Keep This in Mind When Judging a Registry’s Success

Elliot Silver
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27

I often hear and read critical and/or snide comments about various non-.com domain registries and how many are presumed to be failures. Some people seem to think that if a registry doesn’t have millions of domain names registered and/or if the aftermarket for a particular registry’s domain names is weak, that the registry is a failure.

One thing we all need to keep in mind is that a registry does not necessarily need millions of domain names to be a successful business, and a successful business should be all of our goals. They do not need to have a strong aftermarket or frequent large sales either. If a registry covers its expenses and makes any profit at all, by most business accounts, it should be considered a success (especially if the founder’s pay is part of the covered expenses).

Let’s think about the new gTLDs for a second.

Let’s say I operate the .xyz registry and sell 25,000 domain names a year at $20 a pop. That’s half a million dollars in annual revenue. Let’s do some back of the napkin math and say I paid my one-time $185,000 application fee and another $200,000 for annual operations expenses and commissions so I don’t have to worry about managing the registry. If I pay myself $200,000 for being fat, dumb, and happy, my registry would be profitable in its second year, after all costs are paid, assuming a strong renewal rate (likely if many are defensive registrations). Again, this is some sloppy math, but you can imagine how it would be profitable.

To the average Joe, 25k domain registrations sounds like a failing domain registry, especially if the aftermarket isn’t churning big sales. However, having a half a million dollar revenue stream with low overhead is a damn good business venture in my opinion. It might not be glitzy, and the general domain investor public may look down upon a small registry, but it can be lucrative, especially when you consider that many companies would happily buy strong revenue stream businesses at decent multiples.

That is one reason why there are so many gTLD applications, and it’s another reason domain investors need to look at the big picture to see that there are many ways to get rich in the domain industry. There are of course lots of risks and expenses, but we should all look at the big picture sometimes and see that there are many ways to make money in the domain industry.

Vanity TLDs in Google

Elliot Silver
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6

I thought it would be interesting to see how many websites Google has indexed for a variety of “vanity” tlds. Although some of the tlds I searched include ccTLDs, I figure much of the usage is by people who are not using them for geotargeted local websites.

To get the results below, I did a Google search for “site:.tld” and the numbers are reported. Clearly there are far more results than domain names registered, so it’s likely that many of the results are for subdomains. It’s not scientific by any stretch, but it’s interesting to compare the number of indexed sites in Google.

  • .ME –  633,000,000 results
  • .TV –  588,000,000 results
  • .CO –  267,000,000 results
  • .MOBI –  245,000,000 results
  • .WS –  149,000,000 results
  • .NAME –  36,100,000 results
  • .TRAVEL –  22,800,000 results
  • .LY –  9,710,000 results
  • .XXX –  5,410,000 results

Deloitte Announces Application for .deloitte

Elliot Silver
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5

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), better known to most as Deloitte, has announced that it applied for the .deloitte gTLD. The company  provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services for companies of all sizes.

Heather Hancock, Managing Director, Global Brand & Communications at DTTL explained  why the company wants to have .deloitte:

“Being a pioneering applicant for a TLD aligns with the Deloitte brand’s positioning and marketplace presence as leader, innovator, and impact maker,” said Hancock. “Additionally, the ‘.deloitte’ TLD will offer improved site accessibility and usability to Deloitte member firm clients, recruits, and others for an enhanced online experience–and lay a foundation for future online innovation.”

I am not yet convinced that gTLDs are going to disrupt the domain space, but I do think that if mainstream companies like DTTL use and market their gTLDs, consumers will take notice. That being said, there will certainly be a large learning curve and it will take considerable time to change consumer behavior.

It’s going to be interesting to see what companies applied for a matching gTLD, and of those companies, which plans to actually use and market the gTLD instead of simply using it for brand protection or internal purposes.

DTTL press release below:

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Sedari Thought Piece “Feared by the Bad, loved by the Good: Robin Hood”

Elliot Silver
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0

The following is a “a sketch-style article on the allocation method recently announced by ICANN for allocating the processing order of applications for new domain names” written and distributed by Sedari, a gTLD consulting firm.

The eccentricities of California-based ICANN, the allocator of domain names, know few bounds. Based on the best of legal advice, though perhaps not the best of PR advice, it’s Board has announced the system for allocating priority in the processing of around 1000 weighty applications for new top-level domain names. It has described the system, with all seriousness, as Digital Archery. A description that just begs for comparison with the English folk hero, Robin Hood.

Those who like me grew up in the UK may recall the lyrics of the 1960s TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood, with Richard Greene as the eponymous hero. “Feared by the Bad, loved by the Good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood”. Here is why to fear Digital Archery.

Not a lot of lottery

One obvious way of fairly allocating a processing order is by random selection. Alas, such wisdom apparently falls foul of California’s lottery laws which would not allow the not-for-profit ICANN to operate a lottery. So when is a lottery not a lottery? When it’s a game of skill and not chance. Thus ICANN has invented a contest for the muscled longbow archers of the globe to compete with one another. The game, played on-line of course, is to hit a button as close to a fixed time in the Universe as is possible. Those within two femtoseconds win, others lose. Well something like that. ICANN’s newly bought Caesium Clock will ensure better accuracy than the Staff’s Sports Day stopwatch.

But if all that is needed is a game of skill why not a quiz with questions such as: “Who will be ICANN’s next CEO? “How long will the CEO last?” “What will be the size of ICANN’s bank balance at the end of the round priced at $185,000 an application?”

Prince of thieves and master of disguise

No we must play Digital Archery. And like Robin Hood, its not enough to be a good marksman, you may need a bit of disguise to smuggle yourself in first to Nottingham Castle or Bastion ICANN. Even now in the cellars of neighbouring hotels and marina-view peasant hovels, merry men may be at work to steal time itself, building chrono-warping servers within a zeptosecond (thank you Wikipedia) of the ICANN treasury.

Will they be thwarted by devices to discover such covert archery?

Will rules for allocation by geography strike new fear around the Realm?

Tune in to next week’s exciting episode.

TLDH News on .Miami and .Music

Elliot Silver
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2

I received some news from publicly traded Top Level Domain Holdings (TLDH) about two gTLD registries the company is interested in operating. First, the city Commissioners in Miami, Florida voted unanimously to award the contract to apply for the .Miami gTLD  to Minds & Machines (subsidiary of TLDH).

The second piece of news from TLDH is its announcement of its plans to apply for the .Music gTLD. The company has signed a joint venture agreement with LHL TLD Investment Partners of Beverly Hills, a group that is made up of “leading music industry figures including artists, managers, music producers and lawyers.”

As of a February news release, TLDH had already applied for 40 gTLDs on behalf of itself and clients, and the company intends to apply for more gTLDs before the application window closes next month.

Full press release below.

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InformationWeek: NYC Selects Neustar to Run .NYC Registry

Elliot Silver
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3

According to an article on InformationWeek, the city of New York has selected Virginia-based Neustar to apply for and manage the .NYC gTLD. InformationWeek’s source is Nicholas Sbordone, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. According to its website, Neustar currently provides registry services for .biz, .us, kids.us, .co, .cn, .tw, .travel, and .tel.

Terms of the deal between Neustar and the New York City government can be found in the InformationWeek article. One interesting aspect, and not all that surprising, is that people and businesses who wish to own a .NYC domain name will need to have an address or presence in NYC.

There were at least three New York City based groups that also appeared to be competing for the .NYC registry. dotNYC LLC, led by industry veteran and gTLD expert Antony Van Couvering (with an endorsement from former Mayor Ed Koch), Connecting.nyc Inc., and The .NYC Domain Extension. I am not sure how far along in negotiations each group went with the City.

I will probably try and buy at least a couple .NYC domain names when they become available, depending on the registration fee of course.

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