Marketing potential of brand-name top level domains seems limited.
I’ve had a question about the proposed new top level domains for a long time. And no one has provided me with a good answer. Hopefully someone reading this can provide one.
A handful of people have suggested new top level domains are an excellent global branding opportunity for brands such as eBay and IBM. Instead of promoting eBay.com or IBM.com, they can promote their own top level domains .ebay and .ibm.
Let’s assume both of these companies get their own tld. Pop quiz: how do you visit that company’s home page?
You can’t just type “ebay” into your browser. The way browsers are set up now you can’t even type .ebay into your browser and expect to be taken to the .ebay tld. There has to be a second level domain, such as home.ebay.
It reminds me of the mobile web site conundrum. If I want to go to CNN’s mobile web site, I don’t know if I should type cnn.com, cnn.mobi, cnn.com/m, m.cnn.com, etc. The same thing goes for new TLDs that are used as brands.
Even if a global brand gets its own top level domain, it will still need to “mirror” that tld on its .com address. Consider that eBay promotes “go to shop.ebay”. At first, 99% of people will type in shop.ebay.com. That number will decrease over time, but not quickly. And e-mail addresses? If the address is promoted as [email protected] (remember, it has to have something before the tld), 99% of people will send mail to [email protected]. So eBay will have to mirror its email addresses.
When you see a domain name in an ad, on TV, or billboard, you know it’s a domain name because it either has a common extension (such as .com) or start with www. (Seriously, I was confused when a billboard showed the .jobs extension).
At current prices, only a small percentage of companies can afford their own top level domain. So internet users will continue to default to .com.
This isn’t an argument against generic top level domains such as .bank (although there are plenty of arguments about that), but many people who make money from working with brands keep pumping new TLDs as a great branding opportunity. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Eric says
Yup, the potential onslaught of these new TLDs makes just about as much sense as this sign at a shop inside the Detroit airport.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason-morrison/2519352619/
Huh? Long live .com
domain guy says
isn’t this what the domain king stated quite some time ago.”this is the biggest nothing i have ever heard of”.rick then went on to explain from his world cruise that when more tlds are put in place rick told us domainers that he expected more traffic to the .com suffix because people would get confused and are used to .com
Gerry says
What if .ebay becomes the new standard for ebay?
With their budget and promotional efforts, they can easily (in a short time – say roughly a year) brand their site and URL into the masses.
cars.ebay
antiques.ebay
pottery.ebay
So what it there are redirects for a while. That does not matter to the likes of ebay and coke.
Imagine:
new.coke
diet.coke
vanilla.coke
cherry.coke
Remember, we are just talking English here!
一口价.coke
Krämerladen.ebay
Chămsócsức-khỏe.ebay
If they keep the domain name closed and for themselves, then I can see this happening. And most likely to prevent squatting, this is the likely scenario.
Most brands are against this, but I see nothing to stop ICANN in its infinite ways to do whatever the heck they want to do.
We may view it as a money grab but in the end, the consumer wins.
Your example of mobile and CNN was noticed. Again, there are no standards that is why .mobi makes sense above all else…you showed how confusing it can be as no one really knows how to access anything anymore. If you need to add more memory to your mobile device to keep up with all of it, then we have issues.
As for .IBM, now that makes little sense as they are not too into products now having spun off Lenovo.
But, on the grand scheme of things using such a email address of andrew@ibm – well, it will still take time and branding.
No, many will not make sense. And they don’t have to. Not if it is your URL. Some will undoubtedly fail, others will thrive.
The internet is about to become a very complicated mess and place to do business.
Did we even hit on IDN yet? No.
Lord, how do you think things are going to look then.
One commenter lamented long live .com or something to that effect.
Tell that to the Dutch and Germans who use their own .nl and .de with more and more frequency. Dot com is quickly not becoming the de facto URL in many places thanks to nationalism and national pride.
The real loser may ultimately be the search engines as a few years from now the savvy internet user will now go straight to clubs.nyc, diner.berlin, toys.ebay, and so on to get directly to the product or service they want.
It may not make much sense now on January 25, 2009. But on January 25, 2012 this may be what the internet looks like.
Most of your readers are not going to understand and are not going to grasp something.
Consumers win.
Domainers don’t.
Consumers control the internet and its usage. Domainers do not. They just wish they did.
In the end it is what is used and how it is used by consumers that matters.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Gerry – why is cars.ebay better than cars.ebay.com? A few keystrokes? It makes little sense.
The idea that search engines will lose because people will just type in clubs.nyc also seems like a long shot. By the train of thought then search engines should be defunct now because I can just type-in clubsnyc.com.
Great Leader says
Not sure about your assumption that people default to .com – for many they default to their country code, especially if it’s in their language.
I can see this working very well in visual advertisements – credit.mybank is short and memorable.
Interesting question what recognition or weight search engines will give to extensions – it seems at present they give special treatment to .com, .mobi, and country codes.
I look forward to see who gets .phishing, .scam or .country.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Great Leader – when people see a billboard for credit.mybank, how will they know it’s a URL? Is it because it has a . in it?
Andrew Allemann says
It also occurs to me that a company that uses a branding tld will have to start over with SEO. cars.ebay is a completely different domain name than cars.ebay.com.
Gerry says
@Andrew – as I pointed out, it does not need to make sense to you or me or anyone else on June 25th, 2009.
Longshot or not, unless someone or something reins in ICANN it is a mute point to even discuss any of this.
Once IDN’s are in full swing I would imagine that browsers will become much more intuitive and transitional. Imagine someone typing in Mandarin Chinese but you view it in English as you browser adjusts to settings you have entered. You do nothing.
None of this is a long shot.
Again, we – as domainers – do not control the internet and can not even constrol ourselves.
The new TLD’s only needs to make sense to ebay or coke or the countless other brands.
There is a group of nearly 9000 international brands against this.
Who is going to persuade ICANN that it CANN’t do this?
Yet, none of this is new.
Nearly 13-14 years ago there was a push to get .berlin. That was shot down when Berlin threatened to sue. It was NOT the city of Berlin behind this.
Which opens up another can of worms… Dot NYC is not backed or being pushed by New York City. It is being pushed by two people going around and speaking at rotary meetings. Their audience are immigrants. Their sales pitch is convincing them that there are no good domains any more. It is these immigrants who can not get Diner.com or Deli.com or Cleaners.com who are signing these petitions!
These backers have teamed up with the original backers of .berlin and have persuaded ICANN to backstep now.
Gee, is it any wonder why .berlin and .nyc is on the list of new proposed. Now add .london and hamburg to that listing.
These were originally pushed as gcTLD’s (Global City TLD’s).
What does ICANN gain from this?
Three things:
money
money
money
That is the only reason any of this is now being revisited.
Thanks to domain names being perhaps the most lucrative and unquestionably the least regulated.
There is very little national, international, or global oversite regarding domains and ICANN.
Because of the lack of oversight and its inability to police/control itself, if there is something stronger and more controlling and regulatory that grows out of this, blame ICANN.
We are now into an age of demand and higest prices win. Look at .mobi and its auctions.
Laugh or not, .mobi’s method became the precursor to let’s auction off premiums before their release – ala .asia.
There is too much money exchanging hands and being made to be ignored. And fact is, no one is ignoring it.
We may be entering into an age where the new stock market of the millenium (and its ticker flashing across your screen) is traded in .com, .net, .london, .us, .de, .cn, .nyc, and so on.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Gerry – I understand your points. I don’t agree with everything, but understand.
Of course, ICANN is a non-profit. It’s workers still gain from the organization having more money: it gives them job security and they get bonuses (although apparently the bonuses are based on the financial results of the organization).
Great Leader says
“when people see a billboard for credit.mybank, how will they know it’s a URL? Is it because it has a . in it?”
