The end of .com ? Yes ? No ?

[David G]

The negativity is that over time as big firms (medium size firms and big domainers too) buy tld's the public will eventually know all they need to do is typein realestate without an extension. IMO, it's almost certain traffic going to the current extensions including com will seriously erode as time goes by.

The above outlook assumes the new tld's will be (1) puchased by many players, (2) get marketed well, (3) and also assumes they can resolve by just typing www.realestate (looks to be obvious) or even better just plain url of 'realestate' with nothing on either side (which I feel is possible depending on the server setup).

I would prefer to own realestate.com over .realestate, this isn't the nineties again. The person that buys .realestate will not have one visitor until they spend money on advertisemets to tell people that they exist like .com has done the world over and billions of dollars later. So while the owner of .realestate spends millions, the owner of realestate.com rakes in millions on traffic with not one penny of advertising dollars spent.

If everyone owns their own tld they everyone will advertise their own tld space not someone else's so your tld will NEVER seen the money spent that .com has because it's been a collective effort of every major company in the world to advertise their .com. If .ebay is out there .yahoo is not going to send people to .ebay. See, less effort, less money, more confusion. All of this is bound to create some opportunities but if you drop your .com because of this your a silly person. No one will advertise your tld but IBM,Yahoo,ebay, Microsoft, etc... has already advertised the world's namespace which is and will remain .com.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Ha, I bet you are someone who owns a few shitty domains and would like to see the 90s all over again because you currently have nothing. There are tons of extentions already out there and most are just a blip on the radar. I can't see why this would be much different.

The 90's did come again in the form of IDN. Most of you have already missed out on the main land grab.

 

[bludex]

The negativity is that over time as big firms (even medium size firms and big domainers too) buy tld's the public will eventually know all they need to do is typein realestate without an extension. IMO, it's almost certain traffic going to the current extensions including com will seriously erode as time goes by.

Yes, it gives to those with the guts more opportunity to monopolize and defend their own virtual realestate. But it can also fire back on them if they by singeling out are loosing the sympathy factor which is very important on the web.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, it gives to those with the guts more opportunity to monopolize and defend their own virtual realestate. But it can also fire back on them if they by singeling out are loosing the sympathy factor which is very important on the web.

Well the whole question is absurd.

There will be competition for these top generic strings. Everyone's claim is as inherently valid as everyone else's until they present their case on how they will use this domain. If the answer is that we are simply going to use it to try to monopolize the Real Estate market, then you may depend that the answer is a no. Vanity domains may act as top single stand alone names. There is not a chance in hell that this will apply to generics. These names will have to be used as registeries just like dot com. The top level I believe will therefore effectively be the registeries servers.

Frankly, those that talk about new technology heralding a flat name space are talking out of their arse. Just isn't going to happen. Mathematically, it just doesn't make any sense. Yes, you will get Vanity names at the top level for TM holders but that it is where it stops and ends.

 

[DomainsInc]

The 90's did come again in the form of IDN. Most of you have already missed out on the main land grab.

I see hundreds if not thousands dropping almost daily. I'm sure there are a good investment for down the road but its kind of hard to invest in something that when you don't speak the language.

 

[Rubber Duck]

It is not hard to invest. We did in over 4000, but we don't speak any of the 20 languages we have invested in. Incidentally our drops have been minimal in the last few years, and we are renewed way into next year, with the exception of a few at Moniker which are being renewed from parking income.

I will concede it is more difficult to develop.

 

[hugegrowth]

Does this mean:

1) people can start their own tld registry, such as .web, and sell domains in that extensions, or

2) I can go and reg a domain with any extension I choose, if they approve it and I can afford the price, like: Great.beer or Hosting.web

I think this has to be seen as at least a possible threat to .com and existing extensions, if over time the pricing for these comes down. Some of the up and downsides I see are:

1) other new extensions have done ok but still lack widespread use commercially, and haven't come close to overtaking .com (like .info, .biz, .travel, .mobi, .tv).

2) .com .net .org and country code extensions are quite entrenched in people's minds. Even kids growing up now still see these extensions everywhere, because all the big companies and organizations used them first, and continue to do so.

