news The Domain Industry Is About To Change BIGTIME!!!

[daj]

The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed.

The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.

If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7468855.stm

 

[deleted984054565403]

""On balance, the board feels that adopting this resolution is in the best interests of the internet and the public at large," said Icann board member Dennis Jennings"

Yes sure
Is this translated to "The best interest of ICANN" ?

I'm afraid so. :td: A very money-hungry organization...

 

[cityforums.com]

Even though Marchex is trading at 50% of its highs, is it time to short at $13.20? Seems like the market hasn't reacted to this news. What about DBS in Australia (500k domain names)? It traded sideways yesterdays at 0.38c (although has also halved in 6 months).

Sell now and buy later if there is news that they plan to apply for an keyword

extension

 

[dotnom]

I still can't imagine how this will affect the .us.com / uk.com and the rest of the extensions of centralnic.com

I was a fan of "subdomain domains" and centralnic but these news from icann leave me with the expression "bliaxxx"

 

[labrocca]

So much dramatic panic. Are we a bunch of drama queens here? Jeez.

Icann says any string of letters can be registered as a domain, but there will be an independent arbitration process for people with grounds for objection.

I have yet to read where the relaxing of rules means that every extension will be approved and it's STILL costly to run an extension. How many will even bother....domainers won't as it will just dilute their own portfolios of CNO's.

So who is their target? Probably themselves. They just don't want to care anymore about making judgements over who gets a domain or not. They are just simplifying the process. Approval will be based on simpler things that don't require judgements of "Is it useful" or not.

As for the Kevin Ham typo's. I am positive that any existing extension would object to a typo of their business and rightfully so. If in 10 years there are 1000 extensions it won't really do much but cause confusion and push more people to the trust of CNO's. This is going to destroy mobi, info, and biz imho. Extensions that never took off in large numbers and now...never will.

I believe ICANN is tired of the little people getting screwed out of good domain names and having to settle for mylongestdomainnamewithkeyword.com. I believe this moves HELPS the internet greatly by allowing more significant sites being built with good keywords.

I think ICANN allows this because they understand that it will not impact CNO significantly.

 

[aki]

I think people misunderstand, like I did.

ICANN is looking for inspired and established entities to run new GTLD's, it's not looking for corporations to register and run their own gtld for their own purposes.
What they want is an entity that can make a gtld popular, like .net or .com.
They have a hardon for TLD's so it makes sense, but don't worry, the global market will decide if the new tld's are worth it, and they aren't.
ICANN fails to realize that value in tld's comes in scarcity, not availability.
With the relatively few people we have on this planet, for things to go rare and valuable we need some restrictions, and those restrictions are now being loosened, thus in the long run perhaps lowering .com value.

But what you need to understand is that those new tld's will have to compete with .com like everyone else (ie asia, mobi, info) and there's no guarantee they will succeed.

 

[Sam]

DOC SAVE the day PLEASE!!

 

[cityforums.com]

I think people misunderstand, like I did.

ICANN is looking for inspired and established entities to run new GTLD's, it's not looking for corporations to register and run their own gtld for their own purposes.
What they want is an entity that can make a gtld popular, like .net or .com.
They have a hardon for TLD's so it makes sense, but don't worry, the global market will decide if the new tld's are worth it, and they aren't.
ICANN fails to realize that value in tld's comes in scarcity, not availability.
With the relatively few people we have on this planet, for things to go rare and valuable we need some restrictions, and those restrictions are now being loosened, thus in the long run perhaps lowering .com value.

But what you need to understand is that those new tld's will have to compete with .com like everyone else (ie asia, mobi, info) and there's no guarantee they will succeed.

.xxx and .geos should succeed followed by .keyword ... once that happens

the mindset may change and crush the old fashioned .com

 

[aki]

cosmicray,

that's always a possibility, but maybe it's our job as domainers to follow the trend?
wherever theres money theres a market aye?

just don't give up entirely, there's very little detail about the system yet.

 

[dotnom]

I wouldn't even try to imagine that there is a crush coming for .com
TLDs are based on active sites, these are what makes the TLD popular and acceptable from the surfers and for new registrations
Unless there are the same or more sites under the .X TLD there is no fear for .com but i expect the high prices to fall and this is not good for any of us

I don't know if their confusion will turn them to .com
Confusion is always a weird situation that can lead you anywhere
Ads and marketing from the new TLDs will make clouds even darker
What if Bob Parsons decide to have his own TLD and support it the way he knows best (maybe he will release a .superbowl to match his ads)

In anycase this will have an impact on the prices of .com

 

[cityforums.com]

cosmicray,

that's always a possibility, but maybe it's our job as domainers to follow the trend?
wherever theres money theres a market aye?

just don't give up entirely, there's very little detail about the system yet.

I never said anything about giving up ... I just bought another .TV today ...

since everything is going .usefulorperish ... its all good.

 

[equity78]

http://www.thedomains.com/2008/06/26/icann-opens-flood-gates-to-new-extensions/#comments

Ron Jackson on http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2008/dailyposts/06-26-08.htm

I've spent most of today fielding calls from a wide variety of mainstream media outlets, including ABC News and the New York Times, about what impact ICANN's decision to allow

New Internet real estate
is expected to start coming off the
ICANN assembly line in 2009 or 2010
an unlimited number of new extensions will have on the Internet and those of us in the domain industry. As expected, the ICANN board voted to proceed with the plan today just before closing their 32nd International meeting in Paris, France.

I told the reporters that I don't expect this move to have a major impact on our industry or on which extensions most people will choose to build their websites on over the next decade. I believe that because we already have historical examples of how little new extensions have impacted the use and popularity of the three original global extensions, .com, .net, .org (and the country code extensions assigned to each nation like Germany's .de and Great Britain's

.co.uk). The two oldest examples of new global TLDs were introduced in 2001 (.info) and 2002 (.biz) and despite their long time in the marketplace, neither has affected values or usage of the extensions that came before them.

There are many newer examples that have fared much worse, not even moving the needle on the recognition meter. .Travel for instance has been a complete flop even though it incorporates one of the very best keywords on the web. .Pro has also failed to make a ripple despite featuring a word with a very positive connotation. It does take time to build recognition though, which is why I think the elder statesmen of new extensions - .info and .biz - are the most instructive examples of the long term prospects for a wave of new TLDs..

At the end of May, according to figures compiled by Denic.de, just under 5 million .info domains had been registered and just under 2 million .biz. .Info was able to inflate its numbers by offering extremely low or even free registrations. Both extensions were boosted by speculators who bought up the best keywords. I don't think that will happen to the same degree when a flood of new extensions hits the market for a couple of reasons; 1) It would be prohibitively expensive to buy up keywords across a large number of new extensions and 2) there is little incentive to buy them up in the first place because, beyond the absolute upper tier of keywords, neither .info or .biz has had a lot of success in the aftermarket.

I expect that a flood of new extensions will create some confusion in the marketplace, but not confusion over what the long proven .com, .net and .org extensions stand for. Putting new extensions out there is the easy part. Burning them into people's consciousness is a much taller order as .info and .biz, after seven years of trying, are well aware.

Some of the new extensions will probably offer some interesting niche or novelty plays that could be modestly profitable for speculators (just as .info and .biz have been for those who chose names very carefully) but overall I don't expect any of them to offer much of a departure from the .info and .biz scripts we have already seen. If anything the sheer volume of new extensions is likely to dilute the impact that any single one of them might have on the existing order of things.



As usual, the primary beneficiaries will be ICANN who will charge hefty fees to operate a new extension and possibly registrars who will have more products to peddle. Individual registrants will have more extensions to choose from, but they will face the same dilemma they face today. You can get good keywords for less in extensions that aren't widely used - but you also get less recognition (and thus a greater likelihood of errors) when people search for your website or type your email address. Like most other things in life you get what you pay for.

 

[VURG]

This could be quite good for .com owners. Bob Parsons or somebody similar pushing the price per domain down for alternatives forcing verisign to compete and making .com portfolios cheaper to own.

 

[CHILLY]

Whichever way this industry changing move impacts us all, for better or worse, it will indeed dramatically change the dynamics of domain investing.......... until end

Very interesting post, thank you

Can you or anybody else elaborate on this post from dn

"From my previous post "Eventually we will loose the concept of TLD and transition to DIRECT Keyword navigation. Just as Hotel.com is a category killer .hotel will become the new category killer. To see how this would work type in a random string of characters with the tld .ws. Notice you are not given a navigation error but an ad. When you own the tld ICANN gives you the right to handle how traffic is routed within that tld to include names NOT registered.

In essence ICANN is sponsoring a land rush for ultimate keyword category killers..."



It is not unusual for people to pay XXX,XXX for a good domain name. Now imagine getting the true lock, nuts, or whatever you want to call it on a keyword. This is bad because in many situations it may now be cheaper to buy the tld vice the .com version. For example, pizza.com recently sold for approximately $2 million. I'd gladly pay $150k for the tld .pizza and become the true direct navigation king of this term."

http://2837ehjfnvkxksje85686ikd3048fjfi.ws/

???

 

[equity78]

There will be auction bidding for any major keyword.

Sheraton is going to let Hilton have the .hotel extension ? While the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton sit back and watch too ? It will cost a lot more than $390,000 IMO And now the public will embrace .hotel ? Why did they not embrace a bigger keyword in .travel ? I think DUKE is 100 % right.

 

[Beachie]

Very interesting post, thank you

Can you or anybody else elaborate on this post from dn

"From my previous post "Eventually we will loose the concept of TLD and transition to DIRECT Keyword navigation. Just as Hotel.com is a category killer .hotel will become the new category killer. To see how this would work type in a random string of characters with the tld .ws. Notice you are not given a navigation error but an ad. When you own the tld ICANN gives you the right to handle how traffic is routed within that tld to include names NOT registered.

In essence ICANN is sponsoring a land rush for ultimate keyword category killers..."



It is not unusual for people to pay XXX,XXX for a good domain name. Now imagine getting the true lock, nuts, or whatever you want to call it on a keyword. This is bad because in many situations it may now be cheaper to buy the tld vice the .com version. For example, pizza.com recently sold for approximately $2 million. I'd gladly pay $150k for the tld .pizza and become the true direct navigation king of this term."

http://2837ehjfnvkxksje85686ikd3048fjfi.ws/

???

That post misses the point that no-one will be typing tallahassee.pizza or pepperoni.pizza, because the .pizza won't have enough market saturation to get widely known. Chances are, at $150k++ to operate a TLD, there aren't going to be a vast number of extensions. If you want to buy a watch there probably won't be a .watch extension, so people won't habitually type the extension when they're searching for something because 99% of the time it won't exist. If they do, they'll type www.watch and there's only one of those, making sports.watch or digital.watch nearly worthless even though the keywords are "A-grade".

The .travel extension already exists, but have you ever thought of typing peru.travel or train.travel? People will try peru.com, train.com or travel.com instead.

There will be auction bidding for any major keyword.

Sheraton is going to let Hilton have the .hotel extension ? While the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton sit back and watch too ? It will cost a lot more than $390,000 IMO And now the public will embrace .hotel ? Why did they not embrace a bigger keyword in .travel ? I think DUKE is 100 % right.

My guess is that ICANN will only allow a company to operate a generic extension if that company allows the public to register domains for that extension. They'll allow Hilton to own .hilton all to themselves, but they'll reject the application if Hilton apply for .hotel. Besides, why would Hilton want .hilton? It will confuse users - am I supposed to visit www.hilton, hilton.hilton, paris.hilton? Will anyone be typing any of those anyway, in which case is it worth outlaying that amount of money to own it when it's already obvious to the entire planet that their website is www.hilton.com.

 

[labrocca]

Duke has stated pretty much what I have been saying. That this won't effect CNO's and if anyone is going to suffer it's biz, info, and mobi. Yes if there is a catchy extension I might register a good keyword FOR DEVELOPMENT but as proven by major players in buying..it's dot com that sells. Dot com is king.

