Died On Arse + Experiment

[julian]

Seems all the new g'TLD hype has really died recently. Ads seem to be drying up. .London seems totally forgotten now along with rest.

Experiment

I tried a little test. Since Tuesday last week I have met 47 different people of whom I all know. All have different jobs and reasonably switched on with Internet etc, half work in office environments and run their own biz.

I asked every one if they heard of the new domains = .london and .guru (*the first nGTLD to launch so had lots of hype) not a single one had any clue as to wtf I was talking about..

 

[DaveP]

I asked every one if they heard of the new domains = .london and .guru (*the first nGTLD to launch so had lots of hype) not a single one had any clue as to wtf I was talking about..

I done the same to a ton of people (in my office over 300 people) and it was the same. lol not a good sign that's for sure, they didn't even know what I meant by .uk they kept saying "you mean co.uk or org.uk?".

 

[zehrila]

There was no hype bigger than .eu launch, with in days it had 100s of thousands of registrations, thousands of dummy registrars to capture .eu names, smart people registered premium names and sold them off while it was hot, but as time lapsed people started to forget .eu, meanwhile new cctlds came along and eventually all of them ate dust. I absolutely lost interest as .eu died, and almost no interest left in generic cctlds or gtld.

.London and majority of similar tlds will eat dust, the only cctld which is likely to work will be .uk

 

[diablo]

To be fair, I think everyone's focus has moved on to yesterday's launch of .ninja.

On a more serious note, out of those 47 people, how many knew about .uk's launch?

Talking to potential buyers since January, I haven't come across any that were aware that shorter .uk domain names were being made available from June.

 

[chrisduggan]

"you know, when you type the w w w into the address bar at the top"

"what's that?"

"the thing at the top of the page"

"oh.. googling"

 

[julian]

On a more serious note, out of those 47 people, how many knew about .uk's launch?

I forgot to ask most of them tbh, the few I did ask had no idea about .UK

I hope this nGTLD thing is flopping into oblivion - I've never wanted Edwin to be more prophetic than this moment in time..

 

[boxfish]

Booking.com have a TV advert out that promotes Booking.yeah

I didn't know if it was a real web address or not. It isn't.

I can see many people being the same about the new extensions and not realising it is a web address.

 

[diablo]

Booking.com have a TV advert out that promotes Booking.yeah

I didn't know if it was a real web address or not. It isn't.

I can see many people being the same about the new extensions and not realising it is a web address.

I saw that too and didn't know if it was a new TLD - it fails on so many levels.

Incredible the sort of nonsense that comes out of marketing people's mouths:

"The campaign transforms the word “booking” from a simple transaction and company name into an adjective for the sheer, unbridled joy and satisfaction when you open the door to your accommodation and know you’ve got it right. It is an adjective for those moments of delight that Booking.com uniquely delivers to its customers."

http://news.booking.com/booking-com...er-brand-campaign-created-for-the-u-s-market/

 

[websaway]

I forgot to ask most of them tbh, the few I did ask had no idea about .UK

I hope this nGTLD thing is flopping into oblivion - I've never wanted Edwin to be more prophetic than this moment in time..

I think that not only is he going to be proven to be correct, .com and .uk domains are becoming known as premium extensions.

But the landscape has changed and the user has become more selective about which names to use .com and .co.uk have come down to very affordable levels. £3k now get's a very good quality domain.
No better time to build a business around a top name.

 

[Blossom]

Might be more accurate to look at the sales figures, since 347 people aren't exactly a statistically valid sampling

 

[Adam H]

The every day joe blogs who isnt tech/internet savvy generally only thinks that the internet is .com and .co.uk which is why its always important to create a brand if your developing something thats going to be sustainable.

From an offline marketing perspective if you were telling a guy in the pub your website, he then forgets the extension when he gets home will automatically enter .co.uk or .com , if one of those belong to a competitor in the same niche you may have lost a sale etc.

Its not surprising that no one has heard of the new TLD's and i doubt they will for the foreseeable future until people start recommending them to the every day trades or people seeking keyword domains.

