.Paris

[Lidador]

The “.paris” meeting - I think that's how it will be called in the future - will have a very serious impact on the domains business.

I just have one and one single question, for all those people who are saying it would do no harm to the already establish status of this business:

The preciosity and value of a domain name comes from the uniqueness of its keyword; and, the better the extension, the more it is worth. In the future, as everyone will be able to register the wanted keyword, wouldn’t the value be diluted?

I mean, domains are worth a lot because they are unique. We have been profiting from ICANN’s protectionism.

Now: I want to sell cars online. Let’s see, cars.com, cars.net, cars.org, cars.info, cars.biz all taken. Damn, let’s try onlinecars.com, damn, let’s see: onlinecarsstore.com

Future: I want to sell cars online. Let’s see cars.cars, cars.com, cars.net, cars,org all taken. Damn, let’s try cars.store, cars.sale, cars.online, cars.buy…

This is a complete inversion: instead of looking for keywords on the main extensions, you will look for which tld still has the keyword you want available!!!

[thefabfive]

This could be a goldmine. Just think if you could get .travel and created hundreds of domains to cater to the billions of dollars in world wide travel. Goldmine!

Oh, wait. They already have .travel. And it sucks. Probably will go bankrupt.

Zzzz.

[Lidador]

Originally Posted by thefabfive

This could be a goldmine. Just think if you could get .travel and created hundreds of domains to cater to the billions of dollars in world wide travel. Goldmine!

Oh, wait. They already have .travel. And it sucks. Probably will go bankrupt.

Zzzz.

Yes, yes, I know. They have always been "the others". And I just hope it stays like that forever, lol. I mean there will always be coca-cola and the other cokes. I am just expressing my fears, cause now "the others" are coming in force for a revenge!

In the end, ICANN and the registrars will make a pile of money and a lot of people will burn itself.

Maybe I was not clear enought in my first post: When building a new site, you now do a balanced choice between keywords/tld available. In the future you will have much more choices. (some of them free) That's all.

[clipper]

Originally Posted by Lidador

Yes, yes, I know. They have always been "the others". And I just hope it stays like that forever, lol. I mean there will always be coca-cola and the other cokes. I am just expressing my fears, cause now "the others" are coming in force for a revenge!

In the end, ICANN and the registrars will make a pile of money and a lot of people will burn itself.

Maybe I was not clear enough in my first post: When building a new site, you now do a balanced choice between keywords/tld available. In the future you will have much more choices. (some of them free) That's all.

This is certainly going to be interesting, whether it serves to democratise the internet or whether it serves to widen the gap.

Bottom line is, you aren't the only one with fears, and a fearful market is rife with opportunities. Keep your powder dry. When the US recession is dropping its hatchet and nobody else has .02 CAD to rub together, there will be buying opportunities. JMHO.

[Rubber Duck]

Not all investments go down in recession.

Sotheby's London art auction nets

[Lidador]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

Not all investments go down in recession.

Sotheby's London art auction nets

Nothing new there: in times like these, the rich get richier, the poor get poorer. Middle classe vanishes.

Economy on brink of recession, Greenspan says | U.S. | Reuters

[clipper]

Originally Posted by Lidador

Nothing new there: in times like these, the rich get richier, the poor get poorer. Middle classe vanishes.

You said it.

As for the art sale, it can be argued that we're looking at a diversification of assets for newly-minted millionaires.

Auctioneers said that the enormous spending power of Russian and Middle Eastern collectors has helped the British art market to thrive this summer, despite hard economic times.

Troubling from a global economic standpoint, actually: if the leaders of capital markets from BRIC currently find that their capital is best spent on Western relics, then emerging markets are doomed, and so are their investors.

Just to get back to the original point, the extra TLD issue, I think what we're talking about here is trust. .Com is certainly as trusted as any TLD on the net, and there are certain TLDs that simply are not trusted. If we wake up one day and the top ten google SERPs for cars are:

cars.bob
cars.sex
cars.manchester
cars.info
cars.blog
cars.cars
cars.used
cars.auction
cars.google
cars.com

I feel confident that the .com will get more than its fair share of clicks (And way more typeins) than the rest.

[Lidador]

I think we will have a clear sample of the impact this will have comparing August dnjornal's domain sales report with previous months!

[domainguru]

Originally Posted by Lidador

I think we will have a clear sample of the impact this will have comparing August dnjornal's domain sales report with previous months!

well you know people have always panicked in uncertain times, that's for sure.

and for sure, nobody knows how this will all pan out.

Personally I feel that if in a future world virtually anyone can register a new TLD without issue, then can you imagine the chaos it would cause. TLDs being run by untrusted people with no technical background, just 'cos they fancied a TLD or bought one for their Mrs, or it seemed like a good idea after a night down the pub.

And who will be running these 2-bit TLDs, 2-bit registries?

I predict ICANN are storing up a massive amount of trouble for themselves if they think the idea that Internet democracy should spread to one-person, one-TLD.

Who knows what the Net will be like in 20 years? What I do know is I would rather own great keywords in .com than great keywords in .shite or .shat. And I trust and believe Google will agree with me.

And the point about being more choices for buyers, of course that is true. But there already has been a big expansion of choice. If you wanted to start a big cars site you could go to .net or .biz or .bz or .ws or .cc or .tv. But in the end, everybody only wants the .com. Check sales figures if you don't believe me.

There are plenty of great keyword domains available in .ws - why does nobody buy and sell them? We had the same crap at IDNF last year when somebody realized you could get almost any IDN in .ws. Loads of people went crazy registering the top keywords because of the keyword value. And the same people are now repenting in leisure and quietly (or publicly) dumping these very same names. Why? Because they have finally realized the so-called uniqueness in domains is actually the marriage of a great keyword with a top TLD. Either-or just doesn't cut it in this business.

Sure, if you think the end of the domainer's world is nigh, carry on, I'll take your .coms off you

[Rubber Duck]

I think in the short-term what we are going to see is IDN ccTLDs.

The Implementation Plan for IDN ccTLD Fast-Track is November. The Plan for New gTLDs won't be considered before January. Acceptance for a lot of ccTLDs is going to be a formality, for all New gTLDs including IDN there is going to be a lot of due process to go through. Even if these names are not contentious it will probably take about 6 months. Then they all have to be Sunrised.

For ccTLDs, I think they get launched very quickly. China does have a Launch or a Sunrise. As soon as it is delegated, it can go live. I am sure if ICANN isn't going to Alias, they will simply do it themselves (perhaps with Verisigns help). There is a lot of National Pride at stake here. The Russian are pushing hard and want to be at the vanguard. The Chinese won't want to be upstaged, and then there is JPRS coming up on the rail. Have they been lecturing on DNAMEs because they are ready to go with this on their own servers?

On balance, I think IDN ccTLDs will be live by April 2009. I can see any New gTLDs being operational before April 2010, unless they are for aliasing of existing gTLDs. Even then late 2009 at the earliest.

The point is, however, that most of the existing gTLDs are dead in the water as from yesterday. Even the Muppets at Namepros are panicking over this one. There is not much quality out there and everyone is going to get burnt. There is going to be a lot of ongoing debate about represents quality. From our perspective, that can only be a good thing.