3) vanity type and clever use of these new extensions could create a market for some of them. Names such as: hosting.web or video.game

4) new extensions will create confusion for the general public, and I bet .com will get some type traffic from this (ie: person sees hosting.web and goes to hosting.com anyway). Even as a domainer, if I see an obscure extension I have to double check to make sure it's a domain name, and not a misplaced period (ie: City.coop)

5) if a lot of these new extentions get used in advertising, like tv commercials or radio, many people won't remember them easily to type in later. Toll free numbers are much easier to remember if they're 1-800 and not 1-877 or something else.

6) these new extensions won't get any type in traffic, so all traffic will depend on search engine placement and marketing/advertising, so you harder to make back the reg fee unless you're a big corporation or have a big advertising budget.

7) this will be the ultimate test for .com, there is a chance someone could come up with a new extension that takes hold for some reason, so now the options are wide open.

8) at least this shows that domains are still being needed in the future - some people think domains extensions will become obsolete one day, but I can't see what could replace them. People won't start using long IP numerical addresses. I liken domains to phone numbers - no one has replaced those, and the number of area codes etc. keeps having to increase.

 

[NameCharger]

The end of .com ?

No.


The influx of hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars from companies protecting their marks as a result of icann.greed & aftermarketsales.jealousy ?

Yes.

 

[David G]

Good points hugegrowth and others but I stand firmly by what was said in post #81 above.

 

[flamewalker]

1: yes
2: essentially yes... if you own the tld, you can use any whatever.tld you want.

I think the confusion in point 4 will be somewhat minimalized through proper advertising. For instance if Coke starts advertising, "Just type Coke in your browser", I think it could work. I think this will only work for select TLD's. IE walmart could get walmart, etc.

The cost will be the big factor in keeping the average joe blow away, thus minimalizing the effect of this change. Now the problems could lie in people with a lot of money wanting to cybersquat big names... ie my.space. This could lead to lawsuits galore. How would this be handled? Would they have to use the UDRP proceedures to procure 'their' TLD?

The other problem is that who would possibly want something.coke except, well... the coca cola company. So for these tld's there will be practically no significant source of income to offset the high costs. It would not make business sense to invest in such a thing that brings in no money.

All in all, I think the financial and possibility of confusion and lawsuits aspects will really minimalize the ability for this to blow up .com, or grow extraordinarily large number of new TLD's. The confusion factor alone would make most investors shy away imho.

 

[hugegrowth]

trader (re: post 81)

... But if you start a website and want to tell people how to get there, you have to give them a domain with an extension. They can't just type in a word. Even big companies have multiple websites, for products, contests, information, etc. You can't just type a word into your browser and hope you'll get to the site you want, unless it's Google or Ebay, or something like that.

 

[David G]

trader (re: post 81) ... But if you start a website and want to tell people how to get there, you have to give them a domain with an extension. They can't just type in a word. Even big companies have multiple websites, for products, contests, information, etc. You can't just type a word into your browser and hope you'll get to the site you want, unless it's Google or Ebay, or something like that.

The owner of the new tld can use and own any domain in front of the new tld such as mustang.ford and www.ford (a major impact use) also ford/mustang as examples, possibly even nothing in fron or in back so the hit could go to a company directory in the root folder of 'ford' or could also forward.

P.S. see para 2 in flamewalker post about how no ext marketing could easily work.

 

[flamewalker]

P.S. see para 2 in flamewalker post about how no ext marketing could easily work.

I wouldn't call it easy... it would have to be done well and for a very long time (IE large cost to company) before people start getting it ingrained into their heads since .com has been so thoroughly cemented.

If they are already on an advertising campaign (as it seems most major companies are like coke, walmart, etc), it would obviously make it easier to just modify the commercial/whatever means they are using a little bit. But the cost to push the new "Coke" domain (tld), would be ungodly expensive considering what they just spent on the tld. I imagine a large company could easily spend upwards of $500k to get people to "just type coke".

Also, since I run an ISP and DNS servers, I am unsure of how one would resolve a whole tld... perhaps with a *.tld or some such. Of coarse you would have to set up a master DNS for the entire tld and tell the master registry that you are hosting it.

All in all... good idea to get vanity/novelty tlds approved quicker (aka mobi, travel, museum, xxx etc), not much chance of killing .com due to complexity, confusion, and costs.

 

[hugegrowth]

Ok, maybe your point applies for companies like Ford, GM, Burger King, etc.

What about my cousin Mary who starts a website selling her home made greeting cards?

Or Joe down the street who starts a website for his plumbing business?

Or someone's personal blog, family website, small business site, etc. that probably make up more of the web than big corporate sites?

What does Johnson & Johnson use for their extension? .JandJ, .johnsonandjohnson, .J&J ?

There is no one solution that can eliminate the need for a domain name for every single website in existence.

And then what about the need for domains in an email address?

 

[David G]

....I imagine a large company could easily spend upwards of $500k to get people to "just type coke"......

For large corporations such as Coke, 500k is compratively little money to spend. They probably spend that much or more in a day in the media (a wild guess).

 

[dnbroker]

Gents,

A quick question here (in order not to create a new thread):

Is it reasonable to invest in "geo".com domains now (e.g. "city".com) or it is better to wait at this point ?

Thanks

 

[SonnyBurnett]

Gents,

A quick question here (in order not to create a new thread):

Is it reasonable to invest in "geo".com domains now (e.g. "city".com) or it is better to wait at this point ?

Thanks

Now it's time to buy.
Invest in some premium geo .com

 

[bludex]

I hope that ISPs won't sell packages for access to only their special TLD part of the web with some limited remapping of the free web, see http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/canada_net_censorship.html

What will be interesting to see is the run for single character TLDs if allowed. They could compete in the short domain sector and for generics. You could have sex.1, sex.2, etc . thus diluting the value of sex.com for instance. It will take some pull from one side of the demand because people can compare alternatives and choose the economical more viable one. We will have to see how it plays out. Security of investment will still be on the side of established and probed out TLDs like .com .

 

[Irish31]

Gents,

A quick question here (in order not to create a new thread):

Is it reasonable to invest in "geo".com domains now (e.g. "city".com) or it is better to wait at this point ?

Thanks

My personal opinion? Do it now if you are going to, I actually believe this will just raise the value of 95% of the quality .com's out there, and this is coming from someone that has about 500$ tops invested in .com.

This won't be rolled out for probably two years, so we are at 2010 then. Thats coming up on a decade of widespread use of .COM. There are SO many great .COM's out there unused still, because of the price.

Unless ICANN really decides to make this cheap, which they aren't, this really only saves a select few people from paying 2 million for a top quality name they want, and instead they pay 150k or whatever the initial entry fee into it is.

Let's not forget, with .COM, sure, you will play a hefty price to get a top name, but afterwards the renewal costs are the same as any other .COM, next to nothing.

I can see these vtld's having a hefty renewal cost, making them likely only financially affordable for big business units or the government (and maybe a few rich stand alones).

If these companies really want to spend the crazy amount of money I believe it would take to get the general public remembering and then accepting and switching to this format, go right ahead.

I hope that ISPs won't sell packages for access to only their special TLD part of the web with some limited remapping of the free web, see http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/canada_net_censorship.html

What will be interesting to see is the run for single character TLDs if allowed. They could compete in the short domain sector and for generics. You could have sex.1, sex.2, etc . thus diluting the value of sex.com for instance. It will take some pull from one side of the demand because people can compare alternatives and choose the economical more viable one. We will have to see how it plays out. Security of investment will still be on the side of established and probed out TLDs like .com .

Yikes...

I'm a Canadian.. and that link goes to an article that is quite... quite scary. I hope to lord that isn't true...

 

[dnbroker]

I imagine that there may be ".countries" or ".cities" extensions so it may be common in the future to refer to geo domains in such a way.

If this is the case then investing in "geo".com does not seem to be a reasonable thing.

Any more opinion on this?