STATE OF THE NEW G'S

[Internet.Domains]

The current STATE OF THE NEW G'S is good!...or is it?

After nearly 3 years into the introduction of New G's there remains:
* Very low 'End User' usage
* Very little aftermarket activity
* Declining inquiries
* Inconsistent registry changes affecting drops, renewals and pricing
* Little to none public awareness

In conclusion, the current STATE OF THE NEW G'S is not good.

(Disclaimer: I am a proponent and investor of New G's, but I tend to have a REALIST view of things)

 

[eurorealtor]

Why would end user want to pay $xxx / renewal year after year for the new GTLD, if they can pay $xxx per decade for .com? I do have very few new "premium" Gs and it's really annoying to pay $80 to $200 per year for renewal. Wondering why I still keep them...

 

[garptrader]

Where is the best risk-adjusted ROI for an investor?

Typical .COM portfolios turn low single digits annually and renewals are under $10 each. Acquiring good .COM domains can be challenging and expensive. End users are more likely to be willing to pay a premium for a .COM than other TLDs but quite often are not willing to pay more than low $XXX.

Typical legacy alternative TLD portfolios have even lower turn and end user prices tend to be rather low. .Net / .Org renewals are cheap and acquisition costs much lower than .COM. Selling .Net domains is tough and I quit considering .Net acquisitions a long time ago.

Aftermarket new TLD portfolio turn is at a crawl and renewals quite often are more expensive than .COM domains. Some nTLD combinations have good search volume. However, end users still are reluctant to pay serious money for them.

Perhaps none of the above scenarios is particularly attractive. An alternative might be to take one solid domain (regardless of TLD) and turn it into a business. Then you don't have to waste time trying to do outbound marketing to end users who just don't get why they should pay more than $25 for a domain name.

 

[168]

Kate says,
"Of course hindsight is 20/20 but the outcome was predictable and will become more obvious as time goes by".
"I have often said that the rise of ccTLDs has nullified the case for new extensions"
What facts do you have to back this worn out assumption ?

Kate, with all due respect, "And always the same worn-out arguments"
"Majority of people are not familiar with them/don't understand them/don't trust them"
What facts do you have to back this worn out assumption ?

What you think is predictable based on your history is irrelevant to today's market. A Global market. Massive expansion of verticals that didn't even exist before now, Going "digital" no longer an option, Business cycles, relevance. Some .commies just don't get that.

I would suggest the rise of ccTLDs +hacks has demonstrated the willingness to adopt anything other than a second rate crappy .com left over or an outrageous "Premium" .com out of reach for 80% of the market.
It's been reported several times relevance is what consumers want in today's market. The most important factor New "G"s have over what's left in irrelevant "legacies"
In 3 years .com has lost nearly 30% of the startup market and that's primarily the US market! The rest of the world is following.
This is what will become more obvious as time goes by. Startups choosing to use "risky relevance"
Startups thrive on risk Hellooo. .com is "old" world and on the down side of the business cycle. "Growth" has peaked. Roi has peaked. Technology changes and .com is not immune.
ROI is the only thing that matters to an investor. .Com is moving to the downside. even the "Premiums"
Please as I have asked you before, go save all the dumb ass corps that have poured more than a billion into the NEW "G"rowth.
Have you contacted them yet?
People keep suggesting you might want to broaden your homework a bit instead of using the same old worn out arguments that you post on every New"G" discussion.
Venturing out into the unknown isn't your thing. We get it. New "G" discussions aren't for bashing or reiterating the same old worn out arguments. Innovators have no use for yesterday.
We are here to discuss the growth of the entire industry. All inclusive. Team work. Innovation. New approaches.
What's working, what isn't.

Moores law is in effect. Adoption and growth will be twice as fast as the legacies so if you know your domain history that
calculates out to in about 7.5 years from the start. There will be 3 times the number of New "G"s reg'd today and that number will appear in July 2020. 60m+ A fitting moment for hindsight. If your still around Q2 2020 let's talk. The numbers have nearly doubled every year since the roll out and there always are periods of adjustment and pause in between in any market.. Approx 30% will be active sites.
There is just no way .com leftovers/ccTLD's can accommodate "relevance" "Verticals" in a global market. Especially markets that are 3 times the size of the .com revolution.
Happy Hunting!

