Half of registrars “not sure” about new gTLDs – survey
About half of domain name registrars are still not sold on the idea of new generic top-level domains, according to the results of a small Nic.at report.
The Austrian ccTLD registry commissioned a survey of 220 Austrian companies, 32 .at registrars and 32 creative agencies about the possible impact of new gTLDs.
Nic.at said:
Overall, the industry is approaching the topic of the incoming top level domains with muted enthusiasm: at present around half of registrars are not sure whether they are going to offer their customers the new extensions.
A quarter of the surveyed marketing agencies reckoned internet users will take to new gTLDs, but only 12% of registrars were as confident, according to the report.
The agencies seemed to be more interested in domains than social media, however. Only 12% said that their social media focus made them unaware of the gTLD expansion.
Read the full report in PDF format here.
As well as managing .at, Nic.at is acting as the named registry back-end for 12 new gTLD applications, mostly German.
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Considering there are only 5 ICANN Accredited Registrars in Austria and none of them is particularly big, I’d say you should probably amend the title of this post because it is quite misleading 😉
Fortunately, DI readers are smart enough to read the post as well as the headline. Just like you, Francesco.
I think the Report reflects very much the global view.
NXT is not happening and delays after delays from Icann.
the new TLDs are coming but nobody needs them.
For small Registrars it is simply to much work to implement so many more TLD´s.
Yawn. Who cares? The gtld’s are all going to fail anyways. I’m just wondering what the other 50% were thinking!
Some strings can really add value to certain industries. “.wine” will promote wine worldwide and online sales thank to a better visibility and positioning.
Some strings will probably last if there is someone to market them at the registry level. If they’re just one more domain name extension available…I also think it will fail.
Doubtful. You can already type the preferred brand in any non-IE browser and get the product of choice. .wine adds nothing.
See .pro, which is virtually unheard of despite its age. Credentialing, especially in the USA, means nothing. There are more bad lawyers, CPAs, counselors and other professionals than there are good ones. Yet, both have licenses that allow them to use that domain. Hence, .pro essentially means “mediocrity” at best.
.wine will not bear fruit as the name implies…..
Please, try these simple searches in Google.com:
Cork Butter museum
Arkansas Maritime museum
American Helicopter museum
Alberta Air Force museum
Jewish Children museum
Essl museum
National Association of Automobile Museums
Penn museum
Staatliche museum
Tell me what you see.
Registrars should be held liable for not explaining confusion objectively. If I was running business on .co, I would sue my registrar for not explaining me that large percentage of my emails will go to .com.
To say that all gTLDs will fail shows thinking that is lazy and takes only some of past evidence into account.
Estimates indicate there are only 10 million people in the world who speak Catalonian, yet .cat is a success — and in Spain is even more popular than .es. If a gTLD that targets a relatively small population of 10 million can succeed financially, it should at least give you pause when considering the potential for gTLDs that address broad enthusiast audiences, such as .fitness, .dance, or .church.
Yes, many of the new gTLDs will fail. But you are really stretching credibility when you say out of 1,930 applicants, not one will succeed. “All the new gTLDs will fail” is someone’s snarky wish, not a valid prediction.
+1
Cats and Babies are also very popular themes on network interactions of all kinds, so .cat can benefit not only from catalonian pride (which is indeed very high) but also from the human love for felines.
Well stated Scott
Adding new gTLDs is like adding water to lemonade. Eventually the dilution will destroy the product and its reputation.
.cat is interesting for cat lovers/haters, but other than one equipment company, no one else will use it… Altho’ I might buy dead.cat … or roadkill.cat 😉
The same applies to most of the other idiotic suggestions for extensions.
Personally I never use or used a one word domain address like “tire”, “hotel” or “wine” .com. I know that I am not going to get the product, the price nor the service I want at that domain. The same will be true of .vanity domains. All my searches, except for information on like “echelon”, are focused directly to retailers/experts. Google is the engine of choice.
The only viable new domain extension might be .whs for wholesalers and distributors. They appear lost on the cyber-highway… Hence the extension has purpose other than a land rush sale to profit the powers that be.
Generally, I oppose vanity extensions; there are already too many gTLDs. Neither I nor the average surfer will use the vanity gTLDs or the other non-.com/.net’s that exist. You’ll see, the proof is in the pudding.
Note: more than three letters is a killer for a new extension. See .mobi for example. ©2012 Doktor Thomas™
.WHS for wholesalers you say ? 🙂
WHS for Web Hosting Services ? Humm, there is already .web and .host there… 😉
You may have go up against Chester the Comet.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Chester_the_Comet.jpg
Go Westchester High! Yay!
WHS Pride!!!