That, or a www in front, or a phrase like “go to” or an indicator such as a picture of a browser address bar, or even a graphic suggesting a barcode or Q/R code. Or just make the dot oversize in print, and exaggerate it a bit when you speak.
I doubt the public care how they get to a web address, and soon search will be voice activated and Q/R codes will be everywhere, and even without them buildings and so on will be tagged – so you just point your phone’s camera at something and get either local data or a direct route to its website.
Patrick McDermott says
“I can see this working very well in visual advertisements – credit.mybank is short and memorable.”
Really?
People have trouble remembering domains
from current TLDs.
Do you really think they’ll be able to remember “credit.mybank” and a plethora
of other brand-name top level domains?
elliot noss says
“why is cars.ebay better than cars.ebay.com? A few keystrokes? It makes little sense.”
I hear this one all the time. it is what (usually old) people used to say about rotary phones when push-button phones came out (and yes I am old enough to remember that).
the truth is that a ton of effort has gone into expanding the tld space since 1998 (anyone remember the original CoRE?) and it was one of the two primary reasons that ICANN was formed.
I do not want to defend so much of the silliness that is going on in this round of new tlds, nor do I want to defend the generally unimpressive performance of the original “new” tlds (I could explain it, but not defend it), but I definitely do defend the idea of expanding the name space.
semantics to the right of the dot!
Rob says
Andrew,
They won’t necessarily have to start over with SEO when moving to a vanity gTLD, as long as they incorporate the same type of transition plan that would be used now for a subdomain or full domain move. But there is no doubt in my mind that some corps will decide to make this change, and will pave right over their previous SEO efforts, and they will in effect be starting over. Overall, it can still be tricky to get a new domain (on any TLD or domain move) to fully inherit all previous search history, backlinks, etc.
As a general rule of thumb, I try to keep my enterprise clients building search equity into their existing domains (as long as they don’t have a bad search history), and avoid a move at all costs to maintain natural search perfromance.
I still think there are a ton of problems with gTLDs, and most companies should not go this route (except for TM protection, and pointing the domain, rather than hosting a presence on it).
Here are a couple of columns I wrote for MediaPost Search Insider on the topic (free reg required):
.Anythinggoes? The Impact Of New ICANN Vanity Top-Level Domains
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=86701
More On The Search And Brand Impact Of Vanity Generic Top Level Domains
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.printFriendly&art_aid=87568
Duane says
@ Gerry
“Consumers win. Domainers don’t. Consumers control the internet and its usage. Domainers do not. They just wish they did. In the end it is what is used and how it is used by consumers that matters.”
You are absolutely right consumers rule the market and that is why these new TLD’S .ibm or .bestbuy or .whateverShop will fail!!!
WHY WILL IT FAIL?
Consumers want the best deal. Consumers do not want a .brand telling them what to buy.
Consumers want to decide for them selves what CAR.com or E-Jeeps.com they want and not what .BMW or .FORD tells them to get.
Consumers want the best MORTGAGE.com or LOAN.com they can get and not rely on what a never will be .LEHMAN or .WHATEVERBANK tells them is the best deal.
It’s called freedom of choice, that’s what consumers want.
Using one .Brand means no choice!
Geo’s like .nyc or .berlin might get some attention but it multimillion dollars in branding and years to get users acquainted to these new TLD’S.
Chances are very clear against these TLD’S.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Elliot – We’re probably on the same page, but I don’t have a problem with increasing the tld namespace. The way it is happening — a massive explosion all at once (and several other aspects of it) is silly.
Gerry says
@Andrew – Regarding comment 15, I think that is a key issue here.
Unchecked, this could be unbelievable mass release. As well as mass confusion and overload to the brain.
One or two spread out seemed okay in the past.
Most don’t realize that this could honestly blossom into thousands of new extensions.
Just try not to think about it.
@Duane – once again, domainers announcing the failure and death of something before release.
