New Domain Names Available in the Next 2 Days

Graham

Over the course of the next two days 14 of approximately 600 new global top level domains go on general release to the public. This probably isn't news outside of the tech world but it might be of interest to people in specific industries.

If you're wondering what a top level domain (TLD) is, the .ie part of boards.ie and the .com part of amazon.com are the top level domains.

Example
one of the new TLD's is .photography so if you photograph cakes for a living you might want to try and register: cake.photography

This would then enable you to have your website at www.cake.photography / cake.photography or an email address like Bob@Cake.Photography

Some warnings

• If you register before the general release date/time, your domain registrar will probably charge you a handsome premium. Check the general release date/time for your chosen TLD before you buy.
• If you plan to use one of these new domain straight away, be prepared for confused looks when you tell people your website URL or email address. The public is used to .com .ie .co.uk etc, when you give them a .photography web address or email address you will probably have to explain that it doesn't need a .com at the end.
• Domain speculators beware, in the past it has been potentially profitable to register domains with the sole intention of selling them later for a profit. With 600 new TLD's on the way, you could well end up with a collection of domain names nobody wants to buy.
• Keep in mind the cost of the domain name is usually only for 12 months, expect to pay to renew the domain name every year.
• Trademarks are likely to have been reserved already. Even if they haven't, register one at your peril (expense).
• Web forms may not accept your new email address straight away, have a backup email address if you need it.

There's some fantastic opportunities to get a memorable domain name coming up. Would you rather have your email address Bob@cork-cake-photography-studio.com or bob@cake.photography?

Here's the new gTLD's for the next 2 days:

.clothing
.equipment
.lighting
.guru
.gallery
.graphics
.photography
.holdings
.ventures
.estate
.plumbing
.singles
.bike
.camera

jimmii

Certainly going to lead to a lot of strange looks alright! They are all so long though the great thing about the current lot is that they are typically 3 characters or less and easy to enter and when people see them immediately know its a website. If you put billyplumbing.ie on a card people know what it is if you put billy.plumbing on a business card then its really not going to look like a website address at all! I guess in time we will get used to it but I think its going to be quite a niche thing can't see them really taking off and every camera related website being a .camera etc.

Graham

I think you're absolutely right Jimmii, it's definitely going to take a little while for the new domain names to take off. It's almost the best reason to grab one now IF you think it could be relevant to your business. Even then I wouldn't plan on transitioning away from your current domain name completely in the short term.

Even with 600 new gTLD's on the way, there's a very limited number of single word.TLD combinations available and I really don't think it's going to remain a niche thing for too long.

The .ie TLD is one of the few TLDs where domain squatting isn't an enormous issue. However, I went looking for a single word .ie domain for a specific industry a couple of weeks ago, that word and any similar were all taken and none of them had an active website.

Buttercake

Cant wait to see who takes socialmedia.guru

jmcc

Should be interesting. And of course it is going to involve a lot more work for me. Can't wait to read what the Irish technology churnos make of all this.

Regards...jmcc

Graham

I think one of the most interesting things is going to be watching how many websites this breaks.

Even the tags here on boards don't like TLDs with more than 3 characters, I predict havoc with e-commerce operations, CRMs, you name it.

jmcc

Graham wrote: »

I think one of the most interesting things is going to be watching how many websites this breaks.

Even the tags here on boards don't like TLDs with more than 3 characters, I predict havoc with e-commerce operations, CRMs, you name it.

And e-mail filters.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

We've been involved in this entire process of launching new TLDs at some level for the past +/- 5 years

A lot of the new domain extensions are going to be priced at a premium.

While there are a couple of exceptions, don't be surprised to see the bulk of these extensions being offered for upwards of 30 Euro / year

You'll also find that quite a few of the new domain registries have imposed quite strict terms of use.

And technically, of course, there are still quite a few challenges. Web designers, developers and software types will need to alter their code to make sure that these new extensions can work.


It'll be interesting to see how the uptake is..

Peterdalkey

Would not be a fan, kinda reminds me of the hyphenated stuff that was around a few years ago.
To me it goes against the old marketing mantra of message in the minimum and generally would have cheapo connotation to me as a first impression. Begs the cred question, why have they not got a proper extension. Cred is vital in online sales!
Likely to increase the value of proper original TLDs such as .ie .com etc etc.

mneylon

Peterdalkey wrote: »

Would not be a fan, kinda reminds me of the hyphenated stuff that was around a few years ago.
To me it goes against the old marketing mantra of message in the minimum and generally would have cheapo connotation to me as a first impression. Begs the cred question, why have they not got a proper extension. Cred is vital in online sales!
Likely to increase the value of proper original TLDs such as .ie .com etc etc.

