Domain Pulse 2015: New gTLDs Are Like Babies
The development of new gTLDs could be equated with the growth of a baby, Thomas Rickert representing the German internet association eco told the Domain Pulse conference in Berlin on Thursday with the greatest development takes place within the first 12 months.
When applications closed there were 1,930 applications and 1,400 unique strings applied for. And in the first 12 months since registrations began in the first of the new gTLDs in February 2014 there is much to celebrate. Looking at nTLDstats.com, registrations across all new gTLDs will pass 4.5 million domains in the next week or two, there are over 520 gTLDs delegated, 223 registrars participating plus an unknown number of resellers.
The application and implementation process though has had its problems, Rickert said in the German capital of Berlin, but he was of the view the programme had been a success.
The problems as Rickert described them, were the TAS (TLD Application System) which said was an “epic failure”, Digital Archery, the Trademark Clearinghouse, Public Interest Commitments (PIC) Specifications, dealing with name collisions and the sometimes curious decision-making process.
On the Trademark Clearinghouse, Rickert noted how trademark owners made a lot of noise over their concerns regarding potential trademark abuse in the new gTLDs when they were introduced. Yet when it came to using the TMCH “it was a failure”. There were nowhere near the numbers of Sunrise registrations that were hoped for to protect trademark owners.
Looking to the future, Rickert said not all new gTLDs will survive, just as in any industry. This was backed up in comments in the following panel session by Alexander Siffrin, founder and CEO of Key-Systems. Siffrin believes some of the new gTLDs will fail in part due to issues such as bizarre registration requirements.
Rickert also believes new gTLDs are necessary. “It’s extremely arrogant in the western world to ask internet users to change their keyboards to type domain names. I believe there is a need for growth.” And looking to the future Rickert said “stamina will be needed due to unexpected developments.” And we’re only at the beginning of a new era of the internet as the public gains awareness of what is available.
The following panel session also included panellists involved in the .bio (for organic products) and .hamburg gTLDs.
Godefroy Jordan, whose company Behind the Dot operates the .bio gTLD, which is aimed at the organic foods market, has over 8,000 registrations in just over six months. While this is below initial expectations, Jordan said the gTLD is performing well in its in eight key markets where it is in the top 20 in registration numbers and top ten in value.
The .bio gTLD is targeting those in organic foods, from production to sale. One group is farmers who want to market their produce online but to date have found the complexity of getting a domain name, email and website too difficult. Behind the Dot research found 60 to 70 percent of farmers don’t have a website but many would be keen if it were an easier process.
Registering a domain name in itself is difficult. Jordan said registrar websites are for geeks. Simplicity is important. Farmers and others don’t often understand the difference between a website and a domain name. They are also marketing to industry with advertising in magazines such as the German Bio Nachrichten (Organic News). And they are having success with 40 percent of registrants using their domains.
Another to be pleased with their success was Oliver Süme, co-founder and CEO of Hamburg Top Level Domain, the operator of .hamburg. Since its launch in August 2014, there have been over 21,000 .hamburg domains registered and they are becoming quite prominent in the city. Süme commented that in the recently elections in Hamburg candidates were regularly using the local gTLD.
Looking to the future, both Jordan and Süme were optimistic. Jordan said it’s a competitive market. “There aren’t a lot of markets that get 400 new products in a year. We have to fight every day to get visibility with registrars, new co-promotions and fight other gTLDs, just like the supermarket industry” where Jordan has previously worked.
And while it is early days, both Christian Müller from Stratos and Siffrin said they are seeing renewal rates of around 70 percent. But that in about two weeks we’ll know more.
Süme believes that in .hamburg “we have a premium product and a premium price is justified. I’m not aware of any failed registration because of the price. In terms of new gTLDs we’ve just learned to walk upright and it’s very early in process and next year could be the most exciting of my life!”
Jordan said their research had found price was very important for more the more generic new gTLDs such as .online and .website but for most a price of €20 to €50 is what people expect to pay.
Sedo To HOst dotHIV Premium Domain Name Auction
Sedo will be hosting next month the dotHIV Premium domain name auction. The auction starts March 3rd,2015 and ends seven days later, on March,10,2015.
The auction features 58 premium .HIV domain names, with different price ranges.
Some of the domain names included in the auction are :
Have.hiv
Educate.hiv
Statistics.hiv
Action.HIV
For.hiv
Infected.hiv
Manage.HIV
About.hiv
You can see the entire inventory here .
Heika.com Wins Weekly Sales List at $300,000
Heika.Com,sold for $300,000,topped Domain Name Journal sales list of reported domain names for the week,ending February 22,2015.
Sedo had a great week in the sales chart,taking 15 of the top 20 positions .Correspondingly,Flippa took only three of the top 20 positions .
.COM dominated once again the list,with 16 of the top 20 positions.
