dot-COM growth has stalled for the last 12 months - after years of almost linear growth, that has to be seen as
highly significant.
dot-COM hasn't really been growing for over a year, and the vast majority of names are owned by speculators, but are worthless. You just have to read the valuation guide at Flippa to see a scathing condemnation of most portfolios that typically have a few really good names and then are padded out with 100s of long wordy dot-COMs that are never going to sell ... so you could argue "there aren't many good ones" never stopped dot-COM exploding.
I think the future for the nGTLDs is domain names you can actually say - we call them "[human]-readable-domain-names" - this will be the
killer app for the nGTLDs
When Windows introduced human-readable file names and swept away the old 8.3 file names of MS-DOS we all breathed a sigh of relief (geez, I'm showing my age!) - I think the same will be true of
readable-domain-names.
You just have to compare the on-line real-estate sites in the UK (Zoopla, Yopa, Tepilo, Emoov etc) with a domain like
homes,for,sale to see which is preferable.
If for dot-COM a general rule is no more than (say) 8 to 10 letters, when you start getting domain names that people can say (to each other & their phones), that use natural language, the rule book changes. This also applied to the fact that the demographic of the internet has changed (since the dot-COM boom), both in terms of users and devices - it's now dominated by less-technical people using mobile devices - devices people are more likely to talk to than type on.
Because of this shift in demographic, we're seeing 1000s of people a day trying to use our readable-domain-names becuase they simply have little or no understanding as to why they wouldn't work.
But surely, it's not an either-or argument - you can keep your main branding in dot-COM, but use a range of readable-domain-names in TV, radio, poster & leaflets to promote specific products and help people find them on your site.
You can be
sexywatches,com but still use
watches,for,men to help people find the
actual product they saw promoted - we call these WebShorts. QR codes are great, but hard to talk to a friend about.
Readable-domain-names let you promote just
your brand. If you are "Harrods of London", then
harrords,of,london (
sales@harrords,of,london) presents
your brand, and
only your brand, much better than
harrodsoflondon,com
Tweet a
readable-domain-name / WebShort and its clickable -
come and see our great watches,for,men, on discount till Feb - no ugly url shortening
When it comes to linking the real world with your online presence, which may be your primary way of generating actual sales, WebShorts come into their own - whether its TV, Radio, poster or billboard - if you can use a domain name people can say, they are more likely to remember it & tell their friends.
If you simply post your main brand URL, there can often be no end of frustration finding the actual product you saw. If people turn up to your site with money to spend, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to find the exact product they're looking for.
And then there's SEO - if your domain name matches the search term and you have relevant content, this can provide a significant boost to your rankings - right now our names have zero relevant content and yet we're already top ranking on a wide range of the readable-domain-names we have for sale.
Here's a pretty obscure search that acts as a good example - google "myC6is for sale" - despite the fact we have no Citroen C6 or Corvette C6 for sale, we dominate the front page of listings - taking places 1, 2, 3, 5 & 8 on the front page.
I heard, from a large nGTLD registry operator, that Google have said that where a search term matches
exactly a nGTLD domain name, they will highlight the listing - I've not seen any highlighting in practice - other than the standard emboldening.
I better stop there, otherwise I might go on forever
Apologies for the commas instead of dots in the domain names - I'm new here so not allowed to post actual domain names!
James