Vaynerchuk makes a prediction about domain name values during talk at DomainFest in Hollywood.
Yesterday Gary Vaynerchuk gave a spirited keynote at DomainFest, with an even more spirited Q&A session.
It got interesting when Vaynerchuk predicted that the value of a good domain name will go down over the next decade or two as the importance of having a good domain name goes down.
Vaynerchuk thinks that the importance of domain names is being eroded by other platforms such as apps. To some people, the value of getting a good app name is more important than a good domain name.
While most of us still buy stuff through websites, our kids might be completely comfortable buying stuff through apps instead of websites.
Let me be clear about what he conveyed.
First, he wasn’t saying the value of .com’s will go down in the wake of new TLDs. He was speaking about domains in general.
Second, he’s predicting a slow devaluation and doesn’t think the importance of a good domain will go completely away. He said he’s not predicting domain names will go the way of the dodo bird.
There was quite a bit of back-and-forth about this with follow on questions from the audience. Aren’t apps a closed ecosystem? Won’t certain platforms go the way of MySpace? (At the same time, I heard some A-Mens in the audience in response to Vaynerchuk’s prediction.)
Perhaps. But Vaynerchuk’s real message was this: don’t romanticize the past of your business. Just because something worked 5 or 10 years ago doesn’t mean it will work in the future. You have to constantly change as the world changes, and sitting back on your laurels is a sure fire way to lose in the long run.
Vaynerchuk also noted it’s just his prediction and he could be wrong. And because the session was recorded, we’ll be able to replay it 10 or 20 years from now and see if his prediction comes true.
Domo Sapiens says
He is dead on.
(As a matter of fact it is happening as we speak and bound to get much worse)
Which it begs the question:
if Dot Com will suffer (EXCEPTION: Dot Com Category defining mainly single word and possibly high profile compound terms/ EMDs)
What will it happen to the rest of the alternative extensions (aka Rolling Tumble weeds) and not to mention the new gTLD crappola?
TLD.org says
Apps have their place, but do you want to need to have tons of apps downloaded/installed and open each one individually to perform an action, or use one browser and instantly access everything in one place. Plus, most apps for big sites are dumbed down versions of the sites themselves and don’t offer the same functionality.
Domain values could certainly go down, but I don’t think apps will be the driving force.
BT says
“There is no email without a domain name.” — Yun Ye
… domains are dead, long live domain names.
Steve says
He couldn’t be more wrong, just one guy with his opinion … Yawn
Sam says
Yes it’s one persons view so we will see what happens……
onlinedomain says
No, we probably won’t. Because it could just be that 3 word .com prices fall 20%, 2 word .com fall 5% and 1 word .com rise 50%. What is the overall price of .com then?
So there predictions are as safe as it gets.
onlinedomain says
Any prediction for the internet beyond 5 years is useless.
Nobody knows what is going to happen.
I say that in 20 years .com values will be down 11%. So f..ing what?
Useless.
Jeff Edelman says
Here is why I think he is wrong. In a world that it is increasingly difficult to get noticed, and that is a trend that will continue as the supply of all these different domains, apps, and other things come on board increases, the importance of having a good domain name will go up, not down. It will cost increasingly more to reach people as this supply goes up. So if you have something that makes it more likely for people to reach you in the first place, and then remember you in the future, like a category killer domain name, then the value of that domain name will go up.
I am friends with a former executive at The Weather Channel. He had said that even if a company offered them 25 or 30 million dollars for their domain, Weather.com, that they’d never sell it. When people think about the weather and getting information on the weather, he wanted them to think about The Weather Channel. And if they are to get their weather information online, as they are increasingly doing, he wanted them to automatically think “weather” and go to weather.com. Owning Weather.com gives them a leg up of amazing value. Once somebody goes to weather.com, they will never again have to think “What is the name of that site where I can get weather information?” The association between getting your weather and going to Weather.com is automatic. I remember seeing an article within the past few months – I can’t remember the source – where another Weather Channel executive estimated that the company gets 5 million dollars per year in value just from users going to their site because they have the domain.
Alan Aurmont says
April Fools!! LOL
Mark Jeftovic says
I always love it when the hardcore domainers are forced to question their raison d’etre.
Vaynerchuck is absolutely correct and no truer words were spoken than Allen’s “don’t fall in love with your model from 5 to 10 years ago”. The era of easy/breezy revenues via domain keywords and category killers was two things: #1) a temporary aberration and #2) over. It all hinged around default web browser behaviour of appending “.com” onto unqualified keywords people were typing into the browser’s location bar because they didn’t know any better.
Now the important thing to understand is this: domains are going become less valuable over time for many of these reasons but primarily because any given domain-as-identifier will be downplayed because of the additional meta layer navigations systems (from social networks to search to mobile platforms) will do more of the identification and naming (witness the four icons to the bottom right of this very comment box: wordpress, twitter, facebook and google).
But even while domains-as-identifiers-unto-themselves will move further to the background, you still won’t be able to do *anything* without DNS. That’s an important distinction.
The Little Boy Who Cired 'Wolf' says
Anyone that was in domains during the .com-bomb crash of 2000 remembers people laughing about domain names and some saying they are now worthless.
Here we are 14 years later and sales are stronger then they have ever been historically.
So, my advice is to sell all your domains before they are worthless or worth less, says the little boy who cried ‘wolf’.
Larry says
Yep. Remember well several lean years when I made no sales. And it seemed like it was never coming back. Then it did and has been going strong ever since.
That doesn’t mean it can’t happen of course. But markets do ebb and flow.
Acro says
New technologies, including support for multi-sensory navigation and immersion into VR environments might dictate a strong and even sudden departure from how we perceive ‘Cyberspace’ and the Internet. As a cyberpunk fan, I’d love to see William Gibson’s vision materialize during the next 20 years. 😀
Larry says
Domains, unlike physical real estate have little carrying cost.
The reason I can’t buy domains for a client (I also sell my own domains) is because the seller many times is going to holding out for the big deal. And it costs them very little to do so and pass on a decent (imo) offer.
Obviously if pricing were driven by actual demand and metrics you would find sellers quite willing to sell below some of the extreme prices that are out there.
Besides there will always be high level sales that everyone focuses on (since a large amount of sales aren’t even publicized the ones you see are the high priced ones not the ones where deals weren’t made at all).
Lastly, Vaynerchuk’s opinion on this doesn’t really mean much because we are talking about the future. So it is a guess.
But here’s the thing. It’s not even an educated guess. Gary (afaik) isn’t in the day to day business of buying and selling domains. He may have bought or sold some of course. So while he may read opinions I don’t find what he thinks of any relevance at all.
Could prices go down? Sure, if some of the current shoot for the moon sellers read things like this and or get desperate and start letting go some of their special inventory at bargain prices then that could easily result in other sellers doing the same. (But then in theory that might actually drag more buyers into the market).
Chance of that happening?
Domo Sapiens says
I forgot my friends’ C.C’s (Country Codes) on my quote from above…
…(EXCEPTION: ‘Dot Com and Country’ of the Category defining variety mainly single word and possibly high profile compound terms/ EMDs)
Paradoxically the statement comes from a keynote speaker at a domain conference…
“You can’t buy Gary’s thoughts”
And people need to read that he saying “platforms such as APPS” and not just APPS …
This thread ties real well with the comments from a post at Elliot’s blog/Domain Investing:
What’s Up With This Google Trend?
thelegendaryjp says
A couple things struck me after reading this…
1.So google search will die as well or all searches will lead to an app LOL
2.Why is it the only dot com haters or those with sad forecasts are either people who do not own anything worth mentioning or do but have a vested interest in change :cough: alternate extensions like .whatever :cough:
As stated, predicting the next 5-20 years is pointless but one has to take his theory and expand it to impact other businesses like google ( I know small rev % over all for them but still. Simply stating X will die off without seeing what else is touched is narrow minded.
Now I am off to send $100M on app trademarks. heehee
Paul Goulart says
I think Vaynerchuk is full of crap right up to his brown eyes and the
rest is toilet paper. Why was he even invited to DomainFest?
Although he probably has bought a few domain names over the
years, he’s anything but a domainer and his opinions only count
when he’s discussing wine. Stay with your business and stay out
of ours…fool.
Domo Sapiens says
🙂
had a good laugh!
In top of it if I am not mistaken he got paid mid xx,xxx to say that
Rubens Kuhl says
The threat to domains values is very real. Although everything requires DNS, social networks, search and apps make subdomain.anything.com useful if you can be found by other means. SEO sustained domain values for a while, but newer Google code changed that… if there is something that DNA and ICA should be looking into is exactly how to preserve the relevance of domain names. Relevance won’t get the domain values back, but can prevent dropping even further.
Domo Sapiens says
Out of at least 1 millions APPS (literally) what percentage owns their Exact Match/Name Domain?
thelegendaryjp says
Not sure, never checked 🙂
However it dawned on me, who the heck has a thought, phrase or product they’d like to find and searches for apps? I mean who literally says I will not type in car, homes, sex, etc .com or into google, just straight to an app? And even if apps were the future and threat to domains, how many exact match app names would get any searches apart from the one’s heavily, I mean heavily marketed. That isn’t a question but rather a statement. This guy may be smart, smart at talking people out of money but his theory has major holes. How many car apps would get natural attention???? ONE-FIVE maybe, how many search terms exist worth using, that is my point. His APP is the future theory may be true but to an extremely small degree, in fact Id say it is nearly over. Unless we plan on spending millions on marketing but who could we hire and pay a consulting fee to…who would help us…oh yes, this guy.
John Bendevi says
Hmm, Did, Gary V. just use the oldest marketing trick in the book, taking an opposing “remarkable” stand…..far from being boring and if we use Seth Godin’s Purple Cow analogy, he is just being “remarkable”. He is not a domainer, but he is a marketer, and obviously doing his job by ensuring that his talk was controversial and will be remembered at Domainfest 2014 for years to come……for the next 10 to 15 in any case.
I have to take my hat off to him…definitely limited knowledge in domains and DNS, but a successful marketer, to be remembered for his comments and mentioned for years to come.
wildwasser says
Personally I think Vaynerchuk had too much of the jungle juice he so expertly purveys. Take at with a pinch of salt, especially on April 1.
Kassey says
In the virtual world, everyone aspires to own his/her own home. See what will happen when Google, for example, give away free domain names complete with easy-to-build website tools so you can store all your digital assets in your own “house” — music, movies, emails, etc.
thelegendaryjp says
What will happen???? Tell me what will happen when Google gives you a free domain that NO ONE will search naturally for and thus it will remain as much as you paid for it, nothing.
I am not saying I believe in domains for eternity, something will come along and pull strongly from the way people look for things, it just hasn’t happened yet imo. And even if on the horizon would take a generation to put a fork in a domain.