You Can Ride a Horse, You Can’t Ride a Stampede

Morning Folks!!

Want answers? Always look at both sides and do it often. We talk about new gTLD's like this is something new. It ain't. Nobody is putting any fingers in a dyke. I love what is coming. I am looking forward to it. But one must know the difference between getting on a winning horse and getting run over by a stampede. We are witnessing what will be a stampede. A stampede is uncontrolled and comes in a fury and can destroy anything in its path including other horses in the stampede that get trampled to death.

stampede

I look for answers not pronouncements but the conditions indicate certain things that are completely inevitable. So 1000 horses don't mean anything but danger until things thin out. That is why so many are in a wait and see mode. Caution is key unless you have unlimited funds to put at risk and tie up indefinitely. I certainly don't.

It's not like there won't be plenty of inventory. And it will all come to strings and adaptation. Google and Search are the least important parts of the equation the way I see the universe. It means nothing if you are not a destination with content going forward.

In a stampede, the last horse is also the safest horse.

You at least have to answer the question of how many will survive the stampede? If you say all will, then I just don't think that is being realistic. How many and which ones will be woven into the fabric of the internet and how many will get trampled and have no meaning? I just don't know how an extension with maybe 1000 or less meaningful combination strings survives or gets any oxygen or traction in the scheme of things. So I look to those that could have wide adaptation.

Arguably auction.xyz is one of the very best of that extension. It sold for $310. So can it be sold for $500?Maybe. Probably. But I would first have to put the keyword "Auction" in front of all the other gtld's and at least ask myself is that the strongest and best match? I don't know the answer. Auction.Horses is actually a better choice. Auction.cars. I mean IF we go down this road. But if you correctly brand yourself as the "lands end" in xyz, it is possible. But the odds are against it because of the dollars that would have to spend to brand.

And still, when I re-read the paragraph and look at all the dots it is a bit confusing. End of sentence missing a space? May be years before the common folks even realize it is a url. But this is just in a controlled classroom discussion. It all changes when it hits the air of masses. The stampede is coming and I remember talking of other stampedes back in 1997 and 1998 when folks were deciding whether to go online or not. That was an easy stampede to predict and we are living the outcome as the world is now online. But this stampede has nothing in common other than the stampede itself.

Rick Schwartz



22 thoughts on “You Can Ride a Horse, You Can’t Ride a Stampede

  1. Mike

    Maybe some silent partner of XYZ registry will make awesome quasi sale and acquire tube.xyz for $1mm to have some PR around, so some dumb heads will take it real and spend some nice money then.

    Reply
  2. gpm group

    http://www.thedomains.com/2013/12/07/daniel-negari-lays-out-his-vision-for-xyz-chats-about-the-controversial-namejet-com-auctions/

    “What if I win a .xyz auction and decide I don’t want the domain name once it is available?”

    “Don’t buy it.

    This is the beauty of the advance auction.

    The auction winner is entering into a nonbinding option contract to purchase the .xyz domain name if he or she wants to once it is available in 2014.

    If you win the auction then have a change of heart, that’s ok.

    We don’t need a reason.

    There is no termination fee, no contract, no agreement we will hold you to.”

    Reply
  3. UFO

    @gpm

    Not even sure its an ‘auction’ as the basis of an auction is to assign legal title by way of binding contract. What xyz proposed is only an option to enter into a contract. Theres no consideration or enforcement avail.

    Reply
  4. patrick

    Once the dust clears at the start of this stampede we’ll see a few good prospects but they will still all be chasing that dot com,why because the dot com is the stallion he rules the heard and i do not see any young stallions/gtld that could even come close, maybe in 10 years when that dot com stallion is old and tired one of these young ones may offer a challenge. Great analogy like the metals but i think the stampede is closer to the reality we are about to witness.