 

[168]

Garptrader,
"An alternative might be to take one solid domain (regardless of TLD) and turn it into a business. Then you don't have to waste time trying to do outbound marketing to end users who just don't get why they should pay more than $25 for a domain name".

Nailed it. This is not an "easy" or "predictable" game anymore. Development makes a lot more sense for small portfolio holders
Cheers

 

[deez007]

Why would end user want to pay $xxx / renewal year after year for the new GTLD, if they can pay $xxx per decade for .com? I do have very few new "premium" Gs and it's really annoying to pay $80 to $200 per year for renewal. Wondering why I still keep them...

Well lets look at it like this.

Business.com vs Business.global

Business.com - purchase price: $150 000 (that was back in 1997) + 10 years renewal ( $100) that = $150 100 for total cost of ownership over 10 years.

Business.global - purchase price: $25 000 (in 2016) + 10 years renewal (.Global uses normal renewal even for premium domains - $60 on average) thats $600 = $25 600 for total cost of ownership for 10 years.

Business.com = $150 100
Business.global = $25 600

 

[dordomai]

Well lets look at it like this.

Business.com vs Business.global

Business.com - purchase price: $150 000 (that was back in 1997) + 10 years renewal ( $100) that = $150 100 for total cost of ownership over 10 years.

Business.global - purchase price: $25 000 (in 2016) + 10 years renewal (.Global uses normal renewal even for premium domains - $60 on average) thats $600 = $25 600 for total cost of ownership for 10 years.

Business.com = $150 100
Business.global = $25 600

and business.global sucks while business.com is a stellar domain name.

 

[deez007]

and business.global sucks while business.com is a stellar domain name.

Lol, in your opinion...

Business.global in my opinion, is a great domain.

Does that mean I am right and you are wrong? NO... it means we have different opinions.... guess what?. Much like us the rest of the human race also has different opinions. So if I see business.global as being a GOOD domain rest assured there would be loads of Human beings who would agree... just as they were would be loads of human beings who would agree with what you are saying.

There are many entrepreneurs who would rather have the $125 000 that they would save by buying the .global domain as liquid capital to invest back into the business than instead of having a "stellar" name. Then there are also those who would rather have a stellar name because they don't need a cash injection into their business.

Bottom line is that these varied opinions is what creates a marketplace.

 

[dordomai]

Does that mean I am right and you are wrong? NO... it means we have different opinions.... guess what?. Much like us the rest of the human race also has different opinions. So if I see business.global as being a GOOD domain rest assured there would be loads of Human beings who would agree... just as they were would be loads of human beings who would agree with what you are saying

there would be 50/50 people preferring nGTLDs vs .com or even the majority preferring nGTLDs over .com because they are cheaper.

in reality, at least for startups it is something like 97% non-nGTLD vs 3% nGTLD.

The crowd decides that they don't like them. Despite nGTLDs costing much less.

I know why the crowd don't like them:

Word.Word is NOT better than WordWord.com
Text.Brand is NOT better than brand.com
Text.Word is NOT better than word.com
You can't advertise them in the real world. A large percentage will not get word.word while everyone gets Word.com
Unpredictable renewal prices, you don't know who is behind the extension. Will they still be around a few years from now?
Everyone is either under .com or ccTLD making a business under word.word seem like a pink zebra.

 

[slader23]

http://startupleague.online/

Thought some of you might like this initiative by Radix:

The Startup League is a unique initiative which rewards our most promising, early-stage startup clients. It is a program designed to provide a wide range of support, through a bouquet of free goodies, marketing support and sponsorships.

Startups using the following new top-level domains are eligible:

.tech .space .online .store .press .host .site .website



Anyone that is my age (20-25) and is just entering the domaining world understands the value in .coms but also realizes that for our generation its not whats going to be driving the domain markets further. NGTLD's are what people my age will be using and apart from the issue of name collisions this adoption, although many investors in .com may not want it to happen, will be continuing to proceed through a logical plot line, @168 provided a very clear and statistically driven timeline that I believe isn't very far off from being a near perfect prediction of whats to come, 2020 is the big year. The rigidity and incredibly high prices on premium ngtlds is a defensive strategy deployed by registrars to get rid of domainers, in other words, they not only want bake the cake...they want to eat it too. However, after a few years of testing this its become clear to some registrars (like .Club) that their expectations($$$$) and their pricing ($$$$) do not resonate nor comply with the current risk appetites of both end users and domainers alike. This has caused the more activist/forward thinking registrars to make price corrections and in some cases entirely eliminate/reduce premium pricing on domains they previously held, as well as reduce renewal fees. .Com will be unable to compete with this as their renewal prices will remain fixed at $7.85 until 2024.


