.us .us domains really heating up.

[fonzie_007]

.us domains really seem to be heating up. LLL.us are selling like crazy and Sedo just disclosed roommates.us sold for $10k.

What are your thoughts on the .us market? Have you invested in .us domains? Where do you see the future of .us domains going?

 

[matt_bodis]

I actually think .us dried up. .info is on the rise instead.

 

[equity78]

Sold My LLL.us awhile back PKR.us to an end user for $500 and then the other 10 for like $40 each which was good since they all had at least one x,y,z,q,u,k,j,w,v
Held on to my favorite one xnx.us

Just picked up what I thought were three excellent ones for the money
PrepaidPhones
HawaiianVacation
ChristmasTrees
own a couple others like prfirms, faster and rattlesnakes.
Bought a bunch to go with the mobile themed portfolio been building
MobileTrade
MobileTrader
MobileShopping
MobileEmail
MobileMaps

and other theme is TV
Sexytv
Bluetv
Sixtv
Talktv
WetTv own Wet.tv so made sense to reg this one just for the heck

.us seems to be picking up, it seems as if it the small business choice over .biz IMO

 

[Jo]

I think .us will just get more popular as will .ca as the internet population rises. I forsee many more big sales in the future.

 

[gazzip]

I think the .us market is definetly going to pick up steam - Thanks in part to the .eu launch JMO only way is up but it may take 2 or 3 years.

If I owned any I would sit on them for sure, I don't own any as I am what you guys call a Limey !


.

 

[Kate]

Ya I would rather go for .us instead of .biz (for a US business).
After all .us is America's TLD, .com belong to the whole world. ccTLDs are well established in many countries, especially Europe. I don't see why it would not pick up in the US. I think that the more .us becomes fashionable, the more people will let their "dot-com only" mentality aside.

 

[equity78]

I agree Kate I did think years ago that .biz would be the small business choice but it apparently is not.

 

[capiche]

They're definitely long-term holds, but I think they'll prove valuable over time as more options dry up for .com and American businesses need something else.
I have seen things happen in .com though, that I think may slow down .us and other extensions a bit, which is people just willing to accept lesser quality .com names, just because they're .com.

Look at how many hyphenated .com's have been selling lately or look at the long 2-3 word phrase domains. Of course not all of these are huge sales, but it goes to show that some people just won't let go of .com.

 

[seeker]

I guess 'heat' is relative as is everything else.
the .us ccTLD has performed poorly IMHO with a few notable exceptions coming from a very few collective sources.
(I feel the same way about .eu, If not worse).
look, if you are in the market to make a few $$, then yes, it is getting better (which is expected for the age and maturity of the .us ccTLD)
but making a killer sale.... thats a different story.
obviously, there is no argument about .com being #1, and maybe some argument about net being 2nd (although it is a fact it is #2), and org, even info bettering it.
If you want to wait enough, the simple answer is yes, someday, someone may ask to buy your .us domain.
But realistically, it is not a short/medium term extension that will make you money.

All this of course applies to 'good' .us names. not superb .us names.
anything between good to nice is a long long wait IMHO.

 

[BigCharlie]

.US names are a short-term and long-term sell. If you asked 1,000 random people in the world if they ever heard of it I would guess that most would look at you like you were an alien. No amount of Generic Name sales examples will convince me otherwise. You guys are playing with yourselves with this extention and it can never be relevant since .com is associated with the United States. Most of the names floating around are 3rd string junior varsity names anyways....always trying to re-invent the language...even with this lousy step-child of an extention.

Some .info names at least make sense, but they literally give them away so how valuable can they be? If you ever watch Antiques Road Show you will see that the most valuable items are items that rich people have. Dotcom equals the Haves, and most other extentions are, by definition, the Have Nots. All of these crazy extentions really make dotcom look that much better.

Can you imagine a major corporation having their site as a .us address (without owning the dotcom)? Neither can I.

 

[Grrilla]

Prices for LLL .us at TDNAM would, certainly, indicate a rise in popularity and would paint a bright picture for the future, IMHO. Additionally, the prices are significant enough to offset concerns about what class of buyers are making the purchases.
In the keyword arena, my searches have been picking up an interesting trend which would support the notion that the state of .us market is improving. Slowly but steadily, I have been seeing an increase of instances where the .us domain is taken, in lieu, of one or more of the tld's being avail. This is in stark contrast to 1 1/2- 2 years ago when, if there were an ext available, one could bet that it would be the .us. (I search the tld's + .us, so other cctlds are not included in this comparison.) It is not surprising, anymore, to see a term taken in the .com, .net and .us namespaces w/ the other tld's avail. A couple of years ago, this would have been such a novelty that it would have gotten a post.

The total number of registrations have not been making the dramatic climb that some of the other cctlds have, but much of this can be attributed to the shakedown that .US is still experiencing as speculators continue to drop lower quality names that were held over from the landrush. Smart marketers are still picking up good drops and available names that dropped an slipped through the net. The cumulative effect is that the keyword quality of the .us market has increased as the owner's base has become more stable and secure. Excluding the first, none of the gtlds/cctlds can escape these growing pains. This includes .eu, because it is, still, in it's infancy and carries over to older namespaces such as, .info and .be, due to recent promotions.

 

[johnny6]

Can you imagine a major corporation having their site as a .us address (without owning the dotcom)? Neither can I.

I can imagine Volvo advertising ONLY .us extensions on their commercials here. That count?

