There is no next King, that battle has already been fought and won. The battle is more for, who's going to be the best alternative extension.
The argument matters to very few people - those who have invested or hold a significant part of their future. The larger your portfolio wealth the more you have to lose. The wrong perspective is being used here by most people. It's not about "what will be the next big thing to make me a lot of money" it's about "what will be the next big thing that could COST me a lot of money". No one here is going to invest in the next big TLD names and make it rich.. some people with a valuable portfolio might lose a lot.
If you're on this forum asking about the future of TLDs you're not looking in the right industry, or, at the right future. The money will always be in entrepreneurship. The dynamics of naming and accessing information will improve and the goal of major investment to own that space directly competes with the naming space. Search engines and platforms want to remove the whole notion of "xxxxx.com"
The only survivors in terms of name are likely to be the top 1-2% of names which no-one here holds. This is because they are inherently brandable or usable as a platform or access to information. NewYork.com will likely be valuable even if the name space changes drastically.
"How much longer will it be before netflix says hey, we can have .netflix for our videos. familyguy.netflix. csi.netflix."
How come no one questions how we remember it's netflix and not netflicks? Because people aren't as dumb and stupid as domainers seem to think they are.
You have to understand, a lot of these big companies know a little something about marketing, something that seems to get lost on a lot of people. There is no need for a change, no need to confuse their customers, there is no benefit at all to do such a thing.
Domainers are always saying that businesses don't understand the value of traffic. It's almost refreshing to hear that some don't underestimate the prowess of some of the marketing agencies around the world.
Answer: you'll lose traffic. Pretty much everyone outside this industry assumes all urls are .com, thus if you have site.pro, ppl will more than likely try to access your website with sitepro.com
This is an argument hammered home by the big boys everyday. The question is - what is that traffic worth?
If I bake cakes in a little town - does it matter than 1,000,000 people come to my little cakes.com website? Not a jot. The domain is worth far more than my business. It's far more important that everyone in my little town gets to my cake shop. This is nowhere near as difficult as it used to be.
Not every domain buyer wants to buy the globe. They want to buy something serious, something sensible, something valuable to their needs. I am 100% convinced that I can buy ANY local company a domain that works well for their business for under $5000. For most? Under $1000. For a lot? Under $300.
or they'll forget the .pro & type in site.com. This is another reason owning a .com is an important thing.
It's important if you sell or monetize traffic. Some benefits also apply if you are a large company that can benefit from the traffic.
The only time you really have this issue to really be concerned about is if a LOCAL competitor has the same name in .com.
I would never say take TampaLandscape.net if someone had TampaLandscape.Com, for example. it's about knowing and understanding your market place. GreenGardens.net might be brilliant if GreenGardens.com is for some site in New York - they are NOT your competitor.
Most people can drive by a store and turn around and try again. The same is true for web searches. How many times do you think people search for a term.. not find what they are looking for and try searching again? Green Gardens.... too broad ... green gardens tampa... now we're talking. You're #1, you've got your local listing, your phone number is right there.
Most advertising is STILL word of mouth and local advertising. Most people do not run large global businesses. Then again - these aren't spending the big bucks on domains and aren't who we are talking about here. We are all talking about Ford, Chevy, Chase, British Airways, Man U, etc.
Interesting point. Search engines have, to some extent, made the right of the dot redundant.
The new gTLDs will make this more so. You don't need anything right of the dot. I've worked for companies that used the .COM for extranet, .net for intranet - they don't need that anymore. They control their own namespace 100% of the time.
Visit us at BankOfAmerica no dot, no nothing.
There's something that you are missing. The market position of .com means that people don't really have to remember the .com part of the domain name or url. They do have to remember the .pro because that's an unfamiliar TLD. The Idaho domain above has a lot of anchors that make it easy for people to remember and the geographical term immediately puts it in a context that they can remember moreso than a simple one word generic domain name.
Most one word names are TOO generic. We can talk all day about one worders but they are purely brand plays. No one looks for Books or Shoes, or televisions. They look for "A book", "red dress shoes", etc. keyword generics however are not marketable. No one really wants their store to be called "Shoes".
This is why things like CatFood.com aren't that impressive to businesses it's worth ONLY the traffic. Most people are looking for Whiskas or whatever cats eat.
I think it remains to be seen if IdahoAluminumCarburetors.com is more memorable than Carburetors.pro.
I know which is more meaningful. One is in Idaho and specializes in Al Carburetors.. the other is something to do with carburetors?
If I had to pick, I'd go with Carburetors.pro for my own business.
I'd go for it on my business card but I'd redirect it to the .com
Of course Carburetors.com would kick my ass by getting more traffic, and I'd have to compete like hell to compensate, but compared to more convoluted, longer, harder-to-type .COMs I'd stand a pretty good chance, I think.
This is only a problem if they are a direct competitor. Most likely they are an ad site and your best bet would be to put an ad for Carburetors.Pro on their leadgen site. If you can't compete, use them.
It's your prerogative, but why haven't end users been flocking to .pro and other alternate extensions if they are credible alternatives.
They are credible. They work exactly the same way as every .com. There is no real reason why one is more or less credible EXCEPT that people are used to .com. Don't get me wrong - I think that .COM makes sense (especially given the statement I made earlier with <$1000) but you can make good sense of .TV, .PRO, .US if you want. It depends on what entiry you are and want to be. I wouldn't put a lawyer on a .biz for example but I may put a handyman on a .pro. The markets are different the expectations are different.
A person comes to estimate the price of your new pool. Do you go with the one that drives up in a suit and bentley or the one that drives up in a truck with mud and equipment in the back? you have someone come to clean your fleet of cars- do you take the guy with the broken down looking van or the one with the shiny as heck ford diesel with all the gear professionally maintained. What difference would their domain url make to you in your recommendations to friends? All you need to remember is their name and location and you WILL find them because you WANT to. Different businesses have different needs.
It's also a question of credibility. When consumers see your business on a TLD that they are totally unfamiliar with, it's easy to dismiss you - maybe you're a scammer
You can use a .biz but you'll still look cheap. No longer viable when you run a high-profile operation.
This is true. I'm going to run a poll one day to prove a point. You need to buy an expensive camera for a wedding.
You can only go to the following sites. Rank in order which site you think would be the most likely to fulfill your need.
camera.com
Bhphotovideo.com
amazon.com
ritzcamera.com
I would bet that camera.com would be last in almost all cases for people under the age of 40. We've learned to not trust keyword domains.
I would not include .NYC in that group. New York has a very strong identity and if the registry does its job well, it will perform like a genuine ccTLD (rather than a repurposed ccTLD like .co).
More speculation on what will and won't work
That's what makes things interesting.
The success of all these tlds, imho, will be based on what their business model is. If you must have a store/presence to be allowed to register a .NYC and it must be developed? Then you have something. If not? The whole thing will provide nothing better than a newyork.com or a nyc.co. Who cares?
The value of the tld is in the platform and in the method of use.
The internet is changing. Addressing the internet is changing. The structure, organization, and method of access are ALL changing. The needs and the purpose are changing. Most traffic on the interest will not be people based in the future... if the people with the money that create the platform .NYC for example do it right.. there will never be a need to register any domain with "ny" or "new york" in it. The problem is that you have to TRUST the platform and that's the toughest component. The internet is still for cowboys and will be until someone makes a bold change - that bold change will be greatly rewarded.
The internet is not trustworthy outside of known brands. That's why Amazon.com is now successful but JoesStoreSomewhere.biz isn't. What domainers have wrong is that its somehow the .com vs .biz that violates the trust. It's not. it's called branding, marketing and investment in mindshare. Yes. Mindshare. That's the most critical marketing of all... the piece of someone's mind you can convince to trust you. it's what Barack and Mitt are trying to do every day (but doing the opposite).
Anyway, that's my bullshit post for the year. There's always one. It's too long to read and gets ignored. The next post will be "I like .Co coz it's great" and Johname will thank me and if all is right with the world.
Bottom line. No one here has an effing clue what's going to be happening because no one here is DRIVING the CHANGE. If you are? Let me know, I'd love to be a part of it.
