Why Failed New gTLDs are Best for End Users

[Cool.Ventures]

For every failed new gTLD (unpopular, low registrations) is a great opportunity for end users to utilize the very reason new gTLDs are in existence (or supposed to be). We all know the real reason ICANN and the scamming Registries are selling them is strictly for a profit, not for the public's best interest.

So you're wondering what do I mean by failed = beneficial for end users: The end users have a better chance of getting exactly the name they want. For example, if .xyz flops, end users can get just about anythingtheywant.xyz. The more successful ones such as .guru have about the same issue as .com: Domainers especially and a few end users took every possible name that makes any sense.

 

[mhdoc]

I saw studies years ago that indicated home buyers did better than real estate investors at buying homes that appreciated. I can imagine the same process going on with domains.

Another comparison is that most small businesses work for wages or less most of their lives and then make a bundle when they sell their real estate. There is also a joke that farmers live poor and die rich.

I can imagine someone buying a domain they like, using it for 20-30 years and then discovering it is worth a lot at the end.

 

[Kate]

Now let's talk about what really happens in the real world. Can you give us examples of prominent websites you know and visit on a daily basis or fairly often, that are hosted on 'failed' TLDs ?
You could as well have a great mansion in the middle of the desert, that nobody knows exists.

 

[Cool.Ventures]

I saw studies years ago that indicated home buyers did better than real estate investors at buying homes that appreciated. I can imagine the same process going on with domains.

Another comparison is that most small businesses work for wages or less most of their lives and then make a bundle when they sell their real estate. There is also a joke that farmers live poor and die rich.

I can imagine someone buying a domain they like, using it for 20-30 years and then discovering it is worth a lot at the end.

Yes, and that's all based on supply and demand. You can't make any more farm land or places to put homes. You can make more gTLDs.

 

[Rado_Ch]

The more successful ones such as .guru have about the same issue as .com: Domainers especially and a few end users took every possible name that makes any sense.

Currently the .guru registered domains are a little below 50 000. Do you mean to tell me that this comes close to "every possible name that makes any sense"? Hardly. And as @sdsinc implied there is something very weird with this logic as a whole - benefit from getting something that nobody else wants anyway? Its like shopping from places with the most stock, not the ones with the products we want/need

 

[OTF]

Now let's talk about what really happens in the real world. Can you give us examples of prominent websites you know and visit on a daily basis or fairly often, that are hosted on 'failed' TLDs ?
You could as well have a great mansion in the middle of the desert, that nobody knows exists.

What a stupid question. The new generic domains are just being released and you are asking what prominent websites are using them. Ask the same questions in five years and then you can declare the gTLDs are a bust.

I can imagine startups and new businesses picking up gTLD for new projects. At least I'm and my team is already working on a few of those projects. Not that hard to put out a few seeds with generic TLDs.

 

[bmugford]

Can you give us examples of prominent websites you know and visit on a daily basis or fairly often, that are hosted on 'failed' TLDs ?

What a stupid question. The new generic domains are just being released and you are asking what prominent websites are using them. Ask the same questions in five years and then you can declare the gTLDs are a bust.

Where did she say anything about new gTLD?

There are 1M+ .mobi regs. How many of those do you visit?

How about .tel, .travel, .asia, .aero, .museum. .coop, .jobs, .pro, etc. All those have been out for many years. How many of those do you visit?

The bottom line is not many people want to build their business on an obscure extension with basically no awareness.

Brad

 

[Cool.Ventures]

Where did she say anything about new gTLD?

There are 1M+ .mobi regs. How many of those do you visit?

How about .tel, .travel, .asia, .aero, .museum. .coop, .jobs, .pro, etc. All those have been out for many years. How many of those do you visit?

The bottom line is not many people want to build their business on an obscure extension with basically no awareness.

Brad

I have NEVER visited a single .travel, .mobi, .coop, blah blah blah extension either. Not even once.

 

[garptrader]

Yes, there is considerable domainer speculation in all extensions. The launch of 100s of new TLDs will drain the pool of available funds to keep up. Unless you are a billionaire mass buying of new TLDs is a high risk proposition as any end user willing to accept a lower-cost alternative to the .COM or .Net will have many choices.

 

[OTF]

Where did she say anything about new gTLD?

There are 1M+ .mobi regs. How many of those do you visit?

How about .tel, .travel, .asia, .aero, .museum. .coop, .jobs, .pro, etc. All those have been out for many years. How many of those do you visit?

The bottom line is not many people want to build their business on an obscure extension with basically no awareness.

Brad

Sorry, but none of those are suitable for regular business website.
mobi = garbage meant for mobile use. At least should be .mobile
.tel = a phone domain?
.travel = not suitable unless you are travel website
.asia = maybe for some Chinese website
.aero = not suitable for any business even airlines
.museum = good for museum
.coop = what? useless, unless you want to sell chicken coops
.jobs = limited use, maybe job website
.pro = not suitable for business website nor ecommerce website

Any other useless TLDs you want to discuss?

Hey, dont get me wrong, majority of the new generic domains are junk too and I would not touch them, but I can imagine some of them will be getting good action.

I'm holding bunch of domains since the 90s so why not to hold few of the new generic ones for a few years

 

[scandiman]

Where did she say anything about new gTLD?

There are 1M+ .mobi regs. How many of those do you visit?

