Domaining Around the World

I just returned from a vacation in Europe – this explains my lack of posts for most of August. Thanks to my die-hard readers for emailing me to make sure I was still alive!

As the owner of a domain name investment firm I am always interested in how domain names are used throughout the world. In my previous post I discussed .NL – much to my surprise I found a number of English words ending with .NL. I’ve heard a number of domainers say that most ccTLD’s are good only if they are in the native language – this was not my experience.

On this trip I visited Amsterdam, Paris and Prague. One of my first observations traveling through Europe was this – everyone has iPhones. The iPhone launched very very recently in Europe and already it is quite obvious that the trend has caught-on. As a domainer my first thought it – look-out .mobi! If worldwide people are becomming comfortable browswer the Internet from their phone, doesn’t .mobi make a lot less sense?

One thing is clear – there are no billboards (that I have seen) advertising anything .mobi. In each country there are a smattering of .nl, .fr, .cz, etc. and of course plenty of .com ads – but no .mobi. As an early investor in .mobi this makes me a little concerned. I’ve read a number of blogs lately touting .mobi as the sleeper TLD of 2008 – I’m not so sure.

One thing that is clear to me is that ccTLD’s are strong and growing every day. The question every investor needs to ask themselves, whether a domain investor, stock investor, forex investor, etc. is – "am I well diversified."

We’ve all heard over and over again, "don’t put all your eggs in one basket" but at the same time it is hard to not get excited about some TLD’s. I know I jumped-in on .mobi and .asia early-on and don’t regret it for a minute. That being said – I am glad that I have domains with many other TLD’s as well.

As more and more of the world embraces the Internet it is clear that each country will have a strong saturation of their own ccTLD’s. As a domain investor you need to ask yourself which emerging markets you think will have the greatest potential during your time window.

Some domainers are looking to make a quick buck and will focus on already popular TLD’s – but it takes some vision, patience, and of course persistance to pick one of the next popular TLD’s of tomorrow. After my trip I had one major epiphany – we are in the beginning, the very beginning of something great – don’t be afraid to experiment a bit, you might just find that a few years down the road you’ve stumbled across a hidden goldmine. For those new to this industry, there is one thing you can be sure of – you are not too late – in fact, I think you’re still early!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton