CircleID Shares Two Sides to the New TLD Discussion

If you don’t regularly read CircleID, you may be missing out on a variety of interesting topics that impact the domain name space, and consequently, domain investors. Yesterday and today, there were two interesting articles posted about the new gTLD domain names that I think you will find interesting.

On Wednesday, Jeannie McPherson, Verisign’s Senior Manager of Corporate Communications, published an article called “The Real Facts About New gTLDs.” In the article, McPherson discussed some of the “troubling trends” related to the new gTLDs. Some of these trends she cited include:

  • drop off in new registrations
  • increase in UDRP and URS filings
  • confusion with similar new extensions
  • free registrations
  • security issues

I thought  McPherson brought up some interesting points, although one should understand that Verisign operates the .com and .net domain name registries.

Today, Paul Stahura, Founder and CEO of Donuts Inc., published a follow-up article on CircleID called “The Empire Strikes Back: “New” Verisign Hums a Familiar Tune.” In the article that rebutted McPherson’s article, Stahura discussed why he believes Verisign is worried about the new gTLD domain names. Some of the concerns he cited include:

  • quality of .com domain names that are available
  • price of new .com domains
  • renewal rates
  • registrar channel changes
  • several other concerns

In addition to this, Stahura wrote responses to some of the “troubling trends” that were mentioned in McPherson’s article.

It seems pretty clear that both Verisign and Donuts have quite a bit at stake when it comes to the new gTLD domain names. I find it interesting to read the perspectives in both of these articles, and I think you will enjoy reading them, too.

When you read these two articles, don’t forget to read the comments as well. There are quite a few knowledgeable people who share their own insight in the comment section. Additionally, there are plenty of other great articles about domain names and the business of domain names when you have some time.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

9 COMMENTS

  1. Reading Verisign’s and Donuts’ posts is like listening to a republican and democrat (no order suggested) debate. They both use which ever stats make them look good, or that they can make them look good, while the reality is usually somewhere in the middle.

    • I was thinking the same thing when I read them.

      At this point, anyone can look at a set of numbers or trends and position them in a way that fits their own agenda.

      I don’t think we will see who “won” for quite some time.

    • “New .COM is as cheap as .XYZ. The average retail price of such .COM names has dropped to about $2.50 (one tenth the average retail price of new TLDs, and that price factors in the free new TLD names).”

      Registrars can do math. $25 retail with greater than 80% renewal for new TLDs vs. $2.50 retail with less than 50% renewal for new .COM”

      Total BS.

      I guess when you can’t debate the actual facts, it is easier to just make up your own “facts”.

      The retail of .COM is clearly not $2.50. The average price paid per .COM is far higher than that.

      Also, 80% renewals are an assumption, not a fact. I am not just going to take some random projection as a fact, especially when so many other predictions by new gTLD have fallen flat on their face.

      Brad

  2. >”When you read these two articles, don’t forget to read the comments as well. There are quite a few knowledgeable people who share their own insight in the comment section.”

    I had wanted to reply to one of the reader comments in the McPherson article, but the site requires you to use your full real name and I’m not a person who is willing to lie and use a fake one. My reply would have been in rebuttal to the well known reader commenting and in support of McPherson.

  3. There are plenty of customers out there paying $0.99 per .COM name:http://www.1and1.com/domain-names#stage

    And GoDaddy is at $1.49.

    Verisign is rebating every big registrar out there — they need the volume and can only get it by lowering the price.

    With regard to .PHOTOGRAPHY, it’s performing well. And customers seem willing to type after the dot — maybe more sane than typing more than 11 prior and then three more after.

    • That’s nonsense. The CircleID post plays with the facts to make it sound more dramatic, which is why I pointed it out as an example. In fact, the “source” the $2.50 number links to doesn’t even back it up!

      It says the avg retail price of .com has dropped to $2.50, and links to a site that purports to show the lowest priced registrars for each TLD.

      Even if you just look at the three cheapest registrars on the site, the average is 3.49. Click the “17 more” and you’ll see they’re all $8.49 or higher.

      That $1.49 deal at GoDaddy requires a coupon and is limited to just one domain per customer. Additional ones are $9.99.

      I don’t doubt that Verisign is doing things to grow .com registrations and is rebating them, but, like a politician, the post grossly distorts the data. Even the “source” it links to for that number doesn’t validate it!

      The bigger question that I can’t quite figure out: what did Verisign possibly hope to accomplish by posting the story it did, especially on a site like CircleID where all of the new TLD companies frequently post?

    • “With regard to .PHOTOGRAPHY, it’s performing well. And customers seem willing to type after the dot”

      Can you try to be little more vague? these analytics are killing me :_

      “maybe more sane than typing more than 11 prior and then three more after”

      An even saner way would be to type photo keywords into a google search and have a choice of active web sites, as opposed to landing on a parked page.

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