Stahura of Donuts.co to me “Dot com is your father’s TLD.” The Noise Begins!

Morning Folks!!

Are we beginning to see the new marketing campaign for .whatever?

"The days of .com dominance will be coming to an end shortly, says Juan Diego Calle, founder of .CO" in an Inc article that I wrote about yesterday. 

Last Night Paul Stahura explained to me on Berkens Blog that my sale of eBet.com was because I am scared that .com domain values are going down and I was bailing. Of course that is as absurd nonsense and perhaps desperate as you can get!

He went on to say “Dot com is your father’s TLD.”

Really??

Here is my response:

And if that is going to be your marketing plan, good luck with that.
.Com is only like 20 years old and could not be served a drink in many states. lol

You have to show the benefits of those extensions listed and if you folks think you are going to do that by peeing on .com, all I can say is it is weak and you may be questioning why you spent the money you did on these.

All I said was “I don’t get it”

So have me understand. None of us do. You have to sell now not throw rocks at the house we all live in. Believe me, that dog won’t hunt. Not at all. So what are we really missing?

Why .camera and not .cam? I think .cam is much more universal regardless of the current objections. Now that does not mean I think .cam takes off or changes the world. But why is .camera better? I don’t get it.

So are we beginning to see their strategy or lack of one? I have explained in detail about selling something. This ain't selling anything. In sales you have to overcome objections. But you can't do it with empty rhetoric or grand predictions based on HOPING something will unfold even tho the evidence at hand points to the opposite outcome. You have to do it with well thought out LOGIC.

“Dot com is your father’s TLD.”

That is not logic. That is pure emotion. His other examples are flawed because he starts with a premise that I don't agree with. Like all traffic from .whatever comes directly from .com. Sorry, that is flawed. I don’t see it that way.

I think you have to have content on .whatever to increase the size of the pie. That takes nothing from .com the way I see it. It adds to an existing pie. And that is assuming a success.

I even wrote an article and asked what happens if the first 100 .whatevers out of the gate fail and what will it do to the others coming.

Where I ask: So in the event that the first 100 new extensions came to market and fell flat, what exactly would that spell for the other 900? It does not help their efforts it hinders their efforts. Even a winner could be weighed down by the sinking of others. And some are gonna sink right to the bottom.

Here is exhibit A.

I wrote many posts about .whatever over the last 6 months because I knew once it began it would be a few of us against many of them. I need to be on record so I can point to those words like I do today and the next couple years. I did not know their campaign would be based on misinformation.

Let the facts speak for themselves. Let the chips fall where they may. Anything less is desperate.

.com is not the enemy. But if that becomes their focus, they will fail even faster than any of us think.

Look, there are a lot of folks with a lot of money riding on this. But if this is how they are going into the sales arena to do battle, then they have even more problems and fears than I thought. Sales is about overcoming objections not bad mouthing obstacles. I wrote all about it just last week!

Here is an objection I wrote to Paul last night: "Why  .camera and not .cam? I think .cam is much more universal regardless of the current objections. Now that does not mean I think .cam takes off or changes the world. But why is .camera better? I don’t get it."

Okay, now talking about .com is not overcoming the objection. See what I mean? There has to be an answer ready. A good answer. Anything less and you can't make the sale. I am doing these folks a favor by pointing out these pitfalls.

Lastly, I will come at this always 2 ways. First as a domain investor and second as an end user. My focus is limited to that because that is what counts to me and my readers and the future.

A campaign of noise and misinformation will not win the day. Not telling folks about massive leaks to .com will not win the day. I am really trying to keep an open mind about all this. But the reaction says volumes.

We are all on record and time will tell everything. My posts are crystal clear and I use historical facts as my basis. Let's see what develops and we can match my words of 2013 with the reality of 2015 and 2016. I am no match against Calle, Stahura and Schilling. A one man band against hundreds. But thoughts that turn into reality are very powerful. So let the strongest thoughts win. Drinks are on me guys!

Rick Schwartz

PS: Nearly every argument you make will be no different than the argument .mobi made. That .xxx made. That .everything.else.already.made.becaise.the.path.is.the.same.and.so.might.be.the.outcome. See confusion might come into play. Are those urls or typos?



33 thoughts on “Stahura of Donuts.co to me “Dot com is your father’s TLD.” The Noise Begins!

  1. Anita

    I think that RIck and the others like me who totally agree with his points are defending the “unseen and unknown” future users of these new GTLDs and their businesses against making UNFRUITFUL decisions. No one with integrity will like to show people down the wrong paths. That’s what set’s Rick apart and I and many more admire him for that. Give us good, viable and factual answers and reasons and we might change our point of view.

    Reply
  2. Brad Mugford

    The new extensions are going to bring an endless amount of hucksters and snake oil salesman trying to sell their crappy products. The marketing will need to be very aggressive as they are marketing products that have limited demand vs heavy competition.

    There are going to be plenty of sensational comments like you have pointed out. This is just marketing. However, there is a fine line between marketing and pushing so hard that you risk your credibility in the process.

    Juan Calle already has several questionable statements under his belt such as – “Really when you think of it .com is actually a typo of .Co” said Mr. Calle.

    Rick also had a blog post on 5/10/12 that called out Juan Calle for his comments dissing domainers. When Mr. Calle tried to explain his comments he just dug the hole deeper.

    As far as “Dot com is your father’s TLD.” goes, I think that is just some pretty weak marketing. You are going to attack the most well known, credible extension on Earth while at the same time subbing in inferior options. Good luck with that.

    Brad

    Reply
  3. Rick Schwartz

    So we have .Ventures.
    Ad.Ventures, Joint.Ventures

    Those seem like 2 of the primmest possibilities.
    So me owning JointVentures.com I root for your success Paul. Do you really think I have something to lose? But I am sitting here trying to get my head around how it becomes important without saying .com is evil. lol

    Where are the true benefits? How many variables does a .Ventures have in a perfect world?I just want to hear real answers not wishful thinking or attacks on .com that are just weak and silly. Really. You folks have no idea how bad a marketing plan that is. That will sink you faster than the extension itself.

    Reply
  4. Rubens Kuhl

    The first 100 gTLDs are likely to be less successful, as they are the uncontested ones and internationalized names. Most of the good strings are yet to come after being settled in ICANN or private auction. Also, for the first two years some of the good names in those domains will be blocked by ICANN due to namespace collision… so assessing the real impact, or lack of it, of new gTLDs is something that will take a long time. 3 years from now we still see Frank, Paul and Juan debating with Rick and still don’t have a clear sense of who is right.

    Reply
  5. leon

    DOT COM IS KING!

    The real fun will begin when .whatever and .what and .ever will start fighting each other. There will be blood in the streets.

    Reply
  6. Anticareer.com

    Rick – what are the annual costs of maintaining an extension like .camera? Interested to see how many domains they need to sell annually to break even.

    Reply
  7. Joao Mesquita

    Interesting how 1 single .com sale (ebet.com that is), could finance 10 alternative extension applications. I am already discounting the broker fee.
    Kudos on the sale.

    Reply
  8. Jag Pakistan

    Rick you are not ” A one man band against hundreds ”
    3/4 quarter of non/less English speaking world recognize only .com as a prime business address, which support your point of view and silently/organically stand with you.
    All new gtlds operators wishing to turn the table will take 10 to15 year to show case their worth (if it proved ) to the world.By the time they will get dry with their $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to make some change in the existing mindset .
    Seeing through the sellers eye hardly effect the common person behavior and influence them
    They may attract few thousands , may my be little more,but non of them will cross the million bar. so the “one man band will be heard louder than the hundreds” .keep it up

    Reply
  9. Uverse222

    Gtlds are incredibly stupid and are destined to .fail — just like .mobi, .travel, .museum, .biz, .coop, .cat, .tel, .aero, .jobs, .xxx have already proven.

    Without exception, they are ALL going .down. What part of NO ONE WANTS THEM do guys like Frank Schilling, Calle and Stahura not get?

    I get a kick out of people that think that .NYC, .LOL, .CAMERA and other .CRAP are such winners and that people will want to pay $100+/year for them. Heck, I dropped all of my .TV and .CO’s ccTLD’s because I couldn’t justify paying more than a $10 .com. I suspect I am not alone in doing so.

    Wake me up when the gtld’s all .fail so I can renew my 10 year .COM’s. That’s all that will matter in the future.

    Reply
  10. Pitbull

    Rick, you are 100%. However, I think it will all change in time. All of these .whatevers vs. .com, they will not all fail. It’s simply how much time will it take for them to become relevant. In summary, I would say .com will always be king but it may one day have competitors for the space.

    Reply
  11. DonnyM

    The Big portfolios owners win either way as if people start using these other extensions they will just get mistyped traffic to .com. Rick has already showed this.

    Also if you must waste your money in some of these extensions at least give your self a shot in the dark and buy single words with extensions that are below 3 letters… Not one extension has ever made it that is more than 3 letters.
    If your buying any single word with an extension that has more than 3 letters then your odds have been greatly reduced. IMO .cam will be better than .camera based on that alone. I can’t believe Rick dumped ebet.com for 1.35 milion, I guess the .com values are so bad that now owners can only get 7 figures. :)

    Reply
  12. michael berkens

    SO back over at thedomains.com I’m have also been debating with Paul on new gTLD’s and his statement regarding why the buyers of ebet.com didn’t just wait to get e.bet for $135.

    If you guys want to check it out

    As to Rubens statement above he is correct

    Reply
  13. Kevin M.

    LOL at GPM. A ‘great’ example of the absolute cluster.f*ck that is coming to the internet. Kinda of makes one actually wonder if all this ‘make-everything-a-dot-domain’, was really masterminded by our highly ineffective, clueless to anything actually workable, Washington stupid.politicians. good grief.

    Reply
  14. patrick

    Watch the gpm video it is hilarious and i think makes the best case why these dot whatevers will be as kevin m say’s a cluster f#ck.
    Ps. have seen a large visitor increase in all my dot com net org and .ca domains in the last two days i think the race to get a known viable extension is on because what will be left is table scraps.

    Reply
  15. spacemanted

    I might not have a good grasp on the grand visions for the new TLDs, but after looking at the list of extensions applied for by Donuts.co and others I could find, I fail to see how that could change the way the world “does internet”, as some proclaim.

    Take e.g. (dot) attorney. There will be a few very valuable (because memorable) names that can be marketed very well, like dui.attorney, divorce.attorney. But that list is very, very limited, and after the most popular areas of law are covered, it’s starting to get thin quickly. The same with the others. After a few dozen keywords before the dot, names that undoubtedly will sell for a lot of money, the “premium factor” is fades quickly and you have a sea of names that will be hard to do marketing for.

    Yes, I can imagine that some companies will be built, where the new extensions might be perfectly suited for what their idea is. It may be a subscription-based model or whatever the bright minds out there come up with. I’m sure there will be some really great stuff coming from some very smart folks.

    I think the internet is much bigger than most of us can really imagine, no matter the number and stats we might have have read so far. The new extensions will find their very useful, creative and lucrative place, and some smart uses will make them become established and recognizable. That’s as far as my own personal prediciton goes.

    But looking at the big picture of the global internet, I fail to see how this will be the “sweeping change” some talk about. I don’t see how this should push dot-com to the sidelines and change the way the world uses the internet, and I don’t see any reason why the internet-browsing and searching world would all of a sudden develop a dislike for dot com and look for .whatever as their default?!

    What need is there for this “much needed change” when 99.9% of internet users could care less about domains, even fail to recognize them as “domains” (and all the implications usually discussed among domainers, marketers and businesses), even though they are typing them into their browser every day.

    Change the way we use the internet? Why? Who’s complaining about the way it’s working now? That’s what I see as the core of Rick’s very strong case for dot com: There’ is no need, no desire to change the world’s browsing habit. The user doesn’t see the dot com extension as a limitation or inconvenience of any kind. It’s just the opposite: It’s the true and trusted and certain way to reach any place online, something you don’t even have to think about. So why change this?

    Innovation will be found in making users find real advantage for themselves in using the new extensions. Selling them as the new “premium domains”, saying the current ones are somehow “outdated” certainly won’t accomplish that.

    I look forward to finding out what Herr Schilling is up to, because that’s where I will look for innovation and ideas. I think he knows that the world is more than big enough to have a place for new ideas, for innovation, and for many to make it big in domains, no matter the extension, and for him and his team to be successful in ever new and innovative ways.

    The few winners, I think, will be the ones not just selling those new extensions to make a quick buck selling a handful of “new premium domains”, but those who utilize them, turning them into the catalyst for new ideas.

    About selling the domains to the end users as just the new and improved TLDs: Those really benefiting will be limited to the ones with the best, most memorable and marketable names – a very limited and one-dimensional proposal. Yeah, great to make some quick money for some folks, but I personally fail to see a grand and exciting vision there.

    Reply
  16. patrick

    @Spacemanted.
    You are i think completely right about those few registrations, divorce.attorney ect, and those would be the ones that nobody gets (except the registrar ) or a buyer with very deep pockets,there will be very few of the keyword domains available and tons of pigeon sh#t as rick likes to point out, in fact it will be worse than pigeon sh#t just look at all the available .com’s and 90% are sh#t so how all those new tld’s sh#t will smell better than the old sh#t is beyond me.

    Reply
  17. eh

    I think what he meant was “.Com is your Daddy.” :)

    .Com equals American Commerce which includes World Wide Credibility
    .Co is for Columbia and all that brings (truth in advertising)

    .co is a boy trying to do a man’s job, you got to admire that
    .co courts the girl, and when she is ready, .com takes her away…

    its a bad feeling

    it will make a youngster call names

    Reply
  18. Patrick Hipskind

    While a handful of extensions like .web,.online, and.shop may become successful, they might make owning a premium .com a status symbol kind of like owning a Rolex. The most sought after area code in NYC is the 212 and people will pay thousands of dollars for an easy to remember 212 area code phone number. And the 212 is the first and oldest area code for NYC. So is the 212 your father’s area code? That’s how the young generation and tech guys roll.

    Reply
  19. Jeff Schneider

    Juan Calle is quite a guy.

    He literally outsourced his contrymens .co extension, by selling all their .Cos meant to help his countrymen start businesses with their own country code to unsuspecting offshore speculators.

    He has agressively marketed to confused end users a huge lie,in portraying them as being better or equal to the gold standard .COM.

    Juan Calle and many others are desperate carnival salesmen, who will stop at nothing to decieve unsuspecting investors and End users.

    We ask you what kind of people do this ?

    Buyers Beware !

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

    Reply
  20. viqi

    I think that donut guy forgot the his e.bet domain will be lost in UDRP by the ebet.com guys, as we have seen a recent example decision… Good luck selling that :)

    Reply
  21. M Altaf Hossain

    Rick,
    We are with you and please don’t take it(his scolding) that way. He seems to be jealous of your rise while his .co is fading away. You may rather help him by a new blog post & appraisal. He will come back and say, ‘thank you’.IMO

    Reply
  22. LSM

    Iconic brands are the most desirable brands.

    I have four tchotchkes on a shelf in my office. A dibble that was used to plant cotton prior to the Civil War, a small, wooden Trojan horse, a plush toy of the Pets.com mascot and an empty can of “New Coke” from 1985.

    Any question I find myself stuck on, I refer to that shelf of business wisdom and contained somewhere in the metaphorical mist is the correct answer.

    In this case, .com being my “fathers TLD” is answered by the circa 1985 can of New Coke.

    Reply
  23. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,

    Ever heard of story stocks?

    Story stocks are unknown quality stocks whose values are pumped up by lies and misconceptions to unsuspecting buyers to drive the values up so the first guys in that have pumped the BS to the max can sell out higher and leave the suckers holding the bag when the huge devalution or down draft comes. CLASSIC PUMP AND DUMP !

    We are all witnessing a Classic .whatever? , Pump and Dump

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

    Reply
  24. UFO

    If .commerce was being applied for now it would be one of the best, but even way back when, they thought short was better so it was .com, like .net for network and .org for organisation.

    Agreed, .camera would have been better as .cam just as .mobi would have been far better as .mob

    Problem with .whatevers they lack definition. So, .camera is a TLD, just what URL do you actually buy when the product is the extension? Do you buy every conceivable part of the camera, lenses.camera? and so forth, in linguistics you go from macro to micro more so it’s really camera.lenses. All these TLDs are the carts before the horses.

    I’m going to have to laugh at all these emperors in their new TLDs.

    The only new TLDs I’d buy into are the ones the registries themselves would already know are valuable and thus aren’t a good domain investment.

    Domainers should stand back and realise that .com could easily be .commerce. So these new TLDs off absolutely nothing, they are just small segments of a larger market and have none of the advertising recollection of the masses. At least commerce could be shortened.

    Reply
  25. UFO

    These new TLDs are trying to hoodwink domainers and others by trying to make them believe the likes of .com is just some generic random TLD which its not.

    We’ve ALWAYS had right of the dot.

    As I’ve said before .com is a wide segment of commerce. What do marketing taglines like .now offer that makes them so special? There is no business field or anything that ‘now’ is. Perhaps these domain registries should go and tell all the worlds largest companies and advertising agencies that the future is marketing tag lines… lol.. jokers.

    .com .commerce is going nowhere from number 1 as long as domains exist. All the runt wanabees always will talk the talk but they’ll never walk.walk.com

    Reply
  26. UFO

    @viqi ‘I think that donut guy forgot the his e.bet domain will be lost in UDRP by the ebet.com guys, as we have seen a recent example decision… Good luck selling that :)’

    I think this is an incredibly important point.I am almost certain that case law will evolve and give grandfathering rights to .com (So .com isn’t just the daddy, its the grandaddy!). This will occur because of confusion and common law first in use rights to .com uses in commercial undertakings. These new TLDs may escape some legal issues if the domain doesn’t create any confusion with the .com. But fly.now pretty much says what it is on the tin and fly.com will have rights in law to stop fly.now trying to create confusion. Fly.now is the moving party as they would say.

    Reply
  27. JNet

    “Dot com is your father’s TLD.”
    —-
    That theory makes me think of a really big Donut…. cuz it’s got a HUGE Hole in it !! ……and a Half-Baked one at that

    Has the aroma of major self-serving propaganda
    =======
    .Com will be the king on the TLD throne for a quite a while …. and also —-> Viva .NET !!! … cuz weez on the InterNET … ain’t we !?!

    Reply
  28. Rubens Kuhl

    “If .commerce was being applied for now it would be one of the best, but even way back when, they thought short was better so it was .com, like .net for network and .org for organisation.”

    At that time, communication channels capacity were measured in bits per second, not Megabits per second. Shortening the suffixes was not a question of usability, as most of the communications of the time were machine to machine, not user interaction. commerce instead of com would take 5 milliseconds more of the prevalent channel speed then, 9600 bps.

    Reply
  29. steve

    donuts.co hahahahahaahahaha
    oooooooo ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa
    Why even listen to donuts.co

    And .com is your fathers domain…really????
    see above
    or if your to stupid

    AHAHAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

    Reply
  30. Siter domain dialing (@sitercom)

    I agree with Rick. To tell the truth, I believe that newTLD’s creates a mess in the mind of the internet users and because of that .COM will become MORE valuable.

    ICANN has worked to expand the namespace. You can expand the namespace trough new TLD’s (this is one axis), or you can expand the namespace creating NEW uses/services for all existing domains (another axis), that ‘s our mantra at Siter.com

    Reply

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