A Billion Dollar Domain Name (Part II)

By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com

On July 27, 2013 I published here in this blog an article titled "A Billion Dollar Domain Name?"
You can read the article if you like. However, my  basic argument had to do with a company establishing a very memorable, recognizable and valued brand and service and that ultimately we could see a domain name valued at that level.


Little did I know at the time that I was both half right and dead wrong with my premise..  At the time, I did think that the chance of any domain name ever reaching a value of over a billion dollars was pretty slim. Maybe .05% chance of that ever happening. A chance nevertheless.

Jump forward a few years to today's date and I do think that the chances have dramatically increased for a domain name to reach such valuations. Say from .05% to better than 50%. 

That's quite a jump.

How did that happen?

So let me refer you to another post that I wrote and published in this blog May 9, 2014 titled "The Internet of Domains"

In summation, this article had to do with  potential future use of the DNS (domain name system) for purposes that had yet to be developed. I did talk about attaching IP addresses (domain names) to devices, sensors and other objects for various reasons. The value of naming objects and devices in the IoT. (Internet of Things).  Some other potential applications I talked about in this article included utilizing the DNS for "multi factor authentication",  a firewell,  other security purposes, for facilitating transactions,  and for device and mobile ids.

So  jump forward to now and some more interesting things are happening in the domain name and IP (Intellectual Property) industry.

For one, Verisign has just filed two patents applications regarding utilizing the DNS (domain name system)  with the IoT (Internet of Things) as I had described in this blog in detail over two years ago. The patent applications are here #1 and here #2.

You can read the patent applications if you like, however, they are eerily similar to the ideas I elaborated on in this blog over two years ago.

So, in keeping with the theme of this blog post and back to my idea of the billion dollar domain name.  When you read the patents you will see my idea become alot more realistic and if you ask me- very probable.  If it does, (the billion dollar domain name) will likely involve these Verisign patents. You see, what they have cleverly done, with these DNS/IOT ideas is to corner that market.  (That is if the patents are granted).Which I suspect they will be.

Now, let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say the patent applications are applied to one particular domain name that is used as some sort of exchange in the marketplace. So much so that every transaction that the exchange makes is "channeled" through that one domain name and the DNS and with revenue/commissions attached to each transaction. Let's use the domain name Forex.Exchange as one example of how this could be done. As many of you know Forex stands for the foreign exchange (currency) market. (by the way, I can see that Forex.Exchange is for sale if you are interested).


So allow your mind again to drift back to the billion dollar domain idea-and imagine that a Forex Exchange is developed on the domain name Forex.Exchange. Funneling all transactions through that domain name for commissions and fees and utilizes the DNS for various purposes (check out the Verisign patent applications-it could get very complicated). Potentially up to Trillions of dollars in Forex transactions per year. Current Forex transactions are in the trillions of dollars per day.


What does the value of that domain name become?

 A billion dollars?

Just maybe. 

The Digital Tagline Signature

By Duane J. Higgins
xtradot.com and tagline.tech

Everyone has email. If you are reading this blog you very likely do. Many email programs including the most popular ones allow you to create a signature to use with your email message or even to create a letterhead to use when sending an email message. You can often import images to the letterhead to create headers and footers and to add a logo etc. This is something we call personalization. A process of personalizing your email experience and along with enhancing the experience of your email recipients. 

So we now have a new digital application called the "digital tagline" that can be added to your email program (as a signature) and then linked to just about anywhere you like. 

So what exactly is the "digital tagline?" 

The digital tagline represents an innovative usage of the domain name system. Allowing you to string together as many words as you like to create unique identifiers (words or phrases). 

Here are a few examples (remember these are also domain names as well as digital taglines):

joes.army
hillbilly.band
skateboard.buzz
surfers.rock 
where.everybody knows.your.name 
seattle.java.guru
all.about fitness  
living.hockey   
shakespearean.actor
rooftop.garden
stock.picking.tips
this.diet.works
sailing.link   
smash.mouth.rugby  
chess.masters.club

These digital taglines (or the like) could be added to the signature feature of your email program and then linked to just about anywhere you like on the Internet. Remember that with over a thousand new domain name extensions available now- there virtually unlimited opportunities for creative naming and linking. 

Some examples for linking from your digital tagline`:

website
web page
blog
store or shop
social cause
political cause
political campaigns
sports teams
clubs and other groups etc. 

A note regarding email usage. 
 
Despite popular rumor and legend. Email usage is still very popular and will continue to get bigger and bigger. 

According to a recent email statistics report by the Radicati Group:

Worldwide email use continues to grow at a healthy pace In 2015, the number of worldwide email users will be nearly 2.6 billion. By the end of 2019, the number of worldwide email users will increase to over 2.9 billion. Over one  third  of the worldwide population will be using email by year end 2019.. In addition, all online transactions (i.e. shopping, banking, etc.) require a valid email address.

