Poll: Are You Renewing Your New gTLD Domains?

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Last week, I received my renewal notices from GoDaddy for N.Holdings and N.Ventures. These domain names are expensive to renew for another year, but I plan to keep them for the time being. Perhaps I will put them up for sale this year or next, but I think they are worth more than the renewal cost, so I will keep these two names.

I don’t own many other new gTLD domain names (fewer than 10 I think), so my renewal decisions are pretty easy to make. If I owned hundreds of new domain names with thousands of dollars in renewal fees, my decisions would be more complicated.

I am sure people in the domain investment space are thinking about their own renewals, and I am curious about whether you plan to renew the majority of your new gTLD investments.

This is probably not all that cut and dry of a question, so I think it would be helpful for you to share some feedback about why you are making your renewal decision. I also understand that most people do not renew every single domain name, so the question asks about the majority of new gTLD domain names rather than a simple “yes” or “no” question.

Please vote in the poll below and share your feedback in the comment section.

Why I Bought 2 .Link Domain Names

I don’t own very many new gTLD domain names. A couple of weeks ago, I bought two more. I now own Elliot.Link and ElliotSilver.Link. I didn’t buy them for investment purposes, as I am currently using them to forward people to my LinkedIn profile.

At NamesCon, Frank Schilling gave a keynote speech, and he discussed some synergy between .Link domain names and LinkedIn. I thought that made sense, as it seems much easier to remember a url such as Elliot.Link or ElliotSilver.Link rather than the longer LinkedIn.com/in/elliotsilver url that is the default url for my LinkedIn profile. This is especially the case for people whose names are used by others for their shortened LinkedIn profile link.

I primarily use LinkedIn as

Above.com Holding Radix Auction With a Twist

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Victor Pitts from Above.com shared some information about an auction the company is running with new gTLD domain names from Radix. Opening bids start at $200 and go up to $1,000. The auction features .Website, .Host, and .Press domain names.

One interesting aspect of this auction is that there is a buy it now option on all of the auctions. For people who don’t want to risk losing an auction, they can click the buy it now button to pay a higher price but avoid an auction. Buy it now prices run from $750 up to $3,000. I am unsure if a bid placed on an auction eliminates the buy it now option, but I would presume that to be the case.

Here’s some information Victor shared with me about the domain names that are included in the auction:

Google’s .How: Huh?

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Google recently unveiled a website for its .How domain names, which can be found at Get.How.  I think the website looks pretty sleek, and visitors  can easily search availability for  .How domain names.  According to Sedo, .How went into General Availability on January 28th, and .How domain names are now available for the general public to  purchase.  nTLDStats.com shows just 344 registered .How domain names so far, as of February 2.

On the top menu of the Get.How website, there are a few links, including on that would seem to aim to answer the question, “What is .How?” In my opinion, I think the answer that is provided misses the mark.

Instead of explaining

.Club Reports Credit.Club on Page 1

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The story about how Bruce Marler got Credit.Club is interesting, and it has been covered in a variety of news outlets, blogs, and forums. Marler already built a website on the domain name, and it appears to be doing well in Google already.

According to a tweet from .Club Registry CEO Colin Campbell, the Credit.Club website “hits first page of Google after only two weeks for term credit club.”

Howard Lefkowitz Shares Insight About His New Company

Howard Lefkowitz is something of an icon in Las Vegas. As the former CEO of Vegas.com, Lefkowitz has tremendous experience building and managing a great brand, and he has a massive rolodex of contacts in Las Vegas and in the travel industry.

While attending  NamesCon, I had the opportunity to have dinner with Lefkowitz, and we chatted about his new company, One Degree World. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of this travel technology company is that it  is in the process of launching quite a few websites on new gTLD domain names, such as Vegas.Ninja  and Paris.Buzz. During the conference, it was also announce that One Degree World agreed to buy Vegas.Club for $100,000.

Following NamesCon, I was in touch  with Lefkowitz and asked him several questions about his new company. Lefkowitz answered my questions, which I have shared below.

My opinion is that the new gTLD domain names need