New gTLD

Mike Mann is unquestionably one of the most successful people in the domain industry, having sold BuyDomains for  reportedly  many millions of dollars, and he acquired domain names such as Phone.com, SEO.com, and many more. Mike also founded DomainMarket.com, which sells millions of dollars worth of domain names annually, and he is likely headed for a similar type of exit sometime down the road.

Mike has been “vocal” with his bearish feelings about new gTLD domain names on various blogs and in personal meetings with him. I reached out to him with a bunch of questions and want to share some of his thoughts on gTLDs and if he believes there’s money to be made by domain investors.

If you have other questions about gTLDs that you’d like Mike to answer, I would bet he’ll be happy to answer them. My questions are bolded below.

Will companies adopt descriptive keyword gTLDs and re-brand websites?

Only for the best ideas and dictionary words where they cant get .Com

How long will it take consumers to understand what gTLDs are?

They wont on average, might land there by accident

What is the path to success for a gTLD operator?

Only a small pct will be profitable unless they are mixed with other services or free like from Amazon or Google. If they get some good sites that get well indexed in Google they may get some traction, or maybe with press, etc. But on average short the hype.

How do registrars and registries sell their names?

The hard way, same way we sell .Com, landers, brokers, hustlers.

Will brand gTLDs help make consumers aware of the right of the dot?

No

Will you be investing in registries and/or acquire various domain names in different TLD?

No way, flight to .Com quality investing

How can domain investors make money when it comes to gTLDs?

Buy the short fund

Do you think marketing dollars spent on gTLDs will be good for the domain industry as a whole?

Short term but no

Will land rush opportunities bring more people and capital into the domain investment space?

Short term

What will happen to the money domain investors spend on gTLDs?

They will lose most of it

The Tech Europe Blog in the Wall Street Journal posted an article by Ben Rooney about the lack of governmental objection to sex-related gTLD applications. Referring to the GAC early warning list published by ICANN, the article discusses how TLDs such as .porn, .sex, and other adult themed TLDs did not receive a single objection from a government.

Stephane Van Gelder, Registry Relations and Strategy Director at NetNames, expressed surprise about the lack of  objections. “There have been none on any sex-related gTLD [string]. Frankly I am a bit surprised. Governments appear to have become quite relaxed about sex,” said Van Gelder.

Although I am also surprised at the lack of objections, I would imagine the introduction of .XXX domain names by the ICM Registry may have made governments less objectionable this time around. Since there’s already a .XXX domain extension available, what difference does it make to governments if there’s a .porn or .sex, too?

In addition, perhaps some governments didn’t even bother submitting objections for whatever reason. Out of the 1,930 applications, there were only 145 TLD strings that received objections.

I don’t think that governments have become “relaxed about sex,” but I do think the proverbial genie has already been let out of the bottle when it comes to adult gTLD extensions.