Home New gTLD Page 4

New gTLD

What XYZ Will Do Differently for Newly Acquired Extensions

0

Last night, ICANN broke the news that 11 domain extensions that were operated and sold by UNR have been reassigned upon approval from ICANN. The .HipHop extension was reassigned to Dot Hip Hop LLC (a company started by Monte Cahn and Jeff Neuman), and ten extensions were assigned to XYZ.COM LLC, the company operating .XYZ and many other extensions.

The ten extensions that were acquired by and assigned to XYZ are: .Audio, .Christmas, .Diet, .Flowers, .Game, .Guitars, .Hosting, .LOL, .Mom, and .Pics. Including these ten extensions and its flagship .XYZ extension, XYZ now operates 33 domain name extensions.

My First .XYZ Sale: Bought for Less than $300, Sold for…

3

I was having lunch with my wife earlier today when I received an email from one of my favorite senders: Afternic Transaction Assurance. The email was sent to let me know one of my domain names listed for sale on Afternic was just sold. It is always nice to receive these emails.

Surprisingly, the domain name that was sold was one of the .XYZ domain names I purchased late last year via Dan.com for less than $300. In total, before today’s sale, I purchased and owned 4 .XYZ domain names. The combined acquisition cost of the four domain names was right around $1,000.

Google Developers Explain .Day Domain Names

5

Until reading an article in Cnet yesterday, I had no idea that .Day was a domain name extension. Apparently, it is an extension being operated by Google, and the idea is that people or groups will buy .Day domain names to promote meaningful days. The WWF, for instance, could buy Wildlife.Day to celebrate Wildlife Day.

Here’s a short video posted to the Google Developers account on YouTube promoting .Day domain names:

Beware of High Annual Renewal Fees

When I bought a handful of .XYZ domain names, I had a look at the list of premium .XYZ domain names to ensure I wasn’t going to face the decision of paying a high transfer/renewal fee or losing my initial acquisition investment. Domain investors who buy non .com domain names that aren’t ccTLDs or legacy extensions need to be mindful of the potential landmine that are premium renewal fees.

Marc Kohlbrugge shared a warning on Twitter after he purchased a domain name for $5,000 that had a $55,000 annual renewal cost:

Bought my First Two .XYZ Domain Names via Dan.com

13

Aside from a dozen or so non .com domain names I registered over the years, I have been strictly a .com domain investor. On my NameJet and GoDaddy auction filters, .com is the only extension checked. There may be value elsewhere, but .com domain names are the focus of my business, and I do not see that changing.

I am not opposed to purchasing non .com domain names. It would be foolish to cast off everything else particularly as times are changing. I did not feel like spending my money on alternative extensions when there are so many from which to choose. I felt like it would be very difficult to pick winners, and I don’t want to keep spending money renewing losers, particularly when some have much higher renewal costs.

Over the years, I have mentioned my willingness to buy non .com domain names when I see the potential to make money. I have wanted to see mainstream companies using a particular extension, and I have wanted to see companies willing to spend money acquiring non .com domain names. After all, when I invest in a domain name, I want to be confident an end user buyer will pay a premium over what I paid. I don’t want to see end users buying them simply because they are cheap and available. This would indicate that making money as an investor would be challenging.

Square Parent Company Called Block – Using Block.xyz

6

Another major corporate rebrand was announced today. This time, the news involved the publicly traded financial services company, Square. The company unveiled a new parent brand name today called Block, which encompasses Square, CashApp, Tidal, and another newly created cryptocurrency brand called Spiral:

Recent Posts

Squadhelp Rebrands as Atom with Atom.com

5
Squadhelp announced a complete rebrand this morning. The company is now known as Atom, and it acquired the Atom.com domain name in advance of...

Nissan Going after Nissan.ai

3
Nissan is an automaker that uses NissanUSA.com for its website here in the US. The reason it uses an off-brand domain name is because...

Using AI For Background Image

9
I acquired a domain name last week, and once it transferred to GoDaddy, I set up a custom landing page using Carrd. Instead of...

It’s All About the Time You Put into It

2
A few years ago, my wife jokingly described my daily work lifestyle as leisurely. In some ways, I thought of that as a badge...

D3 to Host Invite-Only Dominion Conference

0
D3 is a relatively new entrant to the domain space, but it has a team with considerable domain industry expertise. In announcing its $5...