I am new soda company and let's pretend these are my choices:

BubblySoda.com
BubblySoda.net
BubblySoda.org
BubblySoda.info
BubblySoda.biz
BubblySoda.mobi
BubblySoda.soda
BubblySoda.can
BubblySoda.drink
BubblySoda.fresh
BubblySoda.fun
BubblySoda.web
BubblySoda.xxx
BubblySoda.all
BubblySoda.gr8


What do you think they do? The money will stay with dot com. Other players are just small game. Even when a non CNO takes off...they normally work on getting their CNO's by either WIPO or buying them. Del.icio.us for example (try delicious.com).

 

[KRL]

The timing and impact on current domain values will depend on how effectively ICANN implements this enhanced TLD system. If it's a relatively easy and fast process to acquire and get approved you'll see all the major domainers and lots of private investors, and Fortune 500 companies quickly going after the best TLD's.

The money won't be an issue. I handle mostly large domain deals in my brokerage company and there are already lots of guys in this biz who write $100K and up checks like its play money. But, in addition to the power players in the industry now, this will attract a whole new crop of entrepreneurs going after the enormous bonanza owning a TLD will provide. It's alll about the "dream" and what ICANN has just done is create the ultimate "dream" opportunity for a domain investor.

As crazy as it sounds, I bet ICANN would make more money doing the distributions by a lottery process vs. a highest bidder auction process. Let entrants for each generic TLD pay $1K to enter the lottery for it. With a good PR campaign they'd probably get 50,000 to 100,000 or even more entries on each, and then the winner would have the opportunity to transfer the rights to an approved company that would actually setup and run the registry for him or he could sell it to them. This would keep some fairness and equality in play. And that would net them about $50 Mil to $100 Mil per TLD issued. Even lowballing the numbers down to 10,000 entering ICANN would pull in $10 Mil per TLD.

If ICANN goes with an auction process, pack it in for even the largest players in the industry. The Fortune 500 companies and mega wealthy investors will be able to outbid even the biggest domainers.

But like I said in my prior post, this isn't the end of .com's, just a huge change in the dimensions of the playing field that domain investing strategies will have to be retuned for.

 

[raredn.com]

.blog would be good but when this takes place, any other extension that becomes of this, can go and jump in the lake IMO :tu:

.COM
.ORG
.NET
.
.
.
.
.
.
.what
.
.
.
.what
.
.
.
.
.what
.
.
.
.
.
.
.what

 

[Sam]

Dot com is king, but not for all countries. I'm sick of .com is king of the world. The world ain't one big chunk of place. I will be releasing some basic, but nifty info about cctld local dominance.

Sam

Duke has stated pretty much what I have been saying. That this won't effect CNO's and if anyone is going to suffer it's biz, info, and mobi. Yes if there is a catchy extension I might register a good keyword FOR DEVELOPMENT but as proven by major players in buying..it's dot com that sells. Dot com is king.

I am new soda company and let's pretend these are my choices:

BubblySoda.com
BubblySoda.net
BubblySoda.org
BubblySoda.info
BubblySoda.biz
BubblySoda.mobi
BubblySoda.soda
BubblySoda.can
BubblySoda.drink
BubblySoda.fresh
BubblySoda.fun
BubblySoda.web
BubblySoda.xxx
BubblySoda.all
BubblySoda.gr8


What do you think they do? The money will stay with dot com. Other players are just small game. Even when a non CNO takes off...they normally work on getting their CNO's by either WIPO or buying them. Del.icio.us for example (try delicious.com).

 

[raredn.com]

Dot com is king, but not for all countries. I'm sick of .com is king of the world. The world ain't one big chunk of place. I will be releasing some basic, but nifty info about cctld local dominance.

Sam

country code domain extensions are useful, because they represent a country, I have some myself. My main argument would be against a whole lot of uneccessary 'wannabe' fill space domain names that would be the result of this new Icann domain endeavor