New gTLD’s Are in Serious MELTDOWN Mode. Breaks below Nov. 2019 Levels and Dwindling!


Afternoon Folks!!



The new gTLD demolition Derby is in full swing. It's hard to fathom just how TERRIBLE these domains are doing but hopefully, the following graphs and numbers will help.



As you can see from the graph below GTLD's have found a CLIFF and they are falling off it right now.





Growth for the period of November 2019 till TODAY in February 2021 has been ZERO!! GTLD's are back to November 2019 levels!! Imagine 1000 companies trying to sell something nobody really wants and COMBINED can't even get to a NET GAIN of ONE! It's almost impossible!! Call Guinnesse's cuz this may be record-setting!!



So there is 2021 for ya. Below we will show what today looks like as I could not find a single registration but we did find nearly 1.4 MILLION drops on just the top 10 LOL domains! Now about 29.5 Million Total and melting like the witch from Wizard of Oz!





It is starting to look like this every single day. Domainers that drank the kool-aid and finally threw in the towel.



Below is a graph of what I would assume is a Domainer BUYING about 7000 .Tattoo domains in 2019 and you will see them all dropping 1 year later. I could not fit the entire graph it was more important to show you the BUYING from 2019 then the graph that goes all the way down, today.





I could do this all day long with extension after extension. It's ugly! They are not even flatlining. They are bleeding and they are bleeding heavily.



So how many of the new G's are owned by domainers vs END-USERS. It would be my best guess that OVER 98% of all new G's are in storage by domainers trying to hang on.



Then there is the .Club HYPE!! PLEASE! It's ass backward folks! Just because clubhouse took off?? It's not HouseClub.com. If there was ANY beneficiary it would be .House. But .CLUB?? That's why so many domainers FAIL. They are ass backward. My WhoreHOUSE.com is a bigger beneficiary than the entire .CLUB registry! How do so many "Professional Domainers" get this so wrong. I think it is pure desperation!!



We have witnessed an epic marketing failure the likes of which have really never been seen before. 1000 new extensions and 1000 losers. Congrats!



I stated years ago (2013) that this was going to be a "Demolition Derby". IT IS! It's a "Clusterfuck". IT IS! Here are all my blog posts with "CLUSTERFUCK" and most talk about GTLD's!



In the meantime .com domains have continued to be more and more important and of course prices have reflected that. When I look at the top 10 new GTLD sales each week on DNJournal.com usually 6-7 slots are taken by legacy extensions like .net and .org. Those 2 extensions are the winner as I predicted YEARS ago RIGHT HERE in 2015.



If I can see this garbage coming 5 and 10 years in advance, what the hell is the excuse for not seeing it now in light of ALL the evidence?? I articulated only a FRACTION of the pitfalls. I wanted to be on the record. It was an epic lesson in foreseeable failure.



The registrars for the most part made out like bandits. They were bandits. They swallowed up MILLIONS of domain investor dollars like a vacuum cleaner. How many total drops?? TENS of millions. Maybe HUNDREDS! I don't blame them. They had bags of smoke and their job was to sell and market them. Foolish domainers looking for the "Second coming" got sucked in with dreams of riches but most went broke. The smart ones learned. They will chine in on the comments I am sure!



This failure was easy to spot because in my 50 years of business I have NEVER EVER seen a product with so many pitfalls. EVER! It was and remains the single biggest business clusterfuck I have ever seen. The only thing left is the funeral. And with Frank Schilling auctioning off his own GTLD's, the new GTLD era is over!! Matter of fact, it would have never taken off at all without Frank.



Have a GREAT Day!



Rick Schwartz


Rick Predicts 2019-2020 .Com Domain Stampede!


Morning Folks!!



Clarity for me comes bit by bit and then all at once! I have written about "Domain Stampedes" before. Here is my most famous post about the last stampede.



The last stampede was a clusterf*ck in 2014 when few could see the GTLD mess but it's a much bigger clusterf*ck now that all can see. That post is 5 years old. How did I do? How did you do?



But the stampede I see coming is the one I have been waiting for. Like I say, an overnight success takes 20 years in the making. Domains, .com domains, GREAT and meaningful domains are about to explode! EXPLODE!



The cancer of Social Media and collapse of giants like Sears is breathing life into high profile domains. There could be an avalanche of BIG sales in the next year. Eye popping sales. Record breakers. I want to see the day that Ron Jackson's "Year to date sales" are all 7 figures!



Now while the really good domains will be in demand, the really bad ones are going nowhere but to the drop pile! The canyon between valuable domains and worthless pigeon shit is going to be visible like never before.



You will see many companies upgrade to .com and if you thought GTLD's have been pumping for the last 5 years, just wait to see what desperation looks like over the next 5 years. It's a knee slapper!



I do believe that domains will eventually take their rightful place and their values will be understood. Even at $11 Million, Tesla.com was a bargain!! How much is that over the next 30 years???? NOT MUCH when you make $$$$. It's self paying!! It's FREEEEEEEEE!



The lack of trust and transparency in Social Media is the catalyst for this stampede. Is it better to have 1 million followers or have 1 million people a day come to your site?? That's a question that nobody ever asked them and they have never thought about.



Rick Schwartz


New GTLD’s Registrar Stats Missing Godaddy says a LOT! No End Users? My Take.

Morning Folks!!

When I look at a particular GTLD and their numbers I look for certain things. Mostly I look to see who the middleman is to see how strong a GTLD might be. As I have previously stated if it's not Godaddy, I raise an eyebrow since the are the #1 Registrar in the world and when I talk to just everyday people, it is Godaddy that they use. Almost exclusively for consumers and end users.

Here are some examples.

I started with #15 .stream. Over 97% of all registrations (284,921) are registered with NameCheap. Godaddy is #6 with 398. Huh? Why? Isn't that curious?? I am curious. If the #1 registrar in the world has 0.14% I am curious why? No end users?

Then I decided to dig a little deeper with the top 10 new GTLD's which combined have 11.5 Million Registrations. Slightly more than half of all new GTLD registrations. Godaddy had just 710,000 of those registrations. Not even close to 10%. Hovering around 7%.

220,000 regs were .xyz and 231,000 were .club and 144,000 were .online. Leaving the remaining 120,000 divided among the other 7 of the top 10.

The only extension of those that Godaddy was #1 is with .online

So I can't help but think how many of these registrations are, well let's just say "Questionable". I question whether they are registrations by registries themselves. I question if there are only a handful buying most of the domains. I question whether some are warehousing domains to pump up their numbers and to help keep foolish domainers buying more. I question whether these were giveaways.

I'm a numbers guy. Numbers paint pictures. And some pictures make little sense. There are questions to ask. Of all new GTLD's how many are owned by domainers? How many are owned by the registry? How many are owned by closely held companies, friends or family? And finally how many are being used by end users. HINT: The smallest group is the last group.

So when you take the 22MM registrations and break it down, the picture could not be uglier and the 22MM is far from a real number. It's fake because of all the shenanigans.

They smothered their own golden goose that was made of tin to begin with and now they have cornered the market except there is  no market! There is no demand. There is no need. And nobody in the universe wakes up in the morning desiring a new GTLD except some demented domainers.

It was a clusterf*ck in 2013. It's a clusterf*ck in 2018 and it will be a clusterf*ck in the future. We now have a winner of the demolition derby and so far the winner is NONE! 5 years into this and who is the clear leader? NOBODY! Easier to pick out the clear losers however there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. There are over 100 GTLD's that have less registrations than .horse. HA!

Go look at the disaster known as .Best. First of all the word "Best" comes first. Best this, best that. Their extension is ass backwards and so are their numbers. They lost 15% of their registrations yesterday. In 4 YEARS they have managed to now have 2700 registrations after topping out at 3274 more than a year ago. Just more domainers losing $$$$.

The bottom 250 extensions had a net loss but I don't have the time or desire to look at how many. I just see big numbers in red for deletes and tiny single digit green numbers that show registrations. It's remarkable. I also have to go to #91, .Art to find ONE SINGLE GTLD that had 100 registrations yesterday. Just 31 out of 500+ had 100 registrations or more. While deletions were a whopping 80,000+.

Any way you want to slice it, GTLD's are bleeding and bleeding badly. Their future is not bright, it is bleak and dark. Many are abandoning their plans of even using them and they paid for them. 500, 600 1000 extensions and so far, nothing meaningful in all these years. Not a single one has broken out or even shown any promise.

A stopped clock is right twice every single day of the year. Making money in GTLD's is the same. It's by accident. It will happen every once in a while. But that does not make YOUR clock work or have any value.

And I discount ALL REGISTRY SALES! ALL!!! If it's not a private domain investor that made the sale, there was no sale the way I JUDGE this game.

Have a GREAT Day!!

Rick Schwartz

 

The Rick Schwartz Equation

Morning Folks!!

Go brew a pot of coffee, this is going to take a few minutes. What started as a simple equation blossomed into all types of adventures and mis-steps and examples in real-time that absolutely support my equation. An equation that may be all but lost in the clutter of events that just had great timing and so here we are. I think the word "Clusterf*ck" is just going to be more spot on with every passing day. I thought it would happen in very slow motion, but it is accelerating even faster than I would have imagined and I suggest there will be popcorn to replace the coffee by the end of this post.

We all see what we see and we all know what we know.  I come to conclusions early based on certain elements that fit in my personal equation. This equation filters out CRAP, HYPE and NOISE. It filters out the losers FIRST and spotlights the winners NEXT. That makes my job easier and pisses off the ones that don't win and/or don't count as much. Those folks have a tougher job to convince me and other people whether domainers or end users to buy into their vision.

Each new gTLD has or SHOULD HAVE a separate vision.  Is that not a reasonable assumption? I have learned many do not as stunning as it sounds. So is it my fault for asking about the "Vision" thing?

I have been writing this blog post for over 2 weeks now and I have been deciding whether to post it or not. Meanwhile I just keep working on it and whether it sees the light of day will just depend on who knows what. But events just keep unfolding that dovetail with what I have been saying.

I have written extensively about the new gTLD's EARLY to be on record and to be REAL and that showed a vivid difference in how and WHEN  I view the world compared to many others. And in my view of the world, nothing happens until a sale is made and I did my best to explain that. And while people throw around invisible sales numbers without actually ever making a sale, well, that is a MAJOR red flag to me. I know how hard sales is. I know how hard sustaining sales is. I know how hard growing sales is. I also know the difference between a solid sale and a weak sale. A sale that will survive and a sale that will collapse or end up being a loss.

I see things early for a reason and it is based on an equation.

I have gotten several emails about Moniker.com and their problems this week and folks want me to write about it. Well I did, 3 YEARS ago when I transferred all my domains out. It was not my first post on the subject as you will see. The Moniker mess happened 3 YEARS ago but the train wreck happened last week. Folks had AMPLE opportunity to heed the warnings. I still have about 14 domains there. Mostly .tel. But thousands were moved away. 

There will be a lot of elbows flying in gTLD land as we have seen with the firestorm of last week with Negari and Network Solutions, that just continues and now the plot thickens as Berryhill, Corwin, Negari and the ICA join others in the industry for a circular firing squad.

The skirmishes will intensify and broaden as there are a lot of competing interests. There are a lot of ponies in this horse race and the rails on either side are not enough to contain them. So you are going to see a vivid example of some raw nerves between other gTLD operators develop. You can't see this coming? Really?? REALLY????

Why is this a sure bet???

SALES BABY! SALES! They NEED sales. They are drowning without sales. They are choking for cash as it is in many cases. That is THEIR reality.

Not only that, but If you play in a game you set up with no rules, then don't complain when somebody breaks the rules or extends the boundary lines. Where does HYPE turn the corner and become DECEPTION? There are the nuances that are in play here. The debate is wide and the fallout is still in progress. The answers are murky. Deal with it. It's just part of the clusterf*ck that will play out in time.

I also understand that many bloggers are under a lot of pressure from different camps to write positive stories about them or gTLD's in general. Some have just about lost their entire credibility. Even Howard is pressuring me not to post things I am about to say. But I could give a rats ass about getting another sponsor or not. I won't sell my soul for that. If they can't figure it out, so be it. I will say what I BELIEVE and not what my FRIENDS want me to say.

Hats off to those like Konstantinos Zournas, MIke Berkens, Ron Jackson,  Kevin Murphy and others that report whatever facts they can find and I know for a fact that the pressure these bloggers are under is IMMENSE. And they are getting it from both sides. 

Sales have to be created and WE and everyone else has a RIGHT and a DUTY as well as an obligation to be skeptical if you are a serious investor.  You should EXPECT to have you feet held to the fire. Especially since we already had prior evidence that only a fool would ignore of how previous tld's have fared in our short history.

How do you create a sale?

You start with NEED, WANT and DESIRE. And in our case you can add SUPPLY and DEMAND. Other variables as well as you are about to see. And there are even more obstacles than I am going to discuss that is why I wrote so many posts coming at things from various ways and all of them had huge pitfalls. These are compounded obstacles and I am not sure any can survive them all. Especially when they are blind to them.

That said......

How do you create sales when you don't start with NEED, WANT and DESIRE from the right party and the supply is unlimited and the demand is almost non-existent and self-made??? And keep in mind, over 80% of all registrations are by domainers and the Registry's themselves or closely held companies. aka, Bag of smoke. Some say 90%. They say 33% and that is just laughable.

How do folks KNOW they need something they don't even know exists to begin with? This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exponential. Many icebergs because everyone at least gets hungry. Of course business may suck if you are a hamburger stand setting up shop at a vegetarian convention and you have no veggie burgers.

Hold on to your horses, it will all make sense soon to anyone that can have a warped thinking process like me.

This is NOT bashing gTLD's. It may as well be zoombibie stands. The RESULT would be almost the same.  What's a "Zoombibie stand"? A Zoombibie stand is as foreign and unknown to you as gTLD's are to the end-user.  Got that? Do you need one??? How long have you lived without a zoombibie?? Really?? Whose job is it to sell you that Zoombibie that you don't know about and probably could care less about? What color is yours? What happens when a competitor comes in and they have to SPLIT the zoombibie market?? Are only distributors buying zoombibies and they can't resell to the end-user?

The commodity you have does not matter. Coffee shops, hamburger stands. Lemonade stands, pizza joints. You name it. The thing with gTLD's, they are exponentially harder and few want to take the time to truly examine why.

The keyword is CREATE.

Zoombibie has to CREATE sales!

But to create sales, there has to be a DEMAND to begin with.

And you do that with REASONS.
REASONS are the SEEDS of PERSUASION.

(Reasons have to be valid. In sales, when you get caught in a lie, game over)

But first you have to CIRCULATE.

And you have to know how big your AUDIENCE is.

So that you can TARGET them properly.

Assuming there is DEMAND

We know there is DEMAND by several groups. The Registry, the Registrar and the speculative domainer. The speculative domainer is not the customer of the Registry as they have made pretty clear. But the same Registry is depending on the market makers who are the speculative domainers to make things happen. Sounds like a HUGE disconnect to me and many are starting to pay the price for that wrong-minded thinking process.


How big is the zoombibie audience? You still don't know what a zoombibie is? This isn't your grandfathers zoombibie. This is a much better and bigger zoombibie that will allow you to do more things. Just don't ask about what specific things they are. Way too deep.

Sorry for the caps in this post but this is more of an equation and a theory than paragraphs. And you also have to know that THEY (the consumer in any form they come in) are in control of all of their destiny's. If they don't eat the smelly fish or the rotten meat, the restaurant closes and goes out of business. PERIOD! No matter the hype.


Nobody on this planet woke up this morning looking for a zoombibie. But you NEED it because I said so. Isn't that a good reason?? 


Today alone we say .Berlin start giving their extension away for FREE! When you can't sell something, you give it away. They more than doubled their 48,000 registrations in less than 24 hours. EXPECT others to follow suit. That is definitely going to screw up the marketing plans of other registries that are already choking for cash. It gets UGLY from here on out folks. Can't see that one either?? REALLY??

 

So if you subscribe to this quasi-equation, and I do, then many will be able to see what I see and why I don't take MOST of the gTLDs seriously at this point in time.  That does not mean I am right and that does not mean I can't be PERSUADED.  But my job is not to persuade myself. That's THEIR job and they need many reasons that are VALID to get there. Tough questions are survived by straight answers and that is how you tell a solid and good product or service. Then I might buy a zoombibie. Right now, I can live without it. 


This just means that I have a method behind my handicapping that has served me well for decades and I am just sharing my mental process of one of the ways I might reach a conclusion or form an opinion. But that does not mean I can not be persuaded. But that only comes with solid information and benefits. A VISION that holds up against reality and scrutiny. Imagine a car salesman being afraid to answer questions about the vehicle he is selling. He wants to make a quick buck and you are looking for long-term reliable transportation. Not exactly a win-win. Once he lies about one thing, you can only do one thing. LEAVE! And that is exactly what most folks would do.


Someone wins, someone loses. If you invest unwisely LIKE SO MANY DO, you are going to be at the wrong end of that equation. As long as you are prepared and EXPECT to lose 100%, then you are okay. No worries.  But expect to lose 100% TIMES however many years you keep each domain name.


Folks want to hear what they want and they want to ignore what they want. Folks are afraid to state the obvious or even truly examine both sides to get to a proper balance without forcing the wanted outcome. To me .ceo,.rich and .horse are extensions that are in real danger of dying on the vine. They will be joined by many others. How can I be so certain??? Please just study the equation. It is a roadmap. Look at the STALLED daily registrations. .Rich has had THREE registrations in the last FIVE WEEKS! STUDY the numbers, they are pathetic at best. This is their debut. Demand does not look very high and a new broom sweeps clean.


Just days before the original launch in January I posted this on my blog about .Club and how they were the ones doing it right and now you can look back and see how it DOVETAILED with REALITY! It appears they have the most human placed registrations.


Figuring it out and getting it RIGHT EARLY counts and it is the equation above that makes picking winners and losers EASIER! Cutting to the chase has value. Knowing the answer before the question is asked has value. Great value in some cases. And I am not conceding that the most registrations = the most valuable gTLD or the one to invest in if any. But this is the yard stick many seem to be using for the sake of discussion. So it is our only measuring stick at the moment since there is little else to point to. Just keep this yardstick in mind as well. .mobi as a Registry is a total success. .Mobi as an Investment is a total failure. Can't folks LEARN and understand that equation?? I could give a rats ass about the success of a Registry. We are talking about investing. Until you separate the two, good luck going broke!


With 1400 new extensions those that think they will all survive and then also be meaningful are either not dealing with reality or have not been in business long enough to understand how business works. How sheer numbers work. So if they were to LOGICALLY look at the 1400, and right now we have about 125 LIVE, they can already see which ones are in DANGER of either dying on the vine, never getting any recognition or traction or just not being meaningful or relevant at all. PigeonShit gTLD's for a lack of a better phrase. This is the first heat of TEN segments to get to that 1400 number. I think I clearly picked the winner of this phase. Until I see the CONSUMER actually EMBRACE these new extensions, it's all inside baseball. The consumer hold all the wildcards.  There are several layers of consumers. But I am talking about end users and the actual person on the street.


So the first thing to do logically is remove the DEAD HORSES OFF THE TRACK!


Did you watch the race on Saturday? Imagine that race with 1400 horses in the SAME gate and the LOGICAL first question would be how many would be TRAMPLED in the STAMPEDE getting out of the gate!?? How many other horses will trip on the dead horses and also go down? Just logical questions. The ultimate question is who will win the race? I guess if you were LOGICAL you would say to yourself that I may not be able to pick the winner right away but if I pick the top 10 horses and isolate them I have a much better chance. Most bet on one horse and MOST lost. Even the gtld tracker tracks the top 10 and all the "Others" are lumped into one category. "other". Why?? Who came in 10th in the race n Saturday? Nobody knows and nobody cares.


And that means that 1390 gTLD's will be NAGS  Or maybe it will be 1300. Not a huge difference. Most will be meaningless is the only point I am trying to make. MOST. The majority. So that means they did not die on the vine, they are just as irrelevant as .aero and .travel are today along with many more that nobody wants to really invest in. How many times do you have to see the same SAD movie and still hope for a HAPPY ENDING?


How many want to bet on California Chrome to win the Belmont and the Triple Crown today? Place your bets! He LOST! Sorry. We all rooted for him to win. But he LOST. REALITY! See that is not being against gTLD's folks, that's called not being stupid and dealing with reality. We can do the what ifs all day long. But he lost. Yes, he lost because of a GASH inflicted by another horse and we will see that with gTLD's as well.  So if a gash did the damage to change history imagine what 1000 dead horses will do to change it.


Sorry folks. There is no happy ending to this movie. Get your Kleenex out!


And then all this wraps right back around to:

How do you create NEED, WANT and DESIRE?

The keyword is CREATE.

And you do that with REASONS and BENEFITS.

REASONS are the SEEDS of PERSUASION.

BENEFITS are what is important to your customer not what is important to the seller.

And you make the sale with a LOGICAL argument to support your vision.


What grade would you like to give the marketing so far folks? Invisible marketing seems to be on top of that heap don't ya think? If you don't buy into my zoombibie, you are a moron and you are old school and you are an idiot. lol. GREAT marketing!


Efficacythe ability to produce a desired or intended result. I don't see that as a widespread ability when it comes to gTLD's.  Do you??


Besides all these GIVEN headwinds, it is my belief that many of these guys already missed their window of opportunity to market their extensions. As even Michael Berkens has said many times, these are the weaker extensions for the most part. So that means when they DID have their day in the sun they were incapable of taking advantage of THEIR "Unique Opportunity in time". The train is gone for many of them already. I hear they did not have the money to promote and all the rest. Whose fault is that? Whose lack of vision was that? Whose going to be holding the bag when it is all said and done?


Sure there were ICANN delays. Well in business you have to expect things like that and be prepared for it.


So that TRAIN leads DIRECTLY to consolidation. They can't see that one either?? Really? REALLY????


See in my silly view of the world I think it is unreasonable to see why .ceo would be a good investment because no coherent argument can be made for the viability and a REASON to PARK money there. And when the registry comes out with "Their" reasons, they don't dovetail with reality. Everyone laughs and dismisses.


Now I don't mean to pick on .ceo all the time but it is the most glaring example next to .Rich which is just too funny to even spend any time on. And I think .Horse has no better chance of being important and worthy to INVEST in as betting TODAY than California Chrome will win the Triple Crown last Saturday. In any test you usually look and set aside the top and bottom scores. .Web for me is the top score on the chart and .Rich is the bottom score on the chart for me.Actually the bottom is CRAMMED with losers yet to be declared DEAD ON THE VINE.


And let me also state for the record that number if registrations is not the yard stick for measuring success of ANY gTLD.


CONTENT is the key to the survival of any extension. And in this cases, BETTER content is going to be EXPECTED.  So when you look at this onion you can peel it so many different ways and into different conversations. Just be prepared to hold on to those as long as I have to hold on to .mobi. I have great keywords. Big deal!


And there are so many obstacles now after that. Consumer acceptance is always the key to any success. Beta was better. Did not matter. Ask Sony. So these obstacles and facts can even contradict each other. And my main point is the path forward is not straight it is splintered and the pitfalls immense. And as we have seen and as I have said for over a year now, one bad deed with one spills over to all. Anyone doubt that one now?? We have just seen the beginning of this show and the abuses. I am sure a site will pop up that will chronicle all the abuses that are taking place. I have already lost count. It WILL get MUCH worse.



I always started with my parents. They were my test cases throughout most of my life. They represented Mid-America and how the majority would react to any given new thing. Their input was more valuable than anyone else. So I do miss that part of my equation.



You can see once you talk about gTLD's one thing leads to another and the whole thing just has not been well thought out and with 1200 MORE to go, the ABUSE and the HYPE has not even started. I have written over a dozen posts just in regards to the horse race and how important and how hard it will be to pick the winners at THIS stage. And what happens to these "Weak" extensions when the strong ones like .web come to life?


We are an intelligent group and we get to ask tough questions and if folks don't like it because they have no answers, that is their choice. I say the numbers are pathetic. Let me define it with this. The day .Web comes to market (and I am not touting .web, but it is just the Odds on Favorite) is the day you will see pathetic defined.  That is an extension we will be counting by the millions and they will LIKELY have more registrations in the first few HOURS than all the gTLD's in the first few MONTHS. Just a FACT waiting to be BORN. Can't see it from here?? Really?? But you can see the value of gTLD's in 10-20 years?? Sorry, that dog won't hunt with me. Don't talk about 10-20 years when some folks doing the talking can't see 10-20 hours, days, weeks or months in front of them.


Is there money to be made in the new gTLD's by domain investors? YES.  But Registry's making money on YOU have nothing to do with your gamble/investment. Chances are more money will be lost 100 times over than made. We can only predict and see how things unfold. But ignoring and not examining all sides of an issue because of peer pressure...........really? Investors NEED to be skeptical regardless of the WANTS and DESIRES of others.


As I said yesterday and will repeat often: "NO DOMAIN INVESTOR has ANY OBLIGATION to support ANY new gTLD whatsoever, so don't buy into that nonsense. On the other hand the gTLD's have an obligation to treat domain investors a lot better than they have.  They need us not the other way around.


We had a superhighway come to be in the early 1990's. It was well thought out and had already been around for a very long time for military use. It had to work right. They built a super-duper worldwide interstate roadway system that changed the world. Now we have over a thousand interstates coming out and many have no real destination, direction or even a plan. If you go down one of those, you are GUARANTEED to run out of gas and you will have no money left to buy anymore. So as long as you are prepared and can afford to lose 100% or more of your investment, you are fine and good to go. But picking the winners is still the single biggest hurdle and only 10% of the extensions are now out. Multiply all the nonsense we have seen by 10 fold and you will see this will not be an easy road. A road that can only get harder to navigate and there are consequences most would just like to ignore and not talk about. Sorry, as investors we DO get to talk about it and your job is to address those concerns if you can.  And if you can't, just get out-of-the-way.


All that said, I will be looking and searching for successes and when I find one, I may place a bet or two. Time tells all and the shakeout we will see is absolutely, 1000% forseeable.  Maybe waiting until the dust settles is not the worst strategy as you will avoid being sucked in by the noise and hype. That way you get to sit back and enjoy the show. I DO NOT see gtld's as a threat. I have seen them as an opportunity from the get go. Brings a lot of eye balls our way. But on the way to opportunity, there is going to be a lots of events. Hype, noise, crashes, clusterf*cks and a lot of dead horses and it will eventually be known as SURVIVOR! Popcorn anyone?


And there is a flaw in this Rick Schwartz equation in this case. There seems to be no end to the pitfalls, obstacles and the dividing lines that are coming. Lots of folks entering the crossfire. Welcome to my world fellas.......better have a thick skin.



Rick Schwartz

So What does a Clusterfuck Really Look Like?

Morning Folks!

Yep, hide the kids. No asterisk today.  Today I get to ask a real question.

So what does a Clusterfuck Really Look like? Seems clusterfucks are the new normal. Got insurance?

But I'm not going to get political.

So what does a Clusterfuck Really Look like?

"In the event a Fortune 500 company network infrastructure fails to work because of collision, the damages that just one company  could suffer could easily exceed all of ICANN assets."

First of all that might be a breath of fresh air.

But what happens if this untested .whatever results in collisions and crashes?

"Paul Rosenzweig, Esq from the law firm of Chertoff Group & David Fagan, Covington was on hand to tell everyone the consequences and potential liability that ICANN, new gTLD’s registries,  backend providers and even registrars might face if all new gTLD’s are allowed to go to delegation without any attempted mitigation for collisions and collisions actually occur resulting in large corporate networks to go down or existing domains to stop resolving.

To summarize Mr.Rosenzweig comments now that the collision report is out ICANN and everyone else in the food chain of likely defendants are on notice that this issue may cause damage to companies, ICANN cannot sit by without taking some action."

Now I have said Berkens is like having your own research staff.

The motivation came from this post he did yesterday.

So in case you want to know what a clusterfuck looks like, we may still be on the verge of seeing one. Chances are not high, but then again, this is a TEST!! If it goes south, it's a clusterfuck.

And guess what. This may only be one of many possible clustrfucks coming to an Internet near you.

Y2K? Maybe. then again, maybe not.

Rick Schwartz

 

Domainers that May go to JAIL!

Morning Folks!!

How stupid can you get?? I would strongly advise staying away from registering domains trying to syphon traffic off of healthcare.gov. I truly believe if you do, you are flirting with losing your freedom. This is not a joke, you mess with the Feds, you deal with your mess.

Now, if you owned those domains getting traffic LONG before this all started, I would think you are safe, but you too could be grabbed as the net does not distinguish between the two. Be careful. This is not something you want to mess with.

The good news is that traffic is getting some long needed attention. The fact that healthcare.COM is getting 30% or MORE of the healthcare.GOV traffic and now it is widely known. This is a BIG DEAL. Widely known.

I mean talk about clusterf*cks, this is the mother of all clusterf*cks. This is what a clusterf*ck looks like. As an industry, we are about to have a front seat to a number of small clusterf*cks.

So don't get caught up in this mess or you may be sorry. I doubt they care if it is a parked page, an actual site or anything else. They use NETS to roundup offenders and they don't distinguish with degree. My prediction is some domainers are gonna have the feds show up on their front door step THIS YEAR!

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537691

Rick Schwartz

What do You do When the Confusion starts and You Get Confused?

Morning Folks!!

Within a year most folks won't know which way is up or down when it comes to domain investing. The voices will be all over the place and eventually you may want to put your hands over your ears and walk away. But walk to where?

Well, my advice in this coming year when confusion sets in is to come right here and read my posts and let me help you untangle the knot of confusion.

To that end you might want a get a current list of all extensions and see how many of each are registered. Then you have to discount each and every defensive domain. They mean nothing to anyone but the registries. They are not really part of the eco system because of their use or non use.

So don't be fooled by misleading this and that. Stuff that has no influence in value or need. Self serving press releases that will basically make a lot of stuff up. So when you do read these releases, read between the lines. There are going to be thousands of them to come. Many thousands. Our minds could not even absorb what is coming and then actually separate what is truly meaningful.

700 rocks. How many are precious and have long-lasting value? That is what we are about to learn.

Every extension has an infinite amount of combinations and names and that is only with trademarks. There is no limit regardless of what you hear. Just look at this story by Berkens. There is an infinite amount of domains in each and every extension. Every lawyer in the world should come to the domain industry because there is an infinite amount of work and billing. So more than anything else, it will likely open up trademarks to more abuse than ever before. Profiting on those trademarks.

It's gonna be fun tho as we all watch this clusterf*ck unfold. Like 700 different soap operas. And everyone reading this should benefit from it no matter how badly this was all thought out. 70o and who will dominate? Who will die on the vine. Consolidation is already in full force. Every domainer that does not have a domain portfolio to support themselves will eventually find jobs in these companies as domain experts. So that is just one of the things that will unfold and will be very visible.

So when you are exhausted and confused, this is the place to come to untangle the mess that is coming. You may or may not agree with my writings. 90% chance you won't agree. Maybe higher. Scares the crap outta me when too many agree. But it will be VERY hard to disagree with the questions I ask, the pitfalls I point out and the numbers that some will try to use to fool.

We each have an opinion about what is to come. If you really want to know, watch what they do don't listen to what they say.

Rick Schwartz

Rick’s Top 10 Myths and Facts About the New Gtld’s

Morning Folks!!

Let's take a few minutes maybe even a few posts to untangle this clusterf*ck of what is coming and what the Myths and Facts really are. And if I don't know, I will make it up. I will come to an assumption. I will use what facts are available and at the minimum use that as the starting point because you need somewhere to start and assumptions are perfect until you can plug-in the actual facts when they unfold. And if you have been paying attention they have been unfolding every day. And if you have some parallels set up, you can already see what is coming and the stages they are coming in. Let's just say "Consolidation" will be the keyword for the first 5-10 years or more and we have already seen that happen. Or die on the vine.

Myth #1 "gTLD's are bad for the Industry."

Well it may be a mess and it may be a clusterf*ck of historical proportions, it will also bring awareness and tens of billions of dollars into our space. Normally I would say sales. But in this case, the #1 expenditure will likely be advertising and other means to bring awareness but does not necessarily result in sales that are strong enough to support. Not to mention employees, customer service, unexpected glitches. A rocky road. It costs money to pave the way and get to a smooth time. Many won't survive that journey and some already gave u before the trip even begins.

Myth #2 "gTLD's will devalue my .com's."

Well nothing could be further from the truth. It will do quite the opposite. Those that are saying that are likely buyers trying to get you to sell beneath market. How gullible. Are you paying attention to the after market? It is exploding! There is a reason for that but I won't argue the point, I will just state what happens before it happens and be on record so we can look back.

Myth #3  I am not sure what to quote here. But just an interesting observation. The gTLD's were open to everyone in the world. All the different languages. But extensions are dominated by English Words. Why?

Myth #4 "Somebody that owns a .com will want the other .whatevers."

As Page Howe articulated on DomainSherpa.com last week and I agree with 100%, he never goes downstream. In other words, if you own something other than .com then you want to grab every other extension and keep going after better and higher level domains until you get to the prize which is .com. But if you have the .com you are really not motivated to get the lower level extensions. Matter of fact, you can't wait for one of them to have a giant success.

Myth #5. "My .whatever extension does not leak traffic to the .com"

Sorry, fact beyond dispute. The evidence is overwhelming.  So overwhelming in fact that it has the potential to sink the ship. Any ship. That's a captain of a ship that believes the ocean has no shallow spots and a few leaks won't hurt anything.

Myth #6 "Google and Amazon and the big boys are in charge"

Not true. The consumer is always in charge. Everyone chases the consumer. There are some that do it really well (Apple) and have a harness on it and there are others that fail like JCPenny and are wobbling out of control. The consumer demands certain things. And when you don't give it to them, they won't give their dollars to them.

Myth #7 "The buyer sets the price and is in control of a transaction."

Come on. The seller is the only one that can press the Red Button and make a decision. The seller has only one thing he controls, his wallet and perhaps lack of funds.

Myth #8 "Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is no big deal"

REALLY?

Myth #9 "Rick and his Need, Want, Desire" does not get it.

Sorry, few have challenged Need, Want, Desire" and "Value" becomes a knockout blow. Down goes Frazier! I am just saying that many of those that are doing this are unprepared for the reality of what they are going to find out. So their only play is selling the extension. And while everyone thinks they make 5X their money with a $1 million sale of a $185k asset,  there are also many other fees and expenses and time and energy that the very people I talk about, don't count. Sorry,  It all counts!! Ignore enough important things, minimize them like a shrinking machine and eventually collapse may be the result.

Myth #10 "We will have hundreds of thousands of registrations"

That's like the Internet guy saying that getting traffic is no problem. Until he finds out it is the 2000lb gorilla in the room and there are 699 other gorillas and some are much bigger.

Myth #11 "The success or failure of those extensions that are released first will have no affect good or bad on any other extension.

I beg to differ and did an entire post on it. It the first 10 are dogs, it won't help #11. If the first 10 are winners, then  it will help #11. If it does not move the needle, it is even worse. That means nobody cares.

Like I said, it would take more than one post to go down the list. So #11 was just a replay bonus. ;-)

There will be many ways for the savvy to make money regardless of the fact that most people will lose their asses.

Rick Schwartz

 

New Birdie in the Mine Announced. Tell me How you CAN’T See it!!?? What is coming is Coming!!

Morning Folks!!

So my post yesterday morning is inadequate. It touches what I see, but it is oh so much bigger. It is the collective energy that is coming and WE are the BIG winners! 1000 NEW Divisions if not separate companies. They are going to make a LOT of NOISE!!

They are going to make noise in many ways. Some of it will be just that, noise. But thru that noise there will be some that have something or their something may benefit your .com as I have described here.

There is a TIDAL WAVE coming and it is going to make a direct hit on the domain industry. If it does not keep getting delayed. Each day of delay makes a company weaker not stronger. It costs money not to sell anything. But at some point that dam is gonna BURST and when it does, the landscape will never look the same again.

