Most domain investors expect to register some new domains this year.
The current rollout of new top level domain names is a slow and steady process that will take years to complete. A lot can and will happen during this time frame.
This year’s Domain Name Wire survey asked for opinions on new TLDs now, as in early 2014. The result is a pretty good snapshot of how people involved in several aspects of new TLDs — domainers that buy them, registrars that sell them, and registry providers that provide them — view the market at this time.
One survey question asked how many second level domains under new TLDs people expect to register in 2014.
I filtered this question to only show results from survey respondents who said they were domain name investors. There’s some overlap with service providers in this group as well.
47% of respondents said they don’t plan to register any new TLDs in 2014. The other 53% plan to register anywhere from 1 to 1,000 domains. The median answer was 20 domains.
This same group of domain name investors does not predict much downside for .com domain names as new TLDs rollout:
The top line is the number that think .com values will rise, the middle expect little impact, and about 20% expect .com prices to fall as a result of new TLDs hitting the market.
Domain investors didn’t answer this question much differently than registrars and other service providers. I the latter groups, about the same percentage expect .com prices to be negatively impacted, although more think there will be no effect as opposed to a positive one on .com values. Again, there’s some overlap between this group and investors.
At the same time, more than half of both groups expect non-.com domains (e.g. .info, .biz) to be negatively impacted by new TLDs.
Mike says
Why would new buildings in Creston, Iowa reduce price of apartments in Manhattan, New York ???
Mr D says
Because the new buildings are of better quality than the Manhattan ones
insuresolar.com
insure.solar
Mike says
I should pick Winchestertonfieldville, Iowa (like in movie Mr Deeds 🙂
pango says
Because the world doesn’t stand still, it changes. So if you get stuck in the past then you’ll be soon part of it 🙂
Domenclature.com says
There’s gotta be an impact from the roll-out itself. Many of these respondents had no idea that:
1. Registries were going to reserve many names.
2. Registries were go to reserve the best names that make any sense.
3. Registries were going to make many reserves Premium.
4. Registries were going to make the Premiums too high, up to 4 figures.
5. Registries were going to act as Domainers.
6. Registries were not going to introduce the extensions with pizzazz, but rather like doing a fireworks show with spent pyrotechnics.
7. the Consumer, and the Public are not buying into the names
8. alacrity and menacing nature of new GTLD raining down everyday.
9. the expensive and unjustified Registration fees, relatively speaking.
10. the virility, and steadfastness of existing extensions.
11. that Registries and Registrars can snathc back names after they’ve been registered for weeks, and therefore, can pretty much do damage to a Registrant anytime, anyhow, of their choosing…
I have 101 reasons.
With these new knowledge, that poll is obsolete.
Viljami says
Have to say I agree 100%. Especially with the “registries were going to act like domainers” part. Not that I blame them (domainers acting like domainers, who knew) but it would have been so cool if new gtld registries had just opened the flood gates.
And as they did not, tells only one thing: Their plan is for the long-term. And more importantly, their stategy is pretty much same as yours: reap the rewards from the good names (e.g. Electric.Guitars), and sell the rest of the names (e.g. ItsBetterBeReal.Estate) for domainers who don’t know better. There’s just so few names that makes sense in most of those extension.
Anyway, keep on regging in the free world.
Cool Ledge says
Yes, #7 is certainly a wee bit of a problem. The gtld’s are stupid and will surely fail. Please don’t say you were not warned cuz you were.