No one can honest look into their crystal ball or put on their pointy hat and say “it is going to fail and here’s why…”
Saying “Chances are very clear against these TLD’S” is certainly premature.
Ms Domainer says
*
When users click on Product.ebay, they can be assured that the site is not a phishing site.
On the other hand, if one clicks on ProductEbay.com, who knows? It could be run by some cybercrook from Nigeria or China.
I see “brand” TLDs as a way to protect one’s TM and protect a company’s potential customers from being directed to bogus sites. These companies will not be registrars per se because they are most likely not going to sell domains to the public, but simply set up sites for their various products and staff.
Back in the early 1990s, when dot-com sites started popping up in ads and billboards, everyone I knew was pooh-poohing the notion that a business would ever need an internet presence. This dot-com and dot-net nonsense was just a passing fad.
Well, we all know how THAT worked out.
😉
Sooner or later, websites such as Surface.apple, Checking.mybank, and NewModel.Dell will start popping up on billboards, etc.
One thing I have learned: nothing ever stays the same; if someone builds a better mouse trap, consumers will buy it. If companies see an opportunity in snaring their TM TLDs, then they will see it as money well spent. $185,000 is a drop in the bucket.
I don’t think users will be at all confused by the new “brand” TLDs.
Generic TLDs are another matter; for example, who decides which company gets .bank, .credit, .loan? Deepest pockets? In my opinion, there will be LESS trust in a generic TLD because average users are not likely to know who owns the TLD.
It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
*
jp says
@Andrew
Excellent point about SEO. Google will just have to change their formula again if these .tlds start to become popular. If you own .ebay, you can sure as heck bet that you’ll be using alot of subdomains, otherwise why own an entire namespace for such a high price to use 1 domain? Perhaps website structures will change from domain.com/folder/folder/file.html to just subdomains? Only 1 way to find out.
Anyway, my thoughts on the matter are that the public will have to be retrained to some sort of new standard that will probably arise. Perhaps the standard will become home.ebay, and home.ibm to signify the entrance to the site. Who knows. This will of course take alot of time and money to retrain the public but could happen.
I have to say though, even though I can make sense of something like .ebay, and .ibm, I just can’t see stuff like .bank, or .generic anything. It would be too broad, and if you are going to go broad like that, well that is what .com is for. (short for .company right?, or is it .commercial? I actually don’t know). What would happen if you went to home.bank, and why would citibank want to share citi.bank with bofa.bank, when they could have home.citi and home.bofa respectively? (savings.citi, checking.citi, bankonline.citi, etc….)
So to summarize my guess major corps will get the new .tlds to strengthen their branding. They may no longer care about people typosquatting their .com typos if they can retrain the public effectively, and good for them. .com will still have a value for smaller business, and more general stuff. The other .tlds like .info, .me, etc.. will probaly fall down a notch. This is my guess today as it makes sense in my head right now. If you ask me again tomorow perhaps I’ll have a different opinion.
One thing is fore sure though. We will see some really clever innovaters about these .tlds in coming times, and some people that seem clever, only to turn out not so clever. Fortunes will be made and fortunes will be lost, just like with anything else.
Johnny says
The main point is totally correct. It’s much more complicated to tell someone to go to .ebay or art.ebay than ebay.com. Ebay.com already means that it’s a website and website address is ebay.com. Art.ebay means nothing. You have to first explain that it’s a website, then you need people to remember two words separated by comma. Good luck with that. We all know how well people remember names like jobs.ibm.com.
Duane says
@ Gerry
“Chances are very clear against these new TLD’S”
Chances of failing are much higher than being a success. I hope this sounds a bit more democratic.
Like I said Geo’s like city or states might stand a chance but here we have another problem. You mentioned different languages and IDN.
Let’s take a city name, for example Cologne Germany.
“Cologne” is the English version.
“Köln” is German being an IDN
“Koeln” is also German.
There would already be two .CITY Tld’s just for one city, in one Language.
