A whole lot of domains, but probably not much revenue.
How successful was .xyz’s promotion at Uniregistry?
Judging by volume, quite successful.
Uniregistry put out a press release today saying that 1.5 million domain names were registered at the registrar over 24 hours.
If the domains were all .xyz, this represents a whopping…$15,000 in revenue.
I suspect that other domains that are part of Uniregistry’s summer sale were also part of this number. But most of these are less than a buck, so we’re not talking much money here.
Uniregistry says the registration spike proves that its registrar can scale, and that’s probably the biggest win for the registrar to tout. I’ve noticed a couple “wait time” problems at the registrar over the past couple days, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed by refreshing the browser.
$15K in revenue at a total cost of $645,000 in ICANN and registry fees alone. This does not include related fees such as marketing, backend, pay for placement fees, etc.
Maybe enough suckers will renew these domains to offset the seven figure loss. That is the hope I guess.
These prices will just turn the registries into a cesspool. It is a great day to be a scammer or spammer with endless throwaway domains available for virtually nothing.
Brad
A lot of registrars participated/are participating in <$0.25/each pricing. I highly doubt Uniregistry, as well as other smaller registrars, is footing the bill for the ICANN fees. They may, however, be doing so and be then getting a rebate from XYZ.
For most of us, losing $ 630k would sting. But, I am sure Frank is not concerned about the loss.
Congratulations on the 1.5 mil new registrations. Very impressive.
I don’t think frank is paying. I think Negari is.
There is no way enough renew and at inflated prices to make this work, who had this idea? It is almost like they want to lose millions?
It’s pretty clear what the .XYZ registry is up to. Look at their press release from June 2 (yesterday). The title:
“.XYZ Celebrates 2 Years as the #1 New Domain”
And the opening sentence:
“The World’s Most Popular New Domain …”
Before these unlimited penny domains, .XYZ was about to fall behind .TOP. So they were about to lose their primary sales pitch.
Also a huge number of sub-$1 .XYZ registrations are facing expiration and likely to drop. That decline has to be anticipated and masked.
As a result of this latest stunt, .XYZ has (for the time being) passed .INFO by volume. So Daniel Negari can now say:
“We’re thrilled to be the 4th largest gTLD in the world …”
Bogus registration volume has always been crucial to .XYZ’s marketing strategy. They began by stuffing unasked-for domains (by the hundreds of thousands) into people’s Network Solutions accounts. They’re continuing in this way, by reducing prices to a penny in order to entice speculators to push them ahead of other nTLDs … which do real marketing.
Clearly, it’s a sham. But this allows Daniel Negari to continue making misleading claims about .XYZ’s popularity when he gives interviews, etc. That’s what he’s paying for.
Joseph, no doubt you are correct, it’s a pump and marketing tactic to remain near the top. I am left shaking my head though they honestly believe that this will be a positive revenue tactic.
In fact it seems like a slow motion Ponzi scheme but on themselves.
Arguably no one could’ve analyzed Negari and .XYZ’s sham any better than you’ve done here.
I’m even surprised that Frank Schilling, who also owns a couple of newTLDs, would collaborate with Negari to hurt the newTLD program by inflating registration numbers.
The saying is true that birds of the same feather flock together. No wonder both of them are also involved in the .car .cars and .auto pricing monopoly sham.
One can never trust these cats and their TLDs or platforms!
I do think this is the beginning of the end.
First there will be a price war of new gTLD’s, often below costs, then some will fail. The failures will make all of them toxic – which will fail next, that is for the small percentage of the population that even knows they exist. They will become toxic to domainers.
.attornety is no different from .info, something a user does not understand and will not use.
@Doug,
Most nTLD registries aren’t going to follow in .XYZ’s footsteps with the penny giveaways. Using inflated registration volume itself as a sales pitch began with the .XYZ registry and remains primarily .XYZ’s very own dubious claim to fame.
But this does harm the nTLD program. There I agree with you.
When mainstream consumers hear that .XYZ is the “world’s most popular new domain”, what’s their reaction? They’ll say:
“But I’ve never visited any .XYZ website. Have you?”
And their neighbor will reply:
“Nope. Me neither. Looks and sounds clunky. Those new domains must all be a waste of space, I guess.”
With all its stunts to artificially inflate registration volume, .XYZ gets more attention than it deserves. That puts every other nTLD in its shadow, depriving them of publicity and holding back the whole nTLD program.
LOL
This almost seems like a reverse ponzi scheme, where you only hurt yourself. WHile you temp inflate numbers the cost involved can never be recouped and you ponzi yourself.
Come to think of it, what if it was a pump to dump, sell off the extension based on inflated numbers. Buyer would have to be stupid but there are plenty of fools with money.
Im all for this – we all need a break every now and then 🙂
I think Frank’s tweets reveal what Negari is up to: when XYZ gets its China license, XYZ might get enough liquidity to trade more like a commodity in the Chicago Stock Exchange than an equity from the New York Stock Exchange. Profiting in this scenario would require tools more similar to High Frequency Trading than to usual domain buy/sell marketplaces, so let’s see how Uniregistrar does in that space.
They only have to hit under 5% renewal rate from this promo to break even. Every percent over that 5% that they get a renewal from is about 175K in revenue.
XYZ have a year to make the TLD more attractive through adoption, premium sales etc. to boost that renewal rate and they are banking on their ability to do it. Frankly if I had the talent Daniel has working for me I would back myself to do it too, and lets not forget he has an army of Registrar’s and their marketing departments pushing for renewals as well. Daniel and team are very smart and this is a smart, calculated move.