Sahar Sarid is one of the most successful domain investors I know. A member of the Domain Hall of Fame, Sahar is successful to the point that he spends much of his time traveling the world and enjoying life. He has sold millions of dollars worth of domain names, and he maintains a valuable (private) portfolio of domain name assets.
I saw that Sahar published some thoughts about Google’s decision to use ABC.xyz for its new Alphabet holding company branding, and he gave me permission to share his commentary here:
I had the whole night to think of Google’s move last night and here are my conclusions:
1. The split move is obviously nothing to do with domains. They are under allot of pressure in Europe and Asia and reorganizing will help them avoid some anti trust issues.
2. As far as the name “Alphabet”, it’s fine. Anything would be fine really. It’s a holding company, not a consumer facing company.
3. As far as domain extension goes, I have few theories.
A. They may have bought or invested in the .XYZ registry to operate some of their own new GTLD’s. Going with .XYZ could be a signal of what’s coming.
B. It’s a domain hack, not their new company name in another extension. This is important as it wasn’t the unavailability of .Com that drove the decision to go with .XYZ.
C. Why not go with Alphabet.XYZ (do they even own it?)
D. Why not go with XYZ.Com ?
4. Why did they brought up Hooli.xyz? Majority of the world have no clue about this tv series, I’m one of them. From what I can tell, SV elite type tv series, it’s a further way to distance yourself from the rest of the population.
I’m sure hey wanted to come across as edgy but the naming message, as strange as it is, is that they are unpredictable and irrational which makes them dangerous, not in a good way. This could have been made completely on purpose and nothing to do with naming in general with the one purpose to throw the EU to a tailspin.
But the more I think of it the more my conclusion comes to be that the top three partners are all eccentric billionaires. There is no logic, they feel they can do whatever they want and they do whatever they want, with or without regards to their shareholders, partners, or consumers.
Long story short: The domain name and website ABC.XYZ will not be used at all. What you can see today is the only content, with no further updates, no future use.
They do own alphabet.xyz because it was purchased from a gtld.link member last week for $3,800.
He must have been celebrating the sale… till today.
If they only got a hold of it last week then this concludes to be a last minute naming process. They also messed up on twitter and other media handles as well. I wouldnt be surprised if a week ago they got into some disagreements with their naming agemcies, fired all, amd did whatever they wanted to do against any sane’s person advice. All seems to ne really sloppy.
As sloppy as my typos today jk
Yes, the title of the thread is “Sold too cheap :(”
http://gtld.link/forum/main-forum/12924-sold-too-cheap
The question for me apart from, thjat’s crap is will they even offer a service on it, if not and it is just a parent company lander for a multitude of projects/investments…..who cares. It does nothing long term for .xyz or anyone’s horrible investments in it.
The question for me apart from, that’s crap is will they even offer a service on it, if not and it is just a parent company lander for a multitude of projects/investments…..who cares. It does nothing long term for .xyz or anyone’s horrible investments in it.
.xyz is NOT google or even the next google. If this news was simply we started a parent company XXXXXX and will put other projects under i and separate ventures, who care’s in the domain space, register a .xyz for it and boom there is a fuss.
all these new G’s do nothing but hard the industry.
i am convinced the ubiquity of all this cyber drek makes domains like e-mail addresses.
IRRELEVANT.
Best laugh I’ve had all week: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/alphabet-rewrites-the-domain-name-game/
Meanwhile, successful .com domain investors like MB are making solid speculations in generic, intuitive, across-the-dot gTLDs such as:
school.supplies
art.supplies
body.parts
computer.equipment
construction.equipment
fiber.glass
shot.glass
under.construction
restaurant.supply
stained.glass
farm.land
guest.house
and more.
I suppose the logic is, if generic .coms worked over the past decade, why not allocate some investment capital to generic gTLDs, despite the higher risk of little to no return?
The returns could turn out to be justifiably outsized given the risks. The quality of the phrases across the dot certainly are high. Who knows what the future will bring with gTLDs, especially from the Millennials and younger?
I think it’s smart speculation on MB’s part.
Then again, I also suspect that technological advances may render all domain names irrelevant in 10 years. We will just think of the information we need, and there it will be, ready for us to consume and use in our brain, thanks to our bioconnection to The Network.
Assuming that Alphabet.com is owned by German company Bayerische Motoren Werke aka BMW there was zero chance that Google could buy it. Second best option ABC.com belongs to USA TV channel ABC owned by Disney Corp. So adopting abc.xyz was both desperation move and smart way out of uneasy situation.
Highly doubt that other companies can benefit from .xyz zone. What make sense for Alphabet – abc.xyz, not necessary will do for others.
BMW actually just collected benefits of free PR from all this situation by releasing they own Alphabet.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/12/bmw-alphabet-is-more-than-a-name-to-us/
Nevermind the free traffic at Alphabet.com 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11800672/Alphabet-website-traffic-soars-after-Google-announcement…-but-its-owned-by-BMW.html
It’s another proof that .com is the King and very few folks heard about new zones.