Will RealEstate.coms Go Up or Down in Value?

Elliot Silver
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.RealEstate will be one of the new domain name extensions coming on the market at some point in the not so distant future. According to the ICANN website, there are currently four applicants for the .RealEstate domain extension: Uniregistry, DotRealEstate, LLC, Top Level Domain Holdings, and New North, LLC (Donuts).

Since the registry hasn’t been awarded yet, I have no idea what the price will be for .RealEstate registrations, let alone premium domain names. If I was to venture a guess, I would say that the corresponding exact match .RealEstate domain name many large US cities and cities with high end real estate will be considered premium, and they will have a premium price tag and renewal fee.

Considering how some real estate agents value domain names, it remains to be seen what will happen to the value of

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NYC Mayor Touts .NYC Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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nyc registryThe sunrise period for .NYC domain names began today, and the .NYC domain registry received support from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this morning. Today is the first day that trademark holders can apply for a .NYC domain name, and there are around 30 domain registrars working with Neustar to offer sunrise registrations. Sunrise registrations can be made from now through June 20.

According to a press release found on NYC.gov:

“New Yorkers are constantly innovating and putting this great city on the digital map,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “The launch of the .nyc domain is one of the most anticipated arrivals for the city and the Internet at large. There is no shortage of New Yorkers ready to claim their exclusive .nyc identities online, and this is their chance to reserve their piece of this city’s valuable digital real estate.”

In addition to announcing the beginning of the .NYC sunrise period, the press release also announced

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Uniregistry Announces Pioneers Program

Elliot Silver
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Uniregistry LogoOne of the best ways for a new gTLD domain registry to let people know that it exists is to ensure that some of their domain names are developed into brands. One way to accomplish this goal is to get some of the premium domain names in the hands of people and companies who will develop them into brands.

Uniregistry recently announced its Pioneers Program, which aims to put some of its reserved domain names in the hands of developers. Instead of having to pay what might be a substantial sum to secure a reserved domain name from the registry, Uniregistry will either give a domain name to a qualifying applicant or charge a nominal fee for the rights to it.

Here’s how the Uniregistry Pioneers Program is described:

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Steve Banfield Interviewed on SocalTECH

Elliot Silver
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Rightside GroupSteve Banfield is the SVP and GM of Registrar Services at Rightside, and in that role, he works closely with eNom and Name.com, as well as resellers such as Namecheap. Although Rightside is a new company, it was created with the domain name services arm of Demand Media, and it is in the process of being completely  spun off from DMD.

Steve Banfield is in a fairly unique position within the domain industry, as he is intimately familiar with new gTLD registry operations as well as registrar operations. Rightside has applied for and will be managing several new gTLD extensions via its Rightside Registry arm, and it owns domain name registrars and manages domain name resellers. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other person (Frank Schilling) that is as intimately involved with both registry and registrar operations.

With all that said, I think an interview with Steve Banfield that was posted today on SocalTECH.com is well worth a read, specifically for people who are involved in the business of domain investing.  Some of the topics Banfield discusses in the interview include:

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Name Administration Parked Lander Promoting New gTLDs

Elliot Silver
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Screen Shot 2014-04-29 at 10.31.50 AM

I stumbled across an interesting landing  page that I want to share with you. KidsActivities.com is a domain name owned by Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. It had previously been parked with traditional pay per click revenue generating links as well as an orange “for sale” call out at the top of the landing page. Right now, it’s almost completely different.

In place of the PPC links, Schilling has put a call to action to encourage visitors to search for domain names ending in a new gTLD extension. The main message on the page says, “KidsActivities.com This name is taken in .com, but it may be available in other extensions.” Below this message is a search bar to search for available extensions at Uniregistry, the domain registrar owned by Frank Schilling. On the top of the landing page, there is a message announcing it’s for sale, but it’s much less of a call out than the standard orange bar found on most other DNS-parked landing pages.

I reached out to Schilling to inquire about the new landing page, and he was kind enough to share some more details. “We are trying many different implementations to see what works best,” Schilling told me. “Some of these names will

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NameJet Auction 20 .Dance Domain Names

Elliot Silver
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0

Dot DanceNameJet is teaming up with the .Dance Registry to auction 20 premium reserved .Dance domain names. Although I am not into dance or dancing (as my wife can attest), it looks like a few of the best .Dance combos will be up for auction.

In my opinion, the three most relevant .Dance domain names in this auction include:

  • Line.Dance (Never done it)
  • Swing.Dance (Tried it once at Rustler’s Roost when I was a kid)
  • Pole.Dance (Vaguely heard of it)

The minimum bid for each auction is $69, and the auction page says “each of the domains are priced with low reserves and will sell.” You can place your backorder for the domain names at any time, and the auctions will close in a little more than three weeks from now. The renewal prices are reported as “around $60-80, depending the registrar.”

It seems that many (perhaps most) new gTLD domain registries are protecting their top tier domain names and not making them available for people to hand register. This is probably smart on the part of the domain registries, and it makes auctions like these more interesting because domain investors are able to see what values the domain names have in the secondary market.

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