Here are the top 20 positions for the week ending February 22,2015 :
1. Heika.com $300,000
2. Anker.com $130,000
3. Checks.net $24,500
4. OnlineChat.com $24,000
5. LoveCrafts.com $20,000
6. RFH.com $19,000
7. Ofen.de $17,100
8. Infor.nl $11,400
9. AndHouse.com $10,850
10.tie Procrastination.com $10,000
10.tie VietnameseDong.com $10,000
10.tie WeAreHealthy.com $10,000
10.tie XV.net $10,000
14. PJ5.com $9,000
15. Ushareit.com $8,888
16. Agwest.com $8,800
17. Matinee.com $7,750
18. NaturalSkin.com $7,700
19. Plusa.com $7,140
20. AquaGym.com $6,840
DNS Belgium : Strong Interest in gTLDs
DNS Belgium, the company behind .BE extension, conducted a survey in 10 different countries and gave a general overview of the global interest in the new gTLDs.
You can read the announcement after the jump :
“There is a clear demand for more options in internet extensions. This is shown in the results of a survey by the Domain Name Association, an independent party that represents the interests of the domain name industry. The survey was conducted in 10 different countries, and gives a general overview of the global interest in the new gTLDs.
Nearly 60% of all respondents indicate an interest in more internet extensions. They feel that domain names with a specific extension are easier to remember. Depending on the subject, websites with relevant domain name extensions (such as .news or .today) are preferred over website in the own country code TLD or in the .com extension.
An impressive 94% of all those surveyed claim that they always (54%) or sometimes (40%) pay attention to the extension of a link in search results. This leads us to conclude that the importance of a relevant extension cannot be underestimated, even when it comes to search engines.
You can read the full overview of the survey here:
http://thedna.org/documents/Global_Domain_Name_Preferences_Survey-Domain_Name_Association-Feb2015.pdf“
Will Social Media And Apps Lead To The Demise of Domain Names?
Currently one wouldn’t post to Facebook, Twitter and other social media without hashtags to highlight keywords, at least not if you want the post to be found through searching. From the mundane activity to brand promotion and celebrities.
So the question online marketing specialist and domain name expert Jennifer Wolfe asks in an article on ClickZ is “will hashtags take over the internet?”
Wolfe writes that “many think the domain name space is dead in favour of search, user experience, apps, and social networks, mostly driven by hashtags. But I find when I talk to Millennials or even the next generation like my 12-year-old son, they still use a browser and search actual websites. Despite the fact that they have grown up in a world where we can all access the Internet in many different ways, depending upon where we are, what we are doing, and what device we are using, they still go to browsers for specific functions. The website is no longer the centre of our digital universe, but it’s still an important part of it.”
“If you want to really research something, for example a trip you plan to take or for a paper you are writing, you are more likely to use a browser. If you’re not sure what you want yet or want to dig deeper into possibilities, you will likely turn to a browser to search and find what you want. And as much as apps create an easy portal, we can only manage so many apps on our devices before we reach a point of diminishing return. Once we reach that point, we need a browser or some way to manage new things we want on the Internet.”
Writing about the lack of .com use in hashtags, Wolfe wants to “extrapolate this out to the browser experience. This would mean that domain names or the naming convention of websites would need to be more fluid, using natural language with the ability to shift and change as the trends of the day change. There would have to be a lot of options in the domain name space for that to work.”
“This brings me to an important point. No one ever includes the phrase .COM in a hashtag – why? Because .COM has no meaning. It became the default extension to the website or browser experience in the 1990s and has remained top dog for 20 years. Once the .COM space became completely saturated with anyone and everyone, good guys and bad guys, it had no meaning. It once meant commerce as in the Department of Commerce, which created the .COM space 20 years ago. But as of today, it has absolutely no meaning. This is why it doesn’t show up in hashtags and in the future won’t be helpful as a domain name.”
And what of new gTLDs. Wolfe is a big supporter.
“Not every website should be in .COM. Not every website is about commerce. Some are about changing your perception and maybe .LIFE or .SOLUTIONS makes more sense. Some are about specific topics like .DOG or .BIKE. Think of all of these very interesting new domain name possibilities and how they are very much like hashtags: .LOL, .CYOU, .LOVE, .STYLE, .YACHTS, .RECIPES, .HELP or .MOM – these can all make a strong root to hashtag campaigns that translate into digital addresses or landing pages to extend the messaging into the browser experience. There will be millions of possibilities and possibly more in the future to create your own self-selected digital experience in the 900+ new gTLDs that enter the Internet landscape over the next few years.
“If you are a dentist, it might be much more hashtag-like to be SMILE.TODAY or BEAUTIFUL.SMILE or any number of variations that relate to how people think and talk now in the digital world. The new domains create hashtag-like possibilities rather than just throwing everything into one bucket – it does create more choice – more opportunity. The same kind that has emerged in an age of hashtags.
“So many want to dismiss the gTLD movement, but the signals that this is where the next generation is headed in their approach to digital life are all around us in digital media. It’s not hard to imagine 10 years from now when a 12-year old reading about the history of the Internet may say: “Mom, why was everything in .com?, that doesn’t even make sense.” #futureoftheinternet.”
To read the article by Jennifer Wolfe in full, go to:
www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2396794/will-hashtags-take-over-the-internet
