Worse before it gets better

[julian]

The only thing I'm slightly worried about is the period of potential initial down turn, as public start flapping over which new extension they think they should have.

As much as I detest on3&on3, I have to give their marketing team credit for creating what looks like the promised land: http://www.1and1.co.uk/new-top-level-domains?linkOrigin=&linkId=ct.tab.ntld.domains&stage=ntld

It gives the impression that every extension that has gone before is old had thus besmirching .UK

Now we here who are privileged to stand upon the shoulders of giants are certain 98% most will flop within 6/12 months, but that's not something that is easy to convey to a naive market.

 

[diablo]

As much as I detest on3&on3, I have to give their marketing team credit for creating what looks like the promised land: http://www.1and1.co.uk/new-top-level-domains?linkOrigin=&linkId=ct.tab.ntld.domains&stage=ntld

Interesting to see they are showing over four million pre-orders for domains using the new extensions.

Pre-orders:
4,174,051
.WEB 169872
.ONLINE 118686
.SHOP 108073
.BLOG 92132
.APP 74020

 

[Edwin]

Interesting to see they are showing over four million pre-orders for domains using the new extensions.

Pre-orders:
4,174,051
.WEB 169872
.ONLINE 118686
.SHOP 108073
.BLOG 92132
.APP 74020

Means absolutely nothing, because they're allowing an unlimited number of preorders per domain. So there could be 100,000 preorders on 1 domain.

 

[diablo]

Means absolutely nothing, because they're allowing an unlimited number of preorders per domain. So there could be 100,000 preorders on 1 domain.

Absolutely nothing? Four million expressions of interest in unfamiliar domain extensions?

It's all too easy to be blinded by our own prejudices in favour of .uk. We are honest enough to admit that we don't even know how .uk v .co.uk will pan out so it is all the more surprising to see all other new extensions dismissed with such certainty.

Collectively they do pose a threat / opportunity, the size of both only time will tell.

 

[Edwin]

Absolutely nothing? Four million expressions of interest in unfamiliar domain extensions?

It's all too easy to be blinded by our own prejudices in favour of .uk. We are honest enough to admit that we don't even know how .uk v .co.uk will pan out so it is all the more surprising to see all other new extensions dismissed with such certainty.

Collectively they do pose a threat / opportunity, the size of both only time will tell.

I'm sorry, but you genuinely can't tell anything from the stated volume of preorders. There could be 10,000 preorders for something like sex.web or hotels.web or similar. There's no commitment, and no downpayment required unless I'm mistaken.

It will be incredibly educational to see what the actual registration numbers turn out to be immediately post-launch, because then it will be possible to calculate "unique interest" vs "total interest".

 

[websaway]

WEB 169872
.ONLINE 118686
.SHOP 108073
.BLOG 92132
.APP 74020

Why would any of these extensions be more successful than BIZ or INFO ?

 

[Skinner]

Lots of these will be new speculators who came late to the game, gambling on which will hold. Others will be domainers picking up prime generics, lots will be protective buys too.

WEB 169872
.ONLINE 118686
.SHOP 108073
.BLOG 92132
.APP 74020

Why would any of these extensions be more successful than BIZ or INFO ?

 

[diablo]

I'm sorry, but you genuinely can't tell anything from the stated volume of preorders. There could be 10,000 preorders for something like sex.web or hotels.web or similar. There's no commitment, and no downpayment required unless I'm mistaken.

It will be incredibly educational to see what the actual registration numbers turn out to be immediately post-launch, because then it will be possible to calculate "unique interest" vs "total interest".

Four million expressions of interest tells you something not nothing, whether that's interest in four million names or one. You may not want it to mean anything, but that's a different matter. :wink:

I'm not expecting the vast majority of the new extensions to be successful, but the collective success of those that do prove popular will have an impact. What that impact will be, we will see in due course, but I still think it's wishful thinking to dismiss them so readily prior to launch.

 

[aZooZa]

I don't see .uk losing out to this rubbish in the scheme of things. Seen it all before.

 

[websaway]

Four million expressions of interest tells you something not nothing, whether that's interest in four million names or one. You may not want it to mean anything, but that's a different matter. :wink:

I'm not expecting the vast majority of the new extensions to be successful, but the collective success of those that do prove popular will have an impact. What that impact will be, we will see in due course, but I still think it's wishful thinking to dismiss them so readily prior to launch.

I believe that some of the new tld's will bomb out and the rest will have the same impact as biz and info and no matter how much effort is made they will not get any real traction, they will be overshadowed by .com on a global scale and entirely by the 2nd and 3rd level extensions domestically. That's not saying that the owners of some of the new tld's won't make a packet on the project. ( I am not talking about registrations, more about resale market and development )

 

[ratboy]

Personally the only issue is someone who might have bought the .co.uk from me, but now has many FTR options when they do a domain search.

You'll see plenty of joeblogsplumber.online or whatever sites i'm sure.

