When it comes down to brand protection, there are plenty of reasons to go for the .com.
It’s the oldest, most established TLD, with the largest user base. It’s part of the “online” culture since at least 1994, and it’s easy to pronounce in most languages, including the Asian, Middle-Eastern and African dialects.
Now that we got that out of the way, dot .com is not the only way to build, promote and establish a brand.
There are plenty of alternatives, including secondary TLDs such as .net, .org, .info and .biz, along with more than two hundred ccTLDs; the options will expand later this year, as we are switching to an era of TLD-agnostic brands with the introduction of gTLDs.
Eventually, even if this sounds like science fiction, the online experience and communication will most likely shift to a system that encompasses haptic, audiovisual and holographic technologies, where our destination on the Internet will be reachable without having to specify a particular URL.
But let’s focus on now, as it unfolds in 2014 – a pivotal year in how the Internet name space expands: this is the beginning of an era, so those who anticipate results in a quarter or two might be disappointed.
This isn’t an 100m race, it’s a marathon; the change in how companies interact with their brands and their customers is a long term investment that involves lots of strategic research.
This isn’t a leap of faith, and it’s not for everyone – definitely not for those that anticipate life and business to be a series of predictable events.
Brands drive consumerism, which drives consumption, that fuels innovation. This year we have the chance to both witness and participate in the largest shift of Internet technology since – well – ever.
Ride the wave, or risk relinquishing its rewards.
.Com dominates the registration base today so I believe one should not expect things to change overnight. There will be massive marketing in the domain space in the next year which should raise awareness of other TLDs. That doesn’t mean winning an auction for keyword.whatever and paying $50/year renewals on a portfolio of such new GTLD domains will guarantee a favorable return. My hope is that the increased awareness will renew interest in .Net and .TV domains which at least have limited acceptance in select markets. It seems to me the registrars are going to be the winners and aren’t going to hand out their best keyword domains for $10. But it will be interesting to observe.
American Airlines (AA.com), British Airways (BA.com), TD Bank (TD.com), Japan Tobacco (JT.com), … and all other two-letter dot-com holders have no headache about New gTLD, as all two-characters name are blocked by ICANN. Not just huge savings on defensive registration and related legal fees, but also no confusion for their clients.
Leonard – That’s a good strategy and a smart way to approach things, particularly when such change won’t occur overnight. Investments in the ‘domainer’ sense will have to be very specific, in a way that differs from the usual approach.
Mike – I agree, however these are shortcuts to full URLs – some redirects, even – and not the brands themselves. They still have to consider their full brand name in whatever industry gTLD applies. Makes sense?
@Acro – American Airlines always advertises AA.com, I have never seen anything else. Same for most of others… And for those that use redirects (like FB.com), it is probably right time to start use such valuable names as their main identity.
Mike – The brand and company is American Airlines, not AA.com. BA.com is British Airways, etc. It would make no difference if they were on .org or .bank – brands are independent and thus TLD-agnostic entities.
@Acro – BA is British Airways, Bank of America has only BofA.com shortcut. Anyway, I got you point. Some companies own huge portfolio of domain names. Check Johnson&Johnson – they probably have the most of them, besides of some domainers. It would be a waste of monay to register those names with other TLDs.
Mike – Yeah, I edited my comment to correct that. 🙂 Shows how easy it is to confuse an acronym, even as short as 2 letters. I think that those companies that operate under two-letter .com domains don’t have a particular advantage in how they will work with their brands. A lot of companies use generics for products but also long tail domains for particular events etc.
User experience can be best controlled under a single umbrella, and that’s what those closed gTLD applicants such as BMW intend to do by owning their own gTLD.
@Acro – Well, sometimes even my wife confuse me… I don’t agree with you on this one. I strongly believe two-letter brands have a huge advantage. Your .bmw example works for short names. I cannot imagine to use .americanairlines or .britishairways TLDs. Short dot-com is the only winner. And I as wrote about, some companies (like Johnson&Johnson) own large domain portfolios that is impossible to apply for other TLDs, with any reasonable budget, nor any sense. Different people have different opinions, so we don’t have to agree on everything…