    Reply
  5. SGK

    Some people have a hobby, event in horse…When we are talking about a hobby, we are talking about crazy thing…I agree that dot com is the most valuable extension to be collect as hobby too, beside as an investment…So that is why people have registered 1111111111111111111111.com and 4444444444444444.com , I can’t imagine who are interested to buy it from them if they bought them for flipping or investing…

    Reply
  6. Chris Brennan

    as a domainer i will make the seemingly contradictory statement that domains are overrated.

    look at any decent .com and most probably is has a parked page running on it. its value is created by domain name investors.

    in the end the only real value for a domain is its value to an end user.

    so my belief for what it is worth is that the first thing to look at when considering buying a domain name to park and hope to sell for a profit is “who is the end user”.

    otherwise the domainer is merely making the registrar rich by paying renewal fees.

    This is also how i believe the owners of the new tld’s hope to make money, its how the banks make money and the credit card companies make money, its called FEES.

    Reply
  7. Domain Names (@NameOrder)

    I think GOOD domains are right now very much underrated. The general public has been told by SEO “experts” for years domains don’t matter. That I think is about to change. SEO people will soon be telling everyone they need MORE generic domains. The new extensions are based on SEO. They will be the sales force for the new TLD brokers. My guess is as soon as these things launch SEO bloggers are going to push domains like never before. Right now as in the past SEO folks want you to think domains are overrated.

    As far as value from parked pages I had one domain today make $17 on just 5 clicks. It is my belief what you should look for is the average monthly searches for that keyword and the average cost per click. That is were the value is. If someone has to pay $40 per click for ads they catch on quick to keyword names. You should have enough good keyword rich parked domains to float the brandable names. Plus keyword domains will get offers.

    I find trying to find “end users” is almost useless. When they come to me is when I get the most for a domain. If you have good names you will get offers. Most end users are running a business and don’t understand the value of a name or even understand the internet. I get more offers from development people then from end users.

    Reply
  8. Name Order

    He plans on selling one million .xyz in the first year. “Daniel Negari, a 28-year-old American who made his first fortune selling real estate, is planning to make .xyz a generic domain name that anyone can put at the end of any website. Negari thinks he can sell a million second-level domains in his first year of operation, at a price of less than $10 each. (By contrast, .com domains go for $12.99 on GoDaddy, the leading retailer of domain names.) That would be $10 million in revenue in the first year alone.” http://qz.com/165238/the-biggest-land-rush-in-the-history-of-the-internet-begins-on-february-4/

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  9. Mark B

    .xyz will be a complete bust… as will all the others…. we have seen this movie before and we all know the ending…

    Reply
  10. Name Order

    April 2013 total registrations for .name, .tel, .pro, .xxx, .cat, .jobs, .travel, .coop, .aero, .museum, and .post combined is 831,086 registrations. Dot post has only 8 registered domains.

    Reply
  11. Nadim Ash

    Here is a different twist to the “tld” masses. The current state of search engine results ranks sites based on information from the left side of the dot because essentially everything is .com .net .org
    Now if new “specialized” search engines start popping up an claiming to give results only and uniquely for a single tld. Example .cars everyonein the car business will know that using that particular search engine he/she will have 100percent related results.
    I think this will lead to a new way of searching for things.

    Reply
  12. Danny

    Ramblings from a domain hobbyist (with a serious domain business attitude)
    – My domain investment plans in regards to the new gTLD’s.

    “I like dreamin’ ..cause dreamin’ can make you mine … Closing my eyes and feeling fine”
    I have done a lot of domain dreaming with my eyes closed through the years.
    And it felt pretty good.. especially while having a few beers! This new/old gTLD craze is aiming for a whole fresh generation of domain dreamers – both end users & hot to trot domain investors. Like any investing, with domain investing you have winners, marginal winners, losers and utter losers. To whatever degree it will be the same with this right? But when the beauty.cc dust settles….where will things be?

