question What would happen if .Info were released today?

[garptrader]

Given enthusiasm for new TLD releases, what do you think would happen if .INFO were released today?
Let's say NO registry reserved domains, NO premium renewals but the top five thousand keywords were auctioned off. What would be the response? Would .INFO quickly garner millions of registrations?

 

[Kate]

In the past, TLDs were released one by one, or in very small batches like .info in 2001 along with .biz and a few other turds. They were brought to the market in a context of limited competition.
.info being very broad in purpose, I think it would do better than most other extensions released today. 'Better' meaning: less worse.
But since .info remains a weak extension and a poor investment, in spite of being one of the most 'successful' of new extensions, I am wondering why domainers are expecting other TLDs to fare any better, considering that they are niche, restricted in scope and often more expensive than .com.
But we have seen that if you give domains away for free or very cheap, you can achieve hundreds of thousands of regs and even more in a short time.

 

[garptrader]

.Info is probably a best case scenario of what can happen when renewals are low and keywords are not registry reserved. I believe Federer had some success auctioning premium .Info. .Info at one point had over 8 million registrations but as the new TLD program kicked in that number quickly declined. That gives us an idea of how much speculation goes on in cheap generic extensions but how also how much cannabilization occurs when competing TLDs are released. Generally speaking most experienced domainers do.not view .Info as a desirable tld for investment purposes. I believe some developers have used it as a cheap alternative to expensive aftermarket domains in .com or .net. .Info has been around now for fifteen years and has millions of registrations. How many keyword .Info sales does one typically see on weekly DNJ reports?