Rick “Domain King” Schwartz has never been a proponent of the new gTLD extensions. Rick has invested in quite a few non .com domain names, but I think he has been fairly outspoken against the new extensions for quite some time. I recall a panel at the 2013 TRAFFIC conference in which Rick and Lonnie Borck debated the new gTLD domain names against leaders of companies in that space.
During the last several days, Rick has taken to Twitter to share his strong feelings about the current state of the new domain name extensions. Although Rick has over 1,000 tweets on Twitter, he had taken a long hiatus from posting until February 25th. In the past few days, he has unleashed a fury of tweets about the new domain extensions, the new gTLD aftermarket, companies that sell domain names, and more. Here are just a handful of the tweets Rick posted during the past several days:
Over 15 Million gTLD’s registered in 2016. Now, just a gain of 330,000 for 1st quarter 2017. Flat lining everywhere. Lots of drops coming!!
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 25, 2017
Over 400 new gTLD’s only 30 w/ more than 100k regs. Over 300 have less than 20k. Flat lines and declines everywhere! https://t.co/8SrF9wBtW0
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 26, 2017
12 of top 20 gTLD’s flat lining or declining in registrations. The 3 year biz wall is here! https://t.co/8SrF9wBtW0 #domains #fakedomains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 26, 2017
It takes 3 years to determine a business success. Numbers don’t lie. The climb from here gets hard! Collapse or consolidation coming.
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 26, 2017
Going thru my .xxx domains and other non .com extensions. Quickly learning the most value is taking total loss on 2017 taxes. #dumbdomains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 26, 2017
Geo gTLD’s among worst performers. Stalled, declining city after city. The net is about *Expanding* your markets not limiting them. #domains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 27, 2017
I think gTLD’s missed boat on their so-called Premium Domains. Imagine if .Mobi waited 3 years to sell theirs. Game over! #domains #noise
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 28, 2017
Bought more domains last 12 months than anytime in a decade. Underwater domain investors FORCED to sell cheap. #Domains #domainsforsale
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 28, 2017
Brands have the best shot at gTLD sucess. Problem is Domain Investors are not invited. https://t.co/AwQ0Pxc42t via @DomainNameWire #Domains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) February 28, 2017
How many domain INVESTORS wasted 3 years and many dollars? How many took their eye off the .Com ball and now payng the price? #Domains #sad
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) March 1, 2017
I love how they say gTLD’s are for startups! Really?? Probaly the best and fastest way to put yourself out of business. Just DUMB! #Domains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) March 1, 2017
It isn’t just gTLD’s that are stalled. ALL extensions are stalling. The demand by END USERS in 2017 is not what it was years ago. #Domains
— Rick Schwartz (@DomainKing) March 1, 2017
I emailed Rick to ask him why he is posting via Twitter rather than sharing his thoughts on his blog, and here’s what he told me:
I think Twitter may be more powerful and meaningful than a blog at this juncture.
It is a modern form of communication and tho the company may not be profitable, Twitter is the absolute winner for getting your message out as you even see world leaders tweeting. Many of them if not most, don’t have a blog. Not sure if it will last. People do get burned by Twitter when they say something off the rails. But right now, it’s the hottest place on the planet!
I find this to be interesting because it is essentially keeping people on his Twitter page rather than driving traffic to a website he controls. He could have published one blog post or a series of blog posts and promoted them on Twitter instead.
In any event, Rick built a great business in the domain space, and whether or not you agree with his opinion about the new domain name extensions, it is definitely worth reading his tweets.
There’s a lot of conflicting data out there regarding the new gTLDs. Just today I reviewed an infographic that shows new gTLDs growing like a wildfire.
Accurate data shows new gTLDs suck. 🙂
http://www.hosterstats.com/link-website-usage-survey.php
I think many gtld operators prey on newbies, and offer very little in terms of credibility in their extensions, and pricing of premiums. They turn on a time to offer $1 registrations that are done by spammers, and then those domains drop forever like info.
These people price gtlds as they are proven assets, they need to work backwards
I doubled down the last few years on one-word dotcom’s while the gtld and “chip” madness was going on. I thought the Namescon 2016 auction was easy pickings but this year’s was even better. Galoshes.com for $1250 was a steal and there were a few others.
As for blogging vs twitter. Twitter was made for stream of thought publishing. Why spend a couple of hours to expand a passing thought for a blog when you can just do it in a 30 second tweet. It gives people like Trump who can’t form paragraphs a great way to communicate their nonsense.
Rick has earned the right to say whatever he wants about domain names. Rick is the Warren Buffett of the domain name Industry. I am glad Rick is back posting about domains.
Like it or not, he is right about .com and new gTLD’s.
I am in the “like” camp! .Com is only going to get bigger and more valuable. New gTLD’s will continue to fizzle out.
There’s no mystery about it.
Some are the cream of the crop while most are not.
And it’s not about whole extensions, but about specific domain names within specific extensions.