  

Over the next four years, the average number of email accounts per user ratio will grow from an average of 1.7 accounts per user to an average of 1.9 accounts per user. Though there is increased use of IM, social networking, and other forms of communication, email continues to show steady growth, as all IM, social networks and other services require users to have an email address to access their services.  

The number of worldwide email accounts is expected to continue to grow at a slightly faster pace than the number of worldwide email users, particularly Consumer email accounts, since many consumers tend to have multiple email accounts. 

So why would you care about the digital tagline? 

Because they provide two things that the Internet and much of social media and today's society craves. 

1.) Identification
2.) Linking

Here is an example of a digital tagline that you might see in one of our companies emails:

get.your.tagline.link

You can find our digital tagline registry @:

tagline.tech  

Digital Taglines: A New Chapter For Domain Names?

By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com
tagline.tech

Symbolics.com was the first domain name ever registered online. 
According to their site, it was registered 26 years ago on March 15, 1985.   

According to a recent Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief: 

The first quarter of 2016 closed with a base of approximately 326.4 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 12 million domain names, or 3.8 percent over the fourth quarter of 2015. Registrations have grown by 32.4 million, or 11 percent, year over year. ¹ 

Those figures represent slow and steady growth for what I consider to still be a burgeoning industry. 

Thanks to ICANN's New gTLD Program we are now witnessing the biggest expansion of digital real estate since the Internet began.

First we had .com, .net, .org and a handful of other domain name extensions. 

We now have or will have .bike, .blog .cafe, .click, .cool, .email, .fun, .help, .life, .link, .place, .rocks, .today, .taxi,  .toys, .web and up to 1000 more extensions in this current round with likely more to follow. 

So what I find most interesting with this massive expansion of the domain name space is that an overwhelming majority of the worlds population is yet to register or own a domain name.  

(Readers of this blog will know that I  have been beating the drum for years regarding  massively expanding domain name usage and application. Such as with our post titled "Mainstreaming Domain Names" and dozens of other articles)


According to Worldometers.info the current world population is around:

 7,442,193,867 

With total domain name registration numbers at 326.4 million.

That's quite a gap. 

Especially when you consider that those 326.4 million names are "held" by just  few million people/entities. 

So with much of the worlds population in the process of moving to the Internet and to social media-we see a new opportunity for massively expanding  domain name usage. 

This opportunity lies in what I call digital taglines, dot slogans and tagline ads in a market segment that some would describe as "verbal branding."  

A new realm in the constantly expanding universe of digital marketing.

Wikipedia.org describes digital marketing as an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.^[1]

Perhaps the best way to illustrate  difference between domain names and digital taglines and dot slogans is to give some examples of each. 

Here are some famous and well known domain names which in this case are company names as well. 

Google.com
Yahoo.com
Facebook.com
YouTube.com
Bing.com
Instagram.com
Tumblr.com
etc. 

Here are some sample digital taglines and dot slogans. Note that you can string as many words together as you like by using what are called "subdomains" in the domain name administration panel or our registry at tagline.tech :

ultimate.actor
joes.army
hillbilly.band
athletic.best
skateboard.buzz
bagels.direct
johnny.website
surfers.rock 
where.everybody knows.your.name 
seattle.java.guru
all.about fitness  
living.hockey   
shakespearean.actor
rooftop.garden
stock.picking.tips
ultimate.cool
this.diet.works
sailing.link   
smash.mouth.rugby  
very.tasteful.pics
chess.masters.club
esports.cash

For illustration purposes, here is the appearance of what is actually a tagline ad that was used in a recent company tweet:

Is this the world's first tagline ad? https://t.co/mMLw89Vr7r

— Duane J. Higgins (@cybrands) August 9, 2016

So where can digital taglines, dot slogans and tagline ads be used?

Here are a few options:

online advertising
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
within text, SMS or messaging apps
(or) for advertising purposes anywhere you like (i.e. tagline ads, You Tube etc.)

I will mention just a few opportunities for linking from your digital tagline,  dot slogan or tagline ad:

website
web page
blog
your store or shop
social cause
political cause
political campaigns
sports teams
clubs and other groups etc.

Digital taglines, dot slogans and tagline ads also have the following uses and more:

Embedding in websites for marketing and SEO purposes (search engine optimization)
Traditional advertising
Digital advertising
Text and SMS marketing
Email marketing

**  Tagline.tech is our own innovative domain registry which helps businesses and entrepreneurs to develop and utilize what we call digital taglines, dot slogans and tagline ads which utilize the domain name system (DNS) to create memorable and impactful business and personal taglines and slogans.  Domain strings that can be used for linking. Particularly useful in social media and for advertising and marketing purposes.