral party on this issue though.

3.) Some will be winners in the sense of showing a significant return. By "winners", I think somebody will end up in fourth/fifth place, turning the old CNO (or CNOI) model into CNOI* where * might be .web or whatever.

4.) Addressed elsewhere in the thread. The $185k is just the start.

In general I am a "free market" kind of guy, so I am not opposed to new tlds, which puts me in the minority around here. By free market, I mean in the "old school" sense of the word that if your company fails there is NO bailout for either the company or its customers. Failure => tough luck, you lose.

 

[snoop]

I'm interested whether seasoned domainer's on here fear the introduction of new gTLDs? I'm a bit of a sporadic poster, so I'm sure there have been a number of discussions on this topic. Only I've trailed through a number of threads and have come across few discussions I would describe as thorough.

Anyway, a few questions:

1. Would you buy into a new extension?

2. What, if any, extension would you like to see brought in? How about the old 7 that were never introduced? (.web, .rec, etc.).

3. Do you feel that some may profit from the "liberalisation" of the TLD? Obviously ICAAN will, but what about the average private company putting forward a business plan looking to make a quick buck?

4. As far as I'm aware, it takes no more than $185,000 to foot a new gTLD. Other expenditure costs excluded, that amounts to, very roughly, 30,000 domain registrations. Looking at .mobi, surpassing the 400,000 registration mark, do you believe there is a danger of market saturation?

1. No
2. Bring them all in .everything
3. Yes, registries/regsitrars and Icann in the main
4. Yes

 

[Timewarp]

As a developer and domainer some gTLDs work well for me already.
I already have .tv .cc and .ws so would consider others if they were priced right.
If the fees were lower I would also have .fm and .dj names for sure.
I would be cautious of new gTLDs from an investment standpoint though.

 

[snoop]

As a developer and domainer some gTLDs work well for me already.
I already have .tv .cc and .ws so would consider others if they were priced right.

Those are all country code tlds.

 

[Dean]

If I can get an IDN extension sure, thats were the big $ will be at and those will be the most successful extensions to come out of this. Unfortunately seems like the Chinese government will get Chinese IDN extensions and the Russian government Russian IDN extensions so the good ones will be hard to get.

 

[npcomplete]

If I can get an IDN extension sure, thats were the big $ will be at and those will be the most successful extensions to come out of this. Unfortunately seems like the Chinese government will get Chinese IDN extensions and the Russian government Russian IDN extensions so the good ones will be hard to get.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Obviously China will get (and already operates) .中国 , and will probably apply for .公司 and .网络 and Russia will get .рф , etc., but that doesn't mean that YOU cannot apply and receive .上帝 or some other great keyword to use as a tld if you have the resources and believe you can create a viable business model with that tld.

 

[Dean]

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Obviously China will get (and already operates) .中国 , and will probably apply for .公司 and .网络 and Russia will get .рф , etc., but that doesn't mean that YOU cannot apply and receive .上帝 or some other great keyword to use as a tld if you have the resources and believe you can create a viable business model with that tld.

First of all, I dont even know what those Chinese ones mean :bah: but might be interesting if the Russian government only takes one, with рф standing for Russian Federation (in Russian) I presume. Might be worth getting something else in Russian, something like net or web in Russia and maybe you could become the number one extension in Russian rather then the .рф. Also I would like to see who applies for and gets Arabic extensions as they are also interesting.

ICANN have said that if more then one person or organization applys for the same extension there will be an auction, I wonder if anyone will try outbid these governments?

 

[npcomplete]

First of all, I dont even know what those Chinese ones mean :bah: but might be interesting if the Russian government only takes one, with рф standing for Russian Federation (in Russian) I presume. Might be worth getting something else in Russian, something like net or web in Russia and maybe you could become the number one extension in Russian rather then the .рф. Also I would like to see who applies for and gets Arabic extensions as they are also interesting.

ICANN have said that if more then one person or organization applys for the same extension there will be an auction, I wonder if anyone will try outbid these governments?

中国 : China
公司 : a proposed "com" alias
网络 : a proposed "net" alias

上帝 : God

рф : Russian Federation (initials in Russian)

Nobody really knows how this "alias" thing is going to work. Some think there will be free alias domains between something like .公司 and .com. IMHO, nothing is free. Some think that whoever gets a tld like .公司 will have second level IDN domains reserved for the holders of equivalent IDN.com domains, so if you own something like 上帝.com then you are allowed to register the equivalent 上帝.公司 . This might happen. The speculation is that verisign will get the award for .公司 since they run .com, and would be the obvious choice for running an alias. There are proposed aliases for Russian and other languages too for .com/net etc. Some of these "alias" and country issues will *probably* NOT be decided by auction, so don't even bother dreaming about getting .中国

I have several Arabic domains (.com), and I agree that Arabic is an interesting case. This is also a language where dashes are not only "ok" but in some cases required due to the way Arabic script collapses characters that are next to each other (multiple word domains).

Hope this helps, d3N

 

[deleted984054565403]

I anticipate that most of them will be remake of .coop or .museum, that is virtual wastelands few people have ever heard of.

