Alan Dunn of NameCorp published a piece on TechCrunch about an hour ago. The post looks at the new gtlds and how they are part of the evolution of the namespace.
Dunn writes:
An industry that is finally maturing
What was once an industry comprised mainly of individual investors and service providers is now attracting corporate money like never before.
Industry giants have hundreds of millions for auctions and infrastructure. Big brands like Amazon, Google, Verisign and WordPress are investing heavily to own and operate entire domain-name extensions. Even company-branded extensions are now going live. Barclay’s is already using home.barclays, and new domain-name extensions for both BMW (.bmw) and Travelers (.trv) have been delegated.
One may even say it’s a natural evolution of media, where brands finally want to own the channel versus renting a space.
Alan is a very bright guy and makes some good points, the one thing that needs discounting in my opinion is his closing salvo.
In less than 25 months, these products, which many people doubted, now collectively account for nearly 5 percent of a product that has primarily been on the market for more than 20 years.
Five percent market share. That is huge.
We need to discount all the giveaways and penny domains that are never going to be used or sold for much more than their initial registration fee.
The article is worth checking out so click here to read on TechCrunch.
A really great domain investor said years ago that only about 2% of domain names are worth anything (referring to mostly .com since new GTLD’s were not around yet). A statistic I tend to agree with, especially when you look primarily at wholesale markets – although slightly higher now when the relatively new China market is included.
There has always been (and always will be) over speculation in the aftermarket by domain name investors but that’s what makes the industry great – one really never knows what second tier names will be wanted by an end user. The industry has seen great value growth in super premium .io, .co, .me and one word .org’s over time. Some of the new extensions may even see value grow in years to come also. And obviously some won’t.
Giuseppe Graziano (GGRG) is a brilliant guy and next month is releasing a report which will give much more insight into the China Market. These new data points he is introducing will (should) also form a foundation for analysis of some of the newer extensions.
As investors, I think it’s important to understand the majority use of an extension before investing. If most of the domains are being given away and purchased by investors then Nat Cohen’s quote seems to be most fitting – “A market supported only by investors is not sustainable.,”
This is the best time in history if you love domains and data. It’s also a very risky time to bet big just based on words right of the dot. One has to understand adoption rates, liquidity options and more for each particular extension. Many times some of these new GTLD’s only have one or the other. As an investor I would want both, especially since the primary market (.com) is not exhausted of opportunities.
We are now over two years since the first launch of the new GTLD’s. I think this is where the stories stop and the fun starts. Stories being the same pitch for every extension and the fun being seeing which ones have legs.
Thanks for the kind words.