I have at least another couple of hours trying to digest all of the 1,931 applications released by ICANN in the Big Reveal but already have found some pretty big surprises.
Apple didn’t apply for .App
The owner of the biggest App Store in the world didn’t make application, but Amazon and Google did.
Apple also didn’t apply for .Mac
Facebook did not apply for .Facebook or for any other new gTLD.
Twitter didn’t apply.
eBay an often used example of a .Brand did not apply.
Microsoft applied for 11 new gTLD’s but didn’t apply for .Search.
Google applied for .Search
There are a few companies that applied for new gTLD’s that you normally wouldn’t have thought would have
Walmart applied for 6 new gTLD’s
ASDA
GEORGE
GROCERY
SAMSCLUB
WALMART
一号店
Google applied for over 90 Generic new gTLD terms making it the 2nd largest applicant.
Yahoo only applied for 2 new gTLD’s .Yahoo & .Flickr
There was only 1 application for .Education
There were more applications for .Rugby than .Football
ICM owner of .XXX is the only applicant for .Porn and .Adult and one of only
There are as many applications for .Sex as .Goo (2)
I’m surprised about Apple and .APP also.
Amazon seems to be applying for many generics as closed registries.
What is the idea(rule) behind the singular words ?
wouldn’t .apps be better? .homes? etc.
Expected much more from .sex
The idea behind singular words in the case of .app or .game or .blog, is that its open to a broader pool of registrants. If it uses the plural version, it would be limited to directories and aggregators. For example, drawing.apps, restaurant.blogs. By being singular, it opens itself to smaller options like thedrawing.app or pizzarestaurant.blog.
Hello Michael,
No surprise here. When you take into consideration that most of the superior ” Virtual Business Foundations ” cut their teeth on Ad revenues. For them to admit that the .com Foundational, addresses that they operate from are really their best form of free perpetual advertising,would only spell doom for them.
The smoke screen continues!
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
People find iOS Apps at Apple’s AppStore, so I’m not sure why they’d want to encourage people to go elsewhere online to look at Apps. It’s really kind of a useless ‘vanity’ extension, anyway. Not a surprise.
Thanks you, jeugos gratis.
The potential amount of typos is going to be interesting, I understand no wild cards allowed..
so who gets that traffic (error)…$$$$
.hotel
.hotel
.hoteles
hoteles.com
hotels.com
hotel.com
Taxi! Taxiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!
My Random Notes after going through all 1,930 TLD Applications:
.BEER goes unchallenged (only one applicant)
.ATTORNEY goes unchallenged
LOTS of duplicates and clashes (ie 9 applications for .BOOK; 11 for .HOME)
LOTS of similarities (ie, .APP vs .APPLE; .ENGINEER vs .ENGINEERING; .FISH vs .FISHING; .SEX vs .SEXY). I agree that Apple missed the boat by not applying for .APP. Now what? Too bad, so sad?
LOTS of longtails (.CANCERRESEARCH? .CASHBACKBONUS? Really?)
.DUCK? C’mon — For real?
.EMAIL goes unchallenged yet 7 for .MAIL – too close? Or not? One applicant for .INSURE, yet 4 of for .INSURANCE – too close? Or not? who gets it?
Double clashes (ie, 2 applicants for .GIFT and another 2 for .GIFTS — which prevails and who gets what?)
Offensive: .INDIANS (India, Native Americans or baseball — Did you catch the part of the meeting in which the guy was saying that the backwards Arabic writing was offensive? OMG!)
Two separate divisions of Merck each applied for .MERCK – which gets it, the US or North American entity?
Different spellings: (.THEATER vs .THEATRE) How they gonna handle that hot pickle?
My conclusion. Keep renewing those .com’s. The grandkids will thank you for your investment. The gtld’s are all destined to years of litigation, fighting, arbitration, disputes and lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers. If and when they ever do finally see the light of day, they will be welcomed by …absolutely no one and will quickly shrivel up and die as we have already seen by many past tld failures having much stronger foundations.
The one tld application I liked was .FAIL since I think it succinctly summarizes this entire foolhardy scenario.
@Domainer
Spot on. But make no mistake, dotGOOGLE will “succeed” because they have the power and money to make it work. In 5 years, I can see some of these gaining traction, but the failure rate for the genrics is going to be awfully high and those saying this is the death of dotCOM are clearly drinking the Kool-Aid. DotCOM will always be the #1 worldwide TLD. All that will happen is that the pie will be split more ways.
Note that Facebook, Twitter and eBay did NOT apply.
Smart marketing will tell you not to deviate from their hard earned established Mark.
SEO that another animal..
” I can see some of these gaining traction, but the failure rate for the genrics is going to be awfully high and those saying this is the death of dotCOM are clearly drinking the Kool-Aid. ”
@ David
One of the dangers facing .com (or even some of these new gTLDs) is if some of the big brands like Google start giving free registration to people. It might not affect the .coms that are already famous and established websites, but it will surely affect the aftermarket. (just my opinion)
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@ojohn
Don’t get me wrong, some of these will gain traction and Google has tremendous power to promote anything they desire, but NONE of these will ever replace dotCOM as the #1 worldwide brand and it will sit atop the 1,000 foot pyramid. Anyone thinking otherwise is drinking the Kool-Aid.
Facebook, Twitter and eBay did not apply. Speaks volumes.
@ David
The lesson that I got from all this is that it’s critical to to turn domains into established websites and brands before all the new gTLDs become operational. The days of just parking domains or warehousing thousands of mediocre domains are over. I guess those who already have established websites will be less affected at least for now. (just my opinion)
–
Facebook, Twitter and eBay don’t need to apply for their TLDs at this stage. Firstly no one else can apply for them as they are trademarks. Secondly the costs are only going to go down and down. Lastly, why take unnecessary risks? Wait and see how the public respond, to e.g. .google, then jump on board.
The big risk takers are the ones going for the top generic keywords. But then big risk can = big rewards. Just have to wait and see.
@ojohn
Spot on.
@ David Castello said:
It appears Apple applied only for .apple. Isn’t Apple one of the influential companies which investors follow? Guess it is a defensive registration, to make sure the extension, apple, doesn’t wind up in the hands of farmers or another company!
I know that Apple Corp went after ‘.apple’, but i’m curious, did
they decline to go after any other gTLD’s on ‘principal’?…
@Louise
Actually, I would agree with that. Apple is such a generic word that I wouldn’t doubt an association of apple growers wouldn’t have a case. On the other hand, Facebook, Twitter and eBay are so unique.
This is the most important news of the day.
I do not trust whatever Google is planning for their new batch of TLDs. I am guessing they will be free vanity urls used to disrupt the unity of existing TLDs.
For many average american consumers Google is a way to navigate to their favorite .com site. Typing in apple or netflix, hulu, or amazon is a way to navigate to the .com domain. Once that searcher figures out their own behavior, they may limit their Googling to research. After finding that wikipedia is usually the #1 hit for that as well, I think Google is actually a lot less useful then people may think.
If you can create more content on non-dot-com properties, then people will be forced to use Google for everything. Because, how could anyone remember the TLD. Before they could guess .com and 90% of the time it would be correct. Now you won’t be able to remember anything other than “I know it wasn’t dot com” so I have to proceed to search.
An example of how your brand can be gutted by Google:
https://www.google.com/search?q=wall+street+journal
Now WSJ is literally burning money on Google’s doorstep with this query. Along with paid inclusion, I am in utter disbelief at how Google is gutting the web from the inside out.
You do not need to pay verisign $.10 every-time someone types your dot com in to the address bar. But in fact that is what Google has been doing for years. When will the brands wake up? Is it already too late?
“…but NONE of these will ever replace dotCOM as the #1 worldwide brand…”
————————————————————————————————————
You sound like a horse and buggy salesman.
@TeddyK
Got your fresh glass of Kool-Aid right here, Gomer 🙂
@Trust: eventually they will shoot themselves in the foot as all other search engines have done in the past. let them be bullish. they’ve had a great run.
google needs content. any content. one idea is they want every man, woman, and child to have a website that google knows about (via zone files) and can index. they want more people to generate “content”. this ensures the future of google. more information for google to index is a necessity. if that amount of info slows, google will be vulnerable.
So much from opening up the web for small and other businesses from those who monopolize domains
Apple has one word for you SIRI
“Note that Facebook, Twitter and eBay did NOT apply.”
“Facebook, Twitter and eBay did not apply. Speaks volumes.”
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Before the “orchestrated” TAS Delay and before the CHANGE to the 100% REFUND Policy…ICANN and the [[[Insiders]]] were seeing what people now see.
What could the self-appointed ICANN Board do ? Call off the entire process ?
What could the U.S. Government do ?
What could the GAC do ?
In the case of the U.S. Government, the NTIA head said, “Let’s wait and see what the reveal shows…”
Now people see “the reveal” and they can draw conclusions about what has NOT been revealed.
Also, people working on Beyond.Top.Secret projects must be breathing a .HUGE sigh of relief that their Top Level Domains are not going to be trashed by the ICANN Process (aka Meat.Grinder)