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

 

[DBADT2007]

From this news, it seems that ICANN is actually trying to eliminate the need of all extensions and make a great deal of money in the process. So the effect is detrimental to all TLD, including the King (.com). Could the (.com) be de-throwned???

Think about this for a second:
http://www.google.com -> google
http://www.yahoo.com -> yahoo
http://www.microsoft.com -> microsoft
http://www.ebay.com -> ebay
http://www.mcdonalds.com -> mcdonalds
http://www.hollywood.com -> hollywood
http://www.losangeles.com -> los angeles
http://www.cars.com -> cars
http://www.baby.com -> baby
http://www.television.com -> television
http://www.videos.com -> videos
http://www.xxx.com -> xxx
http://www.yourcompany.com -> YourCompany
http://www.yourgeo.com -> YourGeo
http://www.yourkeyword.com -> YourKeyword
...

Need I go on? This could end it all for domainers on all fronts, period! So, while all domainers were bickering at who had the best premium domains in what extensions and which ones would fail in those other extensions, little did anyone realize it was heading to an elimination of all TLD/ccTLDs. Hmm, imagine that- everyone looses.

What is better?
men.com for $1million or "men" for $39k to $300k?

...
If memory serves me right didn't everyone use to type in win.com from a command prompt DOS to start Windows, and made searches on DOS for files with extensions, only to now have your system boot to Windows and have all your files with hidden extensions and just do searches on the file names? Hmm...
...

 

[-REECE-]

There are large companies out there who even today haven't recognized the need of having a professional logo -- large companies who pay a college kid from India $100 to get their logo designed...

I think it's very farfetched to think these same companies will anytime soon be shelling out $100,000 for their own extension.

If this hurts anything, it will be exotic cctlds and generics imho. I think it's much too early to say anything with certainty and I think we all (including 99% of the media reporting on this) know far too little about this to say anything which isn't pure conjecture at this point.

Assuming someone could get an extension like .sex for $100k, yes, I could certainly see that hurting the value of something like sex.com and devalue it to merely being worth a certain multiple of revenue. It doesn't seem like that's the way this is going to work however and it looks like something like .sex may very well end up selling for close to what sex.com sold for if they indeed opt to auction these off.

I doubt ICANN has even decided what they're going to do yet. They're full of talk (as always) - I'm really not aware of many organizations who spend more time procrastinating.

I still ask why they haven't released 1 letter .coms... This would have gotten them the money they claim they needed and would have resulted in far fewer headaches for everyone.

 

[shreder]

Will the extension owners be able to sell domains with their new purchased extension?
Say I purchase something like .mydomain, will I be able to sell a domain with my own extension?

This could be interesting...

 

[cityforums.com]

Will the extension owners be able to sell domains with their new purchased extension?
Say I purchase something like .mydomain, will I be able to sell a domain with my own extension?

This could be interesting...

Yes, you will be master of the url and can do as you please.

 

[bmugford]

There is a lot of speculation here.

First of all ICANN is not going to allow extensions under 3 letters, or extensions similar to others. So you are not going to see .COM typos, or .USA when there is a .US

Second, there is no way this happens anytime soon other than possibly TM names because.

1.) This will be a nightmare for Google, and without Google this is a non starter.
2.) If you think people who own domains like Sex.com, XXX.com, Poker.com, etc. won't lock this up in court for years you are dreaming.

There are just as many big time rich owners of those premium domains now that will fight to protect their brand.

 

[-REECE-]

Agree completely. These idiots who call themselves ICANN have been abusing their power for far too long and they won't get away with this one.

They're living in a dreamworld if they think companies like Marchex, Demand Media, Sedo, Thought Covergence, etc are going to be okay with this and not do everything in their power to see this never put into place.

I wonder how Google feels about having to come up with a brand new search algorithm because everyone is going to start going Black Hat on them...

This is going to get ugly. That's about all I'm sure of.

There is a lot of speculation here.

First of all ICANN is not going to allow extensions under 3 letters, or extensions similar to others. So you are not going to see .COM typos, or .USA when there is a .US

Second, there is no way this happens anytime soon other than possibly TM names because.

1.) This will be a nightmare for Google, and without Google this is a non starter.
2.) If you think people who own domains like Sex.com, XXX.com, Poker.com, etc. won't lock this up in court for years you are dreaming.

There are just as many big time rich owners of those premium domains now that will fight to protect their brand.

 

[raredn.com]

This icann statement, makes me want to hold my .com's more, I was considering letting some keywords drop, but after the statement, I continue to renew them, as I think quality variety .com is going to be the prize catch, if this icann thing ever goes through uncontested

 

[GreenGambler]

I just saw a clip about this on my local, small town, news. Seems to be making alot of noise. They keep reffering to it as people able to reg their own domain names. I'm like, " we already can!", LOL, "It's domain extension".. hah

 

[Badger]

Already the main stream media over here are signaling the end to the domain industry

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2707.xml

 

[bmugford]

Already the main stream media over here are signaling the end to the domain industry

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2707.xml

I love media outlets writing a story when they have no clue what they are talking about.

 

[raredn.com]

Already the main stream media over here are signaling the end to the domain industry

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2707.xml

Agree Brad, that story was the biggest load of uneducated bull dust from start to finish. Starting with the McDonalds.com story: The true story goes: Quote from : technology.inc.com (although I do not approve of cybersqatting) "Quittner ended up selling the brand (mcdonalds.com) to the fast food giant, and donated the money to charity" If I remember correctly he got Mcdonalds to buy computers for a disadvantaged school

Kind of a different ending to the story to that of the 'bulldust' telegraph.co.uk article, Quote: "the cyber-squatter, was born in 1996 when Joshua Quittner of Wired magazine registered McDonalds.com and invited readers to email [email protected] with suggestion for what he should do with it. Opportunists bought up huge swathes of the web and sat on them in the hope that someone would come along and throw money at them. Those that weren't ignored were sometimes rewarded with a pay-off, sometimes with a court case"

The Telegraph article then procedes to talk a few more paragraphs of total and utter uneducated bulldust, with an underlying message that all domainers do, is buy trademarked domain names like Coca Cola and then try and extort the rightful owner. Noobs do that, not domainers :bah:

I can only hope that the journalist who wrote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2707.xml
Was a 'noob' or they have no excuse for dishing out such bulldust and no excuse for total lack of research, I will make up my own bulldust story as I go mentality

 

[ShangTsung]

Would you rather purchase an airline ticket from AA.COM or American.Airlines?

Would you rather visit Mcdonalds.food or MCD.COM? Short .COMS are obviously the best route there and will continue to be.

ICANN is a joke of an organization especially with their lousy excuse for reserving 1-letter .coms in 1993-2008.

If ICANN wants to disburse something of value they can start by releasing the one letter .coms (they have no right to reserve btw) and release them via random lottery to 23 people across the globe willing to pay a 10.00 registration fee.

 

[NameCharger]

Why isn't the ante $25k? $50k? or $75k? but $100k?? This business plan is obviously targeting corporations, expecting them to protect their marks @ $100k a piece.

As with most new tlds, this is simply a ploy to generate huge amounts of $$$.

Simplicity & over a decade and a half of end-user familiarity will trump icann.greed

 

[Beachie]

Already the main stream media over here are signaling the end to the domain industry

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/27/do2707.xml

That's the worst piece of journalism I've seen in years. He's probably bitter because someone else registered iandouglas.com before him. Hopefully he'll be fired in the next round of old-media redundancies..

 

[equity78]

Wow the telegraph comes off as ignorant, stupid and in need of counseling.

First off there are two types of extensions that could come out.

The corporate tld like .ebay
IMO domainers should not care about these because you have no right to any domain with EBAY in the name. So who cares this actually helps legitimate domainers vs squatters. Now someone with an EBAY .com domain would be totally worthless because the public would get to know .ebay real fast. So legit domainers lose nothing here. Who cares if there is a .ibm I do not have any right to any domain infringing the IBM Trademark.

Second Type of TLD the generic. .sex or .shop or .gfy
There will be tons of domainers lining up to get the best, so these will not be great hot developed websites. Someone will park Free.sex and be fine. Secondly the average person not a DOMAINER will type in at least 30% of the time www.free.sex.com. SEX.com gains traffic IMO.

There will also be a ton of Legal action and even if they cannot win they will tie it up for years and no .sex. Plus the govt will probably get involved in .xxx and .sex.

The corporations now have to go after squatters in 100 tld because is EBAY besides creating their cool .ebay, going to reg ebay.shop, ebay.store,ebay.web and 100 more. Because some idiot will. Again IMO

 

[Optinom]

Well, I think the Corporates will love this idea. Getting their own extension & proudly advertising it.. I'm sure they'd be happy. Plus, it reduces phishing possibilities.

I think 4 types of extensions wud be taken.

1. Corporate TLDs. Like .ebay, .ibm etc.

2. Generic - .shop, .sex etc.

3. Geo Targetted - Like .nyc, .berlin etc. I'm sure that the businesses in these cities would love these extensions. But, if the extensions would be charged $100k PER ANNUM (is it one time or per annum?), not sure if this one would bring ROI for many cities.

4. Free Domain Model (.go, .con etc) - I see a few short extensions being used for giving away free domains to hundreds of thousands of users (thus making it popular), and then selling good keyword domains in that extension for a good fee. This method clubbed with advertising on "free" websites can bring in decent ROI.

I do see the value of .com, .net & .orgs coming down, atleast a little bit. .coms are still the most valuable for big companies - that is only to prevent lost traffic.

 

[H-O-V]

We should get an investment group going. $1000 x 500 people = $500,000 = ~ a tld

Just a thought

 

[Optinom]

The corporations now have to go after squatters in 100 tld because is EBAY besides creating their cool .ebay, going to reg ebay.shop, ebay.store,ebay.web and 100 more. Because some idiot will. Again IMO

I don't think that can happen. The one who owns .shop has spent $100k & he wouldn't want to lose his rights to the extension and the money invested by trying to do something stupid!

Domainsquatters can do with normal .com / .net domains, coz they put only $7 into a domain they register. They have nothing to lose!

 

[equity78]

Not what I am talking about, IMO whoever gets .shop is going to want to sell domains, not just have an extension and do nothing with ,and some have said it will be mandatory to run the extension. You will sell domains like .mobi or .asia etc.........

 

[Pred]

Agree completely. These idiots who call themselves ICANN have been abusing their power for far too long and they won't get away with this one.

They're living in a dreamworld if they think companies like Marchex, Demand Media, Sedo, Thought Covergence, etc are going to be okay with this and not do everything in their power to see this never put into place.

I wonder how Google feels about having to come up with a brand new search algorithm because everyone is going to start going Black Hat on them...

This is going to get ugly. That's about all I'm sure of.

:sold: