closed Just Regged .US counterparts of my .INFOs...

[DryHeat]

I've been sitting on a list of unregged .US counterparts of my .INFOs for a while. Just regged the following ten. Please comment if it was the right move since this would help me take further action on the rest of the list.

CorporateTax.us
Indemnity.us
MediaProduction.us
MiddleMarket.us
ProfessionalLiability.us
PublicTelevision.us
Shoplifting.us
Snowshoeing.us
Transgendered.us
WaterManagement.us

I'd truly appreciate feedback on this one...Thanks.

 

[Biggie]

ct.us
i.us
mp.us
pt.us
sl.us

 

[DryHeat]

Thanks big....Anyone else. I really need input whether to reg similar names in .US (as noted I already have the .info versions).
Be candid.

 

[Validweb]

I like

CorporateTax.us
especially

Shoplifting.us is good



Indemnity.us is ok, but not too hot about the others.

how do you intend to sell/market these?

 

[mole]

so so I guess.

Can't see immediate commercial value in most of your names, heat. The .info version of your mirror seems a lot more sensible at this point in time imo

 

[TrafficMonsterRRR]

YOu know I am having second thoughts about some of my .us reg's as well.

However, there is a good chance given registration statistics that .US willl eventualy surpass .info in popularity.

In my very humble and often wrong opinion, this may have to do with the 2-year reg requirement for .us having been dropped. From a speculator's perspective .us becomes a leaner investment and you can watch the .us for a whole other year to decide whether to renew. Another way to look at this would be that you can reg double as many us now and skim the cream later.

Well done I think all and all.

 

[Validweb]

reminds me of about 3 years ago when people were registering the most ridiculous .com domains you could imagine. not just a few, but hundreds.

I actually had a client who registered a hundred .com domains in June so that he could use his instant profits to pay for a round the world holiday the following August

as long as you register really good names and are prepared to sit on them for a while, your ok. register any old junk just because it ends in .us and expect to sell it at massive markup the next day, you wasting your time and money.

 

[Duke]

I think most on that list work better with .info, so I don't think I would have bothered with the .us versions as they are not especially strong names for the extension.

 

[DryHeat]

I thank you all for the feedback. It seems as if I need to hold off on regging any more .US. I'd registered the above batch after sitting on it for several days ( so it was not an impulsive move) but the feedback indicates that they're not necceserily strong names. Thanks again.

 

[Validweb]

I think the MOST optimistic scenario is that in say 3-5 years time, a .us will be worth whatever a .com is today (adjusting for inflation and so on).

that's not a scenario I'm endorsing btw.

So one way to look at it, is, would I register the .com if it was available. If I had that .com today would I be able to resell that .it within a reasonable price and timeframe that justifies the effort?

I think most of the .us domains I've seen requesting appraisals in this forum don't pass that test, and that test is based on a pretty rosey future for .us

 

[Duke]

Valid points valid web. Though I am among those who think .us has a bright future I would never suggest that it will equal .com value in 5 years (or possibly ever). However I think it will become a viable option worth a high enough fraction of .com value to make good names worth having.

Good names are the key. Bad names are bad in any extension. I think good ones will end up with nice resale value in all of the major extensions, both old and new down the line. I see what is on the left side of the dot becoming much more important. On the right side I think there will be different product levels. .com will be the luxury car, .info and .us the Chevys & Fords. Not everyone can afford a Rolls, so I think a nice market will develop there for small to medium size businesses. The big corporates can afford the best .com names and there's no reason to think they would abandon them.

I guess I fall in the middle of the two extremes - one of which thinks .us .biz and .info will never be worth anything and the others that thinks they will catch and even surpass .com. I try to register good names in all extensions and think that portfolio diversity will give me the best chance to see a decent return on investment down the line and protect me should the old extensions suffer a drop in value from increased competition in the form of new namespace.

 

[DryHeat]

This is how I'd calculate the risks vs. benefits.

10 regs above @ $70.00 ( 69.95 exactly) now.

Depending on how things go with .US (lets say not too good and not too bad), renew half of these for two additional years @ roughly another $70. So Total cost $140.00 for 5 names over 3 years. (If things look too good renew more/all, if otherwise renew less/none).

I'd argue that if they're .com most of the names kept (after one year) from the above list would sell at an average price of $300 (imo, this is quite a conservative figure....agree?) so thats a total of $1500. Lets say .US goes for half of that, i.e. $750......That's still more than 5X "roi" (return on investment). And there's always a possibility that just one name can go for that (or more)....thats speculation, risky yes but not necessarily foolish. Your thoughts?

 

[Duke]

I agree with your numbers Heat and think it makes sense in a balanced domain name portfolio. .com is a great brand today but I am not comfortable putting all of my eggs in one basket. Public perceptions can change much too rapidly. Remember when Netscape ruled the desktop. Internet Explorer supposedly had no chance to break Netscape's stanglehold....but they did (I won't comment on Microsoft's methods here, only that everyone switched from the wildly dominant Netscape to the new IE in a remarkbly short period of time).

The smug attitudes I see from some people that things are "never" going to change is the epitome of ignorance in my view (especially when you are talking about technology and the internet). Maybe things won't change, but you had better be prepared in case they do (or have a fondness for evening meals in the soup line down at the Salvation Army building)

 

[Validweb]

hi duke
you are right in that you never know what the future holds.
unfortunately some people don't even know what the past holds.

I'm still getting spam from somebody promoting realnames keywords. must be an affiliate who wasn't told realnames went bust.

for a company that aimed to replace the domain name system, thus turning our whole world upside down,
their web site is really impressive now:
http://www.realnames.com/

.us is particularly hard to judge. I don't think all the people looking at .kids.us realize that there is a huge reserve list on .us domains for different government purposes, for as yet unspecified purposes.

In europe country code extensions are REALLY popular. The only reason they are not even more popular is the various restrictions put on their use. .de is the most popular extension in the world next to .com (more .de's are registered than .org and .net combined), and this is despite the fact that you have to have a registration address in Germany (a relatively light restriction compared to .fr, .es, etc) The restrictions are much tougher than .us nexus, and in cases where the restrictions are lifted, registrations boom.

On the other hand, to be honest, part of the reason county code restrictions are popular is that many people think of .com as American or just foreign. not that people are anti-American, they just want their own country code domains.