Nuremberg in English
Nürnberg in German
Nuernberg also in German
A crazy never ending confusion.
Sergio says
Good arguments from both sides.
My question is this: if someone wanted to see what art or electronics they could buy at a company like eBay, why not just visit the company’s site and use the search box that is readily available and so easy to use? The categories are front and center inside of a drop box – wouldn’t eBay want their customers to be exposed to all they have to offer, instead of limiting them to “art.ebay” or “laptops.ebay”? When a person goes to one of these domain names, followed by the company’s name, they will arrive to a page that only has that particular category’s products to offer, and, from a company’s perspective, will limit a person’s experience to that one, and only one, category. eBay is in the business of telling everyone that you can find anything on their site to buy or sell.
This is why search boxes were invented. The company can focus on promoting their website instead of all of these ridiculous sub domain categories.
Count me in as one of those people that says “vanity tld’s will never work.” It’s just plain counterproductive from a company standpoint.
David J Castello says
After the dust settles (and the horror stories start coming in), many companies will suddenly realize that it will be a whole lot easier (and cheaper) to simply pony up for a great dotCom or ccTLD.
Companies who have the money and recognition to successfully brand their own TLD worldwide?
eBay, IBM and CBS.
Companies who can’t and whose vanity TLD will forever delegate their business domain name to being Search Engine Dependant?
Everybody else.
People who easily understand vanity TLDs?
ICANN, lawyers and domainers.
People who will scratch their heads in confusion and default to dotCom or their ccTLD when they try to remember the name of your company?
The General Public.
Antony Van Couvering says
Would .ebay make sense to you if it worked like this?
cars.ebay -> ebay cars page
jewelry.ebay -> ebay jewelry page
canoneosd5markii -> Canon EOS D5 Mark II cameras for sale
etc.
The domain name is a search term. Isn’t that the essence of type-in traffic?
Antony
David J Castello says
Antony:
You said, “The domain name is a search term. Isn’t that the essence of type-in traffic?”
Yes, but a large part of the “essence” of type-in power is the TLD. And 99% of names with intuitive traffic are dotCom. I can tell you first hand that very few dotOrg and dotNet sites get type-in traffic. We own Rate.com. Rate.com does excellent type-in traffic, but five years ago its traffic suddenly shot through the roof. We were confused until we discovered that Rate.net had launched with a massive marketing campaign.
And guess where everybody went?
The public has already been well exposed to new TLDs such as dotTravel, dotAero and dotPro. When they launched, the only people who cared were ICANN, domain speculators and their owners. And now I’m hearing the same rational for success as I’m hearing for these vanity TLDs.
jp says
I am definitely thinking the best way to look at this animal is by 2 categories. Brand.tld and Generic.tld. I can see where Brand.tld can make more sense than .com in some circumstances, but there is definitely going to be a battle between Generic.tld and .com. My vote is for .com. I’ll bet someone in Russia pays big bucks for .banks and runs the biggest phishing scam ever.
So here is the next question. $185k is probably a pretty high price to pay for a Generic.tld in most circumstances, but then think about this: why would you ever pay more than $185k for a Generic.com if the Generic.tld is available?
Hopefully .com will still make more than $185k worth of sense to pay for a .com, otherwise we are looking at a pretty low glass ceiling compared to what things used to be. I speculate it’s going to be a while before all the good .tlds are sold.
On a positive note, if mega-corps have to decide between $185k for a .tld, or a mere $50k for a generic.com, us domainers’ prices may start to seem a bit less crazy to them.
jp says
As soon as you see the first superbowl ad for a brand.tld, all the megacorps are going to make the call to find out what it will cost for them to do the same. Hopefully this is the day when our aftermarket prices seem cheap.
jp says
Here’s another good questions:
What do you think is worth more?
Loans.com or the .info tld?
David J Castello says
I would divide all future vanity TLDs into four categories:
1) Well known companies such as eBay, MTV and IBM.
