Coffee.club sold for $100,000!

New domains are doing really well. Here are a few facts and figures to prove that launching new domain extensions was a very good idea indeed!

When ICANN announced its decision to launch the new domain extensions, many observers reacted with contempt. After all, .mobi or .tel had never succeeded in attracting Internet users, so why would this avalanche of new domain extensions make a difference? But the facts showed that their suspicions were unfounded. So far, more than 3,100,000 domains have been registered in the new domain extensions. .xyz, the domain extension for the X, Y and Z generations, which at this point totals over 700,000 registered domains, is at the top of the ranking. It is followed by .berlin (over 150,000 registered domains) and .club (almost 130,000 registered domains).

Dolly Parton and 50 Cent

In the US, in order to raise awareness among the public at large of the new domain extensions, a few big showbiz stars have associated their name with various new gTLDs. Rapper 50 Cent, