With the emergence of tld’s such as .biz, ..aero and mobi to take the lead it’s no people active in the domain industry have been speculating heavily on the new gTLD proposals since ICANN announced the acceptance over two years ago. Record sales in “up an coming” TLD’s that have gone wayward have investors baffled as to the often unpredictable affects of emerging .whatever. This does not stop those active in the industry from making predictions however, here are a few:
Elliot from ElliotsBlog.com: “I’ve been investing in domain names for almost ten years, and I don’t believe we’ve yet seen anything that is going to have as big of an impact on our business as gTLDs. (source: http://www.elliotsblog.com/my-gtld-predictions-0188)
Frank Schilling: Mr Schilling himself has invested in a new gTLD registrar named “Uniregistry” and put in a few gTLD applications stating, “Uniregistry’s collection of gTLDs was carefully selected by our founders based on their decades of success on the Internet, and in the second-level domain space.” (source: http://www.thedomains.com/2012/06/10/frank-schilling-unveils-his-new-gtld-company-uniregistry-com/)
Speculation from the blogosphere remains that the new gTLD’s will only bring more and new money to the industry but some experts argue that to inundate new TLD’s means a higher level of accessibility to “generic” exact term domains and therefore wil take away from the value of good .com’s. Whether or not this is true is yet to be seen but we have seen other top level domains emerge in an attempt to challenge the reign .com, .net and .org only to be moved aside. Some of these notables include .mobi which saw a slew of registrations in the start only to go wayward, .asia which
While many businesses are looking forward to winning new gTLDs, there is some doubt as to whether or not these new gTLDs will be successful. The process will, no doubt, gain quite a bit of income for those who are awarded with the new gTLDs, but many experts questions whether they will benefit the Internet industry or not. Although it’s likely that more than half of these new TLDs will fail, it really only takes a handful of domains on any given TLD to turn a profit, and since maintaining the domains does not require a lot of manpower, there isn’t much of an expenditure involved.
Most Internet users are familiar with a handful of TLDs, including .com, .gov, .net and .org, but there are plenty of others that were introduced more than a decade ago that never really took off. This includes .biz (used for commercial sites), .info (open TLD), .int (for international companies) and .aero (for those in the air travel industry). The success of only a fraction of the original TLDs is a foreshadowing for the latest release of gTLDs. These new gTLDs give new companies the ability to request specific domains; however, it is uncertain whether consumers will actually use there new TLDs and if so, how long it will take them to become comfortable with them. For example, the generic website hotel.com redirects users to the hotels.com website. With the release of the new gTLDs, a different hotel or travel company could apply for the domain with a different TLD ending, such as hotel.travel. It is likely though, that hotels.com will gain additional business from users who meant to type in hotel.travel, but typed hotel.com instead.
Though some of the new gTLDs may help Internet users detect genuine companies and avoid fraudulent ones, many may just confuse users and make it more difficult for them to get to a company’s website. .pharmacy, for example, if properly regulated would let consumers know that anyone within that domain is a legitimate pharmaceutical company. On the opposite end, businesses applying for domains on gTLDs such as .shop and .search don’t reassure the consumer in any way. These websites may lose business when Internet users accidentally type .com instead of the proper TLD.
Another concern within the industry is that those applying for these gTLDs may not have the proper knowledge or experience with running TLDs. “Registrants will be ill-served if their TLD fails or fades after adopting a new domain name,” states Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, an e-commerce trade group. DelBianco adds, “And internet users everywhere will suffer if a TLD operator lacks the experience and resources to detect and deter malware and fraud originating from their domains.” (source: http://www.cio.com.au/article/427820/some_new_gtlds_will_fail_businesses_experts_say/) The hope is that these companies utilize a third-party registry service provider rather than attempt to manage these gTLDs on their own.
Only time will tell whether these new gTLDs will be successful and will benefit the Internet. As ICANN reviews each application, we are sure to see a lot of companies trading common gTLDs among themselves – companies willing to drop one of the gTLDs they applied for in exchange for another company dropping a gTLD that company wants. This will allow companies to acquire new gTLDs without having to buy them at auction, which is what ICANN will do with gTLDs that have received more than one valid application if none of the applicants withdraw their request. It is almost a certainty that .com will reign supreme, but a few of these new gTLDs may make the current king of TLDs a run for its money.