A new TLD can be relatively worthless or undesirable itself overall compared to .com for *most* keywords, while specific keyword + TLD combinations can be “sui generis” and priceless to the end user market.
It’s not all or nothing, or either/or, as in .com is king while the others except brands are worthless.
It’s what I just wrote over at TheDomains:
https://www.thedomains.com/2017/02/28/sedo-weekly-sales-led-new-gtld-bitcoin-casino/#comment-218709
“So the bottom line is that some keywords in some of the new gTLDs are definitely among the gold, silver, diamonds, and gems. Some of the keyword + TLD combinations are in a class by themselves in fact, and worth a fortune.”
I’m not convinced bitcoin.casino is not another flowers.mobi. I do know I’d rather spend $28,000 differently.
I know the online gambling industry beyond domain investing, but it sounds like perhaps you don’t. In terms of real world value to an end user there is no comparison to a “flowers.mobi.” A more accurate comparison would be more like “Buy.Flowers” or similar.
P.S. “Bitcoin.Casino” is not even among the best examples of what I’m talking about overall at all, though it’s still a good one.
Ditto!
Look at you, Mark Thorpe, “Ditto!” LOL. Please. Anyone who first uses the analogy “flowers.mobi” may at best and at worst simply be misguided or mistaken. Anyone who embraces such a comparison after having it pointed out how flawed and invalid it is, is at best delusional and at worst disingenuous with an agenda. Honestly now, who does anyone think they are fooling with that unless themselves? I wouldn’t even spend time shoveling garbage on the likes of “flowers.mobi.”
Congrats, John, on “knowing the online gambling industry beyond domain investing”, but that is irrelevant and doesn’t make your opinion any more valuable than mine or Mark Thorpe’s. Fact is bitcoin may or may not be a passing fancy and the .casino extension may or may not succeed. This is uncertainty on top of uncertainty. I brought up flowers.mobi because even the great Rick Schwartz spent $200K on it. Just because someone pays a lot for a gtld does not make a valuable now or in the future is the point of that analogy.
“knowing the online gambling industry beyond domain investing”
“but that is irrelevant”
It’s amazing you don’t see the sheer ridiculousness of a statement like that.
That’s exactly what is relevant. But the problem may simply be that you are being intellectually dishonest because of bias to the point of fooling even yourself. Otherwise if you can’t see how that is not just relevant but supremely relevant and how ridiculous a statement otherwise is then you have a serious problem.
“and doesn’t make your opinion any more valuable than mine or Mark Thorpe’s.”
Uh, yes, it does, just as if you knew more about sports than me would make your opinion about sports domains likely much better than mine.
“Fact is bitcoin may or may not be a passing fancy”
That merely demonstrates extreme ignorance on your part about Bitcoin, otherwise you would know that it is hardly that, and especially the technology it’s based on.
The rest of what you wrote doesn’t hold any water either, you’re simply disregarding and evading everything else I wrote, and you are engaging in the usual straw man tactic by misrepresenting my statement as having anything to do with claiming a high price is what makes the domain valuable. I put the value before the price. Strange anomalies like “flowers.mobi” that amount to sheer speculation by someone who could easily afford such a gamble have nothing to do with it.
Uh oh, look who’s spreading misguided misinformation about EMDs that misleads end users and threatens our industry:
https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/03/domain-and-hosting.html
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/choose-a-domain-name-maximum-seo/158951/
And the naturally expected deception of our market takes it’s natural progress…
https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/03/domain-and-hosting.html#comment-2808860
Interesting that the .com version has a for sale page.
BitcoinCasino.com
Eyebrows raised…….
I saw that too. It’s as I said, this is not even among the best examples. Bitcoin is still in the “catching on” phase in that industry. Like when people thought you were crazy yourself in the old days, but the progress is clear.
Funny I was just mentioning you before seeing you had posted here, btw: https://www.domaininvesting.com/poll-tennis-com-vs-golf-com/?replytocom=817607 🙂
One thing I want to reemphasize is the idea that it’s about individual “keyword + TLD” combos, not about whole TLDs.
You can have a whole TLD that is almost entirely undesirable and considered practically worthless, while a few specific domains within the TLD are in such a “class by themselves” that they are worth a fortune and have “legs.”
Let’s take .horse, for instance. It’s good for laughs, and maybe it will even catch on for something like that, but essentially it’s just a laughing stock, at least that’s how I see it. But a domain like “Race.Horse” is one of the exceptions. And of course there are far more and far better examples from some of the other new TLDs.
“You can have a whole TLD that is almost entirely undesirable and considered practically worthless, while a few specific domains within the TLD are in such a “class by themselves” that they are worth a fortune and have “legs.””
Understood, and maybe worth a shot. But you are missing a very important key point that is never factored in. The key is CIRCULATION. They have to circulate. They are not. Nobody knows these extensions exist, and they may never know. The cost to educate is unfathomable and you can’t be there to explain it to everyone.
Better not to reinvent the wheel 500 different ways and figure out how to get RaceHorse.com. It’s cheaper and you’ll make more.