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As mobile usage of the Internet continues to increase (cf. Mobile apps overtake PC Internet usage in U.S.), I’m anticipating that new gTLDs will provide a better link (pun intended) from an ad to the web, from the offline to the online, when people see a meaningful domain name that they can remember to lookup on the go via their smartphone’s mobile web.
The mobile web is great for that instant real-time response to an ad’s call to action. The mobile web is also great for immediate response to looking up current information literally at your fingertips.
That happened to me today. While I’m enjoy a slow summer weekend away from home, I thought of getting a domain name with a new gTLD. Knowing that domain names are a first-come first-serve proposition, timing is of the essence. I had to check for a domain name’s availability as soon as possible and not wait until the next time I’m at the office.
I went on the mobile web using my Android phone’s Chrome browser. I typed in URLs to registrars with new gTLDs that I knew of. And to my surprise, most of them did not yet have a mobile-friendly experience, including: GoDaddy.com, Name.com, Web.com, UnitedDomains.com, 1and1.com, Enom.com. (Though some of these registrars did have a mobile-friendly UX, my domain searches for new gTLD were unrecognized.)
I finally found one that did have a mobile UX for new gTLDs, and that was namecheap.com. Are there others you know of? I’d love to know - please add a comment.
I sure hope the mobile experience for registering new gTLDs will be improved by more registrars soon, as the dot-brands and non-industry people become aware of the wonderful opportunity that is upon us with the 100s of new gTLDs already available and the many 100s more to come.
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What do you think is the reason?
The total volume of registrations in all of the new TLDs probably isn’t as much as a million. (I discount .XYZ since most of its registrations are unpaid fakes.) That’s just not a big enough market to be worth a lot of investment in the relatively tricky programming to create a good mobile web site. I added support for new gTLDs to my normal web site, and the total number of registrations other than a few I did for myself is zero.
If you think this is such a great opportunity, get a reseller agreement with a registrar like Tucows that lets you create your own custom site that talks to their API, and clean up.
Even discounting .xyz, there are still over 1.2 million registrations.
John, your argument, if correct, suggests that registries, including the big guns, were not expecting gTLDs to be a great success.
I believe you, but that’s still considerably smaller than one medium sized existing domain like .US. They’re not worth a lot of effort compared to the domains people actually use.
Hey all, I did find another new gTLD registrar with a mobile-friendly site -> hover.com
@Alex, from a user/consumer point of view, I have found few (if any) new gTLD domain registration experience to be easy, on screens of any size, and that’s no fault of the registrars, let me say right up front. I can’t think of any shopping experience for one type of item with a 100 choices, much less than the anticipated 1000+ choices, that has been made simple to do online or offline. There’s something to having just 3 choices that helps the masses to decide, be it small, medium, or large, tall, grande, venti.
The only example that comes to mind is how Google has organized the whole internet, or a best attempt at it, by presenting one focused text window to find what a user via a search keyword or phrase, and it keeps getting smarter all the time. Perhaps that’s the kind of disruption an innovative registrar could pull off. Oh, Google is getting into the domain registrar business.. watch out.
@John, thanks for your comments, and they’re true for the current reality. The opportunity with new gTLDs are yet to be made, but it is upon us as new ones are launched every week. The numbers will continue to increase—both the number of new gTLD registrations and registrars selling them, for the desktop and for the mobile web.