These have the best chance of success because they already have the brand recognition and the money to pull it of.
2) Small-Midsize companies.
These will have an extremely high failure rate. Branding a household name is one thing, but branding an unknown company as a TLD is the height of vanity and stupidity.
3) Geo TLDs
dotNYC and dotParis are short enough to have appeal, but dotMilwaukee and dotChattanooga will have SNL writers working overtime.
4) Generic TLDs
This is where the fun begins and where ICANN could open a Pandora’s Box. Branding a unique name like eBay as a TLD is one thing, but assigning a generic such as dotLaw, dotHotels or dotJewelry to someone for their sole usage is a one way ticket to litigation.
todd parker says
“For more behind-the-scenes footage go to thehills.mtv.”
“To check out the other books on my list go to oprah.books.”
“Get your free ringtones at lilwayne.music.”
I hear all these domainers talking about how the new tlds are going to fail and it sounds to me like telemarketers talking about how 1-888 will never work because 1-800 is king. So much for that. It’s going to take very little promotion of these new tlds for consumers to understand what’s going on.
todd parker says
“The public has already been well exposed to new TLDs such as dotTravel, dotAero and dotPro.”
I would argue that fewer than 5% of consumers have ever heard of any of those TLDs.
David J Castello says
Todd Parker:
Exactly. And, considering the millions spent to promote those TLDs, how easily could a vanity TLD crack the market?
todd parker says
The more, the merrier. Every new TLD markets not only the TLD itself but the concept of alternate TLDs – with more new TLDs, consumer awareness should be greater.
With travel, aero, and pro, aren’t there highly restrictive requirements as to who can register names with those extensions?
todd parker says
“assigning a generic such as dotLaw, dotHotels or dotJewelry to someone for their sole usage is a one way ticket to litigation.”
How so?
Mario Koch says
Gerry: “But, on the grand scheme of things using such a email address of andrew@ibm – well, it will still take time and branding.”
andrew@ibm would not be a valid email. .ibm is just an extension. Seems you missed here something.
“The real loser may ultimately be the search engines as a few years from now the savvy internet user will now go straight to clubs.nyc, diner.berlin, toys.ebay, and so on to get directly to the product or service they want.”
I dont think so.
Internet users will go on with using more helpful and independent websites too look for information about restaurants clubs or anything instead of .cities putting the companies who pay most taxes on top. Only a few rich cities would really apply for their own extension.
.com is and will remain as the defacto and URL. .de and .nl at first target a national market. Internet 2012 will not look much different than nowadays and ICANN cannot go on with doing whatever they want. They are creating a real mess right at the beginning of a recession. They are far away from being independent. But some things must change.
Dave T says
To me, centralised firms like ebay are not good examples of brand suffix potential. They only need one address worldwide and they have the perfect, unconfused identity already. It’s de-centralised or franchised companies that could benefit significantly, anyone with 1,000 or more stores. (registry cost = $185 or less per store).
So if you visited Hollywood for example, instead of going to Pizza Hut’s main website and trying to scroll to a store in Hollywood, you could more quickly go to Hollywood.pizzahut for a menu. (Once Pizza Hut had educated their market that every store had a domain.) Or imagine the type-in potential of owning the dot pizza extension, if it “took off” (to move on to new generic extensions.)
Hollywood.pizza? Or HollywoodPizza.com?
Dave T
David J Castello says
Todd Parker:
Don’t know about DotPro and DotAero, but DotTravel has made it much easy for anyone to register.
And assigning a generic TLD such as dotLaw, dotHotels or dotJewelry to one person or company for their sole use is too monopolistic, in my opinion, to survive a serious legal challenge. There is a big difference between who owns a TLD compared to who can use a TLD.
Ms Domainer says
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This is really a great thread; everyone is offering good opinions (both sides) on the vanity TLDs.
My take: I can see large companies applying for their TM TLD if only to protect their brand.
Like many of you, I fear that allowing business people/businesses to apply for generic terms is positively scary. Imagine if someone controlled .bank–that could possibly cripple the banking industry worldwide, especially if the owner is a terrible caretaker and/or allows spammers and scammers to sign for domains and email addresses.
I would hope that ICANN would reconsider allowing any one corporation or person to “own” a generic TLD, just because they come up with the money and a good story.
*
Antony Van Couvering says
It is indeed a good thread. I’ve been talking about similar issues on my blog. One post in particular might be interesting, an interview with Bart Lieben, who works with a lot of corporate clients:
http://www.namesatwork.com/blog/2009/01/27/interview-with-bart-lieben-trademark-verification-expert
In addition, I answered Andrew when he commented on one of my posts, and since it’s relevant, I’ll copy it here:
Hi Andrew, I’ve seen a lot of naming conventions proposed, then either adopted or discarded. Domain names themselves were as vast improvement over the execrable X400 addresses that were used for email by quite a few until just a few years ago. I’m don’t think people are as stuck in their habits as many in the domainer community believe.
There may be reasons to dislike new TLDs, but the idea that no-one will use them because they can’t get .com out of their heads seems like wishful thinking to me. For one thing, most people in the world already don’t use .com — they use their local ccTLD. These people already live in a world of multiple TLDs, and they don’t appear to be showing any ill effects from the cognitive dissonance. I myself use a .vc name for my personal correspondence, and everyone from friends to elder relations to customer service reps uses it just fine.
As for how to form an email address, this is the same problem people have when they own their own name in .com. Is it [email protected]? Or [email protected]? The .com on the end really has very little do with the awkwardness some email addresses bring. As for the AARP, what’s wrong with [email protected]?
Things change and progress. People adapt. Radio was king until TV showed up, even though everyone had already invested in a radio. Husbands and wives habitually slept in separate beds, while now that’s seen as a prelude to a divorce. TV was seen as a brainwashing tool until the Internet came along, and now there are people looking back nostalgically to the “electronic hearth.” I don’t see any evidence behind that claim that people will always use .com; on the contrary, I see a lot of evidence that people will adapt very quickly when they see a benefit.
Antony Van Couvering says
BTW I just typed “ebay” (nothing else) in my browser and it went to ebay.com… But if Firefox decides it should go to shop.ebay, then that’s where it will go…
todd parker says
“.com is and will remain as the defacto and URL. .de and .nl at first target a national market. Internet 2012 will not look much different than nowadays and ICANN cannot go on with doing whatever they want. They are creating a real mess right at the beginning of a recession. They are far away from being independent. But some things must change.”
I see this all the time:
“New TLDs will fail. .com will always be king.”
immediately followed by:
“ICANN is out of control. The new TLD round is a terrible idea and needs to be stopped.”
I fail to see the connection between believing that new TLDs will not be widely used by consumers and believing that the round should be stopped. Plenty of people think the new TLDs will be a success and are willing to pay up to see them created.
“And assigning a generic TLD such as dotLaw, dotHotels or dotJewelry to one person or company for their sole use is too monopolistic, in my opinion, to survive a serious legal challenge.”
In what way is that more monopolistic than .jobs, .biz, .travel, etc, or allowing some domainer to sit on law.com, hotels.com or jewelry.com?
Andrew Allemann says
The original point of the post was that corporations using their brands at TLDs didn’t make sense. But I obviously have opinions on the other aspects of new TLDs too 🙂
With regards to generic TLDs such as .cars, they make as much sense as .info, .biz, .travel, etc. Same idea. Only when the market is flooded with them, they become worth less. New TLDs won’t bring down .com, but they will bring down .info domains and other alternative TLDs. And the sum of them will hurt the survival of each other tld.
Domain Offerings says
I agree, if .net and .org have so much trouble catching up with .com, all the different tld’s will be completely useless. I believe google already takes you to the site if you type in the name in the search without the .com tld or in the Chrome, of course.
ojohn says
If the “Top 2500 Generics”, the “Top 2500 Brands“, and the “Top 2500 Geos” are all made into TLDs then almost any combination of the two Generics, Brands, and Geos that people normally type in or search for can be made to resolve to sites with relevant content. This has the potential of changing the landscape of domains and domaining in the near future and could even affect the way people do search. IMO
Mario Koch says
todd:
“In what way is that more monopolistic than .jobs, .biz, .travel, etc, or allowing some domainer to sit on law.com, hotels.com or jewelry.com?”
Seems you miss the point. Anybody can sit on generic dot anythings. No allowance needed. .jobs .biz .travel extensions in hands of a public registry is far from being monopolistic.
But I dont think one company should be allowed to own any generic extension. Just public registries.
No WORLDWIDE known trademark no extension for just one company. That would be my plan. .microsoft for microsoft? Why not? If there is absolutely no doubt release it. Should a .apple be auctioned? I dont think so. Two companies sharing it, even the fees? Why not.
Todd, you do not realize who will own potential new extensions. These will not be common registries like for .com .net .org where anyone is able to register domain names.
New extensions can only be held by the rich.
That puts an enormous pressure to refinance such project.
“New TLDs will fail. .com will always be king.”
I did not say so and Im absolutely not against new TLD’s in hands of registries as we know them. Nothing is wrong in adding new extensions carefully here and then instead of letting the internet as we know it to explode.
John Colascione says
I didn’t like this idea when I first heard it and I like it even less now. It’s a complete waste of a companies time, money, and effort to secure these follish TLD’s… These names are more a problem than a solution. It’s a cyber-catastrophe in my opinion and most will buy them to protect their brand rather than promote it… Complete waste.
Gerry says
I have read all the comments.
And there is an overall point that many are missing.
They are mentioning “I type in ebay and nothing happens” or this doesn’t work or that doesn’t work.
Do people honestly think the internet is going to stand still in this very moment in time?
Come on, y’all. This is not 1998 and technology is happening at a blistering pace.
Honestly – think! Not as a domainer but as a consumer.
A few years from now what, if any of this, will matter when you simply give a voice command to access what ever you want to access. Or Hiro in Japan makes a site in Japanese but the browsers are so intuitive that I see it in near perfect english.
It does not matter what has or has not happened to .net or .org.
Which one of those had the backing of such strong brands as ebay or coke or ibm?
Which one of those have had money pumped in to an awareness campaign?
How many ebay users are there?
Nothing will stay the same. Nothing.
But if you don’t have the foresight or the ability to step back and not be a domainer – and look at all this from a branding standpoint and a strong push by global brands to speak to their customer(s) and win new customer(s)…
then everything will be the same as it is right now at this very minute.
ICANN is getting much heat and a lot of flack and negative press over this proposal. Many brands are not for this proposal. And many cities are not as well. Who, as a governor or mayor, wants to not have a say or control over their incorporated names? Many cities and municipalities are incorporated.
So simply saying “here’s the $150K. Give me .hollywooo” does not mean its a done deal.
Honestly, as long as I have been in this business, I am still shocked and amazed at domainers inability to change and adapt and recognize this while it is happening.
There always is such strong resistance to anything new.
It bears repeating when I say domainers do not control the internet – they just wish they did.
And in the end, the consumer wins out.
What if all .ibm represents is email? Then IBM not only is the registrar, they become their own consumer. A branded URL to tie in their global businesses and employees.
It does not HAVE TO make sense to any of us.
It only has to make sense to the user, the consumer.
Am I for this?
Hell no.
It just clouds and confuses and makes the internet a very crowded place.
ICANN’s focus and emphasis should be on IDN. They have moved to slow on this issue and global giants like India and China are not going to sit idly by waiting much longer when they have clearly expressed that want an internet in their native scripts.
That is why I think ICANN’s usefulness and uselessness has lived it’s days.
I truly look for a new governing body to come along out of this continual inability to police itself.