What Is The Difference Between New gTLDs and Repurposed ccTLDs?

There are many people in the domain investment space who are either opposed to the new gTLDs or are certain that the new gTLDs will fail. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this at all. Should some new domain names happen to be successful, there might be a missed opportunity, but everyone is entitled to their opinion and should invest accordingly, especially given the illiquid nature of domain investing..

One thing I personally don’t understand is how some people who are adamantly opposed to the new gTLDs are bullish on repurposed ccTLDs, which tend to have more value due to their generic nature rather than their demographic. For instance, .TV is far more widely used with video / television in mind than the island of Tuvalu, and .ME is used for the “me” connotation rather than in relation to Montenegro.

I have several friends who have invested in (and done well with) .TV domain names. The market for .TV domain names appears to be pretty strong anecdotally, and there appears to be demand for .TV domain names based on conversations I’ve had with a variety of people. In the same way people have come to know and like .TV, I could potentially see people learning about other meaningful new extensions. Of course, I can also see how they will confuse the heck out of people, too.

With that in mind, I would like to better understand why some investors in repurposed ccTLDs (like .ME, .TV, .CO, .IO, and others) think the new extensions won’t do well. If new gTLDs confuse consumers, won’t the repurposed ccTLDs be confusing to them as well? Couldn’t the new gTLDs get consumers to look to the right of the dot and perhaps increase the value of these generic ccTLD domain names?

I would appreciate it if someone could respectfully share some insight into this for me. I say respectfully because it seems like a polarizing topic like the new gTLDs (and previously .CO, .mobi, .EU…etc) seem to make people a bit unhinged. With any domain (or other) investment, people should only spend money they can afford to lose and should do their own personal research before buying.

As an aside, I would not recommend investing in  new gTLD domain names to someone who is new to the business of domain investing. There is significant risk to this, and I personally would only buy them as a gamble.

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
  1. “There are some, like .shop, .app, .nyc, .tv, .me…etc that do make sense though.”

    Does the following existing extensions (aka The Rolling Tumbleweeds) made/make sense? and where that took them?

    .TV (The King of Media, now and forever)
    .info (intuitive as any…)
    .biz
    .museum
    .jobs (Huge term…and?)
    .aero
    .tel
    .mobi (More searches are done today via mobile devices then PC…and?)
    .us

    etc etc
    At a global level, the New gTLD not only have to contend with The almight King Dot Com but also with very very popular Country Codes such as : .DE, .Com.Br ,.es, .mx …

  2. GENERIC GENERIC GENERIC

    The more generic the extensions is,the more powerful that extension is.

    I have shifted my .co portfolio from english generic words to LLL.CO (not all of it) after i saw that .co market it’s not to liquid in US.
    It took me 3years to do that.

    By doing that i created my self a portfolio that ranged to 60 other countries that has “co” in their extension.
    Example .co.uk,.co.zn,.co.az,.co.at etc…
    Now i have more inquiries and more sales on an extension that its GENERIC.

    If you take .nyc yes it’s good geo ext. that will serve only the people in NewYorkCity it s not i powerful extension as .web which is a GENERIC word that the whole world knows about it.
    Do you think someone from United Arab Emirates will buy motors.nyc? or buy ABN.WEB (EXAMPLE) and build a website on it? Remember the more websites are build on that extension the more powerful that extension is.

    Again,the more global the extension is the more it will be recognized.

    Watch the .web upcoming auction and i bet it will reach minimum 50 mil.Know know why? because it’s GENERIC.

    So for me i would only invest in 2,3 gTLDs and .web will be one of them.

  3. Interesting topic. Something we studied a few years back when we decided to register the new extension .CLUB domain. We made our decision based on the following criteria:

    -Is it less than 4 characters?

    -Does the extension mean something?

    -Is it a common word used all over the world?

    -Does it have a large enough addressable market to justify the investment?

    It’s clear that only a few ccTLDs have succeeded to rebrand themselves as generics and those ccTLDs, .co, .me, .tv all had some meaning. .io seems to be the only exception to this rule.

    Colin

    Colin

  4. .CC should be repurposed as a “dot credit card” extension. They could take on the new .creditcard applicant head to head and I think the .cc is better. It is of course shorter and could develop a new identity. .CC could finally find an identity and a niche.

  5. The Markets are speaking loud and clear with 2 $Billion in escrow.

    R. E. = ” As an aside, I would not recommend investing in new gTLD domain names to someone who is new to the business of domain investing. There is significant risk to this, and I personally would only buy them as a gamble. ” We agree with you Eliott.

    jeff schneider

    Independent Marketing Analyst/Strategist at UseBiz.com / (.COM ) URL Centric Marketing

    Prediction #2 for 2014 and beyond

    I know we keep hitting people over the head with usually missed important nuances, that most are missing , oh well here we go again !
    Prediction : 2014 Stock Markets will experience double digit returns.

    IMPORTANT NUANCE ! (Prime .COM Capital Market Foundation Assets), will outperform Stock Markets by a 100 to 1000 price multiples. JAS 1/13/14

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

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