 

[Edwin]

Might be more accurate to look at the sales figures, since 347 people aren't exactly a statistically valid sampling

The sales figures for new GTLD sales to end users (per new GTLD) are approximately zero, rounded down.

If you dig into how many new GTLD are held by domain investment entities or even by entities closely connected to the registries themselves (yes, in a lot of cases, the registries are back-dooring the "best" names to closely related companies without ever making them available for registration) and how few registrations each new GTLD has, you'll see that my statement above is pretty much correct.

If you enjoy looking at stats, there's loads more data about the new GTLD here that you can slice and dice in all sorts of ways:
http://ntldstats.com/
http://namestat.org/
http://registrarstats.com/TLDDomainCounts.aspx
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/statistics

(if you notice slight discrepancies between the above data sources, it's most likely because the raw zone files being used are out of sync between the different sites by a day or so - shouldn't make a huge difference though)

 

[Edwin]

BTW, the new GTLD are so unintuitive that a no doubt very highly paid celebrity endorser can't actually get it right
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/05/26/news/50-cent-in-da-club-at-nyc-launch-event-video/

 

[Murray]

BTW, the new GTLD are so unintuitive that a no doubt very highly paid celebrity endorser can't actually get it right
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/05/26/news/50-cent-in-da-club-at-nyc-launch-event-video/

It's interesting 50cent doesn't seem to have the .club anywhere on his social media, just shop.50cent.com

I hope they didn't give him too muich.

 

[jasman]

BTW, the new GTLD are so unintuitive that a no doubt very highly paid celebrity endorser can't actually get it right
http://onlinedomain.com/2014/05/26/news/50-cent-in-da-club-at-nyc-launch-event-video/

Even the business owner stumbled when mentioning the domain. And what a terrible string to go with. They could obviously pick any string at all and yet they go with '50inda' for their exemplary domain.

 

[devilsrefugee]

my mates have no problem remembering my .sexy website.

And most of traffic is from Social media, who probably dont even look in the address bar.

I'm happy and saved thousands from not having to buy the .com version.

 

[Edwin]

It's just lucky they didn't hire this chap to promote .club
http://www.seal.com/

 

[websaway]

Interesting article on dnjournal regarding new gtld registrations

http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm

 

[Edwin]

Interesting article on dnjournal regarding new gtld registrations

http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm

Yes, the argument around the "fake" .xyz registration numbers has been raging for a few days already. First, the whole thing was denied. Next, it became apparent that yes, Network Solutions definitely had given .xyz free to some of their clients on an OPT OUT basis (and if you look at the jump in overnight registration numbers for each of the last few days, are continuing to do so). For the last 2-3 days at least it has become very clear that the majority of .xyz registrations are of that nature i.e. they're not bought-and-paid-for, sought-after registrations, but freebies that pad the registration count. Back these out of the total registration count, and .xyz wouldn't even break into the Top 20.

The only thing left unclear at this point (other than how long and how badly this will taint the .xyz extension going forward) is what the Registry knew i.e. did the impetus (and/or funds) for Network Solutions' grand giveaway come from them, or was it entirely a hands-off promotion that blindsided Registry insiders as much as it did the bloggerati?

I'm hopeful the answer to this last will become clear over the next few days, so that we can see how the full tale unfolded.

 

[jasman]

With all the descriptive and relevant new tlds on offer, .xyz seems like a really stupid choice. .info is a far better choice for a generic-sounding extension and that's failed to make a significant impression after 13 years despite little competition from new tld alternatives.

No doubt someone at the .xyz registry cottoned on to the fact that most of the new tld registrations are being made by domain speculators and that speculators are keeping an eye on reg counts to see which of the new tlds will lead the pack. So they hoped to boost the numbers. I foresee many desperate measures as registry after registry realises demand is low and competition very high. It's bad enough that they will have 700 alternative extensions to compete with, but the reality is most potential customers won't even see most of these extensions on offer when they do a domain search because the registrars can't feasibly offer 700 extensions on one page when someone does a lookup!