Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Interview: the .BEST Brand Protection Program

This is a recent interview that I have done with Cyril Fremont, new operator of the .BEST Registry. The interview is about the new .BEST Brand Protection Program that the Registry just launched for Trademarks to secure their name.

In simple words, with the .BEST Registry, Cyril is also launching another venture named "The.Best". This innovative project is a new kind of social network, using a dedicated domain name extension for the publication of reviews: domain names ending in ".best".

Doing reviews?
You will love to learn more about how you can be granted for using "The.Best" to post them on Internet but to make it simple here, the idea behind the .BEST Brand Protection Program is to offer Trademarks to secure their name(s) prior to the launching of the social network .

The Interview was just published on CircleId.

Monday, January 21, 2019

There's no CMS for .BRAND new gTLDs

I checked the web and found no service provider offering a tool dedicated to .BRAND new gTLDs. I mean by this that a .BRAND Top-Level Domain acquires the possibility to use not one, but as many domain names as it wants; but then, how to manage contents?
If it exists dozens of very good Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Drupal, Joomla, Google Sites, Shopify, WordPress, Blogger, etc, I found none for .BRAND new gTLDs operating multiple domains. I found Drupal but it requires to code a lot and none wants to code a lot when tools such as Goggle Sites offer to operate multiple websites without having to code.

The power of uniqueness
When starting to use a .BRAND new gTLD, a Trademark acquires the capacity to create as many generic domain names as it wants. For example, when previously using a www.whatever-trademark.com, adding to this sometimes hundreds of pages with long URLs; the new operator of his .BRAND new gTLD acquires the capacity to create ultra generic domain names such as, for example, insurance.brand or shoes.brand: this offers the advantages after:
  • Segmentation of contents;
  • Ultra meaningful domain names for each content;
  • Personalized domain names in the name of a brand;
  • Very short domain names;
  • Easily memorable domain names;
  • The SEO benefit due to cross linking between multiple websites (reference to back linking);
  • Etc...
Just for the note, insurance.com was acquired for $35.6Million and if the price does not really matter for this publication, the strength of such generic term on Internet has a high value for its descriptiveness and the fact that it is easy to remember.

A ".brand" is unique, a ".com" is not
Let's be frank, operating a website using a CMS is great and the tools available online are very efficient ones, but thinking about changing to operating a .BRAND new gTLD with multiple CMS is just...not feasible and truly a gas machine ("machine à gaz" in French).

If companies often use inside developers to code, or external service providers to maintain their website, a lot - and even prestigious ones - use a simple hosted CMS.

When is this coming to .BRAND new gTLDs and which CMS will be first to come with a solution to host CMS for .BRAND new gTLDs?

Thursday, January 17, 2019

These 2 should change to a .BRAND

I believe that it is important to demonstrate why creating a .BRAND domain name extension makes sense and I found the two (good) examples below.

Group of companies often use different websites and send emails, sometimes a lot. I recently received emails from the two major companies after and, since I trust both, I always feel unsecured when reading them since it is unclear if they really come from them...or not.


The 2 emails received
  1. Facebook sent me an email entitled "Jean, connectez-vous à Facebook en un clic" (translation: "Jean connect to Facebook in one click). I certainly would not click for two reasons:
    1. Why do I receive such email from Facebook, which I don't often use?
    2. The email comes from a domain name ending in "facebookmail.com", instead of "facebook.com" and unfortunately, I am familiar with the second one, not the first one which could be sent from...anybody with the capacity to register a domain name ending in ".com".
  2. Google sent me an email ending in "withgoogle.com" instead of "google.com". Again here, I am familiar with the second one but the first one could have been registered by anybody and used for fraudulent activities, trying to make me believe that it comes from Google.
Lack of confidence
In both cases, there is a lack of confidence because the sender is not instantly recognized. Let's imagine that Google operated domain names ending in ".google" and started - for all of its activities - to send emails ending in ".google" and not using multiple different ".com" domain names: wouldn't that increase the level of trust in Google?

I'd say yes.

But wait...there is a ".google" new domain name extension :-)

The SWOT analysis
If sealing emails - and increase trust - is a strong reason to invest and change to a .BRAND new gTLD, there are other reasons: the SWOT analysis studies your personal case figure and will create scenarios of use, created "just for you".

You still have time to prepare your new gTLD application prior to the next round of the ICANN new gTLD program to begin: learning is a first step, "applying" comes second.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

The .DEV Sunrise Period starts

The Trademark Clearinghouse announces the Sunrise Period for .DEV domain names. The Sunrise Period starts today.

WHEN
  • START: Wednesday, 16 January, 2019;
  • END: Tuesday, 19 February, 2019.
WHAT
The .DEV new gTLD is for developers and is the property of Google (Charleston Road Registry). The positive thing about these domain names is that they have to be secured to work properly. the official applications says:
"The proposed gTLD will provide Google with direct association to the term ʺdev,ʺ which is an abbreviation of the word, ʺdevelopment.ʺ The mission of this gTLD, .dev, is to provide a dedicated domain space in which Google can enact second-level domains specific to its projects in development. Specifically, the new gTLD will provide Google with greater ability to create a custom portal for employees to manage products and services in development."
FOR INFORMATION
For information, the .INC Sunrise Period, previously announced to start today was postponed to Wednesday, 27 March, 2019 - 16:00.

Check the Trademark Clearinghouse calendar for more.

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Bank surveys and .BRAND new gTLDs

Like me, you probably receive surveys from your bank, wondering about their level of service and how satisfied you are about them (also how they could improve their service), but how do you ensure that your bank is the one asking you questions...and not a third party or a frauder?

This article published on CircleId explains how banks could (should?) improve their level of service - AND TRUST - using their personalized domain name extension.

Jovenet Consulting offers Banks and Trademarks to study the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to (not) create their personalized domain name extension.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

New gTLDs and Politics: one Year in Review

There are domain name extensions dedicated to politics. Right after is a link to my recent article published on CircleId and which covers the year of 2018 with a few notes on registration volumes. The article is entitled "Political New gTLDs: One Year in Review" and this is the list of new gTLDs covered:
  1. .DEMOCRAT
  2. .EXPOSED 
  3. .FAIL 
  4. .GIVES 
  5. .GRIPE 
  6. .GURU 
  7. .GOP 
  8. .BEST 
  9. .REPUBLICAN 
  10. .VOTE 
  11. .VOTING 
  12. .VOTO ("vote" in Spanish)
And by the way: "happy new year"!

Sunday, January 6, 2019

The .BEST new gTLD Execution Plan

This is the latest .BEST execution plan published by the Registry.

Timeline
  • July 2018: .BEST registry acquisition by Cyril Fremont and team of investors;
  • August 2018: transition to backend registry solution provider;
  • September 2018: strategy for quarter four;
  • October 2018: on-boarding of new ".best" accredited registrars;
  • November 2018: .BEST promotion;
  • December 2018: social media marketing;
  • January 2019: strategy FY2018.
Check the official stats on the new gTLD report dedicated to which domain name extensions companies should keep their eyes on. The ".best" domain name registration figures already speak by themselves. 

Reminder
Price of ".best" domain names is below $10 per year at certain registrars. Ensure you register your domain names before the promotion ends on January the 31st, 2019. Check the full list of registrars here.

Thursday, January 3, 2019

ICANN new gTLD Application Statistics

This is the Overview as of 30 November 2018 (last ICANN update):
  • Total Applications Submitted: 1930
  • Completed New gTLD Program and Delegated (introduced into Internet): 1232
  • Application Withdrawn: 620
  • Applications that Will Not Proceed or Not Approved: 46
  • Currently Proceeding through New gTLD Program: 32
Note that this page should be updated soon (since we are now in January 2019).


Readers will also be interested in checking:
  • Contention Resolution;
  • Contracting;
  • Pre-Delegation Testing (PDT);
  • Breakdown: Delegation Statistics;
  • gTLD Startup Statistics.
Diggers, interested in "things about the ICANN new gTLD program" will also be interested in finding all bookmarks related to it on Jovenet.link

.BRAND new gTLD Reports are updated once a month: CLICK HERE !