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

I heard about the major launch party the .Club Registry threw in New York City to celebrate the launch of the .Club extension. I wasn’t able to attend the event, but I heard it was a fun time for those who could make it. I didn’t watch the video of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) speaking at the event until last night, and when I did, something that he said caught my attention.

Shortly after the introductions from .Club’s Colin Campbell and Jeffrey Sass, beginning at around the 2:02 mark, it sounds to me like 50 Cent said,

.Link gains 6,710 registrations in 2 days #newgtlds #newdomains

— namestats (@NameStats) May 23, 2014

Jean Guillon retweeted the above tweet, which made me aware of NameStat.org this morning. I spent some time looking around the website, and it looks like they offer some interesting information about new gTLD domain name registrations.

On the home page, you can quickly reference the “Top 10” in categories including fastest growing gTLDs, best selling gTLDs, fastest growing IDNs, best selling IDNs, fastest growing .City TLD, and best selling .City TLD.

On the gTLD registrations tab, you can see the number of domain names registered in