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I posted this on a private domain board today, but I thought I should make a short post about it on my blog, too. Since ICANN has decided to open up the TLD space, I’ve been asking myself this question:
If a company (e.g. Nike) is offered Shoes.com and .SHOES, which will it choose?
It is the answer to that question that could determine the aftermarket value of generic .com domains in the future.
Exactly Dominik. This has the potential to become a paradigm shift for marketing on the internet. Although, I am sure it will not harm the value of .com domains much, if at all.
Major Brands can branch out with their own .tld cause they have the built in marketing and customer base. Most of the .tlds that have launched did not have this. They had to start from scratch and the reason why many have settled at the bottom of the ocean. Major brands do not need the internet to deliver traffic to their brands if they owned their own .tld. Consumers can be trained as they have for decades to go to where these brands send them to for their products. The reason why many of the major brands pay for key words, is because the .com’s are all taken and they have to brand unique terms, with no traffic, most confusing for consumers with all the other garbage branding ongoing in .com because of limited supply and high prices.
However, when you own the complete network, it is easy to let consumers find everything you offer on it. Additionally, you can sale the space to the other major brands in the shoe business that you are not in, as in this case. This would create a targeted network. Targeted traffic as we all know is valuable, and the only ones that can do this right, are Major Brands, Corporate America, and Media companies. For the small timer, it will be very difficult as history has proven to us with past and present .tlds.
dance.shoes, dress.shoes, baseballshoes, basketball.shoes, women.shoes, etc. etc. Tons of possibilities for the major brands.
Of course this is all my opinion.
We will have to wait and see who the first Major Brands are to sign up, if any. If none, then .gtlds are dead in the water as past ones. However, if several of them do, then a paradigm shift on the internet is about to occur.
Is there an icann page where you can view who is applying for new gtlds?
Bit of a no-brainer, Dominik, because they would also need .schuhe, .chaussures, .zapatos (and .zapatillas), etc. ad nauseam, accomodating every language their market comprised. Apart from the fact that Nike manufactures hundreds (if not thousands) of items that aren’t shoes. So then it would be .backpacks, .sacsados, .mochilas, etc. ad nauseam. The proposed proliferation of domain extensions begs a more interesting question: wouldn’t it be great to revert to an extension-free system (rather like the old “Internet keyword” concept) where there was just nike, sweatshop, volvo, trees, lazy, dominik, schweinsteiger, müller, españa, horny, kraft, bulletproof, etc. ad nauseam without any “right side of the dot”?
How does that relate to .com sales at all?
Owning a TLD is like owning a brand name. You will have to INVEST and BRAND the TLD. You have to take in to consideration the majority of the worlds population that only know .com, .net, and .org.
This whole TLD thing is just another way for ICANN’T to make some money. They will be laughing all the way to the bank.
If you think that these types of TLDs will take away from .com value, then why didnt .jobs or .travel do ANYTHING at all? Or better yet look at .biz. .biz is WAY better than .business and people still think that just because its a premium .com will make it a premium TLD. Sorry but it does NOT work that way.
Check out the gTLDs we already have .name, .biz, .pro, .aero, .cat, .coop, .int, .jobs, .museum, .tel, and .travel. They went no where and went there pretty fast.
“I have to say I am an active domainer for awhile and only heard of .travel recently. I don’t see this ever taking off.
COM/NET/ORG are the Big Three than everyone has heard of. I bet under 5% are even aware of any other (non country related) extensions.”
-Straight from a member over at namepros.com
Sorry for the rant but people need to get their heads from their butts and realize that its not the end of the world.
@Andrew-The examples you give are a little unrealistic. This also means that nike would have to do the same for shoes.com, schuhe.com, chaussures.com, zapatos.com with the examples you gave with the gTLDs. It is all about the established brand with gTLD imo. In this example, Nike’s biggest money maker is shoes and they are established with huge customer base across the world. All they would need is .shoes, because they are nike. This is how powerful their brand is and it translates into every language in the world. Maybe even martian! =) Again, it could all be dead in the water. Just depends how many major brands, media companies, and Corporate America sign up for it. You have to take off your domainer hat on this. This is marketing. This is a dream come true for Madison avenue.
@Ross, it is all about brands. The Major brands have already paid for their established brands. If the Major league buys the .MLB tld, you can bet it will be supported by its fans. This is the difference between the extensions you listed above and potential future ones from major brands, media, and corporate america.
The names on the internet are just streams to send their established customer base to. The reason none of the other extensions did well is because they were not established brands. They started from scratch and had zero loyal customers. Most still have zero loyal customers. =)
I do agree with you and do not think this will have a big effect in the value of .coms. Just another opportunity for new marketing strategies to revolutionize the internet for those major brands who own their .tld.
Again, we all have to take off our domainer hats to see the potential here. That is the key word with .gTLDs, potential.
Ross, I didn’t say this would be the end of the world. I am a .COM enthusiast and I hope this extension will continue to be the most popular TLD of all.
But I always try to look at things from a different perspective, from a more neutral perspective as opposed to only looking at an issue from my (biased) domainer standpoint.
