I wrote a post over the weekend about .IO domains and how one domain name broker said that it had become the new .COM for tech startups. While I don’t agree with that…I do think that .IO has become a very clearly accepted alternative to .COM. You can read more about my thoughts in my post from Saturday.
Today I wanted to talk about a comment that someone made on my blog that I thought was interesting:
{ 13 comments… add one }
October 2, 2017, 8:09 pm
I am putting more than food on the table selling .IO domains, I am putting a roof over my head too. So……… people can believe what they wish. Reality is a whole other topic. 😉
October 2, 2017, 9:18 pm
I get lot of .io owners want to buy .com. They get start w .io and then realize that their potential clients view them as a semipro company because they use .io
October 2, 2017, 9:39 pm
Agree with 100%.
Anybody who has ever used GitHub in any way is comfortable with .io
For SaaS or any other service or product marketed to that customer, .io is a perfect and legitimate alternative to .com
October 2, 2017, 10:43 pm
How many .io do you own? 😉
October 3, 2017, 5:12 am
Interesting post.
We always know that the COM extension is the best, but the extensions trends have changed and changed over the years, .co, .me, was at the time a claim and many domainers have large portfolios of domain names. CO.
It is true that the domain names that I see in auctions in Flippa with the extension IO have a technological basis.
Reading the end of your post I see that Startups that have the extension .IO have more success in getting a venture capital of many millions of USD if all the startups were similar in other Western countries as they are in US. it would be phenomenal.
Although in truth a Globo brand and company receive more than € 25 million from Rakuten the Japanese giant ecommerce, Glovo from its inception in 2014 are already getting € 45 Million.
I am not of these due to having problems with the legal notices and privacy policies and cookies for Spain and Catalonia I had to do this https://josesabater/wordpress.com that I launch tomorrow so that the interested buyers can see the list of domain names COM, and XYZ etc. , when you have sold the first premium domain to register me in a hosting.
Thank you
October 3, 2017, 5:57 am
If you think raising funds equates mainstream adoption (or even any sort of success other than raising funds), think again. I don’t know of a single .IO brand that was adopted by mainstream users yet. NONE that I can remember of top of my head and I live and breathe the internet 24/7. Can you run a company on .IO? Sure. Twitch has done it on .TV, many on .CO, or even .Me. But mainstream adoption is a totally different story. Mainstream is your neighbors, it’s that guy live in a village in France, or the girl that lives in a London suburb who uses the internet 20 times a month, and not so often.
October 3, 2017, 6:01 am
I should mention, the quote you put isn’t about ‘end users’ as in buyers, it’s about actual users, mainstream users. The person you quoted said
“End-users will and do not trust .io websites and will not submit personal information on them.”
Just fyi.
October 3, 2017, 6:29 am
Domain investors have every right to deny reality, if they want to 🙂
And you forgot to mention that filecoin.io recently raised $200 Million In 60 Minutes with their ICO:
https://www.coindesk.com/200-million-60-minutes-filecoin-ico-rockets-record-amid-tech-issues/
October 3, 2017, 7:11 pm
.io domain name flipping days are numbered, that’s reality.
October 3, 2017, 8:12 pm
Everything is “numbered” if you really want to think of it that way. But this sky is falling on .IO carbon-copy negative comment can be found for the past several years on many many blogs, yet………. it keeps on going! 🙂
October 3, 2017, 12:33 pm
Anonymous commentator = Mark Thorpe @ NameSelling.com, like the comment said.
I also stand by what I said.
I don’t hear you complaining about Andrew Rosener’s comment criticising .io.
Ask Mike Mann what he thinks of .io.
October 3, 2017, 4:58 pm
I second Mike Carson’s reply.
October 4, 2017, 3:40 pm
I personally believe, so far there’s was not a single TLD that came close to .com.
That could be because dot com requires hard work …
Next post: A few thoughts on hiring and why books can only help you so much
Previous post: Is .IO the new .COM for tech startups?
First, I think it’s pretty ridiculous to think that are people out there trying to convince startups not to buy .COM and go with .IO instead. Come on…do you really think that’s what’s happening anonymous commentator?
The reality is that a lot of startups would love the .COM but when it’s more expensive than what they can afford, they go with something different, and .IO has become one of, if not the, top alternatives.
As for saying that end-users will never accept .IO…I think that’s pretty ridiculous considering that companies like Keen.io have raised close to $30M and continue to brand and build a nice high-growth startup on a .IO name.
Apiary.io raised over $14M while sticking with a .IO domain and ended up getting acquired by Oracle, Import.io has raised over $22M in funding, and the list goes on. I think it’s safe to say that end-users have no problems accepting or trusting .IO websites, and they definitely don’t have any problem submitting personal information on them.
I think the reality is that for some reason there are domain name investors out there that see the success of anything except .COM as a threat. Instead I think it’s fair to say, yes .COM is king and will likely always be king, it will command the highest prices and have the most advantages associated with it.
That being said, it doesn’t mean that if you don’t build your company on .COM you’ll never be successful. It’s time to think bigger, and yes, some day, for some companies that brand on a non .COM, moving to the .COM will make a big difference. Still, it’s 2017 folks and it’s time to realize that there are businesses raises tens of millions of dollars building on non .COM domains and they’re doing just fine.