gTLDs are here.
As we’re watching the final days of 2014 roll by, the year will be remembered by the domain industry for the barrage of new gTLDs.
It all starts with a $185,000 dollar application fee, and ICANN raked in almost two thousand times this amount; hundreds of new gTLD extensions went live, and the concept of multi-TLD Registries required ample infrastructure design.
New gTLD auctions became a successful method to line the pockets of gTLD applicants; those that waived their rights received millions of dollars in compensation from competing registries. Among the most successful ones, Minds + Machines, amassed more than $45 million in cash from such auctions.
Competition expanded into the gTLD arena as well, with gTLDs such as XYZ and Club openly crossing swords about who has the most domains under management; the argument became a metric of which domain registry offers more gTLD freebies, and XYZ is clearly a winner in that field.
The adoption of gTLDs from domain investors and end users will continue into the new year and beyond; for the time being, the intense polarization between those that are over-enthusiastic, and the unbelievers that stick to the .com will continue to heat up online conversations.
Online tools such as nTLDStats.com and HosterStats continue to provide a useful and often intriguing insight on the subject of gTLD popularity, often with analysis and visualization of the numbers they analyze.
Read more about what else happened in the domain industry in 2014.
I will stick with my .tv for a video based site and will let about half of my Gtld’s drop ( means I have less than 10)