Letter to Rod Beckstrom, ICANN CEO
Dear Rod,
A long-running assertion says that there is no demand for new TLDs, and those who propagate this canard say that ICANN has to prove demand before the application period for new TLDs can begin. Although it is impossible to prove or disprove something that hasn’t happened yet, we think there is demonstrable demand, and what follows is the evidence we have gathered. We hope you find it useful.
First, we have some excellent evidence of strong demand from Facebook, the social media behemoth with over 200 million users. Recently, Facebook announced to its members the availability of “vanity URLs,” whereby registered Facebook users could (and still can) choose a name such that their Facebook page would have a URL similar to http://www.facebook.com/vanityurl, where “vanityurl” was the name they chose. So far, according to Facebook, 73 million users have chosen new names in a little over a month. We believe that this “Facebook landrush” is highly analogous to registering a new domain name in a popular new TLD. In just over a month, Facebook has registered nearly as many new names as .COM has done in all of its existence.
Second, a large number of prospective TLDs have announced their intention to apply, in spite of the high application fee and the lack of a fixed date for the application window, both of which have the effect of discouraging applicants. The diversity of names, business models, and backers of these publicly-declared applications is quite astonishing. In a horrible economic climate, each of these groups is either putting up the money themselves, or has convinced someone else to do so — this in itself is extremely good evidence of strong demand. Furthermore, in the case of city and regional top-level domains, they have convinced local governments that there is demand — governments whose elected leadership is always wary of committing to any project that might embarrass them or show them as gullible or incompetent. This is even stronger evidence of demand.
We list these publicly-announced new TLD efforts below. Keep in mind that for every TLD application that has been announced, many more remain in “stealth mode” for various reasons. As a registry services provider, we see many prospective applicants. Based on our data, for every announced TLD there are 5 which remain hidden. We suspect that there are quite a few more applications-in-waiting of which we have no knowledge.
The number and variety of these applications are excellent evidence of future demand. Combined with the astonishing numbers from Facebook and the economic studies that ICANN has commissioned, we believe that demand is very strong. At this point, the onus is on those who say that there is no demand — let them prove that.
With best regards and best wishes for your success as ICANN CEO,
Antony Van Couvering
CEO, Minds + Machines.
7 comments
Hello Antony,
If the Facebook vanity URL demand is truly indicitive of demand for new gTLDs, why is it not evident in existing gTLDs? I don’t think there is a direct correlation. And the number of applicants has nothing to do with registrant demand, which is what I think the real question should be. In discussions I have had with various potential applicants, very few have actually done any real market research or evaluation of potential demand.
You will also no doubt remember the projections made by the applicants in the two previous rounds of new gTLDs and how far off they were from reality.
Tim
Thank you Antony for setting up this website, supporting new TLDs.
I personally am working on 2 important initiatives. One is the .music domain name extension (www.music.us) and the other is the .cyprus IDN for the country of Cyprus in Greek. I find both initiatives important and critical to its stakeholders – that is the global music community as well as the global Greek-speaking community. We have been waiting for a Greek-based internet for a while now that is for sure.
I do agree with Antony’s points. I would also like to add that there are no guarantees of success. Each business plan, resources and executives are not created equal. However, success is quite subjective. Isn’t the success of launching new TLD fulfilling the untapped needs of niche communities who are asking for their own identities on the web?
There will never be another .com. That is obvious. The big “commercial” domain will have to accept that the future holds new players and the social phenomenon of transparency is in full swing. We see a transformation in the newspaper and media industry, the music industry, the movie industry and a plethora of others. The long tail effect is a reality and important to niche crowds and the web community. The demand is there. Unless there is someone out there to prove that Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” does not hold on the web.
The web community certainly wants to see transparency in the ICANN selection process. I do understand a lot of community applicants choose to be in “stealth mode” but how on earth do they expect to get feedback for their application if they are in hiding? Minus points for me in that regards.
I have been reading about the two .eco applicants, their plans and their controversy. I must say I congratulate both for being transparent about their .eco plan and how they will use the TLD. I am sure the feedback they received over the added exposure is quite valuable. Glad to see there is open competition. This is what people what to see. “Stealth modes” go against the whole notion of the internet, social community and stakeholder feedback in my personal opinion.
I have been traveling around the globe now for .music these last few years pushing the new TLD and have been quite vocal about what I think is important to the global music community and also fighting piracy. Music, like many other industries, has many interests groups, each with different goals. In addition to the interest groups there are musicians, arguably the most active group on the web. I have received thousands of emails over the last few years and the common consensus is that .music should not be just a domain name. It is about creating a community, helping that community with their needs of exposure on the web, as well as creating a marketplace platform that would also connect them with other members of the community. It is also about fighting piracy and tackling burning issues in the music industry.
The Music.us platform is a 4-year in development innovative ecosystem that tackles all these critical issues. We are ready to go with .music. Just waiting for the green light from ICANN. The most common question I get is the following: “When is .music launching?”
Over 800,000 have signed our global .music petition at http://www.music.us. We also have a very active following on Twitter. We run over 10 music related twitter accounts covering different demographics (over 130,000 followers in total). I also was selected to present .music and my business plan at Harvard Business School last May. Again the big question is when is .music launching? I have invested years of my time and a significant investment in .music and backend technology and I am sure other applicants are saying the same thing. I have also been praising ICANN for their new TLD initiaitives. I think the serious applicants who are out there spreading the word about ICANN and the new TLDs are ready to go.
