.us Why hasn't .US lived up to expectations?

[dsiomtw]

Back when registration of .US names was initially offered to the general public, Harris Interactive did a poll and they found that "as many as 68 million Americans would choose .US if given a choice between the two Internet naming conventions." (the other being .com). So what happened? Clearly people are not registering and using .US names the way the poll indicated they would. If one was to just look at Neustar's site you'd think the whole thing was dead - their last press release was over 2 1/2 years ago, etc. etc. I'm trying to put all the pieces together and decide once and for all how I feel about investing in .US names for the future ...

On a related note, what is the best way to go about negotiating the purchase of .US names? I'm not much of a negotiator, but I need to learn. I'm thinking of buying a few premium names that the owner's have indicated they are willing to sell. They all just say "make an offer". These are premium names that would sell for low to mid xxx,xxx if they were .coms. I'm looking at all the past sales of .US names I can find, etc. but I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what the fair market value of these names are.

 

[downloadfreak]

I think .US has grown at a superb rate this year.

Jews.us recently sold for $25k

VOIP.us $25,000 AllNetServices 5/24/05
Foods.us $20,000 Sedo 10/4/05
Industry.us $17,000 Pvt Sale 3/15/05
Meningitis.us $15,000 Pvt Sale 11/22/05
CellPhones.us $12,250 Moniker/DomainsSystems 1/4/05
GourmetFoods.us $10,750 Sedo 10/11/05
OrganicFoods.us $10,000 Sedo 10/11/05
WholeFoods.us $10,000 Sedo 10/18/05

 

[maroulis]

agree here too... it will pick up.. it will be a LOOOONG time before you see ads on superball for something.US but still companies will snap up the domains soon...

patience...

 

[JoshHendo]

I would still pick a .com over a .us. For 1, I don't live in the US, though even if I did, it would still be the same.

 

[.Mike]

I think .US has grown at a superb rate this year.

I have got to agree, .us doing very nicely, just give it a little more time ...

As far as starting to learn the business dsiomtw, a great place is right here! Just do lots of searches: "how to negotiate" etc , however on this particular topic you will probably find everybody has a slightly different method / approach / opinion. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with. It is an individual’s personality which decides if they are going to be an average negotiator or a great one IMO.

FYI here is a link to the google results of everything .us in DNJournal: link

Best of luck %%-

 

[dsiomtw]

Thanks for all the replies. I've read almost every .US related post on the forums, I've read through everything at DNJournal, etc. I guess what I mean is that aside from domainers flipping and/or investing in the names, the general public hasn't really embraced .US yet, the way Harris' poll suggested they might. Harris is a very respected market research company that is usually spot on with their polls, so I just thought it was interesting. Aside from big companies just all of a sudden starting to use and promote .US sites, which is a crap shoot at this point, are there any other catalysts that could help kick start .US?

 

[.Mike]

... I guess what I mean is that aside from domainers flipping and/or investing in the names, the general public hasn't really embraced .US yet ...

I wouldn't agree with that at all dsiomtw, the following stats speak for themselves (using good old google):

.net websites: 205mil

.us websites: 65.5mil

.biz websites: 7.18mil

You can go on, but what I am getting at is that .us isn't that far behind .net and is considerably more than .biz.

There are members of this forum who have a lot more experience and are far more knowledgeable in .us than I and I am sure your comments will be enough to get one or two posting

 

[Mark]

All I can say is - My highest dollar sale to date for just a domain (No Stats or website at all) is still a .us .... and I believe they are a great investment especially in the Industrial Generic area

You cant expect them to really climb any faster than they are - Its still a somewhat new extension compared to .com .net and even other Country Code extensions.

 

[Celdric]

Well, we should stop to watch the companies and start to find out what the millions and millions ordinary people think about domain names. I mean instead to dream of a million dollar homerun deal we should remember that the web is a mass market. Sell many domains for low prices and you get rich also. Deliver the people a good reason why they should own a US domain, and probably they will register one. And that's what missing in my opinon. No one told the US people such a good reason yet.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

These things take time... .US needs time to mature.

.Info names werent doing that bad, but now they are on the rise!

- Luke

 

[wot]

Dot us has recently taken it's big "baby steps" and from here I can only see it going in leaps and bounds. :imho:

Considering it is such a young country and made up predominately of immigrants it has to be be one of the most patriotic of them all, they will embrace their own internet identity in the coming years and that is .US

As for general knowledge of the extension, I barely knew what a .com was just four years ago, not so today.

Get investing- probably the best investment opportunity of all the country codes.

 

[dsiomtw]

I wouldn't agree with that at all dsiomtw, the following stats speak for themselves (using good old google):

Well I think you're comparing apples to oranges when you do this. Many huge companies have setup mirror sites, etc. on .US domains, just because they "have to". For example, check out hitachi.us - they have over 16,000 pages indexed in Google. I could give you dozens of examples of big corporate sites on .US domains that have 20,000, 30,000, even 50,000+ pages indexed in Google. So out of the 65 million .US pages that are indexed in Google, how many unique sites are there? Not nearly as many as you think. And how many are "live" sites that are being promoted? Even less. Hitachi is not going to set-up a site on .net or .biz, so I really think you are comparing apples to oranges there.

All I can say is - My highest dollar sale to date for just a domain (No Stats or website at all) is still a .us

That's great, but that doesn't really say anything. If I went out and bought a premium .ws name and a bunch of crap .coms and then tried to sell them all, I could say the same thing about my fabulous .ws name that I sold. Not trying to be a jerk, I'm just hoping to stimulate some serious discussion with this thread ...

Bottom line, the main catalysts to .US are either 1) Fortune 500 companies actually start using and promoting them and 2)the US loses control of the Internet. I can't really think of anything else that will cause .US names to "mature" in a meaningful way, and so I'm trying to figure out the likelihood of either of these scenarios happening. Can YOU think of anything else that will cause .US to see some real, sustainable growth? If it's just domainers speculating than it will be nothing more than a short-lived bubble ...

 

[equity78]

it seems like you have pretty much talked your self out of buying any .us names and that is your choice . THis is a subjective business people are not here to convince you on an extension either you like an ext or you don't but trying to figure out why HArris poll studies hav enot panned out is really an exercise in mental masturbation. THey didn't ok I do not think anyone who is pro.us cares about the harris poll. This is a small industry where people carve out niches. You are either a .commie, a traffic junky, developer, or new name space entrepreneur. Bottom line some people hate .us some love .us just like some people love .biz and others hate and the same can be said for every other ext. THere is no right answer this is not science too many times I see people are looking for scientific answers to a business that is anything but. Buy or don't buy, the ext will be fine with or without you.

2)the US loses control of the Internet. I can't really think of anything else that will cause .

AND what logic is that people would sell all their .coms and just reg .us makes no sense whatsover. "Mr Gates the US is no longer in control of the internet " Gates then Let Microsoft.com drop we are going with just the .us WOW sound logic

 

[dsiomtw]

it seems like you have pretty much talked your self out of buying any .us names

Not true at all, I just regged over 250 .US names today, and I'm seriously considering at least several premium .US names as I mentioned in my first post. Did you even read my posts?

THere is no right answer this is not science too many times I see people are looking for scientific answers

Doesn't sound like you read my posts. I'm not looking for "scientific answers". My post was asking for peoples opinions.

AND what logic is that people would sell all their .coms and just reg .us makes no sense

If the US lost control of the Internet that would 100% cause .US names to increase in value. Since you don't think so, that's helpful since it tells me how much value to put on YOUR opinions. I'm trying to have a serious discussion, you don't need to post.

 

[equity78]

First off I place no value on your opinion so I could really care less, secondly explain the value in .us 100 % going up if it lost control of the internet. THIRDLY the US has not lost control in the internet.

Doesn't sound like you read my posts. I'm not looking for "scientific answers". My post was asking for peoples opinions.

People gave you their opinions you disputed each of their opinions Aunty's Mark's so I am not sure the purpose of your mental masturbation and I am sure those that have done well with the .us extension don't care either.

 

[dsiomtw]

First off I place no value on your opinion so I could really care less

And this contributes to the thread how?

secondly explain the value in .us 100 % going up if it lost control of the internet

If the US lost control of the Internet, over time .com would cease to be the de facto extension in the minds of US Internet users. Other extensions such as US would benefit.

THIRDLY the US has not lost control in the internet.

I never said we did. I only suggested it was a possibility in the future. What thread are you reading??

People gave you their opinions you disputed each of their opinions

No I didn't, I simply disagreed with a few things that were said and stated my own opinions in an attempt to further the discussion.

You're quite the character. Don't feel the need to reply because I won't be replying to any more of your mindless drivel.

 

[Binfus]

IMO, the time to buy good .US names in the aftermarket at *reasonable* (read: speculator-investor) prices is fast running out...for instance, just a few months ago, one could easily buy a (major city)homes/realestate.us for high two may be low three figures, no more...low 4 figures is the lowest sellers would generally go on this category....same with law-related, hotel-related and other popular categories. From what I hear, there's another major 5-figure .us sale coming out next Tuesday...word has gotten around ! There are still, however, some decent unregged names left if you know how to look off the beaten path !

 

[CrazyTech]

Without getting into who sold what and how many of these are registered, I think everyone just needs to take a step back and look at the whole picture.

Number one, the Harris poll is nothing more than a very, very small glimpse of what the entire population says.

Number two, and more importantly, the Harris poll itself acknowledges that there is indeed a .us extension; the person being polled may or may not have known about it beforehand. This is something that the majority of average American internet users simply don't know yet - everything has been and continues to be promoted as .com on the internet though that is starting to change. The extension hasn't really been fully promoted and it hasn't caught on yet.

There's certainly no failure in that.

 

[Kate]

IMO now is the time to invest in .us (if you haven't already).
2005 has been a very good year for .us indeed and my belief is that prices will now continue to rise as more and more of the best names are running out.

Even though .Com is still the king it makes sense to diversify one's portfolio and some ccTLDs are hot... right now .us is a opportunity that can sell in the mid-term. I also think we will see more and more nice .ca (Canada) sales, to a lesser extent cause the Canadian market is not that large.
Also it is worthwhile to look beyond the "narrow" borders. There is also a healthy market with .co.uk, .de and even .ru which is often unnoticed but nonetheless interesting.

The fact is, more and more business are now online or have an online presence. They simply cannot do without a (good) name. If they can't have a good .com at an affordable price then they will resort to a decent .us instead (many decent .us are still available for reg fee but not for long).
As .us awareness increases within the public at large more and more companies will settle for the US ccTLD. .COM will still be the king but ccTLDs will also gain value over time.

 

[-db-]

I had a really long post ready to go, but I decided to refrain myself from posting it because I don't want to sound like a .US cheerleader (again). Lord knows I've been involved in dozens of other similar threads before, and I've posted my heart out, only to have some people remain negative & closed minded. Ultimately there is no way to bring a person up to date on the .US scene within a single forum thread. You need to research and learn more, and the only way to do that is over time, gaining experience and getting your hands dirty.

I will say a couple things.

....are there any other catalysts that could help kick start .US?

The .US name-space has already been kick started. I'm surprised this still needs to be pointed out to anybody.

Harris Interactive did a poll and they found....

It seems the reason you feel .US is not successful is because that poll was overwhelmingly positive towards it, and it hasn't lived up to the prediction. If you are going to use that poll as the main measuring stick, then of course you will be disappointed. Casual online polls are not always accurate. If they were, we wouldn't need to bother with official elections for politicians, sports teams wouldn't need to play each other, Ashley Simpson would not be allowed to make another record :p etc. etc. etc.

.US has enjoyed a nice year, with sales and recognition growing. There is nothing that I've seen that indicates it's direction in the future will be headed anywhere but UP.

 

[.Mike]

Dear dsiomtw,

People above have tried to have an intelligent conversation / discussion with and have tried to give you help and guidance, all you have done is been offensive and argumentative for the sake of being argumentative IMO. I personally find this highly unprofessional and totally unnecessary. We are a community who generally improve our knowledge and ‘game play’ by sharing information and assisting each other where we can.

From what I have read you don’t want a discussion on domains but an argument. You will find that you will become very lonely at NP if you continue in this way IMO.

As Equity78 said, you do appear to have made your mind up already on .us. Although you do seem slightly confused, if I was so uncertain in a market as you obviously are in .us I wouldn’t be spending $xxxx investing in it…

Best of luck in whatever you do.

 

[wow!]

Every step depend on which name you want.
Example: If I could get WirelessPhone.com sure I would get it before WirelessPhone.us
But I couldnt and its value is much higher , so I was lucky to get
the .us
I think the .us market would be great only for strong keywords and brand names.
High traffic is still a problem for .us domains , but it'll change.
Anyway... every extention need a good timing.
Take it easy , it is only a domaining game...

 

[Carlton]

... If one was to just look at Neustar's site you'd think the whole thing was dead.

It's true that the .us registry has done little to promote, but that is true about all of the registries. There is no significant ongoing marketing for any of the extensions. That aside, .US is far from dead and is actually very viable. The adoption is gradual and real. It was commented in this thread that time is running out for getting in at yesterday's prices. You can believe it.

 

[Fundraiser]

There are members of this forum who have a lot more experience and are far more knowledgeable in .us than I and I am sure your comments will be enough to get one or two posting

Some have posted but the others are too busy prospecting for dot us domains because in watching the market (including published and unpublished sales along with inquiries from buyers) they know what is happening. Sharing too much knowledge of a thriving name space drives up acquisition costs.

 

[Binfus]

Sharing too much knowledge of a thriving name space drives up acquisition costs.

Not only that, it also dries up the supply of decent unregged names...there're still some to be had especially if one knows how to look for them; my activity over these last three months at just one registrar:

.us Registrations: 231
.biz Registrations: 20
.com Registrations: 11
.info Registrations: 6
.net Registrations: 1

Total new Registrations: 269

Having said that I'm not really sure how, at this point in time, one can mine over a couple of hundred of these worthwhile names in just one day like the thread starter noted above....I used to do that when I first began domaining almost six years ago...you learn by payting the price!