closed inlineskating.us

[Duke]

Originally posted by alaneads
I dont care what the "statistics" are. Anything thats not .com or .net will not be a major domain name. Name 1 website in the top 1000 that is anything besides .com .net .org .gov, or a country extension besides .us?

These new extensions will NEVER have the value of a .com.

When I see people make comments like your last sentence all I can do is laugh at their complete ignorance of business history. NEVER covers quite a lot of time and I have yet to see ANYONE make that prediction about ANYTHING and be proven correct.

I have lived long enough to see dozens and dozens of wildly successful brands established that would NEVER be caught by the competition. Only problem is public perception or market forces changed (as they always do) and they were not only caught by the competition, they were wiped out because their vision, like yours, was limited only to what is going on today.

Though I love .com too, it is nothing more than a powerful brand name. All of the other extensions deliver exactly the same product, a web site that will resolve in a browser to be viewed by people all over the world. The only difference is .com's huge present level of acceptance (something that is subject to change, just as other former giants like AT&T, Polaroid, Lucent and our "beloved" Verisign found out the hard way). I would say .com is even more vulnerable than past near-monopolies because the product area it dominates is exactly the same as the products offered by its competitors. The only element that needs to shift is perception and the game is over.

.Com reached its current status by default. The other two original extensions were tagged for different purposes, non-profits and service providers - so businesses had nowhere else to go but .com. That is not the case anymore and with the pool of .com names completely exhausted, the millions of new businesses being created over the next few years will have no choice but to look at other options.

As those options start being used recognition levels will change. I'm not saying .com is going away anytime soon, only that it will no longer be the ONLY viable option and the only one of any value. Good .info are already seeing solid resale values that have been documented in several threads. .US is just an infant, only 7 months old and more than a year behind .info. In the next year a resale market will start developing there too just like .info, though for both I think it is more realistic to look 5 or more years down the line.

I have always kept my eye 2-5 years ahead of where I am now and it has always served me very well. Today, yes .com has no rivals, tomorrow is almost always a different story and NEVER is a word that will eventually put you in the poor house.

 

[Validweb]

Yeah 'never' reminds me of that remark of the chairman of IBM that the world needs at most 3 computers.

You don't have to be a genius to see that country code domains have been fantastically successful in time. .de for example is the 2nd most popular extension, with the same number of registrations as .net and .org combined:
http://www.domainworldwide.com/
This is despite the fact your registration address has to be in Germany, otherwise, who knows how popular it could be?

.co.uk is 4th, despite the fact that it is not a top level domain. You can't register something.uk

In the us people never think about this since Americans used .com as our default address as if it was a country code for the us. That will change in time, but when??

 

[alaneads]

Well, I'll remember my quote in 5 years when you guys wished you hadnt spent all that money on .us domains.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Validweb
I'm sure you've typed in thousands of names like the above to check out the site. how many times do you try the ing version, just to see what's there? Hardly ever, I'll bet.

Actually, like most experienced surfers I hardly ever type ANYTHING in the address bar. I go to Google and put a couple of key words in and then click the hyperlink. If I am interested in skating, I will definitely type skating not skate. Newbies use type-ins when building up bookmarks but the vast majority of experience web surfers use search engines and hyperlinks.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by alaneads
Well, I'll remember my quote in 5 years when you guys wished you hadnt spent all that money on .us domains.

Agreed! We'll all meet back here 5 years from today! As for ALL of that money on .US names - I have spent a total of less than $500. I look at it as an investment that has a good chance of paying off royally- but if it is a total bust I'm out virtually nothing. If you want to put every penny you have on only one investment option, no one can stop you.

In any case as I said earlier, I love reading everyone's opinions - and they often lead me to rethink my own strategies which is always healthy. As far as referring to you as "clueless" I really don't mean things like that literally - it is a writing technique I often use to try to provoke someone and draw them out. It seems to have worked with you as you have started giving more in-depth responses and that is great - looking forward to reading more!

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Validweb
In the us people never think about this since Americans used .com as our default address as if it was a country code for the us. That will change in time, but when??

That's the $64,000 question Validweb. No one knows. You are quite correct though. .com is and has been our default address. .US is the first baggage-free alternative we have had since the internet started.

I have used only .coms in the past, but next year I will start putting some .us online. Part of my current job involves national branding of a new company. It is a long difficult road but you eventually get there if you keep at it (and don't run out of money!). The .US campaign will not run out of money because the U.S. Treasury is backing it (they print the money!).

Perceptions most definitely will not change overnight and I have repeatedly said don't buy .US unless you are looking several years down the line. If you want to buy and sell today (as most people in this forum do) you need to stick with the original trio.

 

[Validweb]

Actually, like most experienced surfers I hardly ever type ANYTHING in the address bar.

Same for me and about everybody else. A big part of domain value:

I'm sure on occassion you've tried typing in a generic.com for as a quick route to what you are looking for, and then, on even rarer occassions the .net, still rarer the .org, etc. In Europe they try the .co.uk , the .de as well. It all diminishes from .com downward, and so when you get to the point of a 2 word .us the possible type ins are effectively zero, so the domain has no value. So this is the point I'm making about this domain.

You can be sure at the moment thousands of people are typing in domains like sex.de or dating.co.uk just to see whats there, and this will happen, of course on a larger scale, for .us

 

[Biggie]

Whenever,I hear or see people discussing the "future". whether
it's discribed as "never will" or "has potiential", tingles my senses.

Why, use the term "never will". ""Cognitive Dissonance" is
what that describes. Two thoughts in the mind, conflicting the other.

I acquired "HuntingSeason.US" and "Footgear.US", which has
factors: a. United States and b. "us" as in we. When people
search for an item, they type-in " shoes or skates" and whatever
search engine is tied to their isp will list the sites containing the keywords. Google supplies data for Yahoo, Aol and others with
overture being an "indie" suppling data for Netzero and Juno.
Placement in these listing and links to your pages is the key to success. Names really are irrelavant, as well as tld's. If I could
pay or intice a rap star or hollywood celeb to wear my t-shirt
that says "FootGear.us" that would ignite instant props for .us.

I foresee big success for .us, unless Bush gets us in a big mess!

 

[Validweb]

hey duke

Have you just registered .us, or have you bought in the aftermarket?

 

[Validweb]

biggedon

If your route to traffic and success is a celebrity endorsement and/or search engine placement, then while everything you say is perceptive, as a whole your efforts in registering the .us domains makes no sense.

The domain itself doesn't matter according to your comments, and
I would have found some .com to register, since .us is going to be either unknown or confusing to people for a while now, and useless to building traffic in the future as you have commented.

 

[alaneads]

The day a .us hits the top 100 websites, I'll start buying them

 

[Poker]

These new extensions will NEVER have the value of a .com.

We never said that a country extension (like .us) would ever be bigger than .com

Read closer and wake up.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Validweb
I'm sure on occassion you've tried typing in a generic.com for as a quick route to what you are looking for

Actually I virtually never do that! That is why I discount the importance of someone typing in a complete URL in the address bar. Aside from newbies I just don't think that is being done by many surfers. If I am interested in a subject, I will not type in subject.com. I will go to google and type in subject and see what it brings up. Then click on the interesting hyperlinks from there.

I think a domain name has value if it is a real (rather than made up name) that clearly tells people what your site is about - which is why I like the potential of something like inlineskating.us. When people see the rootname in a search engine like Google they know right away the site should be of interest to them.

The extension, I belive will become less important - though it will stll be important that it make sense (like not putting a commercial site on a .org). .US will work extremely well for any entity targeting the US market.

As to your question about my .US - they have all come from registrations. I have not even looked at the aftermarket (largely because it hardly exists today) but primarily because there are still some good names to be had for a reg fee (though they are dwindling rapidly to be sure - 3300 more .US were registered just in the last 24 hours).

I have no doubt that I will eventually move on to the aftermarket and try to get some good ones there before they escalate beyond what I want to spend on them. With people like myself entering that market next year (after all the good regs have been taken) you will see that .US aftermarket develop as .info has started developing this year.

I feel like I am spending all of my time cheerleading for .US these days. I should also emphasize that I still very much chase the .com .net and .org names I like. Those are for buying, selling and developing here and now - because that is where the action is today. My interest in the new extensions is with the future in mind. Again I believe we are not far from the day when a good name, properly matched to its extension will be valuable in all major TLDs, not just .com.

 

[Biggie]

The domain game, is just like the stock market.
You got some "blue chips" and some "risk investments"
and your porfolio may include some bonds or vc,tc type investments.
The same with domain names. The top 3 tld's are quick traders,
while the others are long term. Ya know!

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by alaneads
The day a .us hits the top 100 websites, I'll start buying them

Fair enough alaneads. The only problem with waiting until that day is that the .US names you then try to buy will cost you 100 times what they cost today. That's like me saying the day Giganto Corporation stock becomes one of the 100 most valuable stocks in the world I'll start buying it! By then it's too late, you will have already missed all of the run-up in value.

Of course these are personal choices like all investments. Maybe 5 years from now you will be saying "Ha Ha all those people wasted their money on .US names". But the chances are just as good you will be saying "what an idiot I was - back in 2002 I could have scooped up all of those names for $7 each". I think there are more than a few of us saying that right now about .com in 1995.

 

[yahoohaha]

Good posts on this thread, my 2 pennies:

1. Big corps promote.us or not will deside the future of .us domains.

2. Use less than 10% investing money buy .us. Be a wise gambler!!