.us biggest problem

[namewaiter]

Just wanted to share my 2 cents on why I think it will be difficult for .us to become a widely used and accepted tld. I own a few nice .us domains but the problem I feel lies with the fact that .com is so imbedded into the US there is no reason for companies to look to or market the county code.

For example ebay.com utilizes ebay.ca for Canadian users, ebay.de for Germany, ebay.co.uk for the UK, ebay.in for India, ebay.com.au for Austalia, but we have never seen ebay.us advertised or marketed for the United States and this hurts the development of the .us namespace.

Same thing with google.com, aol.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, amazon.com and all the other biggies.

I was searching Alexa's top english sites and noticed there wasn't 1 .us but did notice many other country codes for the other most popular sites.
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lang&lang=en

Do you agree? What are the most popular .us sites you know of? I was planning on spending some cash on developing a .us but after this research I'm rethinking it.

 

[NameAlot.com]

I absolutely agree. But I think the extension does have a better chance then other in lasting in the long run. AS globalization increases and foreigners market in the U.S I think the extension is going to blossom. But it won't com from U.S companies. For instance. I own UGC.us. UGC is a major cinema chain in the UK and Ireland and most parts of Europe. They just about all the country extensions for 'ugc'. Say for instance they decided to come to the U.S. All the 3 letter .coms are pretty much taken and secured. I believe in such a scenario they would go for a dot .us extension. But that's my own opinion.

As for a major .us, I don't know any off hand. But as you mention and as I elaborated on, it will take major corps. to boost the extension in the .us. But I think in other countries as well as in the .us, the boost will come from non-us push.

 

[M90]

Wait until the .eu comes into effect. Then the .us domain should kick in.

 

[DomainTurn.com]

just a matter of time

 

[SirSpider]

I have seen Volvo.us advertised - but it redirects to Volvo.com...

 

[DNjet]

Established US companies such as ebay would have no reason to reinvent themself under the .us extension , I think in the next few years you will see small to midsize niche market companies develop under the .us extension ,since most .com's are very expensive to purchase i think a lot of them will opt for a cheaper or hand reged .us domain. I think most will be US specific , real estate - media - services - etc....

 

[seeker]

I have seen Volvo.us advertised - but it redirects to Volvo.com...

you probably mean volvocars.us which does NOT redirect but is a us site.
But that has nothing to do with the .us ccTLD and much more to do with Volvo marketing.
You see, they use volvocars. any tld which they have a distributor.
go ahead try it.
volvocars.gr
volvocars.de
volvocars.fr
etc...etc...
not many companies have followed that lead.

 

[URLCollection]

Patience is a true virtue in the Domains Industry. Keyword domains of most major tld's will always be one of the best investments you can make online - just need to have a timeline that allows the investment to mature. Just my thoughts - Steve

 

[actnow]

Steve, It's good to see your comments.

DNF hasn't been the same without your postings.

 

[URLCollection]

Steve, It's good to see your comments.

DNF hasn't been the same without your postings.

Hi Richard - Thank you for the words. Glad to be back. How do you feel about .US domains? We like them just fine, but may take a few more years to start to mature. Good to hear from you - Steve

 

[mole]

but may take a few more years to start to mature.

How many more years do you figure, Steve? :huh:

 

[URLCollection]

How many more years do you figure, Steve? :huh:

Boy that is kind of hard to say without a crystal ball, but we are seeing a few very nice .us sales lately and more and more sites are going up using .us domains. I would think within 2 years or so, we will all be happy that we own some great .us domains. The .eu rollout should be a huge hit for the registry with many large bids all ready placed for the top names. I know many folks that will play those hard at the rollout so I think country codes will all get a boost by that as well. What do you think Mole? Steve

 

[adoptabledomains]

A US companay will sit fat and happy on it's .com domain, since .com is so engrained in american culture....at least for big business.

I think the popularity with .us will be from companies that are NOT U.S. based that want to customize a site for the US market to look more local. There are a lot of Japanese and other countries that are putting their US marketing on a .us extension. Some of you remember that sedo was originally .de and .co.uk. Before they acquired the .com, they marketed sedo to the US market as sedo.us. However, once they got .com, it became the primary domain promoted to the US market. I'd bet that type use will grow for company names. Short generic keywords will always be popular in any ccTLD, even if only used for email, special promotions, or pointer domains.

 

[fundraiser]

I think the popularity with .us will be from companies that are NOT U.S. based that want to customize a site for the US market to look more local.

I think that is true but actually is the smaller piece of the pie while the bigger piece is that dot us will be utilized by US businesses.

The Internet business bust a few years past resulted in great part from trying to design new companies to fit the Internet rather than retooling existing companies to take advantage of the Net. Today, the biggest companies in their industries have made significant retooling efforts and have been responsible for much of the stabilization and again rapidly growing Internet economy.

However, the majority of companies and employers in the US are classified as small businesses. These are not just the mom & pop operators but businesses with millions of dollars in annual revenue. As a percentage, few have figured out how to use the Internet to grow their businesses. How many times do you still see an aol or isp provided email address used for a small business today?

If they are using the Internet, it is for a static web site serving as a brochure and the domain names they use are rarely well-coordinated with the branding of their businesses. To compete in the future, their online efforts will have to coordinate well with their offline ones making a seamless connection for consumers. To make this happen, they will need to shift funding from continuing a traditional business model to instead invest in growing their online efforts in marketing and operations. If they don’t, they won’t remain competitive. There is a reason companies like Google are so focused on local search.