If every ngtld had streamlined registration and renewal fees below $10, with no registry held premiums or registry held premiums in the sub 1k range with regular renewals, .com premiums would have devalued in price at an alarming rate because such immense price competition would create a huge correction in the values of premiums all across the board. This isn't the case in the current market but renewal costs and the prices of registry held premiums will continue to go down deep into the early 2020's for ngtlds.

This will be the death of .com IMHO...not now but in the coming future:

End User: If I could get Data.Center for $50k at regular renewals of $13.99 in comparison to DataCenter.com for $850k and a slightly cheaper renewal cost ($8), I'd pick the 1st one because not only am I getting a great name I'm also saving money on dev, marketing and maintenance costs as well as being in line with the standard renewal costs of a legacy tld. The person squatting on the .com will not have the same level of resources and as search algorithms evolve the traffic loss will lessen and eventually be completely elimated reducing the perceived advantage of having a "COM" to the right of the dot.

New Gen Domainer: If I could get Data.Center for $50k-$100k at the standard renewal price for my registrar, knowing that in a few years time the renewal price will be close to .com in comparison to DataCenter.com for $850k-$1.5 Million and the same/similar renewal cost then I will hold my ngtld to the Nth year and then execute price arbritrage testing the market for every year I own the name, until I can sell at a desirable profit (200%+) and leave room for the next guy to profit as the prices of new gtld premiums appreciate.

As long as the price of a premium ngtld is lower than the .com the ngtld domainer will benefit greatly due to the inefficiency in price. However, this kind of arbitrage will not last very long as legacy .com owners will be forced to bring down the prices of their premiums to remain competitive. This is how equilibrium will be found as one comes up the other must go down, correcting until they meet.

Ex.
Year 2017
Data.Center Renewal ($13.99)
$50k
DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$1.5Million

Year 2018
Data.Center Renewal($13)
$100k

DataCenter.com (Standard Renewal)
$1.3Million

Year 2019

Data.Center($11) <----Agressive Renewal Price reductions begin
$200k

DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$1.1 Million

Year 2020
Data.Center (Renewal $10)
$375k

DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$900k

Year 2021

Data.Center(Renewal $9)
$550k

DataCenter.com (Standard Renewal)
$800k

Year 2022

Data.Center(Renewal $8.5 PRICE STABILIZES)
Price $650k

DataCentre.com(Standard Renewal)
Price $750k

Year 2023

Price Arbitrage for NGTLD domainers ends, New GTLD adoption completes. The end result will be reduced prices for domain names across ALL levels.

After this point .COM's will become less valuable than comparable new G's, this will happen near the end of their current price contract with ICANN in 2024.



Full Disclosure: I am 90% invested in .coms, the ngtlds I do hold however, are all long term positions and I will be continuing to add more in the coming months. I look for dropped ngtld premiums and occasionally purchase registry premiums that maintain regular renewal costs (no more than .IO renewal costs). I plan to reduce my portfolio size to 30 domains by the end of 2017 15 will be .com (a mixture of liquids and non english premiums) and 15 will be high quality ngtlds (I currently own emd ngtlds like Rapid.Repair and Fishing.Tools but I'm looking for better ones). I consider my cctld portfolio (.ca, .co.uk,.tv)to be a separate asset class. My plan isn't entirely rigid because...the future is uncertain but good balance will be beneficial in the long run.

 

[deez007]

there would be 50/50 people preferring nGTLDs vs .com or even the majority preferring nGTLDs over .com because they are cheaper.

in reality, at least for startups it is something like 97% non-nGTLD vs 3% nGTLD.

The crowd decides that they don't like them. Despite nGTLDs costing much less.

I know why the crowd don't like them:

Word.Word is NOT better than WordWord.com
Text.Brand is NOT better than brand.com
Text.Word is NOT better than word.com
You can't advertise them in the real world. A large percentage will not get word.word while everyone gets Word.com
Unpredictable renewal prices, you don't know who is behind the extension. Will they still be around a few years from now?
Everyone is either under .com or ccTLD making a business under word.word seem like a pink zebra.

