Clickz.com, , just published an interview with Jon Nevett one of the founders of Donuts and Mason Cole their VP of Communications and I found a few very interesting quotes.
Jon Nevett is quoted as saying “At a high level the existing name space is overused and worn out. As new businesses start up, they can’t find what they want in the existing name space so they end up with a crazy mix of consonants and vowels because that’s all that’s available in dot com. So they end up with newyork35avepizza.com instead of newyork.pizza or newyork35.pizza.
Small businesses like plumbers or contractors don’t need to be in a domain with the millions of pizza shops, they need to be in the .PLUMBING or .CONTRACTING domain that makes sense for their businesses.”
Mason Cole is quoted as saying, “When we started this process, we looked at dot com as a downtown with one primary department store where everyone had their businesses. ”
“We decided that rather than just build one store with new gTLDs, we’d build an entire shopping mall.”
Cole described the digital shopping mall as one with anchor tenants and then many boutiques.
“The boutiques might not be successful on their own, but because of the economies of scale we have, they can be successful and provide people more options and choices. We applied for more than 300 and will be able to go deeper in the market as a result of our scalability and really compete with dot com,” he added.
“We will be engaged in consumer marketing and awareness of the new gTLDs focused on the benefits to small- to mid-sized businesses as well as the really big brands,” said Nevett. “We have a sales and marketing team in Los Angeles that is very active working on consumer awareness, but businesses and consumers will still need to go to a registrar like GoDaddy or 1and1 to buy the domains. While the lion’s share of domains will likely be for businesses, many of the top level domains are tailored to individuals looking to differentiate themselves such as .BLOG, .FASHION, .STYLE, .RUN, .SPORTS, .PHOTOS or even .GRIPE.
When asked about search, both Cole and Nevett agreed the gTLD program will have an impact on search.
“The top level domain will be a good indicator of what that site is about or related to and Google has announced they will factor in the top level domain name into the algorithm. The gTLD program has importance and relevance to search,” they said.
Interestingly the author of the article concluded with this statement:
“While there remain a few skeptics about the gTLD program, the digital shopping mall of domains is getting ready for its grand opening. Will a new domain become the thing everyone is talking about? Will dot com no longer be the “gold” but become the “old” standard in digital marketing? For more information on Donuts’ complete portfolio of domain names, go to www.donuts.com.”
Donuts doesn’t own Donuts.com, there site is Donuts.co.
its pretty ironic that the author of that articles mistaking lists their site as donuts.com.
This article proves that Donuts are simply, nuts. Or, they have a lot of money vested in this, and, hey… let’s try and make people think that .COM is meaningless now… probably a bit of both.
The author mentioning donuts.com rather than .co goes to prove that people are confused with .whatever. The folks at Donuts need to put the Kool-Aid down.
@CMAC @ABDU – I think that mistake pretty much sums it up.
Keeping with the shopping mall theme, .COM is the luxury anchor store that everybody knows and trusts.
For more information on Donuts’ complete portfolio of domain names,
go to http://www.donuts.COM”
Donuts doesn’t own Donuts.com, there site is Donuts.co.
****************************
Another moronic decision going with a Dot Co.
Any clearer?
no, its not any clearer and once again you guys commenting are oversimplifying things.
most things are a bit more complex than just well hey, if THIS = THAT then the result will be THIS in the future… of course people make those typing mistakes now when there are so few “alternate” TLD’s in use.
you guys keep using these examples BEFORE a flood of a bazillion TLDs are out. your argument will not hold water eventually and you will see how stuck in your way of thinking you were.
if you arnt willing to AT LEAST admit with an onslaught of 1,000’s of TLD’s being released in a short period of time that people wont make as many typing mistakes (to the right of the dot) then the conversation goes nowhere.
your argument amounts to: things are like this now and will remain that way because other factors and angles wont take place. but sure, go ahead and tell people a waterfall and a couple drops of rain are the same thing. you guys must have some really deep conversations with people. i can sense it.
On the web
when you say “you guys” who are you talking to?
Michael, this time i said “you guys commenting” (like in the comments section) because this keeps getting misunderstood. from having read your posts i know you are able to have more of a conversation than simply: “ha! this proves that, lets dust off this conversation and head home. case closed.”
i mean everybody, so far, that has commented in this thread.
i feel like im dealing with frat boyz high fiving each other but its certainly commonplace on forums and blogs these days and im sure in the future everyone will be capable of having more of a conversation. i can already see the conversation evolving and during the transition period there will probably still be folks that dont want to change their mind because then you’re seen as being inconsistent.
just remember guys, you are not your past. part of the problem with politics for example are that people try to maintain a consistent opinion even when other factors have changed.
really i dont know whats going to happen and sometimes i feel like even stating “i dont know whats gonna happen” is an overused disclaimer people are using to make it clear they’re not some “new TLD fanboy”
but shit i really dont know whats gonna happen… but it isnt as simple as the frat boy cult like mentality thats taking place now.
The more I read such claims about new gTLDs the more I am reminded of the mindset associated with domain tasting and the panic that must have attended the rise of the ccTLDs at the expense of the gTLDs. There is a natural US focus for some of these new gTLDs but the weak promotion and usage of .US ccTLD goes some way in explaining the “all the good names are gone” attitude in the article. Domain Tasting and Domain Kiting created an artificial drought in the domain name business. Many good domains that would have expired never got a chance to go back in the market. It was in this environment that many new gTLDs had their genesis. But when ICANN was shamed into dealing with the domain problem by introducing what was arguably a restocking fee, the level of domain tasting in the gTLDS fell dramatically. This is why, to some extent, new gTLDs are solutions to a problem that has already been solved.
Now some new gTLDs definitely have merit but the real issue (in the US) gets back to the poor promotion and usage of .US ccTLD. Some city gTLDs will perform like ccTLDs and meet the need for localised TLDs. However they will follow patterns from ccTLDs rather than .COM TLD in that the usage patterns and domain names might be closely linked and highly localised (business names rather than generic keyword domains). If anyone wants to see a preview of the futures of some of these new gTLDs then they have no further to look than .CO ccTLD (well promoted but minimal usage) or the last batch of new gTLDs (.BIZ, .INFO, .PRO, .JOBS etc). For the immediate future .COM TLD will remain the global leader but that is changing at country market level as the ccTLDs continue to gain market share. One good marketing campaign for .US ccTLD could do immense damage to the new gTLDs. It could be summed up in this slogan: “Dot what? No. Dot US”.
ontheinterweb
I was checking with you because of the above post I only wrote three sentences:
“Clickz.com, , just published an interview with Jon Nevett one of the founders of Donuts and Mason Cole their VP of Communications and I found a few very interesting quotes.”
“Interestingly the author of the article concluded with this statement:”
“Donuts doesn’t own Donuts.com, there site is Donuts.co.”
All the other statements were made by donuts or the author of the story so that is why I questioned why you included me in the “you guys” statement since nothing I said in the post would be controversial in any way
Ontheinterweb: I don’t want rain on my head…I’m opening up an umbrella. I definitely don’t want a waterfall on my head…that’s more water I’ll have to shed. I wish the gtlds and everyone involved much success…I just don’t want anything to do with them.
.com is global and not even cctld’s will change that. Cctld are successful; they just aren’t global…they are still limited. I see the same with any successful new gtld.
@Ramahn: statements like you just made are a lot more balanced and can understand that angle.
@Michael: ill tone down the “you guys” stuff… probably more effective ways to say it anyhow without being so personal and lumping everyone together (although i always thought the word “ya’ll” sounded more friendly than “you guys”)
@John: but what you’re saying is .US is currently a “dot what”… doesnt really matter if its a ccTLD does it? so i dont see how they’re in that much better position than other TLD’s nobody knows about or are considered 3rd tier “you couldnt get the .com domains”
@ontheinterweb Not as such. The new gTLDS will create confusion and .US is in a perfect position to capitalise on that confusion because it is the National TLD. The “dot what?” refers to the new gTLDs.
