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.club on track to topple .guru?
Kevin Murphy,
May 9, 2014, 12:48:24 (UTC),
Domain Registries
.CLUB Domains sold an additional 4,904 domain names on its second day — its first full day — of general availability, taking it into the top five new gTLD registries by volume.
The zone started today with 30,680 names, compared to sixth-place .email’s 28,127.
I noted yesterday that in order for .club to hit its target of beating leader .guru to the top spot in the first week, .club would have to move something like 4,500 names per day all week.
While today’s numbers are certainly in line with that target, I doubt .club will hit the number one spot by next Thursday.
Growth typically tails off shortly after general availability begins, and weekends are slow days, generally, for domain name registrations.
The best-performing new gTLDs to date generally add a net couple hundred names per day.
That’s one hell of a drop day over day. It is below what I expected and my prediction of the first gtld to register over 100,000 has diminished greatly.
They put thousands .club domain on sedo – I believe it was Berkens` idea. It was a horrible idea for .club team.
People noticed that many names are not available and they lost enthusiasm, giving up the idea of registering any of them.
I am one of them and I ma very happy I register no .club domains.
On domain Sherpa they said they would have 300-400K registrations during first week GA/
I like Michael Berkens but .Club team should not listen to him, he never built any really successful business.
.clubs consultancy group would be the people providing pricing guidance as well, some minimum offer amounts are in the 6 figures, for an unknown extension I don’t think anyone that has ever earned a VC buck would dare spend it like this. You can buy your own registry extension for the price of strip.club pretty much. Anything.StripClub
You could buy .stripclub in 2016, or 2017, while strip.club is available now. And you don’t how much .stripclub will cost, since contention could get the price higher, like it did with .club that had to invest USD 5 mi to buy the string in private auction.
You might be right about the strip.club domain price, if demand doesn’t appear. But comparing to a future new gTLD round isn’t what determine price.
Considering what happend to .club contention prices may come under check now.
I don’t think you would have multiple bidders for .stripclub, but I understand what you are comparing to in regards to cost models.
Regardless good luck to the club clan they are going up need it.
Looks like GoDaddy picked up a couple thousand on day 2 — notice that the entire top of its home page is dedicated to .club.
I think they can overtake .guru very quickly when they start registering their own domains, just like Frank Schilling has been doing.
Club is much more universal than Guru, I agree the Sedo move was a huge mistake. Just let everyone know these guys are domainers and not a registry. It likens me to pump n dump kind of scenarios in penny stocks. This inclusion of stats lets you know where gtlds are headed. Godaddy front page, a few times I was registering a .com via my phone, and It took me to some .club search. They just got the wrong advice, and were over enthusiastic, say they sold $250K in auctions, $250K more in take via 30k registrations. These guys are deep in the hole right now. If they hit 60k by the end of the year, that might be $500,000 per year take, less $25K icann renewal, then overheads, along with a few more premium sales, they could make their money back in 10 years if they don’t implode with drops. There are many TM violations in play, and many dumb registrations by uneducated newbie domainers that will surely drop next year. Facebook is a giant in the non formal incorporated space.
plus are they counting the 6500 names being sold at sedo as registrations………
Andrew’s right. There are only 46 registry-owned names in the zone, according to the registry.
Page, they said the 6500 aren’t in the zone
@Robbie
What’s with your hate against the new gTLDs ? Just curious because you seem to popup on quite a few places with the same tune. I mean you must be really a wise and experienced person for all those bold predictions 😉
PAX aka shield on management via whois, no hate, domainers are not going to make this marketplace, it is about educating yourself to not losing money. I know you have invested 5 figures, which is your right. I learned many years ago I have to look past the PR into the numbers, and trends.
GTLDS may be bigger than .com, as we go further down the stream, more numbers, more data which we did not have in January is emerging. This data is surface level, and I honestly thought .club was going to be the biggest one out of the gate first. With friends like godaddy, and every registrar sending out PR on launch day, I felt the number was weak. Lets face it, you found it difficult to find names to register in .club, you couldn’t get valentines.club, so you took valentine.club which isn’t bad. I know you have a lot of money invested into gtlds, but in business you have to know when to cut your losses. There is no right or wrong side here, just discussion with the facts in play.
Robbie, I agree- facts in play -actual numbers and trends dont lie- but very early days and lets face it 99/100 of future end users DONT KNOW about gTLDs yet . Quick numbers on the back of a “fag packet” reveal- these standalone gTLDs projections will struggle against the portfolios and the .com stronghold, but predict that .CLUB will hit target(s).
@Robbie
I’m still missing your reasoning behind the hate against these new gTLDs. I mean it’s understandable that some people might not be happy with them. But i’m wondering, why you keep repeating the same over and over again ? I mean you made your point clear but what else is it you want to say ? Like investors should not take calculated risks ? Stop people from getting to know the new gTLDs ? Make them go away if you scream loud enough ?
So why are you so worried anyway ? I’d like to understand your reasoning.
You remind me of some people in the good ol’BBS era where some people thought BBS’s would stay forever and the “internet” would be more for corporations and the wealthy.
Valentine.Club is exactly what was aimed for. Don’t like making a domain longer than needed.
And again, investing comes with risk, any serious domainer knows that. So if the world of the new gTLDs collapses, so be it, i’d say carry on chap 🙂
@Robbie
Just for the record, are you the Robbie of Robbie’s Blog ? I read from time to time Robbie’s Blog too so was wondering 🙂
It’s early still. That said, if .club flops then we might just have 900 new .me2’s. 🙂
I think .Club needed 100,000 registrations in the first two days in order to meet its benchmark of 1,000,000 registrations by the end of year one. I think the pro formas are way off, and they should be looking at their worst case scenario. If the worst case scenario materializes, what are they going to do? That is the question they should be sweating over right now.
“Our target right now is five million names in five years, a million names in one year, and 300 to 400 thousand names on or about the week of GA.”
– Colin Cambell, Ceo of .Club domains
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I think .web is the new gTLD to watch; it has more broad appeal and common sense applications, perhaps similar to that of .net.
I don’t quite grasp the concept of how .club will appeal to the masses.
*
They need to have about 10,000 registrations per day to reach their stated target of 300-400k in the 1st month, or about 2700 per day for the target of 1m in the 1st year. The 1st month goal seems to be difficult if the 2nd day registration is only 4900.
A few things i’ve noticed since these new gTLDs hit the domaining community;
1. Numbers
Judging them only on numbers is not a good idea. At least the majority is targetting a specific public. Cornering a main niche which fits the right side of .Dot.
So when i see people judging for example .florist on numbers and saying it will never be like .com i’m thinking what are they smoking ?
2. The biggest advantage of these new gTLDs is left and right making sense. Say for example beach.holiday, to the point, know what you can expect, easy to remember and short. If i tell my phone to load beach.holiday it’ll be quick and natural. (just an example)
3. As others already said, about 2/3 of the world is not even online yet. Plenty of chances, trade for newcomers to getting a domain they like.
4. New and old domainers have now a bigger playing field, domainer market will grow and is growing. Maturing is a better word in the coming years while these new gTLDs hit the masses.
This is only the beginning, there is not even yet real publicity on a large scale towards end-users. It’s still contained to mostly domainers with some end-users. But i believe in word of mouth, natural trends, startups and other entities which will do the real marketing.