 

[Grrilla]

You guys are playing with yourselves

I'm not playing with myself. But, it must be an activity that you enjoy doing more often than what would be considered normal and something that you give more than an averege amount of thought to, if it represents the best description that you can come up with to make your point.

 

[domainica]

I don't think .us is going anywhere. If you have good .us names, the best thing you can do is to sell them cheap to me before they become worthless. :hehe:

 

[BigCharlie]

Most people are just passing 3rd string .us names back and forth, so they are playing the game with themsleves (not a lot of end-user interest). I don't have a problem with people chasing low-value names with no future, but since type-in traffic is the best traffic and .us names will not get type-ins (except from the speculators typing in the names), then the extention is doomed.

Internet Stocks with no earnings were defended vigorously in the late 90's. You still have a few more years of defending lousy extentions and then you will be forced to move on to another (Possibly IDNs). If you can't see why dotcom and type-in traffic is king then maybe it makes sense to buy extentions that no one has ever heard of except domainers.

It was called the Dotcom Bubble and it is currently the Dotcom Revolution. That is pretty tough to overcome. You can fight it all you want, but in the end you will just get run-over. Owning a bunch of third-string .us names is a sure-fire way to bankruptcy. You can trade back and forth for a while longer and then I'm afraid the results will speak for themselves.

 

[-db-]

BigCharlie,

You mention "third-string" and "low-value" .US domains.

What about first-string and high-value .US domains? Do you feel they are worthless too?

So anything besides .COM is a waste of time, correct?

 

[gazzip]

Here's some nice .us sales listed at DNjournal - They look good to me !

1995 sales

VOIP.us $25,000 5/24/2005 AllNetServices.com
Jews.us $25,000 12/13/2005 Sedo
Foods.us $20,000 10/4/2005 Sedo
Industry.us $17,000 3/15/2005 Pvt Sale
Meningitis.us $15,000 11/22/2005 Pvt Sale
CellPhones.us $12,250 1/4/2005 Moniker/Domain Systems
GourmetFoods.us $10,750 10/11/2005 Sedo
WholeFoods.us $10,000 10/18/2005 Sedo
OrganicFoods.us $10,000 10/11/2005 Sedo
Connect.us $7,500 4/5/2005 Sedo
AMA.us $5,000 4/26/2005 Afternic
OrganicFood.us $4,500 10/25/2005 Pvt Sale
GourmetFood.us $4,500 10/25/2005 Pvt Sale
FAFSA.us $4,200 12/20/2005 Afternic
Honolulu.us $4,000 7/19/2005 Pvt Sale
Dot.us $2,200 1/11/2005 Pvt Sale
CBA.us $1,250 7/5/2005 Afternic
GCC.us $1,200 7/12/2005 Pvt Sale

1996 sales

Jew.us $29,500 Sedo 1/17/06
Football.us $18,510 Sedo 3/7/06
Roommates.us $10,000 Sedo 6/20/06
Sales.us $8,000 Sedo 3/28/06
Sale.us $7,750 Sedo 4/4/06
Classifieds.us $7,000 Pvt Sale 2/28/06

 

[BigCharlie]

BigCharlie,

You mention "third-string" and "low-value" .US domains.

What about first-string and high-value .US domains? Do you feel they are worthless too?

So anything besides .COM is a waste of time, correct?

Cars.us would be a good one. Other generic terms could be equally as good. The problem is that I cannot see where it is would be wise to invest in .us names.

For one, if you are doing great with dotcoms (everyone should be able to do so), then I don't know why you would chase other extentions unless you had an edge or advantage....and I don't define an edge or advantage as being "the .us market will take off one day".

Secondly, if you aren't on your way to early retirement with dotcoms, then I cannot see how you will do well in other extentions. In fact, the odds are extremely stacked against you. The best names have a "sky is the limit" quality to them and .us just can't get there. Just like regular Real Estate. There certainly are a number of people who have made money in districts with bad schools and a high crime rate (tax sales would be one way of doing it), but you have too many things going against you, and you will never get the long-term appreciation of the exclusive areas.

It is really about settling for less. Not everyone can get the girl, I guess. Most people, if they cannot get the prettiest girl, will settle on something that they really aren't too excited about (metaphorically speaking...when talking about getting the girl). Kinda like having a job you hate, but rationalizing it because it will provide good benefits in twenty years.

The trend in domain names for most new investors is to get as far away as possible from the truly great names. If I save one person from heading down that lonely and miserable road then it is worth it. It is a big black hole. Remember, they traded useless Internet Stocks back and forth for many years before the gig was up. At the end of the day there was nothing left to support the fantasy (i.e. earnings).

 

[equity78]

Charlie I understand where you are coming from, but some things you make too simplistic

1) For one, if you are doing great with dotcoms (everyone should be able to do so),
How does a new investor or a kid with $1000 do great in .com ?

2) The best names have a "sky is the limit" quality to them and .us just can't get there.
I agree .com has that quality but you can make decent sales in the .us market not every sale has to be huge.

3)It is really about settling for less. Not everyone can get the girl, I guess. Most people, if they cannot get the prettiest girl, will settle on something that they really aren't too excited about

I agree settling sucks but lets be honest not everyone is going home with Eva Longoria so does everybody else just play pocket ball? or find an alternative?
Without big bucks how does someone get the prettiest DOMAIN?


IMO .com gives you the best opportunity to hit a home run, You can still hit singles and doubles with .us and 3000 singles gets you into the Hall of Fame

 

[DotUSDomains]

I don't think .us is going anywhere. If you have good .us names, the best thing you can do is to sell them cheap to me before they become worthless. :hehe:

You got me on that 1