Bringing in Adam Dicker to help with T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is by design. We are preparing for what is to come. We have 2 venues capable of holding THOUSANDS of attendees. Besides the current domain investors an entire new generation of domain investors are all heading this way. The competition is going to be very interesting and it will be fierce and it will heat up from there. A lot of elbows in a small industry as this "Experiment" progresses.

So you are seeing the calm before the storm. And the only reason there is calm is because of the clusterf*ck that is delaying everything. In a perfect world you certainly would want to roll things out very soon. But looks like the delay will extend into 2014. I really do enjoy watching incompetence up close. Somethings are not well thought out and when that happens it blows up in their face. How could you not see this clusterf*ck 2 years away? I think I have been writing about it for 2 years and am glad others now see that there is no other word in the English language to describe it.

But after the clusterf*ck, IF we EVER  get to that point, then things are going to move very fast and the $$$ are going to fly! It will look like 2005 on steroids. This IS the calm before the storm and to be honest, the calm has a lot of things bubbling and brewing below the surface.

All I want to make perfectly clear is anyone reading this scared that their .com values are going to go down are not paying attention and are already reacting to noise that means nothing. Now WHY am I spending so much energy writing about this NOW? Because when the flood gates open, my voice will be drowned out by THOUSANDS of others. I need to be CLEARLY on record. If I stay true to what I see, I am also likely to have an entire new generation of people who don't like me. Sorry if my thoughts and vision does not match their agenda. REALITY trumps everything. Let the chips fall where they may and I am rooting for soe successes out there. The NOISE won't make them a success. END USERS, CONTENT and DOMAIN INVESTORS will decide their fate. MANY of those extensions may actually SNUB the domain industry thinking they can make their mark solely with end users. Good luck with that strategy.

I think the biggest unknown is how many extensions will collapse or be acquired before they collapse?

That said....I wish every new gTLD the greatest of successes. Your success is our success. Even if only 1 in 1000 works, the folks reading this blog will be on it. I won't hide which, if any, I think have a chance. The birdie in the mine for me is .web. I like .web but it could easily prove to be another .net. Should that happen, many others will simply collpase. And anyone that gets a .whatever and has a success and you own the .com version, you too have a success. It's coming!

Rick Schwartz

What Elements Make an Everyday Item have GREAT Value? Become a Collectible? An Investment?

Morning Folks!!

If you were to study the markets for antiques and collectibles you would certainly see the domain market quite differently. If you understood these industries you might understand how I see things. Something that is rare MAY have value. But something that became rare usually once had tons of that item all over the place and they slowly disappeared until the realization they were virtually gone. They become from everyday to rare and THAT is where value and growth comes from. DEMAND. Demand and limited availability causes prices to rise. This phenomenon is not controllable for the most part unless you are De Beers.

This clusterf*ck that ICANN is in charge of and the delays show how poorly thought out this entire mess is. Delays are very costly to those with new extensions. The meter is ticking and the overhead is accelerating and not a DIME is coming in. But what does ICANN care? They ain't De Beers.

And what happens when for many this is the bridge to nowhere other than collapse? How does one collapse figure into the other extensions? That will be a factor. What happens when an extension collapses? Nobody can say there will be no fallout because we just don't know.

What we do know is there will be consolidation as we already see. Some registries will make a profit. But what EXACTLY does that have to do with DOMAIN INVESTING?? Collecting maybe. But investing?

And for every successful .whatever there will be a .com counterpart swallowing up possibly a MAJORITY of their traffic and business. So I am looking forward to all this cuz I see nothing but great things because of where I am positioned. Where you are positioned. We have nothing to worry about. The poor schmuck that tries to build his empire on sand may have something to worry about.

The world is about sales and if I were to have come 18 years ago with the sole purpose of flipping for a profit, I would have been SOL pretty quickly. Markets and demand have to develop. This is like watching 1900 new hula-hoops coming to market. Instead of round they will try square and triangular. They will copy the greatest success of all time and repeat it 1900 times and everyone will become rich!

Not so fast.

Does not work quite like that.

And of course you will hear some BS releases about manufactured deals less than arm lengths deals and then some will swallow the bait. I have an entire post coming just for that.

Many domainers focus on a smaller and smaller subset of less and less targeted groups of people with lower and lower  spending power and wonder why they make no money. I just think that is a poor formula with unneeded and unwanted limits.

I PRAY one of these 1900 will break out and we have the chance for a replay. But to be honest. I think the next big extension is one that has already been around for a very long time. That extension will just get a second look because next to most of the .crap that is coming out, they look pretty damn good.

If we were in Vegas, the odds makers would not give you very encouraging numbers. The odds of success if just ONE net gTLD came to market is watered down 1900 times with 1900 different directions. And 1900 companies with many sets of problems and some will go broke. Eventually you run out of other people's money. Eventually lots of things happen as failure is exposed.

Point is, study what has become valuable in the past and you will find out what a DUD looks like. There are missing elements here. It's almost folly. Now I will exclude .Brands. They can have use but it is just that a USE! Their MAIN ADDRESS will still be Brand.com. The front door. The main Entrance. The door that can still lead to all others. Including .Brand but with few or no roads to .whatever.

Rick Schwartz