Colin Campbell from .Club is a brave man, he has decided to leave the luxury box and get down into the mosh pit. Mr. Campbell joined Namepros and got right into it in the “Official I Hate Gtlds Thread”
His first post:
I just joined Namepros. Although, I have been in the industry for years I focused more on the Hosting infrastructure side. Hopefully I can provide some counter arguments as to why the gTLDs should at least not be ignored.
I believe that .com will rule along with the cctlds. Lets just agree up front that there is no comparison. Smartphone.com is going to be worth a lot more than smartphone.club or smartphone.guru at least in our lifetime. That being said, smartphone.com may cost 500,000 while smartphone.guru might go for a few thousand dollars. Is there a business around either of these names (which I think is the true test). I actually think you could build a business around any of these names. Fundamentally, when the .COM is not available or to expensive to acquire, the next best alternative will be a new gTLD that has meaning that can work with the concept one is trying to launch.
Colin Campbell
CEO, .CLUB.
He also went into the speculation that his sister registered a number of .Club domains.
I have had a few people ask me if Nicole Campbell is related to me after ntdstats reported her registration numbers of 2400 a few days ago. Given the current environment, and in the spirit of openness at .CLUB, I thought it best to provide some clarity. My sister indicated to me that she had registered a number of new gTLD registrations with the majority being .CLUB domain names. I was not aware until ntldstats reported it a few days ago how many new gTLD registrations she did register and I do not know the breakdown between .CLUB and other tld investments. The fact is, I do not have any ownership in her domain company and nor does she have any ownership in .CLUB. All of her registrations were made openly (with no hidden agenda) and with no privacy or proxy. She received no special treatment acquiring her names through normal channels.
I appreciate the support of her and other domain investors who believe in the .CLUB vision. She has told me she is excited about .CLUB and a few other TLDs and plans to continue to invest in the new gTLDs as they come market.
I give Mr. Campbell credit because it can be a time consuming process posting on forums, especially in a forum thread where the title tells you people don’t much like your product.
If you want to market to domainers and get them to buy your product, you should in my opinion give them some face time. I don’t expect many registry owners will follow the path Mr. Campbell has chosen, but kudos to him for trying.
He is a brave man I did not know his sister regged all those domains.
I think it’s good for the Registry to engage in a good debate.
But I disagree that the act of doing so is a cause for celebration. We are all busy doing something, but we take time to read, and participate in blogosphere.
There’s no higher-lower class relationship created between Registry-Registrant. I don’t you meant to imply that. But, it’s implied.
We can celebrate what the Registry Operator says, if it’s a Cause célèbre, not the mere fact that they took out time to do so. IMHO
I often agree with you, Hackney, this time I agree in part, and disagree in part.
In no means am I saying celebrate, but it will be the odd occurrence in my opinion Domenclature. If it was common place for these registry operators to participate then there would be no blog post, but I think Colin will be an outlier here and it was nice to see him explain the registrations by his Sister and be transparent.
Thanks for the comment.
We’ve all dealt with the same issues .. family friends and co-workers who go out and register names by hand during General Availability or shortly thereafter. They have a glass of wine and actually conjure up some good ones. Then the next day a well intentioned but misguided blogger or forum troll comments that there must have been something underhanded at play. I have been saying all along that there is so much opportunity out there.. I blathered so much that people started to kick me me around about it, then I gave up and went back to running my business.
The biggest domainers today used to be normal people like those of you with an interest in domain names but nothing good in their bag. Those early domainers (like me) rolled up their sleeves and applied themselves and turned their dreams into a dream life. I still recall people laughing at me in domain name forums for registering type in names like freemaps.com and caloriecounter.com — You will need a lot more good names in new extensions today to equal a portfolio of good .com’s but in future some of these single word new-names will rise faster in value than word/word.com’s. Those good names are out there, and more great spaces are coming. There will be reserved names to be sure but there will be lots of good ones for reg-price too. The domain registrants, the miners who roll up their sleeves and get some good ones will be the folks who are revered tomorrow and who show up on Ron Jackson’s grandchildren’s DNjournal sales reports of the future.
Only a fool would entirely turn their back on the lifetime opportunity of 2014/2015
“Only a fool would entirely turn their back on the lifetime opportunity of 2014/2015”
What are we talking about? Gold, Bitcoin2, a new startup?
It’s interesting but I don’t know what that has to do with gTLDs.