New gTLD

I am personally not opposed to new gTLD domain extensions at all. In fact, I am more in favor of them than anything, and like any free enterprise, I encourage entrepreneurial companies to try and make money with them. My bet is there will be some great successes and some pretty big failures.

One thing I can’t seem to understand is why a company like IBM, Canon, or any other well known brands for that matter would choose to spend close to $200,000 on a gTLD application and then whatever the ongoing annual cost is for  maintenance. I especially don’t understand it when a brand like Canon doesn’t really have other companies that share the same name and may cause confusion.

From my perspective, a brand .com domain name works just fine. For instance, consumers can easily type-in Canon.com or find it by searching “canon” in Google. The company can use subdomain names or folders for internal pages. For instance, a company like Marriott, with its various locations around the world, might use subdomain names or folders to give each property an individual “website” within the corporate umbrella.

Again in my perspective, Canon.com sounds much better than Canon.canon or Home.canon or anything else that Canon would choose to use for its home page. Of course, they control the entire extension so it can really be whatever they want, but from a marketing perspective, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense and may cause confusion.

I do really like the idea of geographic gTLD domain names for large cities. I would think .nyc and will gain some serious traction here in the city, especially if the city government uses the extension for some of its departments. Further, I think generic names like hotels.nyc or restaurants.nyc will be great names to own, and I imagine the registry will be able to build a solid business selling .nyc domain names locally.

That being said, I don’t understand why an established brand, especially those which don’t have other large corporations with the same name, would want to spend so much money applying for and maintaining a gTLD. Can anyone offer some insight?

As you know by now, ICANN voted to approve the new gTLD program in Singapore, and this will allow for the creation of new domain extensions like .nyc, .eco, .law, and likely hundreds of others. I received a few emails asking me for my opinion on the gTLD impact on the domain investment space, and I am sure I will write a post about it at some point soon.

It seems that some people may be using the new gTLD approval as an excuse to send lowball offers on .com domain names. Cataclysmic emails talking about the demise of .com domain domination and valuation, which include lowball offers to take them off the hands of the owners are amusing to me. Thank you, but I will take my chances with my .com domain names!

The short of it is that I do think consumers will adopt the usage of gTLD domain names in time, but over the next few years, I believe .com domain names will continue to be the “go to” domain extension of big and small business alike. While companies like Canon appear to be interested in applying for branded gTLD extensions, I can’t imagine that will be the case for the vast majority of companies.

Similarly, I can’t foresee a company that doesn’t apply for and get a gTLD moving to a different gTLD. For instance, I can’t imagine a company like Staples using something like Staples.shop or Honda moving to Honda.cars. I do believe some companies will opt for gTLD usage, but I still see it as a limited opportunity for established brands.

I will flesh out my thoughts later, but for now, the “sky is falling” emails complete with lowball offers are amusing.

Someone posted a question on Domain Questions asking about what gTLD applications can be expected to be received by ICANN. I did a bit of research, and I found the .NXT conference website run by Kieren McCarthy and Jothan Frakes, which has a list of applicants for gTLDs.

It’s a pretty interesting list of extensions, although in my own opinion, I can’t see how many of them will have commercial appeal or gain traction. Some of these extensions have multiple applicants, which means more money for ICANN if they go to an auction.

Here are a few of the potential gTLD extensions:

• .health
• .vegas
• .pad
• .bzh
• .hiv
• .shop
• .sfo
• .indigi
• .team
• .bud
• .horse