Three reasons .online should be successful.
Michael Berkens spotted this morning that the last of the losing applicants for .online had withdrawn its application, meaning a partnership between Radix, NameCheap and Tucows has won the rights for the .online domain name.
I think .online will be one of the most successful new generic top level domain names, for a few reasons.
1. A combination of three top-10 registrars will be pushing it. I’m assuming that Radix will be able to get Endurance, which bought its sister-company’s domain name operations, to push the domain. Then you’d basically have the #2, #4, and another top ten registrar backing the domain name. Tucows will need to convince its resellers to carry the domain, but the bottom line is this tie-up of companies has a lot of firepower.
2. “Online” is one of the most commonly purchased keywords in the aftermarket. Back when GoDaddy had a monthly aftermarket report, it showed a tag cloud of the most common keywords found in domains it sold. Every month — every month — “online” was the most commonly sold term. A lot of companies slap “online” to the end of their desired domain name to buy it in .com. Will they opt for something.online instead of somethingonline.com?
3. A big headstart on .web – Everyone (ok, other than those with competing generics) says .web is the best generic applied for in this round. But I don’t think it will come out for another year or two. That gives .online, as runner up, plenty of time to build itself up ahead of .web.
Acro says
Online is rather antiquated, but not as bad as .Global. Think, AOL and the other early “online access” providers circa early 1990’s. But hey, if .website can sell, so will this one. Just not considering it a hot potato.
couponpages says
I think once again, it will mainly be popular among people who are merely redirecting to their existing .Com… not spawning any new mainstream sites.
So, sites like HatsOnline.Com, will potentially buy Hats.Online, but I seriously doubt that the .Online version would be any improvement over the .Com… other than being slightly shorter.
JZ says
apparently its a term that’s popular with the chinese but it seems redundant since its obvious every website is “online”.
Konstantinos Zournas says
.Online will do better than .web.
.Web has that bad (for me anyway) association with .net and a lot of competition from .website and .site and of course the original .net. 🙂
Of course it all depends on the pricing models.
couponpages says
When is .Online scheduled to be released?
Konstantinos Zournas says
They have not announced that yet.
But probably in 6-8 months from now.
Joseph Peterson says
“Online” is a bit old-fashioned, as Acro says, although it won’t entirely die out. The term is based on a distinction between internet-based content and traditional offline media and services. While the internet was still a bit of a novelty in the 1990s, almost anything web-related had to be distinguished from regular life by instructing people to “visit us online”.
And now? The internet has merged with regular life to the point that certain kinds of content and services are assumed to be online without anyone ever breathing the word “online”.
I think the best use of .ONLINE is a limited use — to distinguish online from offline offerings in niches where the difference still matters.
.WEB is much more universal and flexible, in my opinion. It gets in the way less while having a rich meaning of its own and resembling the short established TLDs consumers are accustomed to seeing. But .ONLINE will probably do ok in comparison to many an nTLD. Of course, nobody will ever be able to compete with .OOO.
Andrew Allemann says
Interesting conversation. I don’t think of online as antiquated at all. Google spent millions with its “get blank business online” campaign, and the term is used extensively for all things Internet. To me, terms like cyberspace and hyperlink are antiquated, but not online.
Joseph Peterson says
You’re right, Andrew. But isn’t the idea of getting an offline business online playing on that distinction between internet and traditional media?
Seems to me, the phrase “getting your business online” makes use of the word “online” as a descriptive term to differentiate between having no website and getting a website. Where the word “online” really seems antiquated isn’t in this descriptive sense but in the branding sense. Once upon a time, “online” was a potent, edgy, futuristic term. Brands like AmericaOnline made use of the term’s former novelty to convey the idea of progress.
Maybe more small businesses than we in the domain industry realize are still languishing between brick walls without a website. After all, that’s the demographic GoDaddy’s and Web.com’s commercials are targeting.
And yet isn’t there a general sense that these Mom and Pop businesses are behind the times? Don’t we all assume they’re online until we find out otherwise? Sooner or later, by 2020 probably, America (just to riff on that 90s brand) will be mostly online already and have superseded what was still progress in 1994.
There will always be a difference between “buying clothing online” and “buying clothing”. But that sense of “online” is neutral, descriptive, pragmatic; not the emotionally resonant idea it was for AmericaOnline in former years.
Konstantinos Zournas says
I don’t think that online is old-fashioned. Especially compared to “web”.
I think that, at least outside of the US, “online” is much more popular than “web” or “net”. I don’t think there is anyone in Greece using “web” for a brand or otherwise.
Joseph Peterson says
Konstantinos, you are right about the relative frequency of “online” and “web”:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=web%2C%20online&cmpt=q
But even though I’m the person bringing that up, I think it’s quite dangerous to rely on sheer volume of word usage as a criterion for TLD suitability. Otherwise, the dominant new TLDs ought to be .FOR or .THE:
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=web%2C%20online%2C%20the%2C%20for&cmpt=q
Especially when comparing an adjective / adverb like .ONLINE to a noun / adjective like .WEB.
Spanish speakers outnumber native English speakers 4 to 3. And for the Spanish internet, whose online growth potential is much less saturated, “web” is the word for “website”. (It’s a contraction of “pagina web” or “sitio “web”.) I don’t see that going anywhere.
In English, I’ve seen headlines this past week about the “Dark Web”. That phrase is a fresh coinage — meaning that mainstream audiences have only just begun using it. And it’s laden with emotional associations, whereas “online” is neutral to the point of being boring. That’s neither here nor there, though. .PINK has its associations too.
John says
It’s too long.
Konstantinos Zournas says
You can’t build a registry in a couple of days and you need to have a sunrise period. And they haven’t even signed the agreement with ICANN.
Andrew Allemann says
I think he meant .online is too long character-wise
Konstantinos Zournas says
(Ok. He posted below 6-8 months so I thought… anyway…)
It is not too long.
Tony says
Wow, are you guys totally clueless to Radix approach to pricing. It was out of this world $3000 – $6000 per year premiums on Tier 2 type names, obviously Tier 1 reserved.
Tier 2 were still in the hundreds per year, get your head around this guys, it is just a stupid domain which has been artificially created to create supply, where there is little demand. They are creating false hope to artificially create demand for a product that has endless supply, in a limited marketplace.
You do not have a clue what end users are doing. They are putting in inquires, getting insane offers, with lack of premium info, then balking at it, then going over to godaddy and getting 100 other options at reg fee.
NYC sent me a coupon for 30 percent off today… Really wow what a deal right…NOT.. They are stalling out, and most of the crud cannot sustain $30 per year.
Nothing against gtlds, just the fact that this is all domainers, alongside others who think they are making 1996 type investments. The premiums on am annual basis make this like having a full time salaried worker at the same cost model, it’s just a domain… Just a domain… Not the cure for cancer… Just a domain in a made up extension.
BT says
The only caveat is the price.
It will have to compete against $9 .link and $2 (presently) .xyz and whatever Donuts does with it’s hoard of great generics like .rocks .zone etc
Price will move the market
Robbie says
.link is in the $5.xx range, I also got an email from a registrar today for 35% off .blackfriday and christmas domains… Throughout the week, I got some other deals, but I don’t remember for which extensions.
Someone mentioned above .nyc is offering 30% as well, so looks like they shaving $10 off the price, as the media coverage goes quiet after launch.
New gTLD Domains says
The demand for new gTLDs is not yet there, but that may soon change in the next 2-5 years. In the case of .Online it is a great extension unlike many of the other random gTLDs that have flooded the market where there is very little demand for them right now. Even Verisign’s .Name is better than many of the new random TLDs.
.Website
.Online
.Site
.Web
Are all pretty much the same. The market is becoming over-saturated. I think dotSite would have very little success and possibly fail. A gTLD becomes a failure where there’s no demand or usage of it.
Robbie says
If all the premium GTLD’s are reserved or come at a cost of $60,000 per year how will they ever get exposure with the use of end users?
New gTLD Domains says
If you ask me, I would say the pricing of any new premium gTLD at $60K a pop (can never be per year) may indeed lure domainers to invest in these new extensions. Mind you that domainers are end-users too, but with intentions to sell.
If a certain (reserved/registered) domain under a new gTLD sells for over $50k; wouldn’t Domainers be tempted to invest in such? This is one of the factors that continues to drive the demand for .COM especially among domainers – the high end or six figure sales/publicity.
There are different types of end users, the average and the high-end users. The average end user barely see a domain name as an investment and would never pay a high figure for such, but a (corporate) high-end user does — and are the ones really paying high figures for this names.
When registries reserve a name for a high price tag of $60k, they are pretty much cutting off Domainers so as to sell directly to high-end users. Such type of capitalist scheme hurts the domaining aspect of the industry. There are even some registries playing the Registry, The Registrar, and the Domainer.
Robbie says
Right now domainers are carrying these registries until their extensions get noticed. I know .club has one guy who spent close to 6 figures during GA, and so on. Even many domainers operate businesses, and that is how they got into it in this in the first place, they are end users in certain niches, and like to own their category niche.
In 3 months the first round of renewals will be coming do, some of the better names are set around $250 to $500 we will see how that turns over.
As for the $60K per year renewal names, it is quite obvious they are trying to shut the door to domainers, but many businesses cannot get a $60K return on a unproven extension domain, than they wouldn’t be able to get with a one time $30-$50K .com purchase, then set at $10 renewal for pretty much forever in an already proven marketplace.
Everyone keeps wondering will it be .web .online . shop that will be the new .net
I really think most companies that have backing, and money still have access to a great pool of .com names, most are still held by domainers who are willing to make deals. If a startup does come off on a gtld, and find funding later down the road, they may have access to get their targeted .com
Only thing that is for sure is GTLD pricing is coming down, domainers can’t sustain registration numbers for long, since supply exceeds demand, they will have to find that $7-$15 sweet spot to sell into.
Radix right now has BuildA.Website which can be had for $3,000 per year, sitting ripe for the taking, or maybe Digital.Website for $3,000 per year is more generic. DigitalWebsite.com is available at BuyDomains.com for $2,588, for less than 1 years gtld renewal, and 40 years renewal at $10 rate, I am set.
DigitalWebsite.com will cost me $3,000 and Digital.Website will cost me $120,000 for 40 years, at today’s set renewal prices. Hmmmmmmmm
Marley Vann says
Based on the comments above, i am forecasting the immenent death of the gtld. They offer nothing and are not selling. Sure, they find a sucker here and there but in all they are floundering. Seemed obvious to me from day 1 but nice to see others now concluding the same.
Andrew Allemann says
There’s clearly disagreement on which Internet terms are antiquated at this point. But I think there’s one thing we can all agree on: these terms can become antiquated in a hurry. I think there’s a lesson in that.
craig says
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and comment on the TLD’s is rampant in the domainer space.
Fact is,at this time, few mainstream business people are aware or care. Exception………….. those in cities where THEIR city is the subject….and they ought to bloody well care.
If I was a business owner in a TLD city, I would kill (ok maim) to get a premium generic name for my enterprise. IMHO they will work, they confer strength and capability, and traffic will build.
Just wait until some of these more popular sectors reach auction……
Christopher Ambler says
Seeing as I proposed .Web in 1994 and have, since, had it stolen from me, I suspect that this argument should have been moot over 20 years ago. Now, we have to wait another two years as the pack fights over the spoils.