Find a Founders Program

Elliot Silver
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14

If you are bullish on the new gTLD domain names but don’t want to spend a lot of money on a targeted keyword domain name, you might want to check out the various founders programs to see if you qualify. I believe that many new gTLD registries offer a special program to give domain names for free (or cheap) to people who qualify with a good development and marketing plan.

Domain registries like .CO and .ME offered up some of their “premium” domain names to companies that wanted to develop a business or website using one of their domain names. In some cases, domain names were given away for free if specific requirements and hurdles were met, and in other cases, reserved domain names were sold (one of my companies participated in the .CO Founder’s Program a few years ago). My guess is that it depends on the business idea, amount of funding and resources that will back the website, and perhaps other requirements to strike a deal.

I did some research, and listed below are a few examples of gTLD registry operators who have a founders program or something similar that will put “premium” domain names into the hands of people and businesses that will build on them:

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nTLDStats Offering Great Data

Elliot Silver
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1

Last month, I wrote an article about a website called NameStat.org, which offers quite a bit of information about new gTLD registrations. nTLDStats is another excellent resource that has an incredible amount of new gTLD data. I am sure others have written about and cited  nTLDStats already, but I have not been tracking the new gTLDs as much as others have been tracking them.

There are several ways to use nTLDStats to get data about the new domain names. Some of the information I looked at include the following:

  • Number of gTLD domain names registered
  • Number of registrations per gTLD extension
  • Where people are buying domain names
  • gTLD growth rate

nTLDStats has great

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When Will Your gTLD Investments Be Profitable?

Elliot Silver
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25

My personal and business opinion is that if I were to buy new gTLD domain names, my investment would be long term rather than the short term investments I prefer to make on behalf of my company. I’ve heard mixed opinions from other people who are buying new gTLD domain names, and I want to hear your opinion on when new gTLD domain investments will be profitable.

To clarify this a bit more, I will give you an example of what I mean when I mention profitability. Let’s say you decide to buy 100 .Link domain names from Uniregistry for just under $1,000 ($9.88/each per year). How long will it take for you to sell or monetize via PPC to make a profit? Obviously, if you sell 2 names for $1,000/each in a year, you are in the black, but if you only sell 2 at $500, you’ll be in the red when it comes time to renew in year 2.

There are more variables at play than meets the eye because many people will continue to buy new domain names, adding to the time it will take to break even. That being said, what is your profitability outlook if you

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Comparing Johnny Football to the New gTLDs

Elliot Silver
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24

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

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Bienvenue.Paris on Eiffel Tower

Elliot Silver
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4

 

I thought you might want to see this photo of the Eiffel Tower in Paris that was taken this evening. As you can clearly see, there is advertisement for the Bienvenue.Paris website. For those who don’t speak French, bienvenue means “welcome.” Paris is one of my favorite cities in Europe, and in my opinion, having a large advertisement like this on the Eiffel Tower is great exposure for the .Paris domain name registry.

The .Paris gTLD domain extension is backed by Ville de Paris, the City of Paris, France. At the end of 2013, the City of Paris announced that it was looking for proposals for the first entities to utilize .Paris domain names. I would guess that this is one of those domain names, but I don’t know for certain. You can learn more about .Paris via 101Domain, and you can learn more about the .Paris Pioneer Program on InternetNews.ME.

It is unclear to me who owns the domain name. The Whois record lists the Registrant Name as Ville de Paris and the Registrant Organization as Hotel de Ville.

Thanks to Norm Ritchie for sharing this photo via Twitter, and thanks to  Michele Neylon of Blacknight Solutions for making me aware of its existence.

Condos.com Owner Comments on .Condos gTLD

Elliot Silver
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13

Richard Swerdlow is the  CEO of Condo.com, a real estate website with a focus on the condominium market. In addition to owning the branded Condo.com, Swerdlow’s company also owns Condos.com, which it forwards to the Condo.com website. According to 101Domain.com, the .Condos new gTLD domain extension (Donuts) will enter into general availability very soon, allowing anyone to hand register .Condos domain names.

I know of several domain name owners whose .com domain names match a new gTLD extension. Swerdlow’s company is in a somewhat unique position in that his company doesn’t have a relationship with the new gTLD, and it is very possible that it will benefit from confusion between people who accidentally type Domain.Condos.com instead of Domain.Condos.

I reached out to Swerdlow to find out what he thinks the impact will be when new .Condos domain names are used by businesses and how any potential confusion might help or possibly harm his brand.

According to Swerdlow, “We think the potential confusion will support increased traffic to the .com and do not see the .condos extension as having any immediate negative impact on our business and portal.” He continued, “We see this as a potential lift in traffic, brand awareness for the exact-match term and a positive event for us.”

Because Condos.com forwards to the company’s main website, the company “added a

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