It'll be interesting to see how thing play out..
Some of the "geo" extensions are going to work really well as long as the registries don't mess it up
But we will see registries fail this time round. Who will do well and who won't is anyone's guess at this stage.
Some of the companies involved are incredibly well funded and have some very smart people working for them

jmcc

Blacknight wrote: »

It'll be interesting to see how thing play out..
Some of the "geo" extensions are going to work really well as long as the registries don't mess it up

The .irish one is going to be of particular interest to Irish registrants and the diaspora. The most vulnerable to the rise of .irish might be .eu (which is doing pretty well on Irish hosters over the last year or so).

But we will see registries fail this time round. Who will do well and who won't is anyone's guess at this stage.

The early indications will appear within six months of general availability. The confirmation will appear two to three years after they open for general registration. Whatever happens, the examples of .tel, .asia and .xxx, .co and .me might be the basis for how things (other than the geos) will evolve. The .tel was a great answer to a question nobody asked and got clobbered by the rise of the smart phone. In January it lost 30% of its registrations. The .mobi also dropped 10% of its registrations in the same period. The common factor is IDNs and Chinese registrations. The .asia could have been a good regional TLD but it is finding it hard to deal with the strong ccTLDs in the region. The .xxx was a great idea about fifteen years ago but it has failed to make a global impact and is now declining. The .co was supposed to be a TLD for startups but its marketing has been exceptionally well executed. It is a marketing success but a TLD that most people think is a typo. Most of its domains are stuck on Godaddy's PPC landing page for undeveloped domains and outside of Colombia and the US, there's little comparative registration (compared to the local ccTLDs and the com/net/org/biz/info/mobi/asia) in other countries.

This is what the current gTLD breakdown by country (approximate) looks like:
http://www.hosterstats.com/gTLD-domain-counts-by-country.php

Some of the companies involved are incredibly well funded and have some very smart people working for them

Yep. But the danger is that a few of these new gTLDs will be forced into heavy discounting (like .info) to build registration volume.

Regards...jmcc

Reedsie

I'd imagine there will be a huge uptake of the .uk extension across the water when it is made available in June.

jmcc

Paddy_R wrote: »

I'd imagine there will be a huge uptake of the .uk extension across the water when it is made available in June.

There will be a lot of potential registrations with .co.uk (etc) domains registered before the cut off date last October (28/October/2013) being eligible for reservation. That's >10M domains that may be reserved.
http://www.dotuklaunch.co.uk/im-existing-customer

http://www.dotuklaunch.co.uk/couk
The rules are interesting:
http://www.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/SLDR_rules_140128_final.pdf

Regards...jmcc

Peterdalkey

jmcc wrote: »

There will be a lot of potential registrations with .co.uk (etc) domains registered before the cut off date last October (28/October/2013) being eligible for reservation. That's >10M domains that may be reserved.
http://www.dotuklaunch.co.uk/im-existing-customer

http://www.dotuklaunch.co.uk/couk
The rules are interesting:
http://www.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/SLDR_rules_140128_final.pdf

Regards...jmcc

Good info thanks. So I should just get my .uk and 301 it to my .co.uk and I am done?

Cheers

Peter

jmcc

Peterdalkey wrote: »

Good info thanks. So I should just get my .uk and 301 it to my .co.uk and I am done?

That's basically it (as long as all the registry requirements are met). It is going to take a while for any .co.uk to .uk transition to take place and the whole thing looked like a bit of a step backwards. There was a slight rethink by Nominet based on registrant and registrar feedback. Nominet had plans to turn it into a kind of .ie with even more restrictions. There seems to be a bit of a rethink but the five year reservation period seems a bit optimistic.

Just on the branding angle, the 301 is the best way to go. The trick with domains and websites is to make it simple for the customer to remember. These hundreds of new gTLDs are going to cause a lot of confusion for customers so a strongly branded domain and website is going to be a lot more important over the next few months. And the way things are going, the ccTLDs are becoming much more important than .com or the other gTLDs when targeting a country level market.

Regards...jmcc

Graham

As of Wednesday February 12, 2014, seven new TLDs are available for general registration: .camera, .equipment, .gallery, .estate, .graphics, .lighting and .photography.

mneylon

Graham wrote: »

As of Wednesday February 12, 2014, seven new TLDs are available for general registration: .camera, .equipment, .gallery, .estate, .graphics, .lighting and .photography.

And there's issues .. http://blog.blacknight.com/blow-fuse.html

jmcc

Well .GURU and .PHOTOGRAPHY seems to be the fastest moving of the new gTLDs. In terms of Irish registrations, the interest seems low.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Main Irish hosters and their new gTLD counts:
187 as of this morning (28 March 2014)

Hoster - Tier - BIONIC - new gTLD

BLACKNIGHT.COM	2	93991	14
REG365.NET	2	49584	92
DNSIRELAND.COM	2	34671	3
DIGIWEB.IE	1	19508	5
DNSIRELAND.IE	2	17898	2
IRISHDOMAINS.COM	2	14804	18
HOSTING365.IE	2	9106	1
NOVARA.IE	2	8666	2
BLACKNIGHTSOLUTIONS.COM	2	4711	5
WEBWORLD.ORG	2	1638	4
WEBWORLD.IE	2	1624	2

Regards...jmcc