This is a live blog from the “Meet the New TLDs” panel today at NamesCon in Las Vegas.
Participants included:
Shaul Jolles CEO, DotLatin .uno
Aaron Grego CEO, Punto 2012 .rest, .bar, .cafe
Rob Rozicki VP & Co-Founder, Starting Dot .ski, .bio, others
Daniel Negari CEO, .xyz, .college
Monica Kirchner CEO, Dotluxury .luxury
Kirchner (.luxury) – the internet is for everybody, we want to make an internet for the luxury customer. It will coexist with what’s currently out there. You may see companies/brands with multiple domains to reach different
audiences. They can get a name that truly has meaning and relevance, whereas many don’t have that right now.
Jolles (.uno) – focusing on U.S. Spanish speaking community because they are a Spanish speaking group that doesn’t have their own ccTLD.
Negari (.xyz) positioning as alternative to .com, low cost, high volume approach. Hoping for $10 retail pricing. But still trying to create a community with benefits (sounds a bit like .co perks to me).
Rozicki (.ski) – We’re educating the ski market directly (e.g. resorts), but the majority of market will be skiers themselves. Although target market is all types of skiers, snow sports is the largest market in that realm. People in this industry are also very tech savvy. Mentioned $60 registration cost for domain name. (Editor’s note: .ski is still in a contention set. I don’t think any of the others represented on stage are.)
Grego (.rest, .bar, .cafe) – working with registrars and with restaurants directly. We’re going to restaurant tradeshows. Compared to skiers, your average restaurant owner might not be so tech savvy. Want to help the restaurants brand themselves.
Kirchner (.luxury) – not the volume of registrants that matter so much as how it is used.
Negari (.xyz) – we’re doing awareness marketing with registrar, also pr about what a domain name extension is. We’re doing our own awareness marketing to let people know what “XYZ” is.
Jolles (.uno) – we’ve been in sunrise for about a month and are seeing lots of activity from large brands. I want the end user to expect to see a .uno. I’m not looking so much at getting big “founders” for .uno, I’m focusing more on small businesses.
Why do you need .xyz, when you can pretty much have any .co you want?
.co is a CCtld not a Gtld. God help you if there’s a coup in Columbia and your .co goes away.
Columbia, the university? Yeah, a coup there has always been a major concern.
– .XYZ is the last three letters of the alphabet, there is no meaning to it. The whole argument for people who are pro gTLDs is that there is meaning and description in the extensions.
– .Luxury wants to be a place for high end goods. Why would a high end company need this? They will already own their .com, and consumers know this so the argument that when you buy on a .luxury domain you know the goods are authentic is not a valid point because I know if I buy on Gucci.com it will be authentic.
-.Uno I read CNN.com every day and wasn’t aware there was a rallying cry by the Spanish speaking community for their own distinct extension.
-.Rest Not sure using an abbreviation that forms a dictionary word is a good step to succeed. If I wanted .highway and instead I made it .high would I get road fanatics or potheads on my site? And we all see how the .mobi extention has fared.
-.Ski How many people ski? Now take that number and decrease it to how many people who ski want to run their own website. Now take that number and decrease it to how many people who ski that want to run their own website and don’t want to use a .com. How big of a target market is that opportunity now?
The only gTLD extension that there is a need for today, that I think will do well because there is an established and growing market is .app. And no Mr. .Rest that is not for appetizers.
Good to know cnn.com is the place where the spanish speaking community rallies
Question:
So a guy who is into skiing, speaks Spanish, loves luxury items, has nothing against the end of the alphabets, owns a cafe, stops by a bar after work, and rests when he gets home, wakes up, grabs a tattoo, considers himself sexy, surfs the web, connects to it via a link of wifi, and visits his poker club; what extension should he get?
Simple… buy a .com
wake me up when all this .whatever is buried in the graveyard.