Google was the 2nd largest applicants of New gTLD’s applying for 101 of them and spending $18.6 Million dollars in application fees catching the eye of many publications outside of the domain space Here, Here, and Here
Non-domainer publications wrote about how Google would basically get everything they applied for basically because they could afford to.
Wired.com called Google’s support of the New gTLD program was a PR dream for ICANN and the new gTLD program.
However Google’s participation in the program to date has been underwhelming.
42 of the 101 applications Google submitted were uncontested, (Google withdrew 3 of those)
Of the 39 uncontested new gTLD that Google applied for, they don’t seem to be in a huge rush to bring them to market as they have only launched 3; to date; one IDN; .Soy and .How
34 new gTLD’s that Google were in contention for have been resolved and Google has won just 5 of them.
4 of those 5 Google strings in contention that they won, there was just one other applicant.
Google has only won 1 new gTLD auction that was in contention against more than 1 other applicant.
Some of the strings that I found particularly interesting that Google did not win include .Blog (Google owns the Blogger product), .Earth (Google Earth is a product) .Tech, .Buy, .Book, .Tour, .Cloud, and .Store.
There are some other new gTLD’s right up Google’s alley and I guess whether Google wins these will tell the tale of how interested Google really is in the new gTLD program including .Search & .App.
Here are the extensions that Google Won and Lost in contention and those they were the only applicant for
Won
.Play
.Dev (Amazon)
.Drive (Amazon)
.Docs (Microsoft)
.Moto (Google owns Motorola, only other applicant Rightside)
Lost
.Dot (Dish Network)
.Talk (Amazon)
.Goo (NTT Resonant Inc.)
.Earth (Interlink Co., Ltd.)
.Tour (Donuts)
.Plus (Donuts)
.You (Amazon)
.DDS (Minds + Machines)
.LOL (Uniregistry)
.Dog
.Buy
.Tech
.Blog
.VIP
.Live
.Site
.Love
.Cloud
.Baby
.Book
.Film
.Pet
.Spot
.Wow
.Movie
.Store
.Team
.Show
Uncontested
.ads
.and (withdrawn)
.android
.are (withdrawn)
.boo
.cal
.car (in contention with .cars)
.channel
.chrome
.dad
.day
.dclk
.eat
.esq
.est
.fly
.foo
.gbiz
.gle
.gmail
.goog
.google
.guge
.hangout
.here
.how
.ing
.kid
.meme
.mov
.new
.nexus
.page
.prod
.prof
.rsvp
.soy
.youtube
.zip
.みんな
.グーグル
.谷歌
What a waste of time and money, .Com is the king always will be the king, With 3D Virtual Displays and Internet fast approaching 3D.com domains will be the next target. What are you going to do with .guge on the 3D Internet? Apple just hit a patent for 3D displays on the iPhone . foo is not going to get you to the 3D Internet 3D.com will.
I think this is a result of two things:
1. Google is very disciplined in auctions. It has assigned a value to each domain and sticks to it. (You’ll note that the contention sets it has won are basically brand domains, too.)
2. The main executive “cheerleader” for domains at Google left the company a while back.
.Dot … really?
Not aggressively pursuing the registry side of the equation, but Google is still actively developing their registrar. Maybe they are more interested in getting businesses online with more content for their search engine. Getting people hooked up with websites and google apps for business. More candidates for adwords and other Google services. $20/mo. > $20 yr.
Andrew
I never expected that Google would win most of the auction just because they could, and have been telling people over at rightofthedot.com that for a couple of years.
I am surprised that they let some of these go.
In the ICANN auction that are public we guessed that the party dropping out of the first set of 3 auctions at $1M was Google and that maybe there budget was set unrealistically low to acquire these strings.
If they let .Search go and then .APP then I would basically say they are out of the registry space in any big way
Were they ever really in the registry space? How many names are under management?
They retire services all the time – I wouldn’t rely on Google for anything. Good Wallet for Digital Goods? Defunct…. we recommend you find alternatives…. no sh*t.
They’ll pull out of this before end of 2015. imho….”we recommend you transfer names”
And helpouts… and Google Talk….. and the Keyword Tool… and managing usenet…. and scanning document….
Ironic that they are searching for new success on the internet and can’t find it. Perhaps they should try Wolfram Alpha
UPDATE
Google has now lost 33 out of 38 auctions