With more countries now embracing their own country codes over other general tlds, there is no reason to believe that trend won't find its way to the US over time. Dot us domains will increasingly be seen in advertising and everyday use which will lead to greater acceptance. As more and more US companies learn to use the Internet to grow their businesses, the realities of supply and demand and proven country code use will begin to shift an increasing amount of market share from dot com to dot us.

 

[namewaiter]

i pretty much agree with what everyone is saying, but because the 'huge' sites that we see advertised and marketed everyday, don't use .us it is going to be much harder for the cctld to catch on.

in a country like canada when all the companies and individuals see ebay.ca, hotmail.ca, google.ca etc. marketed and advertised all the time they think 'we can play on that level' and go and register their .ca domain.

it has been a few years since .us was launched, and now more out of curiosity than anything, what are the biggest and best developed .us sites you know of? i mean even the top .us public sales this year, voip.us, is still just a landing page - same thing with industry.us and cellphones.us.

 

[zouzas]

i it has been a few years since .us was launched, and now more out of curiosity than anything, what are the biggest and best developed .us sites you know of? i mean even the top .us public sales this year, voip.us, is still just a landing page - same thing with industry.us and cellphones.us.

microsofts under the radar blog
www.raindrop.msresearch.us

apple computers latest this month
www.Automator.us

www.movietunes.us coast to coast shown in movie theaters

i could go on but you can check here http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:us&btnG=Google+Search

last year there were only 20mil most state pages now 82mill most foreign companies setting up shop like www.roche.us etc,,,,,,,

 

[izopod]

I think what we are talking about is "type in" value. Many thousands of .us domains are being used. So the question as to whether there will be a great need for them in the future is moot. The real determinant of a solid domain are two things: Firstly, it must get type-ins. How many are we talking? I would say at least 5 a day at a minimum. This would at least take into a count the (3) domainers checking to see who owns a particular domain, and the 4th one being the domain owner himself and the 5th one actually being someone who "blindly" types in their name. Why is "type-in" value so important? Let's not fool ourselves, at the end of the day your domain has to stand on it's own without the help of SE's. You have to have "walk-ins" as a matter of sound business principle.

2ndly a domain must have "brandablity". This is still king. At the end of the day, people have to "trust" your domain name. That means your name must offer the prospective visitor some confidence in what you do. I think that is why .com and .org command such a premium these days. .Com because..well it's a .Com. Just ask any non-domainer which version of a site they'd visit first (here in the US anyways). The .org because it's been marketed as "trustworthy", and as offering "expertise".

One thing the US is unkind to is anything out of the norm (we hate change). Two-letter domains tend to fall outside the "norm". It doesn't register as having legitimacy. I've had several discussions with family and friends who are non-domainers about this. Most of them feel that they would go with dot com because "people" at least know about it. If they were going to stick money in a business they wouldn't want to have to "explain" to everyone that they are Dot .biz or .us for that matter.

I think the key for dot.US would be if "Large" respected companies began promote their .US domains.

In the end their will be a "home" for .US domains. The most likely target would be small to medium size companies who don't want to spend a fortune on their .com names. As time goes on and more gTLDs begin to roll out you won't see a lot of "average" dot US names for sale. The ones that will command a premium (always) will be generic dot US names. That means if you are holding two-word dot US names, or 12 lettered names your time to sell would be now....

You have to look honestly at things. Patience is a virtue, but in the tech world that's all hogwash. Things move a lot of faster on the internet. So if you plan on waiting 5 years you are stuck a byegone era of thinking.

"Move quick, sell quick, and know a good thing before everyone else" (izopod, 9.05)

 

[mole]

I think what we are talking about is "type in" value.

(bah)

"Type in" value is an old school notion, pontified by old school practitioners who hate the destabilizing effects of search engines, wikis and the semantic web.

IMO.

 

[StockDoctor]

(bah)

"Type in" value is an old school notion, pontified by old school practitioners who hate the destabilizing effects of search engines, wikis and the semantic web.

IMO.

That about sums it up I think. The shift to search (at least in the US) is increasing and searchers are becoming more adept in their use. Don't know if the Pontif even uses a computer though.

 

[izopod]

(bah)

"Type in" value is an old school notion, pontified by old school practitioners who hate the destabilizing effects of search engines, wikis and the semantic web.

IMO.

Reality bites Mole. Every time Google changes their algo's you find the SEO forums full of "what do we do now" comments. Having a "type in" domain is not a bad thing. What you are telling people is "you know where to find me" instead of "try" to find me if you can.

Sure there are many "technologies" out there that could get you "noticed" on the world wide web, but why rely on platforms that will be in a constant state of flux.... Try using "wiki" or "semantics" in a sentence (5) years from now. Teenagers won't have the foggiest clue what you are talking about. However I can with a certain degree of accuracy state that they will know how to get to www.Whatever.com.

The power of "type-in's" my friend is that they will always be around. The other stuff is business ideas that will have short shelf lives. In theory you could stay in the "game" by constantly updating what you do to keep your website #1.... But only a few really can do this. Corporations, and those for an affinity for "coding".

KEEP IN MIND:

It's not like your individual .biz name or a .us name can't have "type-in" value, or never will have, it's just the likelyhood of this happening goes down with each passing day.

The key for domainers is to be proactive. Instead of waiting for the "people" to come to you, you need to get to them. Unfortunately most, if not all of our domains are simply 404 pages, landing pages to DS or other PPC pages. That may make you a few dollars here and there, but on the whole, you won't have people coming back...unless of course you buy a few keywords to generate traffic. Nothing wrong with that if you have the time to "keep yourself busy".