How about .tel, .travel, .asia, .aero, .museum. .coop, .jobs, .pro, etc. All those have been out for many years. How many of those do you visit?

The bottom line is not many people want to build their business on an obscure extension with basically no awareness.

Brad

Well, let's see. My local international airport uses sacramento.aero (correction/addition: that's the local airport authority that runs 4 airports, smf.aero, sac.aero, mhr.aero and f72.aero that each redirect to their respective sacramento.aero pages, so 5 local uses of .aero), a good local food co-op uses davisfood.coop, was just researching some vacation ideas at canada.travel, I almost daily read cnn.mobi, foxnews.mobi, circleid.mobi and weather.mobi, have encountered a few .museum sites but don't recall the names right now. Local county govt uses saccounty.net, neighboring county uses edcgov.us, city uses cityofsacramento.org, state uses ca.gov. The main university in town uses csus.edu, the more prestigious regional university uses ucdavis.edu, and the local community colleges and private schools also use .edu. My wife's employer with about $9 billion (that's with a B) in annual revenue uses .org. Don't recall encountering the others in your list but yea I regularly deal with non-com tlds. Sometimes I wonder if domainers live in bubbles.

---------- Post added at 12:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 AM ----------

Sorry, but none of those are suitable for regular business website.
mobi = garbage meant for mobile use. At least should be .mobile
.tel = a phone domain?
.travel = not suitable unless you are travel website
.asia = maybe for some Chinese website
.aero = not suitable for any business even airlines
.museum = good for museum
.coop = what? useless, unless you want to sell chicken coops
.jobs = limited use, maybe job website
.pro = not suitable for business website nor ecommerce website

Any other useless TLDs you want to discuss?

Hey, dont get me wrong, majority of the new generic domains are junk too and I would not touch them, but I can imagine some of them will be getting good action.

I'm holding bunch of domains since the 90s so why not to hold few of the new generic ones for a few years

Are you the self appointed suitable .guru?

 

[Jasonn]

Sorry, but none of those are suitable for regular business website.
mobi = garbage meant for mobile use. At least should be .mobile
.tel = a phone domain?
.travel = not suitable unless you are travel website
.asia = maybe for some Chinese website
.aero = not suitable for any business even airlines
.museum = good for museum
.coop = what? useless, unless you want to sell chicken coops
.jobs = limited use, maybe job website
.pro = not suitable for business website nor ecommerce website

Any other useless TLDs you want to discuss?

Hey, dont get me wrong, majority of the new generic domains are junk too and I would not touch them, but I can imagine some of them will be getting good action.

I'm holding bunch of domains since the 90s so why not to hold few of the new generic ones for a few years

.pro is better than .guru

 

[Cool.Ventures]

.pro is better than .guru

I agree with that and am baffled by the obsession with guru which sounds so awkward and nerdy.

 

[carob]

A failed extension = one that cannot meet its running costs because there are too few registrations.

Not good for people who have built sites on that extension.

 

[Kate]

A few years ago .travel was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Other extensions are going to experience serious profitability problems, and find out they may not be viable economically.

So who wants to set up an online presence on shifting sands (or on top of a volcano) ?

 

[scandiman]

A few years ago .travel was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Other extensions are going to experience serious profitability problems, and find out they may not be viable economically.

So who wants to set up an online presence on shifting sands (or on top of a volcano) ?

.travel has plenty of regs, what they did was spend too much of the income and got bought out and is still moving forward. The public has no clue or care of that ancient history, they just enjoy visiting sites like Canada.travel

 

[Kate]

Plenty of regs is very relative. It's not a good sign when a TLD is losing a lot of regs.

 

[jmcc]

Plenty of regs is very relative. It's not a good sign when a TLD is losing a lot of regs.

Agree to a point. It really depends on what kind of regs are being lost. If they are undeveloped/PPC parked domains, then they are no great loss to anyone except the registry and registrars. However if the regs are fully developed websites then it is far more serious. There is a trend that shows up in web usage surveys best termed the Abandonment Rate. That's the number of websites where development has ceased. When that trend starts increasing, it is a major indication of trouble ahead for a TLD. There will always be some abandonment in the first year but when it increases after year two or three, then it is the precursor to large non-renewals.

Regards...jmcc

 

[scandiman]

Plenty of regs is very relative. It's not a good sign when a TLD is losing a lot of regs.

The much more important number to pay attention to is meaningful website development.

---------- Post added at 03:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Agree to a point. It really depends on what kind of regs are being lost. If they are undeveloped/PPC parked domains, then they are no great loss to anyone except the registry and registrars. However if the regs are fully developed websites then it is far more serious. There is a trend that shows up in web usage surveys best termed the Abandonment Rate. That's the number of websites where development has ceased. When that trend starts increasing, it is a major indication of trouble ahead for a TLD. There will always be some abandonment in the first year but when it increases after year two or three, then it is the precursor to large non-renewals.

Regards...jmcc

Are there bots doing meaningful tracking of this?

 

[jmcc]

Are there bots doing meaningful tracking of this?

Search engine operators do it all the time. I've seen COInternet use a consultancy that couldn't tell a Godaddy PPC lander from a genuine redirect. However after I published the results of a real web usage survey on .co, they toned down the numerology.

I'll probably run a survey over new gTLDs in the next month or two (it is a question of getting the time).

Regards...jmcc