Tag Archives: new tlds

Mon 11th August 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week in new TLDs: medical and financial domain names - Medical Donuts exit EAP, financial Donuts enter. A slow week for new top level domain names is on tap. Donuts is the only company with new releases hitting general availability this week. That means all of the action takes place on Wednesday. .Care, .Clinic, .Surgery and .Dental come out of the Early Access Program and revert to regular pricing. .Care is in Donuts’ middle price tier and the other three are at the highest price level. That’s not surprising for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Biggest new TLD surprises (upside and downside) - We’re closing in on 200 top level domain names being released in general availability, and there have been quite a few surprises. Some domains have done better than I expected and others have done much worse. I’ll list a few here, and I’m curious what you think. Let’s start with three that have done better than I expected: 1. .Guru 67,322 registrations (zone file) Would .guru have this much momentum if it wasn’t released at the beginning of the program? ... read more ...
Thu 7th August 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week .Rocks, really not a .Fail week - .Rocks is the top TLD of the week. On Tuesday I questioned if this week would be a big .fail for new TLDs, or if it would .Rock. We now have a (relative) answer. Rightside’s .Rocks was the top domain name launch of the week. So, by that definition, it .rocks. Here’s a look at the total registration numbers as of the overnight zone files for domains that launched this week: .rocks 5191 .网址 1,565 .limited 1098 .wtf 977 .reise 892 .financial 758 .fail 634 .actor 572 .网址 ... read more ...
Thu 31st July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
German domain name .Reisen tops Donuts’ launches with 2,262 registrations - Domain buyers go traveling with .Reisen. Donuts launched another four domain names into regularly-priced general availability yesterday. Based on overnight zone files, which don’t include a full day, .Reisen was the most successful launch. .Reisen, German for travel, got 2,262 registrations. That brings its total with sunrise and early access to 2,262. .University and .Toys received about the same number of first day registrations. .University added 1,136 to reach ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts: 775,000 domain names served - Donuts’ domain name registration base keeps growing. They keep stacking up.Donuts sent out a newsletter today that announced it is up to 775,000 domain name registrations. The mega-registry has released 111 top level domain names in general availability, so that’s an average of roughly 7,000 registrations per TLD. Frankly, this shows that the “portfolio” registry business is quite good. Scoff all you want at its TLDs with fewer than 5,000 registrations, ... read more ...
Wed 30th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX value some-more with .Sex in a bag? - It’s a mess in both cases, simply for creating an environment where domain owners are either given the chance to pay for the alternates, or feel cheated if they don’t. It’s a passive aggressive version of extortion. Even with just 4 similar TLDs, they are essentially saying to a buyer “We’re nice to you, so we’ll let you decide if you are going to pay us 4x the price or let us confuse your visitors by letting your competition get almost the same name” If ICM created 6 ... read more ...
Tue 29th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Celebrate Broadway celebrates .Broadway win - Contention set for .broadway top level domain name won by trade association. Celebrate Broadway, Inc., a subsidiary of The Broadway League Inc., has won the contention set for the .Broadway top level domain name. Other applicants included Donuts and Key GTLD Holding Inc. One of the larger shareholders in Celebrate Broadway is a subsidiary of the same company that owns Broadway.com. The Broadway League Inc. is a non-profit that bills itself as the national trade association ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ now has over 400,000 domain name registrations - Freebies and deep discounts add up to a big figure. The .XYZ domain name now has over 400,000 registrations, according to zone file reports. Of course, the majority of these registrations were given away free to Network Solutions customers on an opt-out basis. nTLDStats.com shows that about 353,000 .xyz domain names were registered at Network Solutions. If it charged full price, then you’d expect it to have maybe 1,000 registrations. The second place registrar for ... read more ...
Mon 28th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A “slow” week for new TLD launches - More Donuts, but not much else. There’s not much on the docket this week for new top level domain name launches. According to the Calzone.org calendar, the only TLDs hitting general availability this week are a handful from Donuts on Wednesday. Four Donuts domain names enter regularly-priced general availability: .reisen (travel in German), .Toys, .University and .Town. A couple potential “gripe” terms enter EAP: .wtf and .fail. Given the relative lack of interest ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
27 of tip 50 websites safeguarding their brands on new Donuts domain names - How are brands protecting themselves with new top level domain names? Many are, but there are some surprises. I just checked how the top 50 websites are protecting their brands on Donuts top level domain names. I took the top 50 (public) sites from Quantcast and ran them through whois for their matching .gripe domain to see if they were registered by the brandholder or blocked with Donuts’ Domains Protected Marks List. I chose .gripe for several reasons. First, ... read more ...
Sat 26th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Roundup: this week in a Domain Name Business - It was another exciting week in the domain name industry. Here’s a look back. Domain Registry of America may finally get cut off from ICANN. The notorious company that sends misleading domain renewal notices to domain owners has been suspended by ICANN and a full termination may be coming. Sedo is planning a big new TLD booth at September’s DMEXCO conference in Germany. Interested new TLD companies are invited to reach out to the company about participating. Amazon ... read more ...
Thu 24th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interesting .CEO comments started by Paul Kedrosky - Last night venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky discovered .CEO and tweeted his thoughts on it to his 275,000 followers: Conversation obviously followed. One person noted: Kedrosky responded “Exactly.” Another comment: To which Kedrosky responded “And that exact thought had already crossed my mind.” There are some other colorful comments. Not every commenter was a detractor of .CEO. One person kinda liked it. In addition to the insurmountable silliness of ... read more ...
Mon 21st July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .Tokyo, .Moe, .Consulting and more - Two Japan-focused domains kick off the week. It’s another busy week for new top level domain names, including a big .city domain name hitting registrar’s shelves on Tuesday. Tuesday Tuesday sees the launch of two Japan-focused domain names…in English. The biggie is .Tokyo, by far the most populous city TLD to enter general availability thus far. At least one Domain Name Wire reader thinks it will take a big shift in habits for people in Japan to promote or ... read more ...
Fri 18th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines nixes Priority Reservation System after registrars complain - Registrars complained to ICANN’s compliance department about program. Minds + Machines has nixed its Priority Reservation System for new top level domain names after registrars questioned aspects of the program. The program allowed customers to reserve domain names ahead of launch. Unlike typical pre-registrations, customers were guaranteed they’d get the domain name after sunrise since it was a program run by the registry, not registrars. Some registrars cried ... read more ...
Wed 16th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Latest .City domain name launches with 4,000+ registrations - .Wien launches. .Tokyo is next week. The latest geo city top level domain name to launch received more than 4,000 registrations on its first partial day. .Wien (German for Vienna) launched yesterday and added 4,201 domain names to the zone file. That brings its total to about 4,650. The registrations are spread across multiple registrars, mostly focused in Europe. United Domains got about a quarter of all registrations, judging from nameservers used. .Wien domain ... read more ...
Tue 15th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Will new TLDs get a second wind? - It’s likely, but when is the big question. Most new top level domain names are struggling to break even the 10,000 domain name barrier. Many applicants tell me they aren’t worried; it’s the long game. That’s true for many of them, especially the portfolio applicants. I’ve also heard the argument that new top level domains will get a “second wind” when big companies start using the domain names. This is a fair argument. 99.999% of people don’t know ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Bar picks adult 1,000+ registrations, .rest a bit slower - .Bar has decent first day while .rest struggles out of the gate. The .Bar domain name added 1,116 names to its zone on the first day of general availability. That’s about the same number of domain names that .pub got when it launched last week. This seems like a solid number given the high pricetag on the domain. As a point of reference, GoDaddy is charging $100 for .bar domains compared to $40 for .pub. I expect .bar to show steady growth going forward, especially ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo does a graduation that domain registrars should do - Domain name registrars would see good results from a marketing push similar to this. Sedo just sent out a marketing pitch to people that have listed domains for sale with “club” in them in the past. The subject line was “Did you try selling [something]club.com? Invest in THESE names now”, with a pitch for investing in .club domains. You can see the marketing email below. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more of this from domain name registrars. Registrars ... read more ...
Mon 14th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .Bar, .Gripe, .Moda and more - Punto 2012 enters the race, a city TLD launches, and Rightside tries to be fashionable. The weekly deluge of new top level domain names hitting the market continues this week. This week is notable because a new entrant is finally launching two of its domain names. Monday Punto 2012 launched .bar and .rest today. The company’s nic.bar and nic.rest sites don’t have much information, but the domains appears to have broad registrar adoption. The domains aren’t ... read more ...
Fri 11th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is 3,500 domains a delayed start or good start? - Last month Famous Four Media launched its first few domains, including .webcam and .trade. .Webcam and .Trade each received about 3,500 registrations on the first day. .Bid received fewer than a thousand. It turns out that the bulk of registrations were undertaken by a single domain investor. I didn’t figure this out until I had written part of a draft story about the launch. I had tentatively titled the post “Famous Four has a solid first day” based on the ... read more ...
Thu 10th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Services domain name adult to 4,600 and .Pub 1,300 after one day - .Services runs out of the gate, .pub is toast-worthy. Two new top level domain names launched yesterday and both had fairly good days. Donuts launched .services, its only domain name to come out of the Early Access phase this week. It added roughly 4,000 domain names on the first day to hit 4,584. The domain name is in Donuts’ middle tier of pricing, so it will set you back about $25 to $40 depending on where you register it (NameCheap on the low end and GoDaddy ... read more ...
Wed 9th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Investing in new TLDs? Hope for modest, not great, success of program. - Early investors in new top level domain names might get a better return if new TLDs as a whole are a mediocre success instead of a home run. Domain investors have registered a good chunk (the bulk?) of new TLD offerings to date. Is this a good investment? I’ve thought about the potential returns from a number of angles. There are three scenarios I see: 1. New TLDs are a big failure. They don’t take off and end up being small niche TLDs like many existing sTLDs. 2. ... read more ...
Tue 8th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Texas License plates sound a bit like new TLDs - A lot of niche license plates, just like niche domain names, might not make sense in the long run. Apparently not what the Dr. ordered.The Dallas Morning News published a story this past weekend about specialized licensed plates and a lack of sales for niche plates. Like many states, Texas offers specialized plates for supporters of certain causes, alumni of various colleges, etc. Texas is planning to cancel certain plates that have fewer than 200 users. Police are ... read more ...
Mon 7th July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week in new TLDs: .Pub, .Christmas and more - Frank Schilling tries to put you in the holiday spirit and Rightside raises its glass. You know what amazes me? One of the .brand TLDs to “go live” this week, .中信 and .citic, has a better information page than some of the other new TLDs launching. But readers probably aren’t interested in .brand domain names they won’t be able to register, so here’s a look at other domain names launching this week. It’s Christmas in July! Your local furniture store ... read more ...
Wed 2nd July 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD Luxury.Estate sells for $50k - A new high water mark for a domain sale in a new TLD? Hot of the heels of news that eat.club sold for $20,000, DomainHoldings announced today that it brokered the sale of Luxury.Estate for a whopping $50,000. The Luxury.Estate sale is different from the eat.club one because an early domain registrant cashed in big, rather than the registry getting paid for a premium sale. According to DomainHoldings, the seller of Luxury.Estate purchased it on day 5 of Donuts’ ... read more ...