Tag Archives: new tlds

Thu 20th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Frank Schilling changes plan for .Click launch - NothingHeldBack.click. 5 more Uniregistry domain names go into general availability next week. And for one of them, .click, Frank Schilling is taking a different strategy when it comes to holding back domain names. In previous launches, Schilling’s companies have registered thousands — even tens out thousands — of names ahead of general availability launch. That left frustrated domainers searching through the scraps. This was especially notable because Shilling ... read more ...
Wed 19th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dish DBS beats Google in .Dot auction, pays $700,000 for domain - Dish won a two way race to operate the top level domain name .dot. Dish DBS, the satellite TV company and owner of Blockbuster, has beaten Google in a public auction for the top level domain .Dot. It paid $700,000 for the rights to the domain name. You’re not misreading this – the domain name is .dot. So soon, you might be able to visit Blockbuster at Blockbuster-dot-dot. In its application for the domain name, Dish said it plans to use the domain name for its ... read more ...
Mon 17th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLDs this week: .Quebec, .Top and .Engineer - A few new TLDs hit registrars’ shelves this week, including a large geo domain. A few top level domain names coming out in a week is the new normal, so I’m going to stop calling these “slow” weeks. Here’s a look at this week’s new top level domain name rollouts. .Quebec – Quebec gets its own TLD this Tuesday, but its government is going to sit on the sidelines thanks to the price tag of transitioning. The domain does not carry geographic restrictions, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Switching to a .brand is some-more costly than we think - Make a wholesale switch from Brand.com to .Brand will be expensive, and won’t give you many benefits. News over the weekend of the Government of Quebec deciding to not change its domains over to .Quebec heightens the discussion on if it makes sense for brands to switch their web presence to a .brand. If they want to do it, it’s going to be really expensive. The Government of Quebec pegged the cost at over $10 million. Ultimately, I think it might be much more. Keeping ... read more ...
Thu 13th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Melbourne hits 2,775 registrations, .restaurant has plain initial day - .Melbourne wins the day, but not by much. The .Melbourne domain name launched Wednesday in Australia — Tuesday night in the United States — and had 2,775 domain names registered at the close of business on day one of general availability. That does not include landrush domain names that are still in contention. The zone file for .melbourne is a bit tricky, given that the domain launched close to midnight UTC. So these numbers are straight from the registry. Donuts ... read more ...
Wed 12th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week’s new TLDs: .Melbourne, .Restaurant and more - A big geo among this week’s new TLD releases. I’ve been a bit remiss about my weekly new TLD posts, perhaps because the past couple Mondays have been busy news days. That, and new TLD rollouts have slowed down to a trickle. But I’m not late this week, as all the TLD launches I can find are Wednesday releases. The biggest is .Melbourne (see picture of ribbon cutting below), which launched Wednesday local time in Australia (technically 23:00UTC on November 11). ... read more ...
Tue 11th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com wins .Book tip turn domain name battle - Amazon wins 9-way battle for .book domain name. Amazon.com has won an auction for rights to run the .book top level domain name. The company went head-to-head with 8 other applicants for the domain name, including Google, but ultimately agreed to pay the most to run the domain name. Although my money was on Amazon.com to win this domain name, its victory was by no means assured. Yes, Amazon.com got its start with books. But it just lost an auction for .cloud, despite ... read more ...
Mon 10th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines nets $8.4 million from auctions, .Cloud and .Book settled - Company wins by losing five auctions. New top level domain name company Minds + Machines has bolstered its bank account by $8.4 million as a result of losing five private auctions for new top level domain names. The losses included a handful of highly contested strings, such as .cloud and .book. That’s not bad for a company that originally said it wouldn’t even participate in private auctions. The company lost auctions for: .book – 9 applicants were in this ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
What do Amazon and Google domain name waste meant for new TLDs? - Neither of them won .cloud, which begs a big question. .Cloud is a valuable top level domain name. I’m basing that on the seven applications it received, and that Amazon.com, Google and Symantec all applied for the domain name. So which one of these heavyweights won the rights to .cloud? This one: Wait – what? That cartoonish logo doesn’t match any of the heavyweights that applied for .cloud. Aruba S.p.A., an Italian webhosting company, won the battle for ... read more ...
Fri 7th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Online could be best general new domain yet - Three reasons .online should be successful. Michael Berkens spotted this morning that the last of the losing applicants for .online had withdrawn its application, meaning a partnership between Radix, NameCheap and Tucows has won the rights for the .online domain name. I think .online will be one of the most successful new generic top level domain names, for a few reasons. 1. A combination of three top-10 registrars will be pushing it. I’m assuming that Radix will ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX modifies domain relating module for new adult TLDs - ICM Registry shortens window for claiming matching domain names due to ICANN requirements. ICM Registry, the company behind .xxx and the soon-to-be-released .porn and .adult domain names, announced today a modified domain name matching program for .xxx domain name owners. Previously, the company planned to reserve any domain names registered in .xxx in its new top level domain names so they could be registered by the .xxx owner. However, ICANN would not allow ICM ... read more ...
Thu 6th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Web.com says new TLDs spiteful .com resales - Company lowers guidance on weaker demand from its domain portfolio. Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) reported earnings yesterday and lowered its guidance for the fourth quarter. One of the reasons for lowering the guidance is that the new supply of TLDs is causing domain investors to dial back large purchases of existing domain names. In prepared remarks, Web.com CEO David Brown said: First, in the domain business, while we continue to expect the recently expanded top-level ... read more ...
