After releasing all but a few hundred of the balance of premium reserved .XXX domain names and putting them up for sale, we reached out to Stuart Lawley the CEO of ICM the operator of the .XXX registry.
“”Each and every one of the 1,000 names up for sale , will come with entitlement under our “grandfathering” program we previously announced.””
“This means , if we are successful in obtaining the rights for .sex, .porn and .adult via our pending applications to ICANN in the new gTLD round, the premium names available in .xxx will entitle the registrants automatically to the matching name in the 3 new strings at no extra premium.”
It should be noted there is another applicant for the .Sex gTLD.
ICM is the sole applicant for .Porn and .Adult
Although ICM is the sole applicant for .porn and .adult there is no guarantee that these TLD will be approved any many expect objection to them from the Government Advisory Counsel (GAC) to ICANN
We have some thoughts about the release but we will save them for a separate post later this morning.
short
Mike
What do you mean by “short”
i think it’s a recommendation… like take the other side of the trade ’cause they’re goin’ down. who would pay six figures for a .xxx?
In the poker world, the timing of this release would be called a “tell.” If ICM was confident that its renewal rate would be strong, it would wait until AFTER the first year renewals data is available, as that would show stronger demand for .xxx with corresponding higher values. If the renewal rate turns out to be weak, values of these “premium” domains would be lower.
It’s just like the stock market, and an earnings release. Do you sell before the earnings announcement, or wait until after the earnings announcement? In this case, ICM is selling before the “big announcement” (i.e. the reveal over what percentage of registrants decided not to renew their domains).
George
I agree mostly in what your saying but then your also kind of spoiling my next post
Sorry Mike! I look forward to seeing the next post, though.
Well said George…i agree we will find out in December and next year to see the future of .xxx
Conversion rate of renewals and also future sales…
And of course…seing what happens with Manwin in court and how the Porn Industry will support the new gTLDs. For far .xxx is not getting the support!
I can say, on my behalf, that a have some .xxx sites, and i got lots of traffic the first week of the launch of search.xxx but since then numbers are down.
Personally….I think .xxx is here to stay, and if the icm get’s grandfather rights on .porn, .sex and .adult this could be huge for the domainers that invested and got in early…
And finally….Google is starting to index the .xxx so that’s a big step as well!
Michael….looking forward in all your new posts on this subject!
I’ve stated before that I envisage MANY registration drops due to…
1. The poor quality of registered domains. Clearly, in the rush to register, many folks took whatever they felt they could get. Now, anythingicouldget.xxx doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
2. The renewal cost, which is higher than other extensions.
3. Ongoing efforts from companies like Manwin to discredit ICM Registry, and marginalize the .xxx extension, in a blatant attempt to further monopolize online adult content.
However, I agree with Eze. .The .xxx exention is not going away. As a holder of some premium quality .xxx domains, which will be developed, I think renewal time will separate the wheat from the chaff.
It is interesting to see that ICM have released these premiums before the renewel time. I do agree that .xxx will be here to stay.
I have a few good .xxx some are geo’s others are xxx related. I also have varying traffic results some names are as low as 300 UV’s a day. The most stable .xxx is having over 2,000 UV per day and this has been for the last 2 months, most of the traffic is coming from Google and is well indexed.
All in all I’m prety happy with the traffic .xxx is receiving and my best performing name if using the general valuation tool ($ per year X 8) would have a value of $5,840
I’m using a white label site so the payout is’nt great, there is room for improvement.
I totaly agree with you Paul…and i think we will see the drop-outs…but also see the people wanting to get in…so maybe all in all…
We will see a stable rate….all balanced out…
And all will depend also on how the world and google….takes on all the other new gTLDS’s …
Sorry guys not going to get another post up today will shoot for tomorrow
I’m sorry to hear you could get another one up, Mike.
But, on the topic here, any purchase that comes with free sex and porn is one that deserves serious consideration.