"there would be 50/50 people preferring nGTLDs vs .com" - Ummm based on what? Why assume there would a 50/50 preference? If you expect a 50/50 split in preference over matter of a few years compared to .coms that have ingrained into the population for the past 20+ years then I think you are way of base.

97% of start-ups and all of that blah blah blah is based on current stats...if you have been reading what most of us have been saying then you would realize that we have said over and over and over again that the market still needs time to mature.

Either way it makes no difference because it does not matter what I say or what anyone says. You are stuck in .com domainer mentality and refuse to consider the possibilities. That's you choice and your opinion and you are entitled to it. I don't get into these discussions anymore because it's pointless, it's an endless debate.

 

[eurorealtor]

Well lets look at it like this.

Business.com vs Business.global

Business.com - purchase price: $150 000 (that was back in 1997) + 10 years renewal ( $100) that = $150 100 for total cost of ownership over 10 years.

Business.global - purchase price: $25 000 (in 2016) + 10 years renewal (.Global uses normal renewal even for premium domains - $60 on average) thats $600 = $25 600 for total cost of ownership for 10 years.

Business.com = $150 100
Business.global = $25 600

Why would you want to even compare Business.com to Business.global???
I would compare BusinessGlobal.com to Business.global

BusinessGlobal.com - 10x$15=$150 per decade
Business.Global - 10x$60=$600 per decade.

Hope you see my point

 

[Aaron.A]

.Net beats any nGTLD by a long shot IMO, and that's simply fell of a cliff. Logic would suggest that if nGTLD's were getting mind share with end users .Net would be rising instead of falling .

nGTLD's won't effect the ccTLD market whatsoever at any time in the future because they can never be clearer and more trustworthy than an extension that says we are from your country and more than likely local.

The other day I got an inbound offer on one of my .CO.UK domains which I countered. The end user rejected the counter so I messaged him back saying sorry I can't go any lower on the price and informed him he could register the .UK version for £1 at fasthosts. A few hours later he messaged me back accepting the counter offer. The .UK is still free to reg £xxx's cheaper. This tells me what I need to know!

I personally don't believe the state of the nGTLD market is good enough to invest in yet, but I hope I'm wrong so all of the folks who have can make good returns.

 

[DaveX]

Here's the issue...

We are domain investors debating something that is clear. Investing carries risk. Some less and some more, but clear risk.

Fact is, I watch reported sales every day, and most are .com by far.

It may take years for gTLD's to really catch on. I will say, it seems to be happening relatively quickly. It is almost impossible to predict exactly when or if.

In the final analysis, domain investing/collecting/flipping is about business. Run a good solid business and the extension doesn't matter.

Like any business, most domainers won't make it past 2 years. The ones that do, have obviously found a pattern of buying and selling that works.

Let me add a personal note. I carefully read and learn from those that have been doing this for a long time. People like Deez and Kate are probably just a notch below the top domainers we read about in the domain news. I respect the words of those like Kate that have been around this forum for 10+ years. I have found that their advice and experience are very insightful.

Good luck to everyone that has found their way to domain name investing. May the domain gods smile on you and may you reach all of your goals.

 

[deez007]

Why would you want to even compare Business.com to Business.global???
I would compare BusinessGlobal.com to Business.global

BusinessGlobal.com - 10x$15=$150 per decade
Business.Global - 10x$60=$600 per decade.

Hope you see my point

Nope... you comparing a two word domain with a single word domain. So your comparison is not correct. I am also basing my figures on actual sales figures as per namebio... business.com sold for $150k and business.global sold for $25 000

 

[deez007]

Here's the issue...

We are domain investors debating something that is clear. Investing carries risk. Some less and some more, but clear risk.

Fact is, I watch reported sales every day, and most are .com by far.

It may take years for gTLD's to really catch on. I will say, it seems to be happening relatively quickly. It is almost impossible to predict exactly when or if.

In the final analysis, domain investing/collecting/flipping is about business. Run a good solid business and the extension doesn't matter.

Like any business, most domainers won't make it past 2 years. The ones that do, have obviously found a pattern of buying and selling that works.

Let me add a personal note. I carefully read and learn from those that have been doing this for a long time. People like Deez and Kate are probably just a notch below the top domainers we read about in the domain news. I respect the words of those like Kate that have been around this forum for 10+ years. I have found that their advice and experience are very insightful.

