Information-Age.com: Will Google Switch To .Google & .YouTube By The End Of The Year

by

Information-Age.com just published a story written by Russell Haworth, the CEO of Nominet which runs the .UK registry about the Branded Internet.

The story talks about the beginning of brands using their new gTLD domain names in lieu of their .com’s starting  with Barclays recent announcement of the launch of branded domain names .barclays and .barclaycard.

Here is the sentence that caught my eye:

“There are some interesting whispers from the media and entertainment industry too: Google is rumoured to be considering switching over to .google in Q4 this year, and its YouTube brand is considering the same, with the launch of celebrity anchor sites (e.g. rockgod.youtube) to help communicate the transition to consumers.”

That of course would be huge for the new gTLD program if Google were to make the move to the right of the dot.

Mr. Haworth ends the story asking “are we moving towards a branded ‘after-the-dot’ internet? ”

His answer is “both yes and no. The prospect of their own domain will have huge appeal to big brands. But this group only make up a small proportion of websites registered.

For most, generic domains like .com or country-code domains like .uk – which hosts around three million businesses – will remain the best option.”

“The beauty of the internet is that it caters not only to large corporations and global brands, but also to small businesses, bloggers, and individuals starting out with nothing but a brilliant idea.”

– See more at: http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy-and-innovation/123459680/beginning-branded-internet#sthash.befQsLt5.dpuf

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

    • Xavier Lemay says

      I know that no one has applied for .Vids and there is a need for this gtld. .Video can’t compete with .TV. .Video means 1 Video and .TV means Television (Online videos, Online TV, Twitch.tv).

      .YT is also a ccTLD but I think that’d be a smart choice making it available to anyone like they did with .co and .io. The generation X (like me) and Z will be too lazy to type .Youtube.

  3. JR says

    This makes total sense to me for YouTube where the SLD gives them a multitude of channels. Not sure so much for Google given that they use ccTLDs to deliver different search products. It will be interesting to see how they handle geo variance. Although search.Google has a nice ring to it, isn’t search dead and everyone ‘Google’s’ instead? Google.Google?

    I’m not sure Barclays have made a big deal of it internally yet as it was news to my friends there.

  5. Christopher Hofman says

    That will surely be the tipping point which some of us predicted acouple of years ago. The dot brands will be the drivers to push this idea forward, it was just a question of who would start it.

    • John McCormac says

      No. Such predictions don’t, in my opinion, seem to account for the reality that brands are not ccTLDs or even true gTLDs. These brand gTLDs only serve a very small and unique market and typically exclude all others. Just because a brand does something, it does not follow that everyone else will do it too. (This is the big flaw with the approach of getting a few large brands into a newly launched TLD (the o.co fiasco being the prime example of this flaw)). The real gTLDs and ccTLDs depend developing a market that is based on customers registering domain names and developing services on those domain names. It is a two-way transaction. The brand gTLDs don’t depend on customer registrations. They are very different things to the new gTLDs like .XYZ or .CLUB. These new gTLDs are completely dependent on customer registrations and just because one or two large corporations use their own gTLD, it does not follow that people will then go register domain names in all these new gTLDs out of some strange sympathy. The new gTLDs that are thriving are doing so because they serve the needs of their registrants. The brand gTLDs are simply a one way transaction.

  6. KC says

    Brands led adoption of .com in the 90s, laying the foundation of .com being the king. Now, there is still no large-scale migration to .brand. More importantly, I don’t see heavy promotion of .brand to consumers across the world. .com already has the momentum and it’s very costly to change its direction.

    • janedoe says

      I have seen about 6 new gtld domains in use locally, one of which was a .brand

      As brands work out what they are doing with them and determine costs involved so they can factor that aspect into their budgets you will see more .brand usage…so over the next 2-3 years.

      Those using gtld related domains will take 4-5 years to stand out. Though this will depend on individual markets.

  8. Snoopy says

    I also heard Facebook and potentially Apple are planning to change within the next 12 months. Hang on to your hats, the new tld tsunami is coming!

  10. DrDomainer says

    I look at it this way! .com is all the larges trees in the world and they have DEEP ROOTS going far underground. Lots of .coms are here to stay
    it’s the core of most people’s online business
    and to dangerous change. (Why change the wheel if it’s not broken)

    I never thought my mind set would change about .com but the internet works in dog years
    maybe even faster. Thing are changing and gTLD’s will take over 30% of any available land on the Internet. Why are lots of the top domain investors buying gTLDs? The market can change and I want to change with it.

  13. Michael Berkens says

    Well google can use search.google for search or travel.google local.google etc etc

    Youtube can be for people to register channels cnn.youtube, mike.youtube, brady.youtube

  14. Xavier Lemay says

    what’s new here? word.word.com is so old school..

    I remember using my bideals.freewebs.com 10 years ago then I’ve cut the url to my own .com. It’s not smart to go back in times guys. Maybe that will bring you souvenirs from the past but.. aren’t we supposed to look forward?

  15. Nick says

    I never met 1 person that wants to waste time typing in longer URL’s into the address bar. Right now google is 6 characters and .com is one button on the iphone.