:bingo:

Here's what I would do if I owned a new generic vTLD:

Set aside the top keywords and single-word domains and list them as "premium." Allow all other registrations to be completely free to the general public. No ads or anything -- just completely free fully-functioning domains, with a soft max limit per person/household.

The extension would catch on if all went as planned. People could get the domains they wanted in a rather obscure extension, but the names would be memorable.

When enough buzz has built up, sell/auction the "premium" names and keep them in a tiered pricing format so that the best names cost more to renew every year and eventually pay the operating and startup costs.

It would be a risk, but there are a surprising number of people that are searching for a free .tk alternative with no ads.

 

[dotnom]

:bingo:

Here's what I would do if I owned a new generic vTLD:

Set aside the top keywords and single-word domains and list them as "premium." Allow all other registrations to be completely free to the general public. No ads or anything -- just completely free fully-functioning domains, with a soft max limit per person/household.

The extension would catch on if all went as planned. People could get the domains they wanted in a rather obscure extension, but the names would be memorable.

When enough buzz has built up, sell/auction the "premium" names and keep them in a tiered pricing format so that the best names cost more to renew every year and eventually pay the operating and startup costs.

It would be a risk, but there are a surprising number of people that are searching for a free .tk alternative with no ads.

Free is not always a good solution especially for domains
For start, it will attract spammers and domain abusers in general
We all know spammer's appreciation for cheap .info

Also it's a big deal the first impression and the awareness you will "plant" to the head of the user
Imagine to create the sense of "free" gTLD and then auction the premiums

Why someone pay for something that the general public know it's free.
How the surfers at the premium domain will feel when they know that the gTLD is totally free.
"A lucky domain holder" and not a valuable-expensive domain name

Can you rely a serious business website on a premium domain of a free gTLD?
Do you think that you will not get surfers with opinions like "this guy didn't have $10 bucks to get a proper .com?"

There is also the case of .tk as you said and co.cc that i see a good alexa rank
For example i don't know if the donations in co.cc are enough but i don't see any big business plan (as far as i know)

If you don't put any ads then with the nature of domains that don't force you to visit a specific site (to login for example) you don't get anything back

 

[acronym007]

:bingo:

Here's what I would do if I owned a new generic vTLD:

Set aside the top keywords and single-word domains and list them as "premium." Allow all other registrations to be completely free to the general public. No ads or anything -- just completely free fully-functioning domains, with a soft max limit per person/household.

The extension would catch on if all went as planned. People could get the domains they wanted in a rather obscure extension, but the names would be memorable.

When enough buzz has built up, sell/auction the "premium" names and keep them in a tiered pricing format so that the best names cost more to renew every year and eventually pay the operating and startup costs.

It would be a risk, but there are a surprising number of people that are searching for a free .tk alternative with no ads.

That's a great idea Steve. That is one way I always thought .tv failed. If they priced it right they could have competed with .com.

 

[Dean]

中国 : China
公司 : a proposed "com" alias
网络 : a proposed "net" alias

上帝 : God

рф : Russian Federation (initials in Russian)

Nobody really knows how this "alias" thing is going to work. Some think there will be free alias domains between something like .公司 and .com. IMHO, nothing is free. Some think that whoever gets a tld like .公司 will have second level IDN domains reserved for the holders of equivalent IDN.com domains, so if you own something like 上帝.com then you are allowed to register the equivalent 上帝.公司 . This might happen. The speculation is that verisign will get the award for .公司 since they run .com, and would be the obvious choice for running an alias. There are proposed aliases for Russian and other languages too for .com/net etc. Some of these "alias" and country issues will *probably* NOT be decided by auction, so don't even bother dreaming about getting .中国

I have several Arabic domains (.com), and I agree that Arabic is an interesting case. This is also a language where dashes are not only "ok" but in some cases required due to the way Arabic script collapses characters that are next to each other (multiple word domains).

Hope this helps, d3N

Thanks for the information as I am still a noob in the IDN field but I am more interested in it now because I believe IDN.IDN will be huge. We all like domains in our language so I am sure others around the world would like that too. The most interesting thing will be what happens to the English ccTLD of countries, especially China since .cn is the second largest extension, only .com has more registrations.

 

[npcomplete]

Thanks for the information as I am still a noob in the IDN field but I am more interested in it now because I believe IDN.IDN will be huge. We all like domains in our language so I am sure others around the world would like that too. The most interesting thing will be what happens to the English ccTLD of countries, especially China since .cn is the second largest extension, only .com has more registrations.

.cn will remain as-is. In fact in China, the .cn domains alias to the .中国 domains. Sort of a "hack" at a national level, since .中国 is not in the ICANN root. So the basic plan is:

anything.cn = anything.中国

and that "anything" can be either an ascii string or Chinese characters (IDN).

 

[Dean]

.cn will remain as-is. In fact in China, the .cn domains alias to the .中国 domains. Sort of a "hack" at a national level, since .中国 is not in the ICANN root. So the basic plan is:

anything.cn = anything.中国

and that "anything" can be either an ascii string or Chinese characters (IDN).

So every .cn domain owner will get the same domain in .中国?