Frank Schilling, Uniregistry founder.
A balanced article on new gTLDs at The Atlantic is tapping Frank Schilling’s feedback, among that of other domain investors.
Titled, “How Search Engines Are Killing Clever URLs,” the article focuses on the current state of affairs regarding the adoption of new gTLDs by the general public.
Cyrus Namazi, an executive technocrat at ICANN, acknowledges that demand for new top-level domains won’t phase out that for legacy TLDs “any time soon.”
Then why the rush to approve more than 1,000 new gTLDs?
Money, obviously.
ICANN pockets $185,000 dollars for every new gTLD application, and despite being a “non-profit,” boasts a $400 million cash reserve.
In the article, Frank Schilling is referred to as an investor “who has registered tens of thousands of Web addresses within .xyz and other new top-level domains.”
According to the article at The Atlantic, Frank Schilling said “the extensions are ripe for new brands looking to secure short, memorable custom email addresses. An unwieldy domain that fares well in search rankings might still be burdensome to type out when addressing an email.”
ICANN will roll out “thousands more of the new top-level domains in the coming years.” The next wave, in 2019 or 2020, is currently underway, says Namazi of ICANN.
The article ends on a rather somber note:
“Perhaps by then, they’ll be considered charmingly retro. But it seems more likely that they’ll be met with a collective shrug.”
For the full article, click here.
“who has registered tens of thousands of Web addresses within .xyz and other new top-level domains.”
Seriously Frank? Is this who you are? I am going to forget my name soon.
Frank is promoting new gTLD domain names for people to buy, while he has and is buying premium .Com names. Sleight of hand.
Also, Uniregistry.xyz forwards to Uniregistry.COM! Yeah!
1000’s more to come in a few years? These will be low quality because the ones with most potential are already allocated.
The URL follows the course of the Internet. The Internet follows the natural course of the market economy. The market economy is rational. The market economy thus consolidates itself, as do industries within it. Just as retailers consolidate and larger industry participants grow in market share whilst smaller ones disappear, the online economy (ie. the Internet) will continue to consolidate and rationalize, such that larger sites, top e-commerce sites and sites providing the best content will continue to grow in penetration and smaller sites and sites that do not offer users or readers value will disappear. We saw this happen with Myspace and Facebook. Remember chatrooms? Social media did away with chatrooms because this was an area ripe for consolidation. Online retail is ripe for consolidation. Online news is ripe for consolidation. These two online sectors are next. What does this mean for the URL? It means FEWER URLS ARE NEEDED than previously. The GOOD NEWS is that HIGH-QUALITY URLS WILL GO UP IN VALUE because they will become more and more important in a space that is consolidating. The new TLDs may have had some traction in 1998 but they are doomed for failure. Happy Days!
Ben – A brand needs a “URL” as you call it. These days, you can build a brand on ANY TLD.
Happy reading: http://www.makeway.world/2016/12/brand-quick-wins-holiday-marketing-campaigns/
Rely on Google to be found? no use FB and snap chat what an idiot! Depend on a third party for your business you do not control? no rely on Mobil and the small screen with pictures that’s where dumbed down America is at! You develop a domain with good matching content and get rid of Google, FB and Snapchat. You take control of your website and its logical location in the internet world. You do not retrain the world for an unknown TLD. Every key 1-800 number is taken.
domain guy – Get on with the times. “Generic domain” holders are witnessing their poorly developed assets lose traffic and money to brands, composites and new gTLDs. Whether you like it or not, Facebook has taken over, and Google forces people to search for “generics” only to be shown non-generic domains as the top results. Unless you are a marketing/SEO guru, your 1-800 numbers are so 1999.