Consider what the benchmark for a successful domain name is.
In light of yesterday’s news that .me has hit 250,000 registrations and .tel has already reached 200,000, a number of people are asking if that makes these TLDs successful. Michael Berkens asked a similar question today.
My answer is that it’s way too early to say they are or are not successful.
I’m sure that GoDaddy/Afilias/DotMe had goals for the launch of their domains, and I have no idea if they’ve been met. Telnic certainly had its first year goals mapped out as well. But many TLDs fall off after an initial rush of speculators and trademark holders run in to register their domains.
.EU, by comparison, has nearly 3 million registrations. From a domainer’s perspective, however, this domain has been an utter failure.
I’m not saying these initial results aren’t impressive. But judging a new TLD takes time:
1. Number of registrations and registrants after three years.
2. Percentage of Fortune 500 firms that have registered and are using the domain.
3. Percentage of domains registered that are developed.
4. Resale prices of domains after three years. (In other words, after the initial froth has subsided.)
5. Renewal rates 12 months and 24 months after launch.
6. Retail price of domains is at least $5 (i.e., not giving away to boost numbers).
Different domains (such as local ones) may require different metrics, but I think these are a good start.
Thought-provoking piece Andrew once again.
We’d perhaps argue that all of those measures don’t necessarily apply to .tel but of course usage, by all including individuals and businesses of all sizes, and volume is an extremely important measure of success – and I think you’re right about the timescales as well.
However, We are seeing new models of distribution where .tel domains are bundled (or are fueling) a service (iWelt and digitrad to name a few who are looking at this as an ingredient technology in a greater communications or directory service) and so the retail price may well be masked as it is presented as a facilitatory tool for better user experience of an existing or new solution.
This would then impact on a number of the other measures as there becomes less emphasis on the fact that .tel is a domain name and more emphasis on a blended service being offered. It then becomes less important to compare it to traditional domains that can’t, say, be dialled by a softphone like voipGATE or Kiax, and more important to see it as a utility as with other communications points, such as telephone numbers, or services, such as directory services listings.
I’m sure time will tell.
Regards,
Justin Hayward
Telnic Limited
justin.tel
@ Justin – .tel is certainly a different animal, and it’s good to see people building applications and services on top of it. Usage, of course, must lead to registrations as I suspect that’s a big piece of the revenue pie for you.
Well said andrew, I acutally posted a similar style comment on Mikes blog.
We had great hype over .asia with a few five fig sales but what happend there?
Did people renew these domains?
I havent invested in these ext – I do like the .me hacks but I really dont get .tel – It shall never replace .com or business cards.
That being said – I have a client selling many one word .me names so if you are looking please hit me up homes@wea.la
Regards,
Robbie
“Retail price of domains is at least $5 (i.e., not giving away to boost numbers).”
Hey,
Don’t discourage domain discounts. 🙂
Andrew,
You are missing the biggest reason why a domain extension is successful
DEVELOPMENT
Out of these 250,000 .tel registrations, how many are registered for price appreciation and how many are registered for use?
I say about 98.5% are registered for price appreciation and 1.5% are registered for use.
Of that 1.5% that will be developed, expect at least half to never be used.
So, .tel, .pro, .mobi, .cc, .ws, .me etc etc are all just for speculative price appreciation with the exception of .mobi which probably has a higher development percentage and therefore has a chance as an OPTION to .com development. (Please don’t turn this into a .mobi thread).
@ Rob – that’s what I meant by #3. I think this is critical. .eu was snapped up my so many speculators with no plans whatsoever to develop them. This hurt the extension.
I would agree with Rob Sequin, that most .Tel’s will probably never be developed. However you could say exactly the same for .com’s. Lots of premium .com domains just end up being boring parking pages, with very little use to the frustrated visitor.
At least if I landed on a .tel that was filled with appropriate contact number, I just might click to call on impulse!! Now that’s a brand idea! …parking pages for .tels filled with direct phone numbers instead of urls leading to more boring text.
The fact is, there is so much cynicism instead of prudently diagnosing the prospects of what .tel might achieve ultimately. Again I strongly suggest you try using a .tel from your iphone and you can see how seamless it is interms of click to call or to digest concise information.
I’d be very happy to own hotels.tel if I owned the marriot chain or holiday inn chain. I’d be getting straight calls and bookings while all my competitors are spending a fortune trying to develop extensive websites filled with info most people really don’t want to read! Don’t believe me? …just twitter.com to see the trend of keeping it short and sweet!
…an’ speaking of .mobi (sorry, Rob; couldn’t resist)…still waiting for all those forced cancellations and resultant new availabilities ’cause, as the mobi leadership let it be known in no uncertain terms: “If you don’t use your .mobi, we’ll take it from you and sell it to someone who will!”
Or not.
Exactly right; development. It really would not matter if 2 million domain names sold under a new gTLD. Afterall, domain names would just be glorified IPs if it were not for the content and relationship of that content to the name.
Lets take 66.161.7.2., it is nothing but numbers. Put some content and it is worth something. Take 800-555-1212. Just numbers but if someone picks up the line and helps you it makes 1-800 something to get your ear around. Domain names are just numbers. Developed domain names are a window to the future. Most common names are developed in dot com. Of course we can find many that are not.
Pick a top star brand name like Babe Ruth, Madonna, Sting, James Dean, Sinatra in dot com. Now take the same in any other gTLD and what do you get? Dot com has come a long way in 15 years. I would not want to be starting over in 1994 with a new gTLD no matter how much sense it made.
Michael,
Its not what you or I want. It’s ultimately what the consumer wants or decides is the next trend. We can all get very emotional with .com as much as we like, however if the day arrives when .com is just blase, then that means it will have to compete with whatever extension takes its place. When artificial intelligence arrives, perhaps domains may all become anachronistic! Who knows.
The point about certain gtld’s, is do they potentially have scalability leading to ultimate revenue. .Tel appears to have this potential and that is potentially dis-concerting if you have the .com equivalent.
I must admit, I get the feeling a lot of domainers are old fuddie duddies hanging on to old glory. Most of my friends in their 20’s don’t give a damn about newspapers or tv for instance…seems very anachronistic indeed! The 20 something generation has a very short attention span, which is why twitter is now a big hit! Even facebook is beginning to look DOA somewhat by comparison.
Point is, diversify to keep ahead and never get emotional with a stock!
Another reason that an extension has to be developed to have any lasting value.
Compare a new domain extension to land in California before the Gold Rush.
No one wanted land in CA, just too far away and no people. Sure there was gold out there and nice beachfront property etc but without businesses (development) and without people (traffic) it was just land.
Build a business (website) on your land (domain name) and the people (traffic) will come… otherwise any domain is just land.
Steve M,
Can you please clarify what you mean by ‘forced cancellations’ in the event of non-use of .mobi domains? It is a bit of an urban myth that you actually need to put content behind a normal .mobi domain. It is not the case at all (and never was the case).
Our Premium Name Compliance Programme is an entirely different matter of course. Certain content obligations are attached to selected .mobi Premium domains given their value and potential for high traffic. Further details on that programme can be found at: http://mtld.mobi/node/1135.
Thanks.
Caroline Greer
dotMobi
I totally agree with Andrew’s view point on domain numbers and their popularity.
Non-TLD’s are fresh meat for companies built specifically for making them relevant and search engine ranked… WhyPark.com, of course, is my first choice.
We’ve moved into a period of monetization on keyword domains that doesn’t make it necessary to own a TLD domain name to get good rewards. Just have a good brand name and/or generic descriptive domain, even with a ccTLD or gTLD or SLD. Get some content on them quickly. Since WhyPark is free, give it a shot.
This is a point that Dub-A should be covering if commenting on the value of any extension being offered. Maybe development is just as valuable as owning a TLD premium that expects typeins… the old “style”.
In terms of usage and development of .tel domains, we’ll see. You can already see in fact – as .tel is a unique extension, search engines focused only on .tel domains like http://www.jepaa.com will enable you to look up which domains are being used, and which are for sale. Of course, I’d expect a slant at present, given the time that .tel has been available, but equally, as they can be set up in as little as 5 minutes, usage is completely possible.
Hey, even dogs (bowser.tel) can use them!
Justin Hayward
Telnic Limited
justin.tel
Good point Steven Douglas! In the end, there are so many logical ways to extract value out of any domain extension. I now make a living out of LondonHome.tv and LondonApartment.tv, however domainers give .TV the big thumbs down. I honestly feel there is a lack of creativity in the domain community, which is why a lot of .com’s are boring parking pages simply due to lack of creativity and determination to succeed.
I do want to express my great grattitude to David Castello who encouraged me to hold on to SupremeCourt.com and not sell it, but he encouraged me to develop it. Today I am proud to say it is starting to grow as a Social Network & Customized Search for Lawyers & Clients. I was pretty much snubbed by the domain auction rooms because they lacked the creativity on how to value such a name. Now I’m so glad I never sold it…that would have been a big mistake! I found out there are 1.2 million attorneys in the United States alone and they all need to get clients one way or the other and thats the opportunity I previously did not see.
So if you believe your domain extension or domain has value, don’t buy into all the naysayers way of thinking, go with your determination and develop whatever it is to extract value!
Big Love
Robert
I’ve read some of the comments regarding the original two applications for .Tel and there are some surprises. One in particular, and I’ll summarize;
The Application “other than” Telnic seem to propose a more powerful domain which would in effect be a telephone capable number by default (ENUM like), where as the current .Tel we are enjoying, is a workaround whereby the domain holder sets rules for recognizing numbers and is capable of dictating actions based on these recognitions.
Either way TelefonicaO2 was opposed to both Applications, and although less forcefully toward the Telnic proposal, I’m still convinced any domain which could arise such argument from the Telco industry, has great potential for us Little People 🙂
OK, I’m fine if this is basically the case, however one question. Can any other TLD also do this? And if so, are the only true differences; that .Tel is located directly in the DNS vs. Hosted Sites, mandated Telnic design standards, and universal publishing methods? Not that there is anything wrong with that…
Regards,
Steve
This seems to be very complicated and I am not sure about the prices. I am considering to register a new top-level domain and I would really appreciate the advise:
1. about the pricing strategy
2. about the registration system
3. about the marketing