The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Morning Folks!!

Each new gTLD I will review with the following lens and I will rate in each category.

NEED

WANT

DESIRE

VALUE (And for now, let's stipulate that value is limited until it can be measured in a more meaningful way)

I can score them on a 1-10 basis but seldom will I have to.

So let's start with .London

Let me also make the following blanket statement. Geo's and Brands may be exceptions.

Brands have nothing to do with us as investors. The only relevance is if they will use it, when they will use it and how they will use it. So let's stipulate that .brand is a separate issue. If I were working for .brand I would get the .brand gtld. Maybe never use it, but secure it nonetheless depending on the brand. Some brands can take their time. .CocaCola for example is not in jeopardy. However .apple or .delta could be. So there would be more of a sense of urgency.

.Geo tlds will be determined by how it is embraced locally and whether it is a turn off or a turn on internationally. Gucci.Rome? Maybe. Fendi.Paris. But the "." is very confusing and sometimes catalogued.

Point is, these are different from the generics. I can't say which way it may go. But it is still limited. But there is opportunity depending on the restrictions and adaptation. It may or may not be embraced. The public has the final vote. None of us do. Our job is to predict what will unfold and bet on the outcome.

So then we get to the generics and those are the ones I will focus on.

Let's do .Club

First of all when I apply my test of Need, Want and Desire, almost all will rate very low on "Need". There is little "Need" for any of this. So let's not make false foundations. Need is universally LOW! Bullshit is about to become universally high trying to overcome the FACT that there is no need! We already heard some of it. We are running out of .coms. Bullshit! .Com is your fathers extension. More bullshit. And friend or foe, I am allergic to bullshit and I will point it out each time. If you like stepping in it, then by all means don't let me stop you.

Then we get to WANT! Want is another story. And .Club actually ranks rather well on want. I could see clubs wanting their name. So let's discuss the most valuable .clubs. Those will be famous and trademarked .clubs and that has no meaning to you and me. However there are a number of generic clubs. Problem is most clubs like that would not have a lot of money as a general rule. Now there are exceptions and it will be those exceptions that you would have to focus on. So Bridge.club to a women's Thursday condo club has no value. You need a national bridge club to WANT that domain for a lot of money. Do they WANT it? That is the question?? They certainly don't need it.

Then we go to desire. You really need to desire something before you even get to want. I don't know that folks are going to desire these. They may. There are enough clubs so it could have a basis and a foundation. Will they desire it in time is the only question?

You can take a gtld like that and stand it next to .tatoo for example. Given those two, I would bet on .club. But of course, we have many more choices, so keep your wallet in your pockets for the time being.

Then .sexy is the last one for today. There is only one thing I am 100% certain of when it comes to .sexy. I am certain that sexy.com is the immediate and big winner. There is no gamble there whatsoever. Sexy.com does not have to do a thing. On the other hand the .Sexy registry, needs many thousands of what comes down to "Sub-domains".  That loops right back around to co.com. They seem to be betting that the .com is imperative on the end and are going to be there to take advantage of the confusion factor if that materializes. But don't mind me. I am a simple man who is easily confused. Luckily hundreds of millions know how I feel.

I will match each one against .web. Why .web? Because so far that would seem the one that makes the most sense for any type of wide adaptation in which ANY word or phrase can be used in conjunction with it.

But .web could be another .biz or .net. Could be. I am not certain. I can see scenarios for either. And that is what our job is. Be certain about what we are certain of and be flexible on what we are not certain of. With each new bit of info, even certain has to be looked at again and recalculated. You either become more or less certain. But this is still a process that must be done mentally to get to a conclusion and an answer before others do.

So .web if it had some broad support and advertising could be an extension that puts .net on their heels. A good case could be made to abandon a .net and use a .web if it were to be embraced by the public. My comments on .web go back years and as Franky pointed out during our debate last month, they opted for .info instead. That was a HUGE mistake. Had they used .web at that time, I think things would look a lot different today.

Need, want, desire.

Need to me is universally 1 on the 1-10 scale. It may decline from there. ;-)

Want, comes down to the audience it will attract. .Club could do well on want. .web could do well on want. .London could do well on want. When it comes to desire, that is what they need to instill in folks and that is a TALL order. To instill desire on something you don't actually need. Tough mountain. Depends how the locals embrace and use it. Depends if the locals are not the ones that own the domains. Depends on all types of restrictions that could be in play. That applies to all the geos universally. We know the city is behind .nyc. But what we don't know is who and how many will adapt to it and who basically will reside there. Who will or will not advertise it. All unknowns and most of the unknowns don't end well. And the confusion factor is always there.

Brands are separate and the only thing we need to watch for and be aware of is adaptation and advertising. Whether it will be used as an internal or external platform. Without that, it is nothing more than a patent in a drawer that may or may not have useful value.

Look, I enjoy talking about the unknown. Comparing notes, thoughts and ideas. The elbows will eventually fly with 700 horses in a derby meant for 15-20. They will contradict each other. Stumble over each other and basically do damage to each other. More than my thoughts could ever do. Sorry, that's the way it is likely to unfold. I can't control any of that. I can just see it before it materializes and articulate it beforehand. Tell me next Christmas how wrong I am. Kumbya won't be in the top 100.

Sales are hard to make. But sales make the world go around. Without sales all the 700 die on the vine. No 2 ways about it. A true catch 22. Domainers looking for the second coming are likely to snap up whatever they can afford and if that smothers the end-user out, game over! On the other hand if they are depending on the end-user and startups to support them, could be the same result. A balancing act for sure. It will take a few years to see who survives. There is simply not enough oxygen out there to support them all. Each collapse can only hurt those that remain. Can only cast a shadow on the others. That is why there will be a lot of turmoil to come.

And they will be FORCED to resort to bullshit as we have already seen. They must paint a blue sky or who in their right mind would invest? When selling, there is allowable bullshit and bullshit that is to the point of misleading and lying. See when you have to mislead and lie to sell, that is a very weak sale. That is a sale that may bounce. That is a sale riddled with problems.  That may not be a sale at all. I think we have all been fooled enough with the promises of riches with extensions that have done nothing but suck up investors money.

I really do want to see what they see. Just don't pee on my leg and tell me it is raining. Tell me the benefits of your .whatever without having to resort to silly stuff that will never filter down to your target audience anyways and alienates domainers that could actually invest if they did not think they were getting bullshitted AGAIN! It's all about the .whatever and what value it has to offer. The same people saying this and that didn't see the recovery and BOOM we are in now just a few months back when I started pointing to the reasons we would be where we are now. But it is not about now, it's about where we will be in a year from now.

I really don't care who runs the registry. Network Solutions was perhaps the worst company I ever had the pleasure to do business with. They were so inept back in 1995 and 1996 tat they forgot to put in a cash register and actually charge for each domain name. Did not seem to hurt .com and they were like an angel investor to me. By the time the first bill actually came, I was making money online and I had more income than bills.

This is fun and exciting times for us. However the new registries are under the gun to make money. They have overhead, staffs, rent, attorney bills, ICANN bills and then they have to suffer delay after delay after delay. That is very costly and some of them are in a world of pain. So when I hear domainers say for $185k they could have owned a registry, not so fast. And since we are ging to have 700 under the gun at virtually the same time, IMAGINE the bullshit they and their folks are about to spew. I have written about it for 18 months and now we are seeing it.

Besides that, 75% of "Domainers" and "Domain Flippers" that we all know, will be working for these companies. So friend or foe, it is about the viability of each extension and the opportunity to make money that will be my driving force and the only thing that gets in the way of that is BULLSHIT and that is why you will NEVER see me relent when it comes to BS. No way Jose!

So my advice for each gTLD, is stick with the facts, don't make up sales and don't try to marginalize something else in order to make your case. That dog won't hunt. It's weak and transparent. Really.

Just one last promise.

If you like your .Com, you can keep your .Com. Period! See I think when it comes to bullshit, we have all heard quite enough. So become Joe Friday from Dragnet. Nothing but the FACTS. I point to EMPIRICAL evidence backed by numbers. Ignoring that is not the road to make a sale.

Rick Schwartz

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

Morning Folks!!

I am certain that in the days ahead you will read many accounts of the seminar that folks might talk about for a very long time. It was as good as billed and perhaps better!

There was passion from each and every person on the panel and the debate was respectful but intense. I think the result was more clarity on each side.

.Club had a point of view and .Kiwi had a point of view.

One of my favorite points of the debate is when Monte and Frank disagreed and they were on the same team. That was priceless.

My partner was Lonnie Borck and for those of you that know Lonnie, he is sharp and smart and was able to boil it all down to simple things. Like .whatevers MUST sell to survive while with .com there is no concept to sell.

The basic disagreement I have with Frank is that he believes .whatever will devalue .com and I believe it will do just the opposite. Increase the value of .com Nothing I have not said right here on this blog before. Many times. I look to history for my answers.

I compared the prices of .com domain names today with the historical salaries of baseball players. I believe that domains are on a par with what Babe Ruth made or maybe as fas as Mickey Mantle. But these guys never earned the tens of millions stars earn today.

And even as Football replaced Baseball as the National Pastime and Nascar has become bigger than both, salaries in baseball continue to go up.

So I put that question to the attendees and the vote was overwhelming that .com prices would go up as a result of all this.

Photo Lifted from: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2013/dailyposts/20131021.htm

Howard and Danny did "Man on the street" and the interviews were more than surprising.

One young guy in his late 20's said Facebook is where his company website is. The crowd laughed.  He said is website was under construction. More laughter. Two said they did not have websites and don't want one. That surprised many. None knew of the new gTLD's. So the point is while we know this and that because we do this fo a living, Main Street is far behind and I think the audience was stunned by how far! These were just random small businesses that were picked.

We touched on many subjects and as I said, there will be a number of stories about what took place and it was all good!

I want to thank Frank for doing this with me as well as Monte Cahn from Rightofthedot.com,  Jeffrey Sass of .club and Tim Johnson of .kiwi and Lonnie Borck.

We did record the session and we plan to put it online for all to see. I am certain you will enjoy it and find great value with it. It's just a sample of what we do at TRAFFIC. Should be online within the week. YOU be the judge.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Pretty simple. If you own a SINGLE keyword LEFT of the dot and there is a new matching gTLD to the right of the dot, your traffic will soar. YOU are the basket for all their misdirected traffic. You are the basket for any and all confusion. There is no downside for .com counterparts. But there is a significant upside. Possibly life changing.

Now if you don't own any of those keywords, your benefits will be much less.

There will be a .Property. That means Property.com is the big winner.

There will be .Free. That means Free.com is the big winner.

There will be .whatever and whatever.com will be the winner.

Will be the winner for doing nothing but being there.

And the new gTLD will be missing THE most important part of their marketing puzzle.

There is no question about this. It has already been proven. It is fact. Now those that won't accept that fact will have a costly road in front of them. Matter of fact, there are so many facts after nearly 20 years and some ignore all of them and are destined to repeat failures of the past that should NOT be repeated as failures of the future, But by ignoring facts, their destiny awaits!

.Mobi has 1.2MM registrations. WHO CARES??

As a domain investment it was a FLOP! Period!!

We are "Domain Investors". If you want to play the registrar or registry game, go buy Tucows stock or one of the stocks of the others. Buying domains is not the key.

.Mobile......Really?? They will NEVER see 1.2MM registrations. Many won't even see the .2 regardless of their grand plans. And without domainers, MANY will die on the vine. .meaningless is coming.

So with 700 gtld's the first thing to do is to eliminate the ones with no chance of survivability. Then from the ones left, eliminate the bottom half of that list. You should not have no more than 35 gTLD's to even consider and that means 665 of them will ROT away. Won't even reach the levels of .Aero. And have no investment value whatsoever.

The proof lies in the aftermarket of .mobi, .xxx, .co, .biz, .aero, .travel and the list goes on. Who gives a rats ass about how many registrations they have when as an investment it lacks the elements needed to GROW your money and grow the value of the domain.

My advice as always, buy GREAT .coms and never worry that you have something with no value. I would rather overpay for a great .com then get a bargain for something with little or no value.

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

According to the 1and1.com pre-reservation system for new gTLD's .web is #1 and that is no surprise. I have written about .web as the best chance of survivability and adoption by the masses. However the big surprise to me is .online at #2. Really?? Of course this is like Fantasy Football as these are not binding and so who really knows.

Pretty long extension .online. 4 extra letters. What is surprising to me is I own many domains what end with "online.com" and over the years ave been under performers. Maybe this dynamic will change things. Like going back to the future. Almost left for dead. Some of my earliest registrations.

We don't know how this may or may not be manipulated. But it is the only barometer out there at this point so a flawed compass is better than no compass as long as the compass is constant but not stuck.

Everyone talks about 1 Million registrations of any extension. So that would total up to 700 million domains. Don't think so. So some are going to hit that million and for each that does there will be 5-10 that can't blow past 10,000 or maybe less.

I don't see how any of us can lose either way. But even a success on the registry/registrar level does not guarantee success for the investor or  end-user. If they reject it, confused by it or even angry about it, game over before it begins. But I truly don't know all the answers. If you pay close attention , they ALWAYS reveal themselves at the proper time.

Let's just call it the great race and the great experiment. Will be fun for all regardless of the outcome. Opportunity is spelled the same way no matter what vehicle or disguise it comes in.

Rick Schwartz

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

Morning Folks!!

You can see this coming a year away and you best be prepared for what is coming.

With close to 1000 new gTLD's to be sold and marketed they are all going to have to man their ships and that means collectively hiring THOUSANDS of people. Going to be very interesting how this all plays out . But make no mistake about it, within a year we are going to see a massive change in our small community. For starters, it is no longer going to be small. And it will be VERY different.

Some of you reading this will end up working for some of these companies. But please take a moment to imagine  what this will all look like and how that will change the industry we are in.Much will be good and much will not. You will have a full-time job just sorting out all that is coming.

Whether  you believe the gTLD's are going to fly or not there is going to be HUGE opportunity. It may or may not come in the way of investing in domains. The opportunities may look different. I invite ever new extension owner to come here and tell us what they see. What their vision is and why. I am more likely to buy into an extension that is well thought out and supported than one that is not. Just sayin'.

A crowded field is coming and some folks will be desperate. The delays are VERY costly. Each day that passes costs money. Weeks that pass cost more. But now we are talking months and I would not be surprised if it turned into a year or more or something very unexpected happens that plunges this entire thing into turmoil. Like a complete Clusterf*ck. Even Clusterf*cks can make you money or present great opportunity.

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

Seems the .PS registry has been hacked.

Looks like someone hacked the .PS registry so they can direct names anywhere. Like if someone hacked the .COM registry we would all be at the mercy of that person. A check of Google.PS illustrates what may be happening.

This can open up new concerns as new gTLD's are slated for market.

UPDATE: Tech Crunch reports it to be a "Domain Registry Attack"

Rick Schwartz