With most successful ccTLDs, people self-identify with their ccTLD in the way that they do not identify with .COM or the other gTLDs. A ccTLD provides an identity of sorts – something that people can use to differentiate themselves from .COM. The city new gTLDs will benefit from .US’s poor marketing but the confusion caused by the new gTLDs provides an opportunity for .US ccTLD. What happened a few years ago in Europe with the .EU fiasco kickstarted the growth of many ccTLDs. (A heavily overspeculated TLD with approximately 27 different language.) The same thing might happen with .US and the new gTLDs. Far from being the shopping malls envisaged by their promoters, some of these new gTLDs are going to be the hotdog stands in the middle of a desert with no roads, no hotdogs and no customers.
but .US is still limited and not currently used much. it doesnt matter if other ccTLD’s are more commonplace elsewhere, we know .US has sorta been one of the exceptions to the rule.
and the whole “self identify” thing you described can be applied to lots of the gTLD’s… if you’re using .club for example then you’re self identifying as someone in whatever club to the left of the dot. tell me how the concept you described is that much different..
by the way, i really like .US and use it for most everything active i have but its still pretty close to a “dot what” right now if we’re honest with ourselves and for that reason cant see how its in any better position than any of the other “niche TLDs” that are rarely used today (cause thats what country codes are, you’re using an identifier of a country and that by definition is limited to some degree)
and if some gTLD end up like hot dog stands in the desert, so what. how does that have a disastrous effect on the successful shopping mall in the major city 100 miles up the road?
The .US ccTLD had strong competition from .COM and the DotCom bubble.
One the “self-identify” and .club issue, not really. With ccTLDs people generally think of themselves as being part of a country and its citizenship. The .club thing is not in the same category unless they are some kind of sporting fanatic. A person is American or Irish or British or whatever but they may support some club. That’s the difference.
I’m doing the gTLD counts by country at the moment and I also include .US as part of it. There .US ccTLD is still massively US focused like most ccTLDs and unlike the open ccTLDs (.UK etc) the nexus requirement has maintained the focus as a managed TLD. While to some domainers that might be a disadvantage it is, in business terms, a very useful differentiator. But .COM is the de facto US ccTLD and it will be hard to change this. But it can be done.
As for the hotdog stand in the middle of the desert with no roads, hotdogs or customers, that’s a bit of a disaster for the hotdog vendor (the promoters of that new gTLD). But the city with the successful shopping mall is likely to have its own city new gTLD. These are the ones to watch. There will be some successful new gTLDS but it may end up with Pareto’s law in action with 20% of the new gTLDs getting 80% of the registrations.
The niche TLDs are different to ccTLDs. (I’d think of .MOBI/.PRO/.TEL etc as being niche TLDs as they had clearly defined markets) The ccTLDs apply to a country level market and most mature country level markets have a .COM/.ccTLD axis that represents 80% or more of the registered domains in that country. The niche TLDs (other than the regional and cultural ones (.CAT and .ASIA)) are pitching to a global market. When you break them down on a country by country basis, they rarely have more than 2% in many countries. The adjacent markets effect (where a geographically or linguistically adjacent country’s ccTLD will have registrations from registrants in that ccTLD (eg: Ireland and the UK, France and Belgium, Holland and Belgium, Austria and Germany) is far stronger than the registrations of some niche TLDs.
Guys
I have no idea of what the success of failure of .US has to do with the new gTLD’s
Its a whole different ball game.
The United States never adopted use of .US, they had .com
What that has to do with the success or failure of .law or .web or .nyc or .london I have no idea
me neither, thats what im saying. how he’s rationalizing .US is in a better position to “catch on” then new gTLD is beyond me.
he’s saying if they advertise it’ll catch on and “become new again” like maybe .travel or something.. i understand just dont agree.
@John: its cool that people “self identify” as whatever country their from… thats just fine.. but i dont.. not everyone is so patriotic. i might think of myself as an electrician before an Amurican’
see, its all good. not a zero sum game.
Just another note on this, the Internet already has a “Shopping Mall” and it’s called Amazon. You don’t even need to say the extension. That’s a given.
Donuts isn’t building a shopping mall. Shopping malls aren’t little stores all over the place, they’re stores within one huge building. There are enough little stores “all over the place” on the Internet right now… do we really need more? (With obscure new extensions, no less.)
you mean like a GTLDMall? Hmmm sounds like a catchy brand dotcom allright 😉
@Michael The .US/.COM situation has warnings and lessons for the new gTLDs. It shows how difficult it is for any new TLD to make inroads against .COM TLD and it shows what happens to a TLD that fails to make inroads against .COM. However .US ccTLD is a geographically specific TLD and faced with confusion over a range of new gTLDs, consumers may opt for what they know. And what they know is .COM, their local ccTLD and a few other TLDs that they see advertised. The problem with a purely domainer perspective on new gTLDs is that it ignores the trends in localisation of markets. While .nyc and .london are effectively pseudo ccTLDs that define large population centres or markets, the other new gTLDs you mentioned are not. They are pitching to a global market. One of the interesting trends in the last ten or so years in country level markets has been the migration from .COM to .ccTLD for professional and services type businesses. As their local ccTLD became more prominent, many businesses (with a local rather than global focus) began using their ccTLD as their primary brand. This effectively demolished .PRO and .TRAVEL as mass-market TLDs. The US has not had this kind of TLD migration effect because .US has been unable to compete with .COM in the US market. In terms of potential speedbumps, .US is one thing that may be a problem for these non-geographic new gTLDs in the US market if a localisation trend (using .US rather than .COM) gathers pace. It already appeared in the .COM TLD with geographic domains and domains that combine business names with localities.
@ontheinterweb People who build business websites and develop websites tend to be more conservative and are probably more concerned with people remembering their website. And though domaining is a part of any healthy TLD, there has to be a good mix of development, usage and domaining. Merely hoping that if you build it (or register it), they will come is no longer enough. Type-in traffic is a volume business and it rarely works well in small TLDs. While you might have to remember wire gauges and voltage ratings, you don’t have to remember something that you are, and that’s the real power of ccTLDs. Then again, you can always register your .ELECTRICIAN if it is available. 🙂
John
Keep in mind that most of these new gTLD operators are very well funded and plan to spend more money marketing these extensions in one year than has been spent over all these years to promote .US
I’ve alread seen adverts on some of the UK TV channels, Michael,
One large registrar is running a “register your domain before it is gone” type campaign and it puts a lot of options on the screen. It is going to be very expensive for these new gTLD registries to build market share and I think that based on the performance of .CO ccTLD, most of them will focus on the US/Canadian market. The super hosters (Godaddy, 1&1 etc) are going to drive the market. I think that the three month embargo on ICANN figures is still in effect for new gTLDs so the initial figures will be based purely on nameservers/hosters.
The .US marketing was almost typical ccTLD registry thinking in that it largely left it to the registrars to promote the extension. This approach generally benefits the larger hosters in a market but large hosters always promote their best selling TLDs first. The interesting thing will be to see which new gTLDs are heavily promoted as “must register” TLDs in the registrar shopping carts. The advertising will increase awareness of the new gTLDs but it also has to be balanced with development. If there is little development (or .BIZ or .CO levels of development) then consumers and prospective registrants may stick to what they know rather than taking a chance on some of the new gTLDs. However the effects of this advertising and the success of new gTLDs will not be apparent until the first or second renewal. The new gTLD operators will need every cent of their funding to ensure good registration volume.
John
I think you will see a lot more of the new registries taking the .co approach of doing a lot of marketing themselves.
This is not you’re corporate managed domains Like Neustar .US and Afilias .info, but Donuts, Frank Schilling, The Directi folks along with 2 of the top 10 companies in terms of interaction with the public and customers and users, Google and Amazon.
The thing is, .CO is nearly similar to .COM, so many of us (including ‘The Domains’) registered the .CO purely for defensive purposes. These gTLDs may be similar in a few cases… I know I have some domains that would be beneficial to register a gTLD for… but not as something that I would register otherwise… only for defensive purposes. What a farce.
Definitely will be a lot of defensive registrations
.sucks will probably be 90% or more defensive registrations.
As a domain owner you probably hate it, if you owned the registry you could retire off of it.
@Michael Berkens, companies can throw all the money they want at advertising but its ultimately up to the user to decide its success. you can even try and force users to use it (google plus) but that doesn’t mean it will be successful. there have been many well funded products in the past that have failed to grab the attention of the public.
I personally think this one has “failure” and/or “sucking” written all over the place…
why bother when there is 1000’s of “suck” alternatives in .com or .net…
WallymartSucksBig.com…
no one needs a .sucks domain you just need someone else not to own it
If its $20 a year they will get 300K+ registrations that’s 6 million dollars a year now and for forever
Shocking that more domainers didn’t see this opportunity and apply
My head spinning…
are you implying that:
300,000 compay.sucks will be registred?
Registred by the companies themselves? or by domainers that will later ask for a ransom for the LOOT ?
I am worried because quite often you see things others won’t and you seem so sure about this one (no sarcasm intended) …
Lastly: How come you and your partners didn’t apply?
I’m not implying, I’m stating my prediction that 300K defensive registration for .sucks
Monte and I through ROTD are working with applicants and decided we could not be both an applicant and an adviser.
I don’t have any “partners” in my domain business.
“.Com Is Like A Department Store, We are Building An Entire Shopping Mall”
“.Com Will Become Like AM Radio”
I think there needs to be a moratorium on gTLD proponents making awful analogies.
Brad
Mike,
‘Defensive Registrations’… I see.
Is that based on inside or public information? (TM Clearinghouse)
On the other ‘wise move’ by *ROTD .COM (me thinks) due to the potential conflict of interest.
* that’s the entity I was referring to.
There are only 15,000 registrations in the TMCH per Kevin from domainincite from a few days ago
You can register a domain defensively without having a TM or having registered in the TMCH
I will probably register berkens.sucks and thedomains.sucks and mostwanteddomains.sucks
That’s 3 for me
Just repeat that for hundreds of thousands of people
mike, why even bother? with so many gtlds the idea of defensive registrations is going to be dead in my opinion. there will simply be too many to keep up with.
Not saying I’m going to do it for all or even a lot of them but .sucks for sure .blog for thedomains
“.sucks will probably be 90% or more defensive registrations.”
If that is the case the extension should not be approved. That is a protection racket, which is a form of extortion.
After ICANN saw what .XXX did with the “Protect your Brand” BS, they could face civil litigation if they approve an extension like that, which exists only to sell defensive registrations.
Brad
Exactly Brad, .sucks would be an extortion gtld.
Guys
I have no horse in this game we are not working with anyone on .sucks.
I’m saying its going to be a huge money maker with little to no marketing something that will generate into the seven figures every year.
So from a pure business point of view its a good money maker.
As far as throwing around the extortion word be careful because there are members of the general public that say that’s what we do by registering domains and holding them to sell for a higher price later.
based on what rule/law?
apparently nobody realizes its a pretty protected form of speech..
….but they’re off looking it up now i guess going oh shiat..thats right duh
“apparently nobody realizes its a pretty protected form of speech..”
Free speech is protected.
An extension that exists to solely to make money off infringing domains is not “free speech”. It is a protection racket. You create the threat, then sell protection from that threat.
Brad
but how do you prove the gTLD itself exists “solely” to make money off infringing domains?
what if they claim their “main” reason is so i can register, for example, Microsoft.sucks and then set up a page about how i think Microsoft sucks and i dont want to sell it… i just want to tell people they suck.
ontheinterweb
Listen there is a set of rules that apply to all new gTLD’s
Right or wrong there has never been the idea that new gTLD needs to be good or necessary or important, just like movies get released every week, no one blocks them because they are bad, or not needed or poorly acted.
You do your business under the rules
you make your decision and you move on
im confused how that response was intended for me…
sorry, i was actually responding to brad above.
nm, i see what you’re saying now.
damn afternoon naps.
Brad
is that in the constitution ?
Of course its not illegal but i would say unethical. much like .xxx when they realized the adult industry did not support or want .xxx they went after the fear factor and defensive regs ended up making up a large part of their sales. i predict many lawsuits if there actually is going to be a .sucks.
@Michael H. Berkens
Why would you leave MichaelBerkens.sucks unregistered?
like i said they will get 300K registrations on defensive registrations
Why would you leave MichaelBerkens.sucks unregistered?
i wouldn’t
I won’t be getting any .SUCKS extensions. What’s the point? People can say the same about a company in any comment section. (How many millions of times have bitter people said Microsoft or Apple suck in comment sections, or blog posts? You don’t need to register a domain to get that message across.)
Besides, everything I do is incredibly great, so getting a .SUCKS domain just so no one else will would be very paranoid on my part. 😉