New TLDs on the way
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is really considering to keep everyone busy in 2009 and flood the market with new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). A video from Rocket Boom is a good summary on the subject:
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Myself I think will go for .art - in the end of the day, it will certain.ly be much more popular jingle than .tel, tell me the opposite?
Short link:
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Copy - http://links2.me/~4K32$4b
January 9th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I have heard a lot of industry frustration about .tel coming out.
Whoever bought it, what they offer is only a simple address book. If I am a John Smith I cannot alter smith.tel as a conventional domain and neither can I create john.smith.tel or anna.smith.tehl …
In fact, 99% of users would prefer to save their contacts with extra privacy barriers and with other establish providers.
So why bother?
June 4th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Recent Technology Quarter.ly in The Economist is bring this one level up to the space.
.MARS – Computing: A modified version of the iInternet’s communications protocol, devised for interplanetary use, is being tested by spacecraft.
Read the article on the paper’s web site:
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/tq/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=13725833
January 27th, 2010 at 7:30 am
IDNs (International Domain Names) are already on their way: http://idn.icann.org/
January 27th, 2010 at 7:36 am
And a good video from Tina Dam: http://www.genericcctlds.com/2010/01/14/miss-idn/
March 17th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
CANON has just announced about its intention to go for .canon top-level domain name:
http://www.canon.com/news/2010/mar16e.html
November 5th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
A good article covering the topic form the marketing and branding prospective: http://www.circleid.com/posts/a_new_internet_extension_can_compete_with_com/
April 14th, 2011 at 9:52 pm
When I saw first time .ME – I knew it would be a good marketing tool so I rushed in for good names. I was #3 at landrush auctions by number, #17 buy cash, and #253 or something by price per domain. Coming from finance, I always check things in Excel.
.CO was short – I had once a lunch with Juan and I told him that this is a good extension and long term has future. My research shows that hardly any domain name longer than 12 chars makes it. .CO is and will be the shortest base. The only problem was the price. To get any good name I would have to pay at least five times more when we paid for .ME – this kills the financial part, at least by some fives years. So I enjoyed observing all those names go. Some domainers make good money there, with names like angel.co – they stand great future. Still less is left to domain investors though.
As to new TLDs, I spend a year making rounds in the City of London talking to my friends in private equity – we could raise $5m and the idea was to buy 5-10 .sexy name, .ART, .PET, .HOTEL were on the list. I spent a year trying to put numbers together and failed. I would have to put some of my money on the table to get the funding so passed, at least for the moment.
If new TLDs will even go ahead, the battle with the US government is not over, good luck ICANN, I am not part of it. My believe is that even if things go according to the best case scenario, 90%-95% of new tlds will fail financially. So you have to spread the bets – a difficult task.
Marketing wise it will be difficult mission too. Can you see all those 1000 new tlds competing for registrars and registrations? If that all happens in one year, .com will lose market share, it does lose it anyway, not that fast though. The erosion of .COM as a dominant tld as well as new approach to search and online branding (no keywords bonuses soon from Google et al) – short and brandable names will always have good value – the rest will break even or struggle.
This is my view on the matter presented in 10 minutes. I can write a PhD on it I guess now with all the info accumulated in the past years.
April 16th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Dutch are trying to hack the infrastructure and to allow any new TLDs right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEPvBz3nrn8