Interview: Ten Years Between New gTLD Applications Is Too Long

This is an interview from David Goldstein: Domain Pulse Q&A With Jovenet Consulting’s Jean Guillon. If interested in new gTLDs, I strongly suggest that section from Domain Pulse entitled "New gTLDs"

Dismay at the time it’s taking for ICANN to launch a new round of new gTLD applications is an underlying theme for Jovenet Consulting’s Jean Guillon in today’s Domain Pulse Q&A, as well as it’s the insiders who are framing the new applicant guidebook and the larger companies are the ones with the resources to put into submitting applications from an anticipated overly complicated applicant guidebook. But it’s not all dismay as Jean is excited about the future of new gTLDs, the .BEST registry, and he has a French city waiting to apply for its own gTLD and he believes he’s worked out what works and doesn’t.

Questions asked by Domain Pulse:

1. What were the highlights, lowlights and challenges of 2019 in the domain name industry, both for you and/or the industry in general?
2. What are you looking forward to in 2020?
3. What challenges and opportunities do you see for the year ahead?
4. How have new gTLDs fared in 2019?
5. What progress do you see on a new round of applications for new gTLDs in 2020?
6. What one thing would you like to see addressed or changed in the domain name industry?

Read the full interview here.

New gTLDs for Photography: 2019 in Review

Photography is very much present on Internet: the web is a great way to introduce visual elements to a public. For this reason probably there are so many new domain name extensions dedicated to photography. I listed 25 of them and here is what I noticed in 2019:

• There are seven .BRANDs and most popular photography Trademarks are represented: .CANON - .NIKON .PANASONIC and the .SONY new gTLD. Surprisingly, one Trademark withdrew its application (a long ago): the .OLYMPUS new gTLD.
• By the way, CANON is launching this in April 2020 and it is the most active photography .BRAND new gTLD in terms of usage: it added 10 new domain names to its total of registrations since January. Canon uses 48 personalized domain names.
• Did you notice: isn't .CAM is very close to .COM? I 'd consider such extension in terms of Brand Protection.
• Three TLDs have more than 50,000 domain name creations (and increasing) and .ART is number one from that list with a total of 72,703 domain names registered. It had 44,920 in January.
• Three domain name extensions are very similar: .PHOTOGRAPHY - .PHOTO and .PHOTOS : these similar new gTLDs can become a nightmare in terms of strategy if you forget to buy...the three of them for the same second level domain you planned to use. Let me explain: if you buy whatever.photo and forget to register whatever.photography and whatever.photos, chances are high that a third party will do it in the future. This is a risk in terms of Brand Protection.
• All nine TLDs above 10,000 domain name registrations (but one) had more domains created in December than in January: that is a positive sign, adoption is coming. The .DIGITAL and .VIDEO are some of them.
• Nine extensions from that list did not maintain their registration level from January to December and .WEBCAM, which started the year with a total of 54,270 domain names created, only had 5,773 in December...
• I see some sort of competition between .FILM which ended the year with 4,511 registrations and .MOVIE (3,268 registrations). We would use the word "film" in French, but not in Spanish. English speaking person would use "movie" I guess. French tend to use complete stupid names with hyphens sometimes so I guess that the movie industry should be approached in France.
• There is a .MOV (for movie I guess) operated by Google but it sticks to 2 domain name creations. I would be Google, I'd use for the Movie section of YouTube. Hey wait! There is a .YOUTUBE and a .TUBE too.
• My opinion on why .PICS does not meet with adoption is that the meaning of the string is already too old: worldwide bandwidth now allows to have fast access to media content, aren't "pics" kind of old now?
• I like .FILM, come on dotFilm, open a virtual branch in France, there is space for you ;-)

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for Catering (and Culinary): 2019 in Review"

New gTLDs for the Music: 2019 in Review

There are 9 genres of popular music according to Wikipedia and already two exist as a Top-Level Domain. Will there be seven more created in the next ICANN new gTLD Round? Anything can happen. From a list of 13 new gTLDs dedicated to music, here is what I noticed in 2019:

• The two genres listed in Wikipedia are: .HIPHOP and .COUNTRY
• When checking my 2019 list of new gTLDs, you will read about a coming .RAP (which is number 14 actually): yes...there is a .RAP new gTLD project ;-)
• The .MUSIC new gTLD (still in contracting) was allocated in 2019 to DotMusic Limited (Constantinos Roussos) and should see the day in 2020. There were nine applicants in the beginning.
• As of December 2019, one TLD had more than 500,000 domain name creations, it is the .LIVE new gTLD which ended the year with almost 700,000 registrations. This TLD doubled its creations since January 2019.
• Number two from the list has 20,000 something registrations: the .PARTY new gTLD. This TLD had 94,000 something in January 2019...
• Six domain name extensions had less registrations in December than in January: that is a bad sign.
• I removed the .GROUP new gTLD from that list since .BAND is used most of the time for music.
• Only for TLDs have more than 10,000 domains: .STREAM is one of them with 12,250 registrations. Note that it had 248,643 domains created in January so this TLD is not doing good at all.
• I listed one single dotBrand new gTLD: the .AUDIBLE Top-Level Domain is a Trademark belonging to Amazon. It appears that the TLD has not launched yet, it has one domain name extension.
• The front page of the .SONG new gTLD says: "Amazon Registry Services is excited to present .SONG — a new TLD" but this statement has been there for years now and the TLD sticks to one single domain name registration.
• There is a .ROCKS new gTLD but it has nothing to do with Rock'n'Roll.

Music lovers have a wide range of "musical" domain name extensions available to play with but I am surprised that no music star has yet considered being unique on Internet. Round 2 maybe?

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for Photography AND new gTLDs for Catering: 2019 in Review"

".com" Domainers call new gTLDs a "bad idea"

New gTLDs for Luxury: 2019 in Review

Did you know that there is a domain name extension ending in ".rich" (for the rich I guess)? Well there is one and 100 domain name were registered end of December 2019. Fantastic isn't it? I went to my new Registrar GoDaddy - GoDaddy, which just acquired my actual Registrar Uniregistry - and I had a look at the price of a .RICH domain name: more than €3,000 a piece. That's a lot, but let's imagine that these 100 domain names were registered by real end users (Registrants); that makes €300,000 a year...not bad for 100 domain names only.

There are 28 domain name extensions belonging to Luxury and here is what I noticed for the year of 2019:

• Six extensions are for automobiles: .LIMO (for Limousine) is ont of them and the five other are luxury car trademarks (.LAMBORGHINI - .FERRARI - etc...);
• Twelve from that list are live .BRANDs (.OMEGA - .CHANEL - etc...);
• Four were withdrawn since the launching of the first ICANN new gTLD round and actually two of these were withdrawn in 2019: .CARTIER and .PIAGET
• The only IDN from that list is the Chinese version of .SHANGRILA (which also exists in ASCII);
• One extension has more than 1 million domain names created: .VIP and second from that list is .BEST with 86,000 domains created and third is .LUXE with 15,000. The rest is below 10,000 registrations.
• From that list, one extensions multiplied its registrations by 18 since January: the .BEST extensions is growing seriously.
• Three extensions had less registrations in December than January: .GOLD - .JEWELRY and .DIAMONDS (that is not so good).
• Two Registries maintained significant registration levels throughout 2019: .BEST and .LUXE (French for "luxury").
• One person registered its personalized Top-Level Domain: Richard Li created the .RICHARDLI new gTLD but still does not use it and the Registry sticks to one single domain name creation (since the launching of the ICANN new gTLD program).
• Most Luxury Trademarks, but in the automobile luxury industry, don't use their dotBrand extension: the .GUCCI is on top of that list with six domain names created in total. The rest is below.
• Some TLDs from that list are for sale, contact Jovenet Consulting if interested in making an offer.
• The .HILTON withdrew its application long ago and this move, well...I still don't understand it.

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for the Music: 2019 in Review"

New gTLDs for the Automobile Industry: 2019 in Review

The automobile industry is one of the most active in terms of .BRAND new gTLD usage. There were 50 dotBrand applications submitted to ICANN. Most are car manufacturer trademarks. In total, ICANN received 60 applications from this industry and here is what I noticed:

• On a total list of 60 applications submitted, 13 were withdrawn (11 were dotBrands plus .AUTOINSURANCE and .CARINSURANCE new gTLDs).
• Just noticed: the .RAM new gTLD now appears as "withdrawn" but the ICANN website says nothing about this (...)
• .TAXI is the Registry ranking first in domain name registrations with a total of 6,345. This is a generic TLD, which means that anyone can buy these domain names.
• Only three TLDs have more than 1,000 registrations and you already know which one is number one but the most interesting is that a .BRAND is one of them: the .AUDI new gTLD (from the same trademark) uses 1,380 domain names: that is a lot for a dotBrand.
• There are "twins": new gTLDs which exist in both their singular and plural version: .AUTO and .AUTOS - .CAR and .CARS. These are generic extensions (open to all) but neither has more than 500 registrations.
• Three dotBrand new gTLDs maintained their registration levels throughout 2019: .SEAT - .LAMBORGHINI and .ADAC
• This is what I am impressed with: five .BRAND new gTLDs use more than 100 domain names for their own activities: .AUDI (1,380 domain names) - .SEAT (688) - .MINI (655) - .LAMBORGHINI (226) - .BMW (124).
• If you like Bentleys, you can subscribe to the Bentley Magazine: www.magazine.bentley but I like Bugattis better so I guess that I'll visit its new showroom in Paris soon: https://newsroom.bugatti
• All singular and plural versions of a TLD had fewer registrations in December than January but the .AUTOS new gTLD which started the year with a low 63 registrations, ended it with a (low) 342. I have a very negative opinion about singular and plural versions of a TLD.
• For a reason that I still do not understand, there was an applicant for the .TIRES new gTLD: it had 1,167 registrations in January 2019 and ends the year with 989 (...).
• 11 dotBrand new gTLDs stuck to one single domain name registration since January 2019.
• On a total list of 60 application, one only was an IDN: .大众汽车 (it means "Volkswagon" in Chinese and belongs to Volkswagen).
• 33 new gTLDs had less than 10 domain name registrations at the end of December.
• The last ICANN new gTLD round revealed its applications in 2012 (June the 13th) and I still don't understand why - 10 years after - most car manufacturers still do not consider using city names for better visibility of their .BRAND.

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for Luxury: 2019 in Review"

New gTLDs for the Finance: 2019 in Review

There are domain name extensions (not "domain names") for the financial industry: I call them "Financial new gTLDs". These are operated by their respective Registry: for example, the ".FUND" new gTLD is also called a "the dotFund Registry" and it is the sole legal entity allowed to create domain names ending in ".fund" (instead of ".com") for accredited Registrars to sell them to the public. In 2019, I took snapshots of these registries' evolution at the end of each month and wrote down the numbers.

The 2019 tab from my report shows a lot of "red" (it means that domain name registration figures decrease) but this is because red is noticed first. Financial new gTLDs have lots of Trademarks as clients and many Banks are listed. For this reason, this report is one of the longest from my 20 monthly reports. This is what I noticed on a list of 87 financial new gTLDs:

1. I listed 51 dotBrand (".BRAND") new gTLDs:
1. the .DVAG new gTLD ended the year with more than 2,000 domain names registered!
2. Eight of these .BRANDs have more than 100 domain names created, this is a lot for a personal use!
3. Two have between 500 and 1,000 domains created:
1. .ALLFINANZ
2. .CREDITUNION
4. Five have between 100 and 500 domains created.
5. Eighteen have between 10 and 100.
6. Twelve did not register any new domain name since January 2019 and still have one registered.
7. The .EVERBANK new gTLD was withdrawn during the year. Note that some other financial new gTLDs were withdrawn but they still appear as "Delegated" on the official ICANN website (the .NADEX new gTLD for example).
8. One is an IDN new gTLD: .工行 (xn--estv75g).
9. Some dotBrands did not register more domain names in 2019:
1. .DISCOVER with 101 domain name created
2. .SHRIRAM (28)
3. .BARCLAYCARD (24)
4. .AMERICANEXPRESS (8)
5. .NETBANK (5)
6. .COMMBANK (4)
7. .CITI (4)
8. .HDFCBANK (2)
9. The TLDs with one single registration are not added here.
10. Two were withdrawn long ago: the .CASHBACKBONUS and .JPMORGANCHASE
2. Four new gTLDs exist in their singular AND plural version (but I think I already wrote that in the past):
1. .ACCOUNTANT and .ACCOUNTANTS
2. .LOAN and .LOANS
3. .MARKET and .MARKETS
4. .DEAL and .DEALS
3. Only 10 generic new gTLDs have more than 10,000 domain name registrations and number one on that list has just above 27,000.
4. Two have "unbelievable" numbers to read:
1. the .BID new gTLD had 209,700 registrations in January. It ends the year with less than 28,000.
2. the .LOAN new gTLD had... 2,806,800 (yes: two million) in January. It ends the year with a little more than 24,000.
5. Only one generic Top-Level Domain maintained its registration level from January to December: the .TAX new gTLD which ended the year with 7,450 registrations. Oh... The .TRUST new gTLD registered one more domain name during the year and went from 51 to 52 registrations.

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for the Automobile and Cars: 2019 in Review"

New gTLDs for Sports: 2019 in Review

Are end users (domain name registrants) using TLDs with sport names? Well kind of...but general speaking, "Sports" new gTLDs have not revealed their potential in 2019. Globally speaking, it looks like very few have noticed their existence. This is what I noticed over 2019:

• Of the 29 new gTLDs dedicated to sports:
• 21 are either community or generic ones (that anyone can buy).
• 8 are dotBrands (domain name extensions operated by Trademarks for their own use).
• Five new gTLDs ended the year with between 10,000 and 20,000 domain names. The TLDs in order are:
• .RUN with 19,289 domain name creations (December 2019).
• .BIKE
• .YOGA
• .FITNESS
• .GOLF with 10,148 creations (December 2019).
• .YOGA and .GOLF surpassed 10,000 domain name registrations in 2019.
• These TLDs ended the year with fewer registrations in December than January:
• .BIKE
• .FOOTBALL (!)
• .RACING
• .SOCCER
• .FUTBOL ("football" in Spanish)
• .CRICKET
• These TLDs maintained their registration levels (i.e no declines) throughout 2019:
• .YOGA
• .SPORT
• .SURF
• .AFL (dotBrand)
• .XBOX (dotBrand)
• 12 extensions are below 1,000 registrations but most are dotBrands, except these four generic ones:
• .RODEO
• .RUGBY
• .BASKETBALL
• .BASEBALL
• Two dotBrands remained at one single registration throughout the year:
• .NIKE
• .NBA
• Playstation does not seem to care about new gTLDs but Xbox does with 57 .XBOX domains registered in December.
• The .MLB new gTLD held to the same number of registrations all year: 33
• Something wrong clearly happened in 2019 with these Registries:
• .RACING started the year with 67,458 registrations and ended December with 3,523 domain names in total.
• .CRICKET started with 20,772 and ended with 1,561 creations.

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for Finance: 2019 in Review"