Last month Famous Four Media launched its first few domains, including .webcam and .trade.
.Webcam and .Trade each received about 3,500 registrations on the first day. .Bid received fewer than a thousand.
It turns out that the bulk of registrations were undertaken by a single domain investor. I didn’t figure this out until I had written part of a draft story about the launch. I had tentatively titled the post “Famous Four has a solid first day” based on the registrations in .webcam and .trade.
On the same day, Michael Berkens posted a story about the results, labeling it a “slow start”.
Solid or slow? Good or bad? Mediocre?
It’s an interesting question. Strip out the fact that one person was responsible for most registrations. Is 3,500 a good first day number?
I think it’s quite respectable compared to other TLDs. Many are coming on the market with about 1,000 registrations. Some that have been out for a long time still haven’t hit 3,500 names in the zone file, for example .computer, .build, .recipes.
Had you asked most new TLD applicants a year ago if 3,500 would be respectable, they’d probably say no. But knowing what we do now, I’d say yes.
Domo Sapiens says
I think those numbers have Zero significance, with some many shenanigans taking place…”smoke and mirrors” is the name of the game…
after the .link-gate .uno-gate and .whatever-gate were uncovered …who knows what goes on backstage inside any of the new registries/registrars and their obscure and not-so-obscure subsidiaries .
Pump Pump…”and let’s pray for Dump”…it seems to be the concerted effort.
The New gTLDs are starting to resemble penny stocks and the pink sheets.
You ought to watch who is doing the buying and why? and not so much the number of registrations.
jane says
Who is buying, how they are being used AND how long are they being registered for (1 year? 10 years?)
Robbie says
How many years can a single investor carry a registry, unless it is an insider, the amount of dollars you are talking about invested within other industries would yield far better returns. Domaining used to be pretty straight forward, now it has turned into a fool’s game, of misleading registrations, and numbers, trying to entice Joe Public to jump on the gold rush bandwagon. Sorry, nobody is buying in.
Jothan says
The zone file access program gets people insight into the raw number of domains in that TLD zone, but it really holds no data as to how many years of registration, if it was premium or not, first year promotions, etc.
Other important factors that impact how to read zone file data will be Wholesale Pricing (lower wholesale = more regs), Quantity (and Quality) of Collision List blocks, registry policy (restrictive = lower, open = higher).
ICANN has not published the transaction reports yet for most of the new TLDs. Inside these reports are where one can view the #of years registered and by what registrar. This will give better indications of the growth of the new TLDs.
I think one normalizing factor to consider when thinking about the new TLDs is to look at registration in ‘units’ (which is domain years) vs DUM (domains under management).
For example, 5000 DUM if they were 10 year registrations = 50000 ‘units’.
The registry transaction reports shed a bit more detail on this, and it is IMHO a much better indicator of the registries’ health.
The reports do not reflect wholesale pricing of the TLDs, any net terms on collections, premium priced names, or promotional campaigns that might give indication on the financial winners and losers from a cash perspective.
That’s the holy grail, right there.
Anyway, I think that the Famous Four TLDs are off to a good start, and that whatever numbers we are seeing in the immediate near term are somewhat helpful as data points, but the real success indicators are at year 2+ when we see renewal rates and more search engine results from organic use.
Rutuparna says
An interesting question!!! I personally think that it is a good start.