Good luck to everyone that has found their way to domain name investing. May the domain gods smile on you and may you reach all of your goals.

Lol...well said mate, totally agree with you on everything...

Except: I'm by no means anywhere near as experienced as Kate when it comes to domaining. I'm highly flattered by you thinking I'm just a notch below some of the top domainers everyone reads about...thanks for that ...however, I consider myself to be a good few notches down...lol - I'm merely a student of life... I have solid experience in marketing and finding market trends as well finding patterns in data...but as you said, nobody knows for sure whats going to happen... only time will tell - I make no claims of KNOWING what the market will do.. lol

 

[DaveX]

Lol...well said mate, totally agree with you on everything...

Except: I'm by no means anywhere near as experienced as Kate when it comes to domaining. I'm highly flattered by you thinking I'm just a notch below some of the top domainers everyone reads about...thanks for that ...however, I consider myself to be a good few notches down...lol - I'm merely a student of life... I have solid experience in marketing and finding market trends as well finding patterns in data...but as you said, nobody knows for sure whats going to happen... only time will tell

What you think is "merely" is much more.

 

[.NJ]

History always repeats itself.

This time history is just on a larger scale....

It's right in front of your face.

You just have to open your eyes to see it.

 

[HotKey]

History always repeats itself.

This time history is just on a larger scale....

It's right in front of your face.

You just have to open your eyes to see it.

Eyes are open...
everything is ClearAs.Glass

 

[dordomai]

.Net beats any nGTLD by a long shot IMO, and that's simply fell of a cliff. Logic would suggest that if nGTLD's were getting mind share with end users .Net would be rising instead of falling .

nGTLD's won't effect the ccTLD market whatsoever at any time in the future because they can never be clearer and more trustworthy than an extension that says we are from your country and more than likely local.

The other day I got an inbound offer on one of my .CO.UK domains which I countered. The end user rejected the counter so I messaged him back saying sorry I can't go any lower on the price and informed him he could register the .UK version for £1 at fasthosts. A few hours later he messaged me back accepting the counter offer. The .UK is still free to reg £xxx's cheaper. This tells me what I need to know!

I personally don't believe the state of the nGTLD market is good enough to invest in yet, but I hope I'm wrong so all of the folks who have can make good returns.

if .uk doesn't make it .word won't either.

 

[Bram C.]

Nope... you comparing a two word domain with a single word domain. So your comparison is not correct. I am also basing my figures on actual sales figures as per namebio... business.com sold for $150k and business.global sold for $25 000

BusinessGlobal.com is a 2 word domain.
I consider Business.Global a 2 word domain as well.

BusinessGlobal.com and Business.global use the exact same keywords after all. The only "advantage" Business.global may have over BusinessGlobal.com is that its 3 characters shorter. But if almost nobody knows it's a real URL then what do these 3 characters matter? I wonder what would happen if you would ask 100 random people in the street to go to the website "business dot global"? I have a feeling many of those will end up at either businessglobal.com or business.global.com.

Besides isn't that the whole point of most new gTLDs to start with? To find some keyword combination before and after the dot that makes sense? But in your example the right of the dot is conveniently left out so you can come to the conclusion that the one-word domain business.com will be more expensive.

The way I see it: Business.com is a truly premium domain, business.global however is as "premium" as BusinessGlobal.com would be. Anyone could have told you that an ultra premium domain such as business.com will always be more expensive (and valuable) compared to a domain such as Business.global, and this without looking at any sales data.

Imo Business.global should be compared to BusinessGlobal.com, and not Business.com. It would for example make little sense for a pizzeria business serving pizzas in a local town area to use a domain like Pizza.global.

So let's do the math using some actual namebio sales data:

BusinessGlobal.com vs Business.global

BusinessGlobal.com - purchase price: $3,688 (Sold in 2008) + 10 years renewal ( $90) = $3,778 for total cost of ownership for 10 years.

Business.global - purchase price: $25 000 (in 2016) + 10 years renewal (.Global uses normal renewal even for premium domains - $60 on average) thats $600 = $25 600 for total cost of ownership for 10 years.

BusinessGlobal.com = $3,778 (and with $9 yearly renewals from that point on)
Business.global = $25,600 (and with $60 yearly renewals from that point on)

If I was an end user I would know what domain I would take.