How will the Custom Extensions do next year when ICANN makes them available? Would they oust .com and lower its demand? How will .net and .org survive the absolute carnage caused by all the hype with “Buy Your Own Extension”? Do we need to boycott and vow to never trade in these extensions when they are released? These are the hot topics of discussion at NamePros and DnForum at the respective links.
With all the discussion going on @ the forums about the release of custom extensions by ICANN, I found a post @ FragerFactor, which describes what the future holds for the vanity extensions
A true early domainer story that David Kesmodel missed.
Once upon a time there was a man named Joe who wanted to be a player in the “biggest game on the Internet.”
He planed to build an Internet kingdom.
So he registered the following domains:
hahaaffiliate
hahaagent
hahaagents.com
hahaalaska.com
hahaamerica.com
hahaamerican.com
hahabr.com
hahabrazil.com
hahabs.com
hahabusiness.com
hahabz.com
hahaca.com
hahacab.com
hahacalifornia.com
hahacanada.com
hahaegypt.com
hahaelectric.com
hahaemail.com
hahaengineer.com
hahaengineering.com
hahaengland.com
hahaes.com
hahaetoys.com
hahaeverything.com
hahafamily.com
hahawinestore.com
hahawinner.com
hahawoman.com
hahaya.com
hahayahoo.comand literally hundreds of thousands like them.
His theory was that each domain has its own content, for example:
hahamap.com selects the top site from every major category.
hahaautos.com is a portal for used car.
hahaboard.com is a category indexed public message board.
hahafranchise.com is a site for franchise partners share their traffic.
hahaamerica.com is a site about this great country.
And so on….
But all domains were under hahainternet.com.
Type any of them in today and you’ll see where vanity domains will lead tomorrow.
Whether HAHA comes before or AFTER the dot, the joke will always be on you.
Come to think of it, whats the difference between all the forgotten ccTLD’s and the custom extensions? Too many extensions running around would only make the users run towards the .com.
As Frank correctly wrote on his blog some time back:
The failure of former would-be contenders such as .travel, .biz and .pro to satiate demand for coveted names, shows us that adding more skim milk to the mix will not stop the cream from rising, and that cream is .com.
holds true for the upcoming custom extensions as well.
There is storm brewing; only the strongest would survive this domaining rage, and the age of uncertainty. This year its going to be the mother of all speculations!!!

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