By Duane J. Higgins
xtradot.com
The new gTLD registrars are most certainly taking the "long view" regarding the prospective success of the new domain name extensions. With billions of dollars being invested in the new domain name extensions-the big time players are placing very calculated bets on the future of the Internet. (and the domain name industry as a whole) rather than much immediate success.
What will the Internet landscape look like in 10-20 years? No one has the slightest idea. What will the domain name landscape/marketplace look like in 10-20 years? No one worth their salt would place a bet in any direction there. There are so many question marks and only speculation.
Beyond the speculation I do have some givens that the new registrars are counting on as part of their calculus. Why else would the (at least four) largest players (Google, Uniregistry, Donuts and Amazon) be willing to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars each for just the chance at dictating this new domain name landscape?
Here are some givens that helped guide these big players to their investments:
1.) The registrars are counting on mostly slow and continued growth of their individual extensions. There likely won't be any wildly successful extensions right off the bat. Maybe .web or .shop and possibly others.
2.) Many (if not most with some extensions) of the registrations will be defensive in nature. Domain registrations done to protect name or proprietary interests. Defensive registrations. Some registries will have mostly defensive registrations and those numbers could number in the millions for those registries. That will be big profits.
3.) Speculative domain registrations will be rampant. There are already enough domain name speculators to cover this. Add in a few million new speculators to the mix and in some cases you will see a frenzy for certain extensions. That will be pure speculation. Registering domain names is too easy. All you need is credit card, paypal account or some form of payment. The costs are so low that theres essentially no barrier to entry. Why wouldn't many people jump on board and try to make some money? Why not take a chance on SanDiego.bike, Mystery.book, newage.music, or bankapp.financial? As I mentioned, the speculation (and frenzy) will be endless.
Some of the newest domain extensions are already available and hundreds and hundreds more will be introduced over the next few years.
Are you ready to place your bets?
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Is the .cc Domain Extension a Sleeping Giant?
By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com
With upwards of 1000 new domain name extensions about to be released onto the global marketplace, why would I devote an entire blog post to the .cc extension? An old, worn out, passe' country code that has yet to find an actual niche, significant target market or brand identity.
I did read on the Internet the other day that .cc was poised for a revival. The author didn't say why, how or when- however that it was going to happen. So I decided to do a bit of research on that extension and to find out just how a rebirth of that domain extension could or would happen.
First of all, the .cc extension has been bouncing around the Internet for some. Some brief information on that extension from Wikipedia:
.cc is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory of 5.4 square miles and about 600 inhabitants. It is administered by VeriSign through a subsidiary company eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com"; .cc was originally assigned in October 1997 to eNIC Corporation of Seattle, Washington, by the IANA. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an unrecognised country by the UN, that officially belongs to the republic of Cyprus, also uses the .cc domain.
Also, according to Wikipedia:
The .cc domain is preferred by many cycling clubs as well as churches and Christian organizations as "CC" also happens to be an abbreviation for "Christian Church" or "Catholic Church." Some open-source/open-hardware projects, e.g. the Arduino project, use a .cc for their home pages, as "CC" is the abbreviation for "Creative Commons", whose licenses are used in the projects. Business owners in Southern Massachusetts are rapidly adopting Cape Cod CC domains for local identity. Canadian Club whiskey has also used .cc domains for marketing purposes.
So in other words, .cc domain names are used for many things. No real defined target market. .cc has been a generalist rather than a specialist. A jack-of-all trades in the Internet community. Useful for many, valuable to few.
So, I'm thinking that with a thousand new domain extensions about to be introduced to the open market that .cc is dead in the water, right? Or maybe not.
Then it hit me like a ton of clicks.
What if a new identity were established for the .cc extension? A singular, identifying and universally recognized identity or focus. A brand identity.
What if the .cc domain extension were marketed as a "dot credit card" extension and how could that be applied or utilized as a domain extension?
Its not as far fetched as you might initially think. First of all, .credit and .creditcard have both been applied for with the new domain name extensions. If you ask me, I think that .cc is much better than .creditcard. The .CreditCard applicant has hundreds of millions of dollars behind it. Apparently, someone is quite serious about that extension and the value. Why not .cc instead or as well? It's shorter and easy to remember. That's just me. .Finance and .Financial are also applied for.
Let me give you a few examples of how the .cc (credit card) extension could be used/marketed to users:
Masked Credit Cards- One the buzz words of today. (See Forbes article dated 12/4/2013). How could the promoters of masked credit cards capitalize on this movement? Maybe your purchase your identity (with a .cc extension) such as JohnQDavis.cc. That is your highly secure sign in site for your account. You are able to manage all of your credit card accounts and move your funds around from there. Also, to manage your masked account. Part of the security is the unique identifiers/security layers that are used for you to sign into your personal site. Part of the security is the IP address that your sign in from and the ip address assigned to your domain name. No one else can get in and your credit card usage will be masked.
Account Management: See above. .cc could be (the) secure way to manage all credit card and online (credit) accounts.
Retailers- There could be highly secure advantages for online retailers (how many of them are there?) to have a separate (and highly secure) site/extension for credit card management. The key word is security. If .cc were to brand itself as the secure extension for credit card management/accounts that could really be branded that way.
Amazon.cc
Ebay.cc
Facebook.cc
Apple.cc
Samsung.cc
Microsoft.cc
Yahoo.cc
Google.cc
Virtual Credit Cards: With the developments in eWallets, virtual coins and currency you can use your imagination. I want to throw in a few wild cards though. Rotating IP addresses (like are sometimes used in the mobile industry) and shifting servers as in utilizing a variety of cloud servers that arbitrarily shift. All related to security that could be used and applied with the .cc extension. Again unique IP address and unique (IP) sign-in platform are part of the security.
(Just so you know, I'm not a technologist. Im just a blogger. The technology details are for someone else to work out.)
.CC might consider taking a lesson from the new .secure domain extension that has been applied for. According to the website of Artemis.net the group that has applied for the extension:
.secure is a unique Top-Level Domain (TLD) that provides Internet users with confidence to go about their business online in a trustworthy environment. The value of .secure comes from three core principals: verify, secure and enforce. There is a good deal more information on that site. However, the basic idea is that .secure will be the most secure domain extension of them all.
Just checking to see if your listening .cc?
Anyone else ready to invest in .cc (dot credit card)?
I'm in.
xtradot.com
With upwards of 1000 new domain name extensions about to be released onto the global marketplace, why would I devote an entire blog post to the .cc extension? An old, worn out, passe' country code that has yet to find an actual niche, significant target market or brand identity.
I did read on the Internet the other day that .cc was poised for a revival. The author didn't say why, how or when- however that it was going to happen. So I decided to do a bit of research on that extension and to find out just how a rebirth of that domain extension could or would happen.
First of all, the .cc extension has been bouncing around the Internet for some. Some brief information on that extension from Wikipedia:
.cc is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory of 5.4 square miles and about 600 inhabitants. It is administered by VeriSign through a subsidiary company eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com"; .cc was originally assigned in October 1997 to eNIC Corporation of Seattle, Washington, by the IANA. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an unrecognised country by the UN, that officially belongs to the republic of Cyprus, also uses the .cc domain.
Also, according to Wikipedia:
The .cc domain is preferred by many cycling clubs as well as churches and Christian organizations as "CC" also happens to be an abbreviation for "Christian Church" or "Catholic Church." Some open-source/open-hardware projects, e.g. the Arduino project, use a .cc for their home pages, as "CC" is the abbreviation for "Creative Commons", whose licenses are used in the projects. Business owners in Southern Massachusetts are rapidly adopting Cape Cod CC domains for local identity. Canadian Club whiskey has also used .cc domains for marketing purposes.
So in other words, .cc domain names are used for many things. No real defined target market. .cc has been a generalist rather than a specialist. A jack-of-all trades in the Internet community. Useful for many, valuable to few.
So, I'm thinking that with a thousand new domain extensions about to be introduced to the open market that .cc is dead in the water, right? Or maybe not.
Then it hit me like a ton of clicks.
What if a new identity were established for the .cc extension? A singular, identifying and universally recognized identity or focus. A brand identity.
What if the .cc domain extension were marketed as a "dot credit card" extension and how could that be applied or utilized as a domain extension?
Its not as far fetched as you might initially think. First of all, .credit and .creditcard have both been applied for with the new domain name extensions. If you ask me, I think that .cc is much better than .creditcard. The .CreditCard applicant has hundreds of millions of dollars behind it. Apparently, someone is quite serious about that extension and the value. Why not .cc instead or as well? It's shorter and easy to remember. That's just me. .Finance and .Financial are also applied for.
Let me give you a few examples of how the .cc (credit card) extension could be used/marketed to users:
Masked Credit Cards- One the buzz words of today. (See Forbes article dated 12/4/2013). How could the promoters of masked credit cards capitalize on this movement? Maybe your purchase your identity (with a .cc extension) such as JohnQDavis.cc. That is your highly secure sign in site for your account. You are able to manage all of your credit card accounts and move your funds around from there. Also, to manage your masked account. Part of the security is the unique identifiers/security layers that are used for you to sign into your personal site. Part of the security is the IP address that your sign in from and the ip address assigned to your domain name. No one else can get in and your credit card usage will be masked.
Account Management: See above. .cc could be (the) secure way to manage all credit card and online (credit) accounts.
Retailers- There could be highly secure advantages for online retailers (how many of them are there?) to have a separate (and highly secure) site/extension for credit card management. The key word is security. If .cc were to brand itself as the secure extension for credit card management/accounts that could really be branded that way.
Amazon.cc
Ebay.cc
Facebook.cc
Apple.cc
Samsung.cc
Microsoft.cc
Yahoo.cc
Google.cc
Virtual Credit Cards: With the developments in eWallets, virtual coins and currency you can use your imagination. I want to throw in a few wild cards though. Rotating IP addresses (like are sometimes used in the mobile industry) and shifting servers as in utilizing a variety of cloud servers that arbitrarily shift. All related to security that could be used and applied with the .cc extension. Again unique IP address and unique (IP) sign-in platform are part of the security.
(Just so you know, I'm not a technologist. Im just a blogger. The technology details are for someone else to work out.)
.CC might consider taking a lesson from the new .secure domain extension that has been applied for. According to the website of Artemis.net the group that has applied for the extension:
.secure is a unique Top-Level Domain (TLD) that provides Internet users with confidence to go about their business online in a trustworthy environment. The value of .secure comes from three core principals: verify, secure and enforce. There is a good deal more information on that site. However, the basic idea is that .secure will be the most secure domain extension of them all.
Just checking to see if your listening .cc?
Anyone else ready to invest in .cc (dot credit card)?
I'm in.
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