Could .XYZ End .COM’s Dominance? Wired Seems To Think It Could

xyz-vs-dotcom

Things are heating up in the new gTLD space, so much so that I think it’s pretty safe to say this is what Malcolm Gladwell would call the tipping point. It happened fast and it’s finally opening consumers eyes to the fact that they can venture beyond .COM.

Over the past two years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has slowly released new gTLDs. Though the Internet can seem infinite, Internet real estate is not and most of the “good dot coms” are taken, leaving people struggling to create sites with simple, easy-to-find addresses. (Source – Wired)

One of the most amazing things about this sudden turn of events is that it happened the same month that Paul Graham wrote a blog post about the importance of building your brand on a .COM.

If you have a US startup called X and you don’t have x.com, you should probably change your name. (Source – http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html)

As a startup founder and Domain Name investor I’m stuck in the middle. I’ve already stated my official stance on new gTLDs and I’m sticking to it. What I do think has happened this week is something that you cannot ignore whether you’re a startup founder or a domain name investor.

This is the week that the world woke-up to the fact that all these other domain name extensions are there and that maybe, just maybe, you can build your brand without owning the .COM. It’s still early, but if this week is a sign of what’s to come, the domain world isn’t changing, it has already changed.

What do you think? Is this just a blip in the radar or could this really be a tipping point for new gTLDs? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton