Domain Investing vs Domain Gambling. I’ll point out the Difference.

Morning Folks!!

A fool and his money are soon and easily parted. I should know. I have been broke in my life.  Made money and pissed it away. I did not know the difference between an investment and a gamble.

Maybe I can share this lesson with my readers and how you can avoid this pitfall.

The .Kiwi folks are nice. So is the casino pitboss.

So today we all have the golden opportunity to buy hotels.kiwi for $125,000.

Ok, so let's agree that is one of the very best .kiwi domains. For an end user in New Zealand, it might be a good gamble. It may even be a good investment.

Let's say Hotels.com would be their best prospect.

Oh snap! They use the sub-domain to achieve their goal with a cost of? ZERO!

http://nz.hotels.com

Like I have said, if these companies want to look smart and have a real debate, talk about the FACTS. The facts are that these large companies have decided to build VERTICALLY not HORIZONTALLY! They are not wide, they are tall.

So if you want to see the future, look at dot-coms that can have sub domains. Problem with MANY gTLD's is they are not subdomainable from the get go and these extensions are 100% sub domaining without the .com. But when you can only use a handful of adjectives, nouns and verbs to describe your gTLD, you die on the vine. No question about it. Unless pigeon shit farmers come to your resuce.

Now the point of the post is if you have $125,000 you can buy this domain Hotels.kiwi. Is it a safe bet?

Let's see.....

Hotels.nz goes nowhere.

Hotels.mobi goes nowhere. How much is that bitch worth?

Hotels.biz goes nowhere. How much is that bitch worth?

Hotels.info goes nowhere. How much is that bitch worth?

You see where this is heading.

So will Hotels.com buy hotels.whatever x 1000? Probably not. But even if they did, the chances are they would just redirect to the dot-com. So how commercially meaningful is that??

So as a domain investor......that is an insane risk. For Hotels.com it may be the cost of doing business. Maybe not. Maybe they wait for some schmuck to buy it and WIPO them. A couple of those and this thing would deflate faster than the worst souffle!

It's a GAMBLE!

Now compare that with buying a $125,000 keyword.com. Even if you goof, even if it is not as good as you thought, don't you think the value is still probably 6 figures? So go look at dot-com domains asking about $200k and you will have your choice. Which is a safer investment?

The .Kiwi folks and the .Club folks are very legit. I never heard them say ridiculous things. Their credibility is intact. We can have a debate and a discussion. I don't see everything. I see what I see. They may add something of value.

So while those that don't care about their credibility and really don't give a rat's ass if you succeed or not as long as they succeed, will always run around and say silly things. But silly hurts them all. They come to market as one, times 1000, and they will leave the market one at a time x 990. Really sucky odds even for the biggest gamblers.

If you have millions, you can afford to gamble. If you don't can you afford a total loss? That is the ONLY question you need to ask.

I sold Casinos.mobi, Tickets.mobi, Escort.mobi for chump change. $122,000 loss.

Crusies.kiwi $83,000? I hope they find an end-user to buy it. But a domainer?? Really? I just see it as a gamble. I went to cruises.nz. It goes nowhere.

I own Cruises.mobi, want to buy it?? $83K? Do I hear $10,000? Do I hear $5000? What is the value today? This is real vs the bullshit. And .mobi registrations are rising. well over a million of them. I want $83k because why?? Based on what?

Look as .mobi is growing faster than most others. Explain that?

http://www.zfbot.com/zfbot_stats.png

And I don't mean to pick on .kiwi. But those are the numbers I have so far and when others release theirs, I will comment as well. Plus I happen to have a UNIQUE outlook by already owning my .whatever counterpart so I think I have great evidence that can hardly be just swept away and ignored.

My readers have lost millions. Let's face it. We made some, but when it came to anything other than dot-com, the majority of folks found very limited success.

And I bought into many .whatevers. Only the .me's have more value than what I paid. Every other extension and I have yet to see the dividends I once thought possible.

Who will beat .tel other than the top 5-10?

I always exempt ccTLD's because we know there is a place in the eco-system for them. I have never focused on them because I don't focus on local markets.

So I just can point to REAL examples nobody else really can or have not as yet vs the BS being spewed by the likes of some and reinforced by others with a monetary stake in things. NOISE! So be careful what you read these days. The lure of $$$ will have them sell their souls. Greed is a huge catalyst that was the foundation of all of this as I recall history and unless you are prepared to absorb a 100% loss, these are some of the poorest casinos.mobi I have seen. Most so far are incapable of having more than a few meaningful combinations. How does that translate to success?

At least with .kiwi it is much less restricted than some of the truly worthless extensions you will see. .

Kiwi has many or possibly unlimited left of the dot variables. .xyz does as well but I have yet to see the vision and then it still has to be sold and it still has to be adopted. Many others, MOST others, almost ALL others, have a handful of left of the dot variables and think they can become meaningful. They need to understand what a sub-domain is first and then become a registry. They are about to find out the hard way.

I would think the first rule may be only have 3 to 4 characters right of the dot. I think I would disqualify anything with more right from the get go at this point in time. That may be why .Web, .App, .Blog, .Shop has led the pack in pre-registrations.

Investment or Gamble? You decide. Not me. I can only decide for me and share with you. LIke I said, I have no issue with .Kiwi. They were/are a sponsor of TRAFFIC. I want them all there. All there to make their best case among a tough audience looking for real answers before they invest what could be large money. But that does not mean I can't comment and do it honestly. And I would never say anything I would not say directly to them and I am sure most folks know that by now.

I hope they all hit pay dirt. Their success is our success regardless of the stupid things some are saying and doing. But they need to get a grip and understand the real damage they are doing to themselves. Self inflicted. You can't even begin to wrap your heads around the private conversations. They are beginning to just dismiss one and all when it comes to gTLDS.

Given the choice, I would invest in IDN's first. They have gone through the years of pain that these others are ony just going to start. Most folks I know need to eat today. Pay bills and the mortgage today. They don't have unlimited funds. These extension ARE illiquid as Forbes stated. But not the dot-coms. The.mobi's maybe. The .whatevers almost certainly. Once the dust settles, you will see that weak extensions like .tel will survive and get stronger while all these other guys do their work.

The conversation in the boardroom will likely include all the other non dot-com extensions and of course the dot-com. But the chances of them choosing .whatever over the extensions already available is not a given. So .Net, .Org, .US, .INFO, .Me, .Co, .TV, .Biz will also be on the table and those are MUCH bigger and stronger horses even tho so many are laughing at them. So .whatever guys, don't laugh until you pass the worst dead nag in the race.

I am on record saying I am an opportunist. I make a living searching for opportunity. Many of you do that as well. I am not scared to jump on opportunity and when I see it I will jump.

.Com happened for a reason and this entire charade is to try to copy that. Dot-com and the Internet in general was a once in a hundred year phenomenon that the entire world shared in. And it had NOTHING TO DO WITH .COM. It had to do with who built on .com and what they built. The question is can they  attract meaningful businesses to give  them legitimacy? Not one or two but hundreds of thousands and millions? Can those companies endure with them?  Somebody willing to abandon their dot-com because they truly believe what they say?

Or is it merely another door that may or may be LOCKED as I illustrated above.

The horse shit I have been hearing is alienating the single biggest pool of buyers they have. Insulting knowledgeable and professional domainers is lunacy. And you guys all own it. You rise together, it would not surprise me that you fall together. With the exception of those that could have a fit in the Internet eco-system.

It will be many years before we know. We may be all talking about it now but when was the last time you talked about .mobi? .Tel? .Aero? .Biz? How important are any of them to your daily or investment lives? I have no evidence whatsoever of a success. I will search high and low for that success. I do think that some may be surprised by what breaks out and what does not breakout.

Yes, you can run to the window and buy your Kentucky Derby Tickets right now and figure out which of the 1000 will come in. Or , unlike GAMBLING and more like INVESTING, you can wait until they take the first turn. You can wait until the mid-point. You can wait until the stretch. 990 of them won't make it to the finish line. If you want to gamble, you do it now. If you want to invest, you wait until the race is 3/4 over and make your move. I would rather invest $5000 then gamble $500. I would rather pay more for what is proven than risk what I have no idea about.

Rick Schwartz



53 thoughts on “Domain Investing vs Domain Gambling. I’ll point out the Difference.

  1. Aaron Strong

    Apparently, Hotels.Horse is not available. Does anyone know how big the hotel industry amongst horses?………..

    Reply
  2. Konstantinos Zournas

    Exactly:
    “So .Net, .Org, .US, .INFO, .Me, .Co, .TV, .Biz will also be on the table and those are MUCH bigger and stronger horses even tho so many are laughing at them. So .whatever guys, don’t laugh until you pass the worst dead nag in the race.”

    Reply
  3. michael berkens

    So from your research department, New Zealand country code is not .nz its .co.nz

    So hotels.nz doesn’t resolve, but hotels.co.nz is the property domains and guess what hotels.com owns it

    Moreover you blasted Hilton and Marriott for years for not buying Hotels.com when they could have, why wouldn’t by the same reasoning a hotel chain in NZ be smart to grab this one now

    Reply
    1. Rick Schwartz

      Sorry. I guess i was confused.

      As far as marriott and hilton. They could have had the ocean and i think ponds are not as attractive. Then it also lowers themselves and at this stage may not be in their best interest to piss off hotels.com

      Reply
  4. steve

    Straight shooter talk. That’s why I spend several minutes out of my day to read your posts Rick. Btw, Elliot Silver also said he would rather spend more money later than a little now for the .whatever’s. Just goes to show you people that pro’s think alike.

    Reply
  5. UFO

    .kiwi is only a disposable income type URL rather than a true business proposition. People in NZ have an endearment towards the term ‘kiwi’ but its not a true commercial keyword. .NZ is that keyword.

    It is true about mining to the left of the keyword on the best of .com’s. But a great URL is losing its relevance and you need something more win the stakes. Take property and NZ. The following combinations would be possible if people left mined and with the new gTLDs.

    nz.property.com
    nz.property
    Property.nz.com
    Property.nz
    Property.com.nz

    My belief is US consumers will remember any string ending in .com to a higher degree, but in geographic markets they will remember their cctld string endings more.

    Reply
  6. UFO

    Nb: All the shortening of cctlds from .co.nz to the likes of .nz will mean that 2char .com’s now can have potentially far more commercial potential.

    You could never have reasonably had whatever.co.nz.com but whatever.nz.com does become a left mining type possibility.

    Reply
  7. Domenclature.com

    A great post. A+

    I cast my harsher criticism on ICANN for amounts to taking over $180,000 from these applicants; and my harshest criticism goes to Congress, for allowing the internet governance turn to a cartel; almost OPEC like at that.

    So, ICANN will use a bogus reason that the .COM is all taken, and in order to protect consumers, other extensions are necessary? Then, they turn around and release hundreds of TLDs? With promise to release thousands more, at $180,000 a pop? Yet, allow these TLD people to sell these domains at exorbitant prices? Yet, no congressional ire?

    Alert: I have discovered that all our domains are multiplexed! I don’t know who the culprits are yet. Is it Google? Is it Godaddy/Registrars? Is it Hosting comapnies? Is it the government? Or a combination of cabal? I don’t know who is doing it.

    This has the potential to be the most destructive thing about domain names period. Simply put, you only get the traffic Robot.txt allow you to get. It means that we really dont own the domains we register, the consumer has no benefit from owning any domain. Take a look at your domains again, and the traffic, something happened! It doesn’t matter the quality of domain you own, most of the traffic has been diverted by someone! The domains are multiplexed for over 2 years now!

    We have to do something about this.

    Reply
  8. UFO

    Browsers are stealing traffic on slow load times where they dump into SE’s even where a valid landing page exists. (Slow load times can is more on the connectivity, I don’t know for definite on the actual site load aspect). I also think that possibly traffic is being dumped in x% of direct navigations as a top slice by browsers but I can’t prove that and ‘have to assume slow load times’ are responsible.

    Reply
  9. Scott Alliy

    I like your comment “The facts are that these large companies have decided to build VERTICALLY not HORIZONTALLY! They are not wide, they are tall.”
    Truth is there are actions that have been taken by some i.e. subdomain vs. additional dotcom or even new dot purchases. The unknown however and why you advice to wait until the final turn is solid IMO is this
    What will GTLD registries and their chosen registrars disclose and bring to market in terms of their pricing, targeting, and strategies?
    Then and only then will domain investors be able to understand what appeal some or any of the new dots will have and what affect their introduction has positively or negatively on dotcom value.

    Reply
  10. Greg

    They don’t actually expect anybody to fork out $125K on hotels.kiwi. It’s just a cheap marketing ploy to inflate the value of .kiwi and help them sell 1000 extra standardname.kiwi domains @ $30 ea

    Reply
  11. Robbie

    How many hotels are in kiwi, the whole place has a population of 4.5M people, this gtld is geo locked to that sector, other than the fruit, and the bird, everything else is a novelty.