The only way to figure out the holes in every system is get it out there. The marketplace will react and the appropriate changes will be made. I think the guidebook is as good as it is gonna get. I think what is missing in the guidebook is some common sense. I see the point system of the selection process and it amuses me to see that “demand/market support” is such a small component of the application.
So I will end where Van Couvering began. I support new TLDs and so do many significantly large communities.
Good luck to Rod Beckstrom as the new CEO of ICANN. I hope he will introduce some of his starfish ideas into ICANN.
New TLDs are what he refers to as the “new world”, bringing to the surface the power of chaos, creativity and looking into the future.
“In the digital world, decentralization will continue to change the face of industry and society. Fighting these forces of change is at best futile and at worst counterproductive” – Rod Beckstrom (Starfish & Spider)
Regards,
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
The LGTB community around the world is in desperate need of funding to help fight for its civil rights. The battles are all uphill. For years the LGBT world in the developed world has had to scrounge for every penny. The legal and political issues are as wide as marriage equality in the US, to getting the most repressive countries to remove the death penalty for homosexual acts–seven countries in the world currently have such Draconian laws on the books. This is one reason the Dot Gay Alliance’s initiative to launch .GAY includes a 51% giveback of all profits to LGBT organizations fighting for civil rights. We think this is an excellent reason to launch a new TLD and an excellent way of raising money to fight for the rights that all human beings deserve.
Respectfully,
Joe Dolce
Thanks Constantine and Joe for the encouragement and the thoughts. As you have probably noticed, the listings are completely neutral, with descriptions taken, if possible, from the websites of the efforts listed.
I also have high hopes for Beckstrom; I’m reading his book now and I think he understands the value of innovation in this area.
Tim, I think the reason you haven’t seen high demand in other extensions is because they are meaningless. Why get a .net when it’s just second-class .com? My point is that .FACEBOOK would not just be another .com — and neither would many of the efforts listed here. I think it’s time we stopped thinking we have to cram all of our ideas and branding into a namespace that has no meaning and is increasingly expensive.
Regarding Facebook, there is now a secondary market in vanity facebook (and twitter URLs). Some of them have listed prices in the 6 figures. Clearly users want
http://www.facebook.com/myname
so much so that 70 million of them claimed their names within 30 days. Many more would want the shorter, more clear address
http://www.myname.facebook
if only it was offered. Hopefully, it will, soon.
The numbers here are simply too big too ignore. 1.3 Billion Chinese would like .china (in chinese characters). 275 Million Arabs would benefit from .arab. The Sierra Club (Membership > 1MM) is heavily in favor of .ECO. The City of New York (20MM) is offically in favor of .NYC.
I’m not sure what more “indications of demand” are needed. No, not everybody is in favor of new TLDs. It will definitely increase the cost of brand protection for some very large multinational brands. But these companies can easily afford it. The registrants, and the internet community as a whole will benefit – tremendously.
@Tim -Probably a good opportunity to make the distinction.
I recognize that they may have had lower numbers if they charged for them, even at just above cost.
Another thing that would diminish the numbers might have been to have say had 5 pages of products and services upsale as part of the signup or ‘titillating’ advertising that might have offended much of the straight female demographic.
I recall a time less than a decade ago when the dominant internet registrar that you work for did not exist or was just starting and was not a major player. Through savvy marketing that embraced the internet, this new company not only grew but bounded past the competition. It is a company that ‘gets it’
There are companies that don’t get it and see the internet as a threat to their brand that they constantly have to react to. I am starting to see this as ‘old guard’ companies. ‘Old Guard’ companies exhibit fear based responses to change.
New Guard companies who are embracing the internet like GoDaddy or Facebook thrive. This is an important point that needs to be highlighted.
The point of the 73MM is to say, here is an example of demand. There are a number of self interested ‘Old Guard’ parties that benefit from status quo who are trying to delay or halt new TLD progress by saying that there is no need for new TLDs and to illustrate a demand for them.
Facebook is a new, growing company that is at the forefront of internet use and is thriving in the era of social media and microblogging. They’re doing things right and as their custom names launch illustrated, a TLD could work quite well for them.
The point of Facebook’s 73MM custom names and its mention is that it is a hard number to ignore. It clearly illustrated that 73MM people wanted something that didn’t exist.
To be clear, the existing user base for Facebook’s community is actually much higher, they had 200MM users on line when they offered the custom names.
The Facebook service is free, and custom names are given away, these names were enhancements to an existing, frequently-used service and user base, and represented an improvement over the prior URL format.
So folks who signed up already had a “hosting package” and just needed a ‘custom name’ (domain) to make it more human readable and accessible, so there was a practical aspect to this.
The key here is not to set people who want to operate a registry into drooling over 73MM customers, but rather to illustrate that examples of demand for new TLDs.
I would not tell a potential applicant to expect 73MM registrations like was seen in Facebook, but I might suggest to a potential applicant who has an existing client base that in a scenario where 73/200 of their existing users rapidly adopted.
Leave a Comment