Any idea of what .menu names are worth?

[Spex]

So this is the first time I’ve ever participated in a landrush and registered one name, a decent name in my opinion, to see how the process works.

It’s a geo.menu (a pure geo, the exact name of the city and nothing else) of an American city with a population of well over 1 million

And to my surprise, I was able to get it even though it was sent to auction and I bid a minimum extra $10 just to see how the process would work..I was the only bidder and won

I know that .menu names can be great when paired with actual restaurant names (example: nobu.menu, olivegarden.menu) or types of food (example: pizza.menu, Italian.menu), but what is everyone’s thoughts on geo.menu names?

If you’ve registered .menu’s, what strategy did you take? I didn’t post my name, so I don’t expect you to post yours but you can post hints if you want

 

[Biggie]

basically, I see it being redundant for your described usage, as majority of "food service/servers" already have their "menu's" online.

menu's, as it were, are also biz model for such entities as grubhub


not to mention competition from .dining and 'places to eat' apps

additionally, the fact that it's not first come first serve, for keyword selection....is another factor all in itself.


imo....

 

[NameYourself]

Like any new TLD it is a gamble with the odds already against you. There really are no sales to go by because its so new. But it doesn't hurt to look at the past and see what might make this different. .Travel is a name that if it was coming out now everybody would scream is so promising.. its an entire industry, probably one of the highest $ markets online.. lets just say its big with lots of money flowing through it. Even back then there was buzz about this.. people got excited, and keep in mind there were only a few other non .com .net .org tlds at the time. Now we have 1000s of new extensions.. Does the scope and $ value of the .menu market even begin to compare with the .Travel industry, and what turned out to be the fate of that? I know this is only one example, but when I go and search for my own local city in .travel today and see that it is available and has been available for anyone.. what will make this or any of the other new extensions any different? I'm not saying forget any new tld investment in general, there are a few that have a bit of a place, but there must be a reason why.. and in my opinion I really don't see any viable reason for .menu. There may be some opportunity in flipping it to another new TLD investor before values diminish, but other than that I'm afraid there are no sales or significant reason why this should be any different. If you don't mind the gamble and losing what you spent on it though then its worth it to you and only you can make that important call. Sorry to sound pessimistic but there is an overdose of mass optimism right now with very little focus or physical basis for new investment.. there has to be a market to appraise and regardless of future anticipation we can't appraise something that has no sales yet. Aside from that, I'm looking for that reason beyond the same general "what if" scenario that everyone else is using to justify their new purchases.. and I just can't find it in a .menu.. personally If I'm looking for a menu, I'd go to the restaurant I know I want to go to and then view their menu, right on their site. There might be a place for a mobile app to pull in all these menus together in one place for a viewer.. but that is a technology issue, not something that a new tld would bring any advantage to on its own.. we'd need that technology to come packaged with .menu registration to give it that something extra, beyond the "what if" basis to register. Interested in hearing your views and reasons for optimism on it too though as you mentioned you normally don't invest in new tlds, all the best!

 

[Spex]

Interested in hearing your views and reasons for optimism on it too though as you mentioned you normally don't invest in new tlds, all the best!

Wow, great post and great question.

As for my views and reasons for optimism, like others have said, it's a gamble and since .menu is the first landrush "bet" i've ever made, it was a educational activity as well to see how the pre-order, auction, etc process works.

My optimistic view is that I can flip it for a decent multiple. My pesimistic view is that there is no market for it and I drop it. So worst case scenario I lose a few bucks, best case I make a few bucks


I did my homewrok though and ran through many gTLD's with a bunch of keywords and only went ahead with the best one I was able to find. Lots of city.menu's were taken and I picked the best (and the biggest) of the rest. I could have blown lots of money registering keywords that had nothing to do with the extension (example: florist.menu, bitcoin.photography) but I value my money enough to not pull those stunts.

 

[Gerry]

Hmm. pure speculation on a new extension and any notion of value would be pure speculation

The problem with many new extensions is (not only do they have to compete with present gTLD's) they will be competing with one another for the same namespace...ie, .menu may compete .cafe which may compete with .recipes which may compete with .kitchen which may compete with other ethnic group gTLD's or other country codes.

 

[Biggie]

The problem with many new extensions is (not only do they have to compete with present gTLD's) they will be competing with one another for the same namespace...ie, .menu may compete .cafe which may compete with .recipes which may compete with .kitchen which may compete with other ethnic group gTLD's or other country codes.

exactly the point which I was trying to draw, Gerry!

with so many new gtlds' in same niche' so to speak.... not only will competition be high, but availability of "choice" keywords will be lower

it's like 'they' (registries)took all the best one word terms and made .whatevers from them, then put all the best keyword combinations on reserve, to be auctioned later, or set premium registration/renewal costs for "select" group of top-tier terms.

so, basically what's left will be "low quality, hard to sell domain names".


imo...

 

[Spex]

Thanks for the responses guys, I went into this fully aware of the (many) risks and the (few) rewards.

Do I think the new gTLDs will over take the .COMs? No
Do I think the new gTLDs will over take the .ORGs and .NETs? No
Do I think the new gTLDs will over take the ccTLDs? No
Do I think the new gTLDs will split the rest of market? Who knows, and that's why I took a gamble with this one name. But don't get me wrong, 99.9% of my holdings are and will remain .COMs and the .CA ccTLD because they are safe.

 

[katherine]

Q: why is there a .menu TLD ?
A: because the registry is having you for lunch

 

[atomic]

This is a joke... .menu, seriously? If anyone buys a .menu slap yourself immediately.... No use for it whatsoever.... It does not even make sense, why in the hell would a business buy a whole domain name for their menu, or why would they buy it for a campaign? why? This is a joke!

But, you people keep wasting all your money, so I can get all the good .web's.... I guess the new gtld's explain the reason why I have been hand regging decent names after drops at GD for $2, with no need to fire up the dropcatcher... Good job people, keep wasting your money...

 

[MobileDesigner]

i don't know... if i could have had a chance buying online.menu, shoot, id buy it in a heartbeat.

www.CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet.menu, na, I'm good. I'll pass...

 

[Spex]

But, you people keep wasting all your money, so I can get all the good .web's....

Thankd for your reply and if the above quote was serious, what's so great about the .web gTLD vs the other ones? Isn't .web redundant for something that is already on the web?

 

[draggar]

it's like 'they' (registries)took all the best one word terms and made .whatevers from them, then put all the best keyword combinations on reserve, to be auctioned later, or set premium registration/renewal costs for "select" group of top-tier terms.

so, basically what's left will be "low quality, hard to sell domain names"..

Would that be worth it, though? You still have to be careful with TMs (as far as I know) so you're still stuck with generics and brandables. I don't think even names like pizza.menu or hamburger.menu would sell for a lot. Yes, it might bring in some extra bucks but enough to be worth it? IMO we're talking names in the very low $xxx range at best so they would have to sell thousands of these names just to scratch the surfact of what it would cost to get their own custom TLD.

(But then again, human greed never ceases to surprise me).

 

[Biggie]

Q: why is there a .menu TLD ?
A: because the registry is having you for lunch

A+ for that one "kat"!

 

[Charles Sweeney]

Not sure of the value of any .menu let alone a geographic one. I can't think what you would use it for. If someone said to me I could have any .menu I wanted, I wouldn't know what to take!

I think some of the new generic domains are very good and some not so good/pointless. .london, .nyc etc I think are pretty good...property.london, eat.nyc etc. .jobs is good, construction.jobs, web.jobs etc.