 

[cm1975]

Personally the only issue is someone who might have bought the .co.uk from me, but now has many FTR options when they do a domain search.

They may still buy the co.uk or .uk, but may use the FTR options as a bargaining tool to get a lower the price.

 

[Murray]

Are they allowed to just flat out lie?

Improved search engine ranking

Matt Cutts on it - https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/4VaWg4TMM5F

 

[Edwin]

Four million expressions of interest tells you something not nothing, whether that's interest in four million names or one. You may not want it to mean anything, but that's a different matter. :wink:

I'm under no illusions that "wanting" anything makes it so... I genuinely believe that the numbers of pre-orders are so tiny as to be meaningless - de-duped, they could represent as little as a couple of thousand or so unique names across the most popular of the 700-odd new extensions, and so on down to a few dozen names or less for the more obscure.

 

[julian]

The way this is portrayed to the public is such that they believe they have a serious chance of securing firstname.blog etc - is that unscrupulous?

Obviously after seeing a 1+1 advert are going to punt on having firstname.blog - you can't blame people.

There must be some serious number crunching going down at the registries before release - everything application will be milked to death..

 

[jasman]

When you look at all the extensions on that page (and there will be many more further down the line) the choice is overwhelming. .info and .biz flopped with only established domains to compete against. How can any of these new domains succeed with hundreds or thousands of alternative extensions to compete with? OK most of them might sell a few thousand one-word generics, but many of them are niches so the universe of appropriate generics is restricted too (e.g. loans.pizza would be of no value!). I imagine some new registries will go bust too, unable to cover the running costs from the puny volume of registrations, and if no other successful registries are willing to take the extension over, registrants domains could be annihilated! So basing your business on one of these extensions could be risky.

Some extensions e.g. .sex are bound to have quite a bit of demand but the only model I could imagine working for most of these new extensions is if a big name gets behind it and and adds value vertically. E.g. If Blog.com or Blogger.com took over .blog and gave the names away free, .blog could establish itself as a respected extension. The domain would make sense, would be integrated with an already popular platform and being free would be taken up by users with little hesitation.

But other than cases like that, registrations will be dispersed over such a large pool of extension alternatives that no one extension will have many registrations. Even if some registries tried to compete by giving names away free for a period or for $1 each, there is the risk of people hoarding the best names and doing nothing with them, which would further block the chances that the extension might start being seen around the Web and become established. That's what happened with .info.

One thing is for sure, most of the new domains will have little resale value for speculators and investors because there will be such a big supply of alternatives so who is going to pay through the nose?

 

[Edwin]

Worth noting that many new GTLD are launching with crazy prices for "prime" domain pre-reservations. For example, have a little play with the search engine at http://www.mindsandmachines.com/ and take a look at some of the nutty stuff it spits up as related suggestions.

A few random examples:
bourgeois.horse €1,199.95
frenchlanguage.horse €5,999.95
universityofwestminster.horse €5,999.95
thenewyorktimes.horse €1,199.95
coaches.best €959.95
oxforduniversitypress.casa €5,999.95
legislativeassemblyofalberta.casa €5,999.95

Oh, and you have to add 23% VAT on top of those eye-popping prices.

So basically you have an extension such as .horse where about 50 domains make sense, tops, in any case - then you're trying to get people to pay 100x of times a "regular" registration fee for ridiculous junk. That is a perfect blueprint for failure.

 

[retired_member33]

Here you can find a list of all extensions: https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus

From my perspective people will stick to the extensions they know... Ze Germans will stick to .DE, Frenchies will stick to .FR etc... and everyone will stick to .com.

But who knows.. This might change.. I mean, did we 10 years ago expect to watch the news on an Iphone or Android app? Or expect to talk to each other via Whatsapp instead of ICQ, MSN Messenger or the good old text message?

I am working with a few companies and I have told them about these new extensions...Explaining them that they won't be of any interest in the coming years but that in the long run they might be interesting.

*I quickly typed this message, have to go out.. Sorry for any errors, back in a sec

 

[aZooZa]

Worth noting that many new GTLD are launching with crazy prices for "prime" domain pre-reservations. For example, have a little play with the search engine at http://www.mindsandmachines.com/ and take a look at some of the nutty stuff it spits up as related suggestions.

A few random examples:
bourgeois.horse €1,199.95
frenchlanguage.horse €5,999.95
universityofwestminster.horse €5,999.95
thenewyorktimes.horse €1,199.95
coaches.best €959.95
oxforduniversitypress.casa €5,999.95
legislativeassemblyofalberta.casa €5,999.95

Oh, and you have to add 23% VAT on top of those eye-popping prices.

So basically you have an extension such as .horse where about 50 domains make sense, tops, in any case - then you're trying to get people to pay 100x of times a "regular" registration fee for ridiculous junk. That is a perfect blueprint for failure.

Funniest post for a long time

 

[Systreg]

I can find plenty of sites talking about ordering these domains, but none say when they're being released, anyone know the date?