A Twitter poll by Rick Schwartz show domain investors moving away from new gTLDs

by Morgan on March 6, 2017

Rick Schwartz currently has a poll running on Twitter asking the question, “If you are into buying gTLD’s which best reflects your current outlook?” I think it’s very safe to say that this question is geared towards Domainers and that’s likely the bulk of the folks who are following Rick on Twitter.

I had a bit of a tough time answering this as I didn’t find an answer that really covered my position. I have never been all in on the new gTLDs, for me I’ve always told myself I’m okay experimenting but the only TLD I’m all in on is .COM. So the first two answers wouldn’t really apply to me.

At the same time, I wouldn’t want to return the new gTLDs I registered so the only answer that would most closely describe me is that I have stopped buying. That being said, I haven’t stopped buying but it’s pretty close to accurate since I never really bought big on new gTLDs and I do buy new gTLDs pretty darn rarely.

What the numbers do show though is that 71% of folks don’t seem to be incredibly bullish on the investor side and I think that’s probably pretty fair. I personally have seen end users doing some great things with new gTLDs but I haven’t heard of many investors that have made a killing yet.

If you haven’t voted yet I’d pop on over to https://twitter.com/DomainKing and cast your vote. Of course I’d also love to hear your thoughts below. Are new gTLDs going to be a good investment for Domainers long-term or will those who have spent big be out big bucks?

{ 8 comments… add one }

Snoopy March 6, 2017, 9:10 pm

Not sure what to make of it. The poll isn’t very scientific because it will not cover the bulk of people, should be an option “I do not invest in new tlds”. I suspect the people in that category may just choose one of the other options rather than saying “this poll isn’t aim at me” (those people hate new tlds and will want to choose option 3 or 4).

When new tlds came out I saw lots of different polls by different bloggers and it suggested about 1/3 of domainers were investing in new tlds.

If these new results are taken at face value this would be a huge (downward) shift for ntld’s but I think the poll need to be constructed better to know if there has been a big shift or not. Personally I think there has been a shift but I don’t know to what extent. I believe some people are giving up on these names and I think they outweigh the number of new people coming in.

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WQ March 6, 2017, 9:50 pm

The poll is 2 years late. Not the correct questions if asking today.
“I stopped buying” but that’s because there’s nothing to buy. Hasn’t been anything new come out for a long time now and there’s only a few in queue. In those, the best stuff is held back by registry.
Way too late to be all in now. The time to get in was when Donuts rolled out names. At least they left some of the top names available.

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John March 7, 2017, 2:30 am

I evaluate them first as an end user. Can I use them successfully? Am I dealing with a gem among the many grains of sand? The investor-sales aspect is secondary, though not absent.

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Mark March 7, 2017, 3:54 am

Rather than the lack of poll options the better question is what’s Rick’s sudden concern with new g’s to even create a poll like this?

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Bram March 7, 2017, 3:56 am

Good article.
“What the numbers do show though is that 71% of folks don’t seem to be incredibly bullish on the investor side and I think that’s probably pretty fair.”
Don’t you mean 81%?
10+43+28 = 81% (not 71%) 😉

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steve brady March 7, 2017, 5:57 am

Great question. Mr. Schwartz is pounding on domain owners who may be low on cash or unaware of the value of their names to drop them so he can add them to his collection. After asking on Twitter last week “Are you a domain investor or flipper?”, he went on to add he was not only an investor but a collector, and that’s what this is all about.

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Robert March 7, 2017, 7:47 am

Thanks for the update. Rick has waited for the 3 year window to expire on the outcome of the new gtlds. Now he is pounding the table with force.

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James Stevens March 8, 2017, 11:08 am

Domain investors, like registrars, (rightly) do not see it as their responsibility to create the market demand for the new TLDs. That is the responsibility of the TLD owner.

When I was CTO at a ccTLD we had the same issue – registrars were reluctant to carry the zone until we had created the market demand, and they could expect to see sales come out of it. Once we had the registrars onboard, the domain investors started taking an interest.

Therefore, faced with a general lack of demand, it is hardly surprising that speculators are slow to get involved. The same would be true of any commodity.

But that’s not the same as saying that new gTLDs do not have a future. Personally I like the way many can be used to create natural language phrases – like gifts.for.men / bmw.for.sale etc – a USP that separates many of them from most of the old TLDs.

My personal opinion on Rick is you’d expect anybody heavily invested in dotCOM to try and ensure it retains its market position. But its a position held out of history which took less than five years to build – it has no special value in itself, except the fact that, as with any market, it’s always hard to unseat an incumbent.

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