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.