ICANN’s decision might not have much influence on the value of .com domains at all, that will be fine with me. But I still want to try to anticipate the future, so that I won’t be saying “Wow, I should have seen this happen a long time ago, now it’s too late.”
I think the main reason why all those generic TLDs have failed, is that they were not marketed effectively. For a new TLD to succeed it must meet lots of criteria, including the motivation of the TLD’s owner/operator, the owner’s budget, creativity and long-term business plan.
.TV was a total failure until it was taken on by Demand Media’s Richard Rosenblatt. Although .TV is still far from being a mainstream top-level domain, I think Rosenblatt is going into the right direction. His company has promoted .TV and created a system for .TV domain owners to launch their own channels and video blogs on the Internet. This has brought .TV some miles forward and I’m sure this extension will rise in popularity.
.MOBI is another example of an actively promoted TLD. Personally, I don’t like it at all and I don’t see much chances for it, although .MOBI has some strong companies backing it. The concept of DotMobi is just weak; why do you need an extra TLD for mobile access if modern devices can access “normal” .COM websites?
This shows why .Travel, .Jobs and others haven’t taken off. There was nobody willing to do his work and promote these generic TLDs. I mean, they’re good TLDs and suitable for development and commercial exploitation, but nobody has seriously tried to do this, yet.
Now, I really don’t see the sky falling on our heads because of the creation of vanity top-level domains (vTLDs; term coined fittingly by David Castello), but it is important to look into the future and recognize potential issues before they become a serious problem.
Steve, thanks for your comments. I think we agree about this and the possible effects of vTLDs on the domain market.
This is, in fact, about marketing. Therefore, we must “take off our domainer hat” and look at it through the eyes of a marketer. IF a major company decides to buy a new TLD network and IF it will use it in its marketing campaigns, usage of that TLD will surge.
ICANN’s decision offers interesting opportunities to corporate end users and creative marketers, and we may not turn a blind eye to that.
Guys,
The answer, Dominik, is NEITHER!!!
I think the one big point you’re missing, is it all gets back to branding.
Madison Ave and all that corporate branding…
You’re asking the wrong question, Dominik.
What side of the dot do they want their brand? You’ve got it on the wrong side. IMO they want to continue their corporate branding, so it would be shoes.nike, sneakers.nike, golf.nike, etc..
They always hated using the .com because they always got the fact that they were helping brand it. They did NetSol a huge favor and branded .com without it costing them a penny. Why do we all buy and sell the .com? Because it’s by far the biggest tld brand and Madison Ave with corporate Americas money made .com what it is.
You guys are giving way to much credit to corporate america and Madison Ave. They never got it when it came to great one word generics and most, but not all will miss this opportunity as well.
They won’t buy and start .shoes
Some smart entrepeneurs will.
Ross, you said “Owning a TLD is like owning a brand name. You will have to INVEST and BRAND the TLD”.
They won’t spend millions to brand some generic word that applies to the products they sell. That’s way to challenging as Andrew pointed out. They already own a brand! The shoes, sneaker or golf clubs are NOT the brand! It cost a fortune just to get to the point they are at with that brand. Owning the tld of their brand name is what they will all do.
Now that leaves shoes.com
They will never buy it now! They will still, ignorantly, think they will never need it with it’s multi-million dollar price tag.
That’s OK. That doesn’t mean it’s now worthless. Legacy corporate America co’s never got it, never will. Now they have their own brand tld.
How does a smaller competitor, shoe/sneaker company, compete with NIKE? If they get it, they start by buying shoes.com or sneakers.com!
The .com can compete with .nike because it’s as big a brand as any out there!!!
Koz
Although I cannot see how this can trump .com, I have been surprised before. The point is extensions are traditionally not used for branding purposes. My opinion is this concept will tank, but not before a lot of investors are duped.
Just my thoughts (which I’ve also said on another blog)
Clearly, the vTLDs would simply rely on (a hell of a lot) marketing to pick up whilst .com doesn’t need as much. 5 years from now, I’m sure that people would still rather add a .com to the end of their SLD than trying .band .law .game etc..,as they will have a better chance of landing on a website.
Icann’s move is too much too soon..and will simply confuse people.
think of .museum launched 7 years ago. I’m sure those guys were as excited as they are today.
but still, I’ve just tried Louvre.museum and it redirected to louvre.fr
why is it not the other way round?
So I foresee, google.search redirecting to google.com , facebook.social redirecting to facebook.com etc… That’ll just bring us back to square 1.
to answer to your question Dominik,
Nike (if they are serious about shoes) should get both and direct
both to nike.com !
Best Wishes.
Ritz.
Hi, I saw this referenced at http://www.SubliminalMessages.Com and agree with what Ross said earlier. “Travel” is one of the net’s most powerful keywords, yet .Travel went nowhere. Same with .Museum, .Aero, .Coop, .Mobi and .Biz. All had high expectations yet proved to be miserable TLD failures.
Why should any privately-held VTLD be any different?