    These guys are ready to puke, as they see the conversions from their pre-register numbers to real dollar registrations, and the domainers shunning there extensions.

    Let’s face it, the domain industry as a whole, has bought their early release premium domains, bought their pigeon shit, long enough for them to sustain enough registrations to pay the people. I would look for Mind & Machines to start moving money out of the company very quickly, as those guys are knee deep in that.

    Reply
  12. Observer

    Oversupply combined with underdemand(?). Doomed.
    1. Too many extensions for the global economy scale
    2. Too little demand for the new extensions : (A) Domainers’ liquidity is more limited as their funds are tied to existing extensions (com net org,etc) and they are not readily going to change their current positions. (B) Investors naturally tend to evade unproven/untested assets. (C) End-users may not see any relative price advantages in the new extensions. (D) Cctlds are increasingly gaining popularity among small/medium local end-users.
    3. Frustration and desperation leading to increasing reliance on negative strategies.

    Reply
  13. Jeff schneider

    R.E. = ” So if you want to see the future, look at dot-coms that can have sub domains. Problem with MANY gTLD’s is they are not subdomainable from the get go and these extensions are 100% sub domaining without the .com. But when you can only use a handful of adjectives, nouns and verbs to describe your gTLD, you die on the vine. No question about it. Unless pigeon shit farmers come to your resuce. ”

    We are in total agreement with your sub-domain strategy. Our websites name is quite possibly the best Business .COM Franchise Address available for a Strategic Sub-Domain Strategy. Its nice to be on the right side of your visionary equation.

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

    Reply
  14. Ed Brophy (@IncomeTrue)

    There’s no need for the dot commers to be arguing, a hoopin,’ or a hollerin’ about steering all these new names out of the barn anymore. This here video settles it.

    Obviously, if you namesayers never lived rural out in podunk yourself, you’ll never appreciate the celebrities, opportunity, and entertainment that more dodunks will bring to life.

    Reply
  15. Ed Brophy (@IncomeTrue)

    There’s no need for the dot commers to be arguing, a hoopin,’ or a hollerin’ about steering all these new names out of the barn anymore.

    This here DOTCEO Celebrity video settles it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y69zzv5Pc0E

    Obviously, if you namesayers never lived rural out in podunk yourself, you’ll never appreciate the celebrities, opportunity, and entertainment that more dodunks will bring to life.

    Reply
  16. NEIL

    Thank You for your advise, King.
    So, e-b-e-t.com and Robin-Li.com have much, much more value than
    non-hy·phen·at·ed.NonSense
    Think Big.

    Reply
  17. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,

    Good Tidings !

    The gTld Derivatives experiment is totally priced into the present .COM Franchise valuation model. The upside curve in .COM premium addresses is in an uptrend channel. This whole cash infusion chasing after .COM derivatives is fueling a tremendous Bull Market in .COM valuations. Patience will continue to deliver superior gains. Of course you already know this ! Cheers

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

    Reply
  18. Paul Steinwall

    The harshest criticism goes to the Frank Shilling’s of the world, who turned out to be the most dishonest domainers of all-time. Deep down they know that these extensions suck balls (not even deep down….it is obvious). Rick, I’m not sure why you even care at this point. You are preaching to the choir.

    All talk about new extensions has been white noise to be for quite some time. I told people on the forums this for years, and now they finally realize this. Forums are ghost towns because for a few years, scammers and dishonest domainers were allowed to run wild and peddle their dog crap to newbies. When otherwise intelligent people like Frank Shilling start touting stuff that they KNOW FOR A FACT is garbage, it is a sad day in the domain world. Frank Shilling, Monte Cahn, and all others who peddle garbage with their dishonest reasoning, should be shunned by all domainers.

    Reply
  19. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,

    Although I regret the circumstances that has brought many of the stalwart domainers to the present sad state, I can see their greedy grab for more at others expense. For I at , one time in my young lion on wall street days , was a part of the capitalistic grab, for always more and more. The cost was looking at myself in the morning and realizing that I was adding no value to my fellow brothers. This caused me to part ways with Wall Street and all its sexy carrots. I consider myself lucky to make a transition to helping, more than taking.

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

    Reply
  20. M&m - Men and men

    “Alert: I have discovered that all our domains are multiplexed! I don’t know who the culprits are yet. Is it Google? Is it Godaddy/Registrars? Is it Hosting comapnies? Is it the government? Or a combination of cabal? I don’t know who is doing it.

    This has the potential to be the most destructive thing about domain names period. Simply put, you only get the traffic Robot.txt allow you to get. ”

    Exactly, this is one of the many huge bastard behaviours that are going on for years. Do you remember whaen all platforms asked you the concesus to communicate your domains to google?!?

    You have exposed one of the worst problem, diverted traffic. This is a REAL war, but as you can see many bloggers are doing the censors (may be not here, but even Rick often underestimates the problem for freedom represente by google and for the democracy, the free competition in business, the freedom of speech, the freedom to launch and run a business, etc.etc.).

    Where are the governments? How can they permit to search engines to run generic TLDs? They can run only TLD corresponding to their own trademarks. I know there are already many proposals for law written to prevent search engines to run generic TLDs. What represents ICANN today? What they become? How can they permit search engines to run generic TLDs, the same search engines to which consumers ask for IMPARTIAL informations?

    Reply
  21. Miss Neha

    I get it there are many memories of women who needed for good reason an abortion and was reduced to horrible means. I had to go with a girlfriend once – her partner deserted her and refused to help with money. And he was a rich dude.

    Reply
  22. IMHO

    Interesting that most of the naysayers of new TLDs on this blog are focused on the generics and not so much on brands/geos. Given this observation, I take this as a positive sign that the latter TLDs will do just fine since they probably have deeper pockets and other motivating factors for entering into this industry, i.e., pride through association. I have to agree that many generics will be a tough sell with the exception of .web. But, brands/geos will do well. Given all the negativity on this blog, perhaps naysayers would be willing to commit on this blog that they will not purchase ANY new TLDs. Any takers?

    Reply
  23. Matt W

    UFO is right in saying that .kiwi is a luxury. As an Aussie I understand those guys – for branding locally it’s going to be a hit with marketers because they’ll get traction calling on national pride. Need an example? Olympic medal count per head of population – they smash the UK, US, Germany and even Australia.
    Yes I bought a pair of premium .kiwi’s, nothing to do with horizontal or vertical – everything to do with branding.

    Reply
    1. Rick Schwartz

      Matt,
      I think you bring something valuable to the table. That is to know and understand the market you are targeting so folks avoid silly strings that may mean nothing.

      I have spoken about geo gtlds and while .kiwi is not 100% geo, it has that component and that increases the chances of viability.

      Still, does not make cruises.kiwi at $83k an attractive investment for domain investors.

      Reply
  24. Rick Schwartz

    Can you explain this further and simple so I can get my head around this>? Multiplexed??:

    “Alert: I have discovered that all our domains are multiplexed! I don’t know who the culprits are yet. Is it Google? Is it Godaddy/Registrars? Is it Hosting comapnies? Is it the government? Or a combination of cabal? I don’t know who is doing it.

    Reply
  25. Domain Names (@NameOrder)

    This dot whatever will be at first a great boost for your generic .com, .net, and .org domains. I went to MindsAndMachines.com(funny they choose dot com)and searched for CulinaryArt.cooking, because I am the registrant of CulinaryArt.net. WOW over $5000 registration fees.

    I agree with poster M&M. The game changer could will be don’t be evil Google. They are trying to for a .search to be extensionless. In other words just type in any keyword in the browser bar and it defaults to the .search extension. GAME OVER! (if you use Google chrome already you don’t have a browser bar, they have converted it for you to a search bar). The only thing that will stop this is if enough dot com owners stand in the way.

    Reply
  26. UFO

    @Domain names.

    I’ve been saying for more than a few years they should covert the task bar into an all encompassing search bar. Now they all have, even Cassey pointed out that IE is now a search default in the task bar *They should make it far more obvious to users. However, I think these browsers are also stealing proper URL entries and dumping them into their search engine results. It happens often on IE when I don’t put the www. in front of the domain. Previously when you did that it ALWAYS defaulted to http://whatever.com

    Google doesn’t need .search to act as a search engine. It’s more of a defensive registration. What Google does need, is as many search boxes on as many websites as it can get itself on, and it needs to brand intensively so Google is always thought of as the best and most comprehensive search engine. (Like we have had Intel brand itself as the best microprocessors for laptops).

    ICANN should have in conjunction with WIPO ensured that ONLY gTLDs that have registered marks against them can actually be used for the purposed registered for. For instance, Google shouldn’t have got/get .search for search. .search should have been an open public domain registration platform (run by not for profit). Other proper brands being used by the brand for the brand can be closed ownership like .nike for NIKE. .Shop should be open public etc.

    I personally think ICANN and WIPO have not thought enough about the long term strategy for the internet and how that dovetails into rights, obligations and most importantly what’s best for the people.

    Reply
  27. UFO

    @Matt W

    I didn’t say .kiwi was a luxury, I said it was more of a disposable domain type. Effectively it would be popular with NON businesses and more with end consumers looking for a personal identity.

    I know far more about the NZ market and culture than people realise.

    .kiwi is actually using the WRONG model in my opinion. Its value isn’t so much in selling domains as being a brand in its own right. .kiwi could be a massive porthole for all the expats and residents to communicate on and across, with servers based in NZ ensuring they were safe from NSA type over monitoring.

    Lots of potential with .kiwi, but I don’t think selling a few domains here and there is the right answer unless they can carve out the meat for themselves and then sell all the peripheral type strings.

    Reply
  28. UFO

    One last aspect though. I do believe that certain markets are easier to change. For instance as NZ is so small it is quite possible that enough marketing could be done to make .kiwi seriously ‘fashionable’ in a social media context and thus get quite a lot of traction. My guess in BRIC type nations that are growing quickly it’s quite possible that they could adopt and extension that is a replacement for .com.

    I think no single gTLD could do much against .com in the US given the maturity of the market, size of the market and its standardisation on .com (also given that multiple gTLDs advertising actually dampen each others noise).

    Reply
  29. Domenclature.com

    Meanwhile, Google dictionary description:

    mul·ti·plex
    ˈməltiˌpleks/Submit
    adjective
    1.
    consisting of many elements in a complex relationship.
    “multiplex ties of work and friendship”
    noun
    1.
    a system or signal involving simultaneous transmission of several messages along a single channel of communication.
    2.
    a movie theater with several separate screens.
    verb
    1.
    incorporate into a multiplex signal or system.

    Basically, one domain name could be multiplexed into many url signal.

    For example:

    Ass.com could be:
    Ass.com
    or
    Ass.com
    or
    Ass.com
    or Ass.com

    But you only own one of those when you register.

    Reply
  30. Domenclature.com

    Another simpler example is the case of HBO and Showtime. They each had one transponder in the 1980’s; everybody knew the One HBO or Showtime, then came the 90’s,they decided to “Multiplex” the respective HBO/Showtime signals to form HBO1, HBO2, HBO3, HBO4, HBO5, etc etc from the same Satellite Transponder! In that case, it was beneficial for them to name them 1,2,3,4,5, to show off more channels; but in the Domain name case, it is harmful to name them so, therefore, I suspect it is done discretely.

    But one un-doubtable case is the use of “https” and “http” to multiplex the same signal on a URL, one being utilized “legitimately” for secure servers, but remember, they can also multiplex it without the “s”, and I suspect they have, because the drop in traffic is worldwide, and inexplicable, and cannot be attributable to any search behavior; it’s too dramatic, and overnight. There’s something sinister going on, but who is responsible for it?

    Finally, I find the new organization that is purporting.to represent the domain industry, strange bedfellows, Google + Godaddy + other actors, very very very scary indeed.

    Reply
  31. Jon

    actually, I think marriott ended up buying “luxuryhotels”.com instead of
    Hotels.com maybe they should of listened to Rick’s advice.

    For what my opinion is worth, .kiwi anything is likely to be a large bust
    along with 99% of all of the other .gtld’s. The main problem with all of
    these oddball extensions is without HEAVY promoting they are going
    to go absolutely nowhere. and heavy promoting will be very expensive
    and with a .kiwi extenstion as your site name it is still likely to be a risk.

    I mean nobody types .kiwi anything by accident, so you are commiting
    yourself to being a hooker for Google, Bing and Yahoo for life! —
    that is if you want to have any measure of success with your website.

    Good article Rick, I like how you never pull any punches with your
    advice and it’s always very solid.