    From my obscure domain beginnings I have always existed in the ‘I am a hobby domain investor’ crowd of marginal winners. Obviously that is only because my success with it has been such that I must take my seat there. But I really didn’t need another hobby. :-) What now? I plan to continue on and maybe add a few new dot whatevers to my handful of dot me’s and dot biz’s but MOSTLY look for some dot com gold falling between the crack during the shuffle. That is my risk for reward scenario. I am convinced that dot com will only get stronger not weaker or insignificant and finally get the mainstream respect it has always deserved. I plan to continue down the path of learning to buy smarter and letting go of the personally attractive yet unworthy ‘pigeon shit’ I find myself just having to own… which of course is no shame to any investment risk taker.

    I played competitive ping pong growing up and loved the competition, but I also loved it that so few understood TABLE TENNIS as a sport, so practicing it for hours for a tournament meant some people would make fun. Why so serious about ping pong? Football, basketball yea, but ping pong? Finally Table Tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988 – so what do you say now fools! ha I guess I like being involved with things people scratch their heads at and wonder why??. Domaining is defiantly one of those head scratchers!.. Domain investing has tons of upward potential with a solid foundation in it’s history and that foundation includes a majority large section attributed to dot com. It is still not in the Olympics but it’s headed there. To most people I meet I am a master in this world of domaining… no wonder because the majority of them don’t even know how to register one!.. I don’t hang out with domainers obviously… now to my domaining peers my domains pretty much suck!.. how dare they! Domaining has taught me tons of good things about business & myself. And it has also provided us with a couple of great family vacations!! Why do I love it? Save that for another time.
    But I still want my domain dreams to come true only with my eyes OPEN!

    …..The reason I like reading Rick’s Blog is because he is more honest with himself than most so I tend to trust that what I am reading will benefit me because he is that person. thanks Rick for sharing your thoughts. A King can be evil or good to his people.. I think he is a good domain King.

    Reply
  13. Afrim

    This so called Stampede will not do any one any favours. Which ever gTLD survives and starts to do well compared to the others will have to go against other TLD’s such as the .com, .net, .info and .me and that is when a lot of investors will lose complete trust in their investment and let it go completely.

    If I had the money to get into the gTLD business and I believed in it I would just get the rights to run the gTLD and then not even offer any domains to anyone for about a year or so. When all these other TLD’s flop that is when I would allow users to register mine, at the same time I would learn from the mistakes these other companies have made in the process. Launching all these gTLDs at once is simply asking for a disaster to happen.

    Reply
  14. HowieCrosby

    A great comparison post on the gTLD’s. I’ve written about this as being a massacre, but maybe that is a bit severe. But there will be many losses.

    I agree with you in your recent DomainSherpa video, where you discuss .web being the most prominent, because this has authority (not your words), however, the word web could be a little old fashioned?

    Moreover, .blog .shop are the ones that have meaning and website/domain value, because I believe the user will know 100% where they are going to land!

    The latest gTLDs that have been released to date .guru .sexy .tattoo .tips etc and I guess it goes for them all, there are only a handful of good options for the investor in each category.

    The dropping services are going to light up!

    Reply
  15. HowieCrosby

    That’s a really interesting concept – The SEO bloggers on our side!

    “I get more offers from development people then from end users.”
    Likewise!

    Reply
  16. HowieCrosby

    “Now if new “specialized” search engines start popping up an claiming to give results only and uniquely for a single tld.”

    I mentioned this to Adam Dicker on Facebook some time back, he wasn’t sure about the idea, but I think this is the way to go! Imagine google with a categorised search engine? Not 1000’s just the good ones .car .blog .shop .web etc The meaningful gTLD’s.

    Reply
  17. HowieCrosby

    “So that is why people have registered 1111111111111111111111.com and 4444444444444444.com , I can’t imagine who are interested to buy it from them if they bought them for flipping or investing…”

    LOL! And definitely don’t buy a recurring 5555555555 Because, as in China it’s as if your SCREAMING!

    Reply

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