Wed 5th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cool site lets we see what new TLD domains were purebred yesterday - DomainPunch’s latest tool is eye-opening. There are a lot of new top level domain names out there. Most of them grow by a dozen or so registrations every day. Now that the brand protection and investor rush is over, who is registering these domains? Here’s a quick and simple tool from DomainPunch to see domain names that were added to the zone files the previous day. It’s pretty interesting. I used the tool this week to investigate what types of domains people ... read more ...
Tue 4th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds + Machines tighten to $4 million in domain registration revenue - Company says it has sold the equivalent of nearly a half million .com domain names. New top level domain name portfolio company Minds + Machines issued a press release this morning touting its results to date after launching 10 new TLDs. According to the release: The Directors are highly satisfied with the overall progress of these launches, particularly from a revenue perspective. When measured on a .com equivalent cost basis, registrations within Minds + Machines ... read more ...
Mon 3rd November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.OOO runs another full page, front page journal ad - They’re spending big bucks, but they’ll have to back it up with results rather than just lies and predictions. Last month I wrote about Infibeam, the company behind the new domain name .ooo, and its front page ad on the Times of India. It has returned with another front page ad – including the inside front page. The inside page of the ad, which you can see here, talks about Infibeam’s vision for the domain name. I don’t know if I’d call it a vision or ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Michael Bloomberg’s waggish .NYC domain name registrations - Michael Bloomberg protects himself in .NYC. Who is one of the new .NYC domain name’s top registrants? None other than former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Or a law firm representing him, to be more specific*. I count 400 domain names that appear to have been registered on Bloomberg’s behalf. Many of them seem like reasonable registrations to protect his interests: bloombergfamilyfoundation.nyc bloomberggiving.nyc officialmikebloomberg.nyc But there are ... read more ...
Thu 30th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.ooo owners Infinibeam isn’t only crazy, it’s a misinformation machine - Company is spreading a lot of incorrect information about domain names. I was rather amused when Infibeam, the Indian ecommerce company behind .ooo, announced its bold ambitions for the domain name last month. I figured it was just a publicity stunt. Kevin Murphy called the company’s sales targets including millions of first year registrations “batshit crazy”. I filed Infinbeam in the “PR stunt” file, or perhaps the “delusional” file. Then yesterday ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Does auctioning off a new TLD to a top bidder set adult failure? - Why did losers not value the domain name as high as the winner? Let me start by saying I’m not a big fan of the idea of community priority and similar mechanisms for determining which applicant gets a particular top level domain name. But I’ve also been thinking lately about the auction process and its effect on the long term health of new top level domain names. When an auction is used to resolve a new top level domain name contention set, the company with the ... read more ...
Wed 29th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Critics contend Google is “Hispandering” with new .Soy domain name - If the company is Hispandering, it’s also mompandering and corporationpandering. New top level domain name registries offering regional, niche, or cultural domains, take note: the people you’re targeting might take it the wrong way. That’s apparently the case with .soy. Google’s new domain name isn’t targeted to yuppies who don’t like cow’s milk. It’s targeted to the Hispanic community. “Soy” is Spanish for “I am”. But some people in the community ... read more ...
Tue 28th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TLD Registry opens Chinese domicile and names GM - Chinese IDN registry opens office in “China’s Silicon Valley”. TLD Registry, the company behind the Chinese IDNs Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网), has opened a Chinese headquarters and named a new General Manager for China. The company’s China headquarters is in Beijing’s Zhongguancun, commonly known as “China’s Silicon Valley”. Last Friday’s opening party was attended by Embassy of Finland‘s Minister Commercial, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Feedback skeleton to gold feedback height with domain names - .Feedback domain names will come with a full-fledged feedback system. Jay Westerdal’s company Top Level Spectrum has submitted a request to ICANN to offer a feedback platform combined with its forthcoming .feedback top level domain name. The platform would mean that .feedback registrants could almost instantaneously launch a site on their domain names with a full-fledged feedback system. They could just register the domain and then log in to set up the site. In ... read more ...
Mon 27th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ harnesses a energy of .Com to foster the domain names - Company uses com.com to market .xyz domain names. Regardless of what you think about its approach, I’ve got to hand it to .xyz. The top level domain is trying a bunch of creative marketing and sales tactics. Here’s one a reader just tipped me off to: the company is using the com.com “typo” to inform people about available .xyz domain names. Depending on which domain name .com.com you type in, .xyz will give you a pitch for .xyz. For example, type in baseball123.com.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This week’s new TLD launch - Slim pickings for new top level domain names this week. You might notice something subtle in the title of this post. It’s singular. That’s because, as best I can tell, just one publicly available domain name is entering general availability this week: .saarland. Saarland is a German state. The domain name launches on Thursday for about $30 retail. The claims period for .brand domain name .bnpparibas also start this week. If you count early access, two more domain ... read more ...
Fri 24th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Analyst ups foresee for new TLDs, $900MM bookings by 2016 - Analyst becomes more bullish on new top level domain name potential. B. Riley analyst Sameet Sinha has increased his forecast for new top level domain name registrations after attending last week’s ICANN conference in Los Angeles. Previously, he was calling for about 20 million new TLD registrations from 2014-2016, now he’s pegging it at 29 million and says that might be conservative. He estimates top line potential of $900 million during this period. ICANN recently ... read more ...
Thu 23rd October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How we can (and can’t) clear new Top Level Domain auction prices - In this post, DOT TBA founder Christa Taylor considers the payback period for new TLDs based on recent auction prices and current registration volumes. The October 22nd ICANN new top level domain name auction resulted in the resolution of several TLDs selling for substantial amounts of money: .Realty $5.6 million .Salon $5.1 million .Spot $2.2 million. These results, along with the September 17th auction results of .buy at $4.6 million, .tech at $6.8 million and ... read more ...