Two long time domain name investors partner to release three automotive top level domain names.
XYZ (Daniel Negari) and Uniregistry (Frank Schilling) have teamed up to launch three automotive top level domain names: .car, .cars and .auto. .Car was acquired from Google. Here are my thoughts on this deal.
Negari and Shilling partnering on domains isn’t a huge surprise. They’ve both found success with low cost generic domain names. This weekend, Schilling tweeted how .click is selling well thanks to low prices.
.click has done 300 registrations 1/2 way thru a Sunday, without @GoDaddy. Low price registrations in generic strings just work
— Frank Schilling (@Frank_Schilling) May 17, 2015
That said, I wouldn’t expect niche domains like .car, .cars and .auto to be priced low.
Is this a sign of Google’s further retrenchment from generics in the new top level domain name program, or a change in strategy? Google lost most of its top level domain name auctions, but forked out $25 million for .app. This shows that the company is focusing more on .brands and domains related to its core business than general industry domain names.
On the other hand, Google’s agreement to sell .car could also have to do with its failed effort to can .cars. It wanted only the singular or plural to see the light of day, and might have been concerned about confusion if it released .car when someone else owned .cars.
Chris Hughes says
People forget that Google has no interest in domain names being in any way intuitive.
Acro says
A TMCH wet dream!
Gabriel C. says
.Auto is the only one with the best chance of being successful.
R P says
Negari appears to be milking this, as should be expected given his PR savvy and brashness, on Schilling’s weakness
A year ago Negari was basically a domain nobody and Schilling was a domain god
Times sure have changed. Contrary to your narrative this is indeed a major surprise in the context of the domain industry.
KC says
Google only wants you to remember to search — not to go direct to a website bypassing the search. I was looking forward to Google repeating the Gmail game by giving away millions of domain names complete with easy website development & management functions in return for displaying Google ads. Looks like it’s not going to happen.