On the drive down to New York City for a daddy / daughter weekend, I listened to Boston sports radio. During one segment, the radio hosts were talking about Johnny Manziel (aka Johnny Football) since the Red Sox recently played in Cleveland, and he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns.

Apparently, Johnny Football has been a main topic of discussion for the Cleveland sports writers since being drafted. The Browns and their fans are hoping he becomes a top tier player, but for now, he’s a rookie, and he is the second QB on the depth chart. Generally speaking, a non-starting player isn’t usually such a big story, but Johnny Football has become a huge storyline because of his background and potential.

During the drive, I thought about

I visit Boston.com many times per day, and I was surprised to see an article about .Vegas domain names right on the Boston.com home page. As you can see, the article link has a fairly prominent spot on the home page, although that may be due to the fact that it was just published.

In my opinion, articles like these will benefit all of the new gTLD registries. I don’t know about you, but lately, when I mention that I buy and sell domain names for a living, people ask me what I think about the new domain names. Most probably don’t know all that much about them and may not even be domain owners, but it’s interesting to hear this come up in casual conversations. I find it amusing when they ask me because it would seem pretty obvious that I’ve heard about them if I am involved in the domain business 🙂

Interestingly and perhaps glaringly even, the article

Daniel Negari has become a successful domain investor, with his company owning many top quality .com domain names. I admire his tenacity in building his business, and he is someone I think could build a successful business in a variety of fields. In fact, I am pretty sure he already has done that.

In a press release announcing the “Domainer-Friendly Landrush” for the .xyz extension, the ambitious goals of the .xyz registry can be seen. According to Centralnic CEO Ben Crawford, “Unlike most TLD operators trying to extract as much from domainers as possible through high prices for premiums and recurring premium prices, .xyz is positioning itself as the new .com – giving domainers the opportunity to buy anything they want at landrush, and then benefit from .xyz’s unprecedented global marketing campaign to enjoy the increase in values that comes from global demand.”

The added emphasis in Mr. Crawford’s quote  is mine, but the registry’s goal seems clear. Unlike many new gTLD domain name extensions, .xyz seems pretty generic rather than specific (like .tattoo or .berlin). As such, it seems that the registry hopes