    Jon

    Reply
  32. Joseph

    Rick — I emailed you a while back but you didn’t reply. I’m trying to sell ShuffleMe.com and since ‘Apple Inc.’ owns Shuffle.me I think I could get at least $300k for it. Do you know anyone who might be interested in purchasing it off me?

    Thank you.

    Reply
    1. jon

      I wouldnt count on it. You are more likely to get hit with a UDRP, or some
      other sort of stupid legal action. Otherwise In the real world you would
      be LUCKY to get $300.00 for it. Whoever gave you a number like 300
      grand for shuffleme.com must of got paid for a charity appraisal and
      given some serious hallucinogenic drugs lol

      Best of luck to you though.

      Reply
    2. jon

      lol if .com’s are spammy, then im having spam for breakfast, lunch and dinner
      im open to .co and .net and even .co.uk but wow .kiwi

      btw how is the parking business Matt?

      Reply
  33. Josh

    @Joseph: Why would someone pay 300k for a domain name that is confusingly similar to Apple’s? It might make sense for a company that sells card shufflers. Or for an iphone/droid app name. But neither of clients would pay 300k.

    Reply
  34. SGK

    I think Rick is always right about all he has said. All the GenericTlds that exist in the world will not able to fight dot com forever. They even won’t be able to fight cc tlds in every country. Look at .co.uk, .de, .fr, .com.au, .nl, and many CC tlds, all are success and used in their own countries except of .us . It is because American customers prefer to choose dot com than dot us. Dot com is a generic tld that also acts as CC Tld for US. I think it is more even better to invest in CC Tlds from great countries than investing in new generic tlds. For business that are not ready to go to global market, CC Tld of their country will be a best choice. But for Global Companies and Domainers with a lot of time and money to invest, dot com is always the best option.

    Reply
  35. W&w - Warriors and whores

    “They even won’t be able to fight cc tlds in every country. Look at .co.uk, .de, .fr, .com.au, .nl, and many CC tlds, all are success and used in their own countries”

    Don’t worry, this is a war and they have already plans to convince ccTLDs Registrars to collaborate… I don’t know how ccTLDs registrars, the strongest competitors of new TLDs, could agree to collaborate, but I know this is a war, a real war.

    “Cooperation between ccTld’s and newGtld’s” This seems to be a point in the agenda of a domain convention in Spain, next year

    This war will be a real blood bath.

    Reply
  36. W&w

    Sorry I wrote ccTLDs Registrars in place of ccTLDs Registers.
    But, who knows, maybe they have collaboration plans also for registrars…

    Reply
  37. Matt W

    @ UFO, disposable income: ‘available to be spent or saved as one wishes’

    @ Jon, as Tim pointed out at TRAFFIC, Kiwi’s are definitely not fans of .com as they think of it as spammy. Anyhow, they’re too proud to associate themselves with what they see as the ugly side of corporate America.

    Why does TradeMe.co.nz still trample on eBay locally?
    Why don’t they use their Trade.Me as the primary?
    Has anyone commenting on .kiwi actually been there?

    Let’s treat every new release on a case-by-case basis. If .kiwi was playing games with their cost model it would be different.

    Reply
  38. Kassey

    I fail to see any significant use of .kiwi in the commercial arena, except by expats or in advertising. With its high prices, competition from kiwi.nz, and well established .nz, I see it more like a niche player. I’m out.

    Reply
  39. Joseph

    They could take legal action even though I’ve owned the domain since 2006? I don’t think they would do that. I can’t wait to see what they plan on doing with shuffle.me, it’s been years now and there’s nothing there. At least my domain is part of an actual website. They got nothing on me.

    Reply
  40. John

    .tel is the best thing since slice bread
    It is so easy to use that anybody can build a simple information website about
    his/her business in a minutes is mobile ready and you can call the listed telephone on your .tel site simply by clicking on it.
    It is also great for creating directories
    Domainers and web developers don’t like it because it is so simple to make and inexpensive

    Reply
  41. matt

    The .com rules but how about the Northern European domain market.It seems its below the likes of .net. info. de, but the .se is easier then .no to purchase and there is also the .no.com.
    if someone had health.no.com, health.se, hotel.se etc etc…. surely more a investment then a gamble? could be used for redirection?

    Reply
  42. Delhi 6

    The .com rules but how about the Northern European domain market.It seems its below the likes of .net. info. de, but the .se is easier then .no to purchase and there is also the .no.com. if someone had health.no.com, health.se, hotel.se etc etc

    Reply

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