• Home
  • About
  • Privacy Policy/Disclosures
  • Advertise
  • Contact

TLD Investors

Domain Investing Stats and Tips

What TechCrunch has taught me about the future of domains

October 18, 2018 by Kassey Lee

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

I read TechCrunch almost everyday. It’s a real pleasure to enjoy, but it also gives me a glimpse into the future of domains.

TechCrunch is an online tech magazine. It features leading internet startups which may one day become household brands globally. Because these startups are also the new leaders in the corporate world, they will also set the trend in domains. Therefore, when I read TechCrunch, I often check the domains used by these companies. I also check the countries where they are located, which gives me a global view on domain preference.

I particularly like to study lists of startups in reported events. For example, TechCrunch published on September 20 a list of startups in the latest class organized by Alchemist Accelerator, a premiere enterprise accelerator in Silicon Valley. Below are the 20 startups in the list and their domains. I found 11 or 55% of the startups use .com, followed by .io (6) and then .bio, .care, and .app.

21Squared (21Squared.com), Videoflow (Videoflow.io), Redbird Health Tech (RedbirdHT.com), Shuttle (Shuttle.io), Birdnest (TheBirdnest.io), Tag.bio (Tag.bio), nCorium (nCorium.com), Spiio (Spiio.com), Element42 (Element42.io), My90 (TextMy90.com), Nunetz (Nunetz.io), When Labs (WhenLabs.com), FirstCut (FirstCut.io), LynxCare (Lynx.care), Adian (GoAdian.com), Hardin Scientific (HardinScientific.com), ZaiNar (ZaiNarTech.com), SMART Brain Aging (BrainUOnline.com), Phoneic (Productive.app), Arkose Labs (ArkoseLabs.com)

Based on my daily reading of TechCrunch and the reported startups, here is what I feel may be the future of domains.

  1. .com will remain King.
  2. Companies may start with an extension such as .io but will upgrade to .com when they can afford.
  3. Brand matching is preferred.
  4. Domains composed of simple English words are preferred.

So, when you start a new business, try to create your corporate brand based on simple English words, then at the same time acquire the brand matching .com domain. A good example is Jack Ma of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. He created the brand “Alibaba” and acquired its brand matching Alibaba.com domain at the same time.

—–

Join me on LinkedIn for further discussion.

Originally published on Coreile.com

Related Content

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Coreile, Domain trends, Domaining 101

About Kassey Lee

Kassey Lee is the publisher of Grandseeds.com, a Chinese domain market newsletter containing daily blog, news, and Q&A.

Comments

  1. Robert says

    October 18, 2018 at 10:25 am

    Interesting Kassey, surprised not to see .co in that list. Seems like half the companies on “This Week in Startups” are using a .co extension.

    • Kassey Lee says

      October 18, 2018 at 5:40 pm

      Actually .ai may be overtaking .io as the most preferred extension for startups. But, they are just fad. Remember the love for .ly? Or the story of Art.sy? .co was the talk of town when it was repositioned from the country extension of Columbia.

      • Snoopy says

        October 19, 2018 at 12:12 am

        Back 15 years ago it was .ws, .cc and .tv. These are trends names. Startups see them a cheap alternatives to .com which are cool but they are time limited, in 10 years they will look “very 2018” and people looking for alt tlds for startups will have moved onto something else. I think .co is starting to date from that respect.

        • Kassey Lee says

          October 19, 2018 at 5:11 pm

          Thanks Snoopy. It just shows that you started much earlier than I did.

  2. Snoopy says

    October 18, 2018 at 4:54 pm

    Some clearly have no idea what the are doing to choose and pretty average keyword combination then register it in .io.

    Element42.io for example. Even then it redirects to a .in so so who knows what they are using. Companies like this will not stay in business, they are likely making dozens of other business mistakes.

  3. Leanza says

    October 18, 2018 at 7:43 pm

    Hi Kassey, where do you find the list of companies name and their domains?

    • Kassey Lee says

      October 19, 2018 at 5:10 pm

      Techcrunch, Crunbase, and Google/Baidu

      • Kassey Lee says

        October 20, 2018 at 5:05 am

        Should be Crunchbase.

  4. WRM says

    October 24, 2018 at 1:39 am

    One thing I noticed about all the domains on the list is the fact that they’re all short TLD’s. If I have a longer domain name would it make sense to try to shorten it using an alternative TLD as opposed to a longer .com domain?

    • Kassey Lee says

      October 24, 2018 at 5:59 pm

      Domain upgrade using acronym on .com is the best way if you want to be a global brand.

Recent Posts

  • Seller of Masks.com drops asking price
  • Dynadot wins the Namepros end of the year favorite registrar poll
  • Wales.com worth £3,000,000?

Recent Comments

  • stub on I know it’s only expired domains but I like it
  • Igor Gabrielan on Seller of Masks.com drops asking price
  • JB on Dynadot wins the Namepros end of the year favorite registrar poll

Categories

Monthly Archives

domain name news

© 2021 TLD Investors · All Rights Reserved

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.