Famous Four Media (FFM) an application for more than 50 new gTLD’s just published a blog post entitled “Why domain name investors should embrace new gTLDs today”
The post was written by Rob McCrea Head of Account Management at Famous Four Media
I will publish a part of it here and have some comments after:
“Much of what those who “know what they are doing” in the domain name industry are actually doing is very similar.
“We (.CLUB, Donuts, FFM and the other experienced registries) have embraced the channel and aim to support their registrars as much as is possible whilst squeezing in a couple of hours of sleep every couple of days!”
“Given the role the registrar has to play in the growth of the new gTLD program it is fair to say that a lot of money and effort has been spent by registries on the registrar piece of the domain name puzzle. ”
“There is however another very important piece in the puzzle… …the domain name investor.”
We see that that the majority of names currently being registered in new TLDs come from domain name investors, and at Famous Four Media this was no surprise, we knew this was coming. Investors in our TLDs are important for early revenues of course, but they have a much more important role to play than this. Investors will buy our domains at low cost and sell them to the right buyer for the right price. The right buyer is most likely going to be someone who is going to actually use the domain, and therein lays the key to the sustained and long term growth of any new TLD. ‘Get it used and get it seen.’
Calling all investors – why invest in Famous Four’s domains?
There a many reasons to invest in Famous Four Media’s strings:
- Premium Names:I believe Famous Four Media has been very frugal with its premium names with only around 3,500 in our first three strings compared to the 6000+ (as I understand it) of .CLUB. This means that there are a lot of great names available to domain investors at normal registration prices. Grab them and flip them.
- Super Premium Names: we contacted some of the World’s foremost domain name brokers way back in September 2013, and asked them to choose 10 names each from all of our uncontested TLDs they felt could be placed for the right price. This will generate interest in the registries and will help create demand for names.
- Re-investment in our TLDs: in each of our applications, we will re-invest at least 2USD per name sold, back into a marketing development fund, so by buying a Famous Four Media domain name you immediately see 2USD re-invested in increasing the value of your names.
- Great Names: .BID, .TRADE& . WEBCAM are our first gTLDs into GA on June 9th these are commercially very strong.
o .BID: you visit a .BID website if you want to buy or sell anything. A .BID is a must for anyone selling at auction or open to offers.
o .TRADE: resonates with small medium enterprise, financial institutions, wholesalers who sell to trade, and emerging markets looking to open their doors to a Global audience
o .WEBCAM: think search results, and picture any interesting term ending in.WEBCAM, who isn’t going to click on this? BigBen.webcam, WorldCup.webcam, NakedIroning.webcam
- Landrush, what landrush? We are going straight to GA on June 9th, no landrush, no early access, no qualifying criteria, just great names at normal registration prices.
In conclusion
I want you to come in on June 9th and clean us out, take our best names at the best possible price, and sell them on to someone who will use them, and use them well, all the while increasing the value of those other names you bought in that same TLD.
Domain Name Investors: you are more important to the long term success of the new gTLD program than you may ever have considered. The new gTLD program is depending on you, the registries are depending on you, and ICANN is depending on you and, at Famous Four Media, we’ll continue to invest in our collective success.””
So its interesting that a registry is actually courting the domain investors.
Haven’t seen much of that and certainly not in writing.
Registries generally know a lot of their business is going to come from Domain Investors but really don’t admit it and don’t openly invite domainers in.
As for the strings mentioned obviously .Webcam has the most value and in our opinion and will get the most registrations.
While they are comparing the amount of reserved domains that .big, .trade and .webcam have to .Club (RightoftheDot.com prepared the .Club reserved list) I would say that none of those extensions are anywhere as deep as .Club in premium domains. So while they only reserved an average of 3,500 domains in their first 3 strings in my opinion there are not 3,500 .trade or .bid domains worth reserving to start with and call premium and .webcam while they could get to a few thousand reserved domains, it would suck almost everything out worth registering.
.Club is a much broader strings with a lot more possible registrants and users and therefore 6,000 reserved domains in .club again in our opinion is less onerous than 3,500 reserved domains in these three extensions
I have played with .webcam to find domains to pre-register and its been a tough go.
While FFM looks to no landrush as a benefit to domain investors for me personally I rather have a land rush where I could pay more for early access. In my personal experience getting a domain on the opening of GA is pretty hard when you can have several hundred registrars all trying to register the same domain.
The odds including places like Pool which use many registrar tags to get domains maybe 1 in 500 to get any particular domain.
Not great odds.
Finally just like I have gotten on registrars for including problematic domains in their emails to customers.
In the blog post the author mentions three .webcam domain names that are not reserved and can be gotten in land rush (if not taken in Sunrise):
BigBen.webcam
WorldCup.webcam
NakedIroning.webcam
Now as for WorldCup I wouldn’t recommend anyone register that domain it will be hit with a URS faster than you can say Big Ben.
The registry should know that and should not encourage anyone to register such a domain. NFL.webcam and NBA.webcam are also available but should also be avoided by domain investors who the post was directed.
Naked Ironing I don’t know if that is a UK kind of thing but I never heard of it.
Its another case of a registry or registrar suggesting three domain names and two are fails! in my opinion.
If you have a ton of available good domains then don’t publish 3, publish a list of 12,000 like .club did.
By the way from that 12,000 list of .club domains, I published over 400 of the one’s I like and went into 35 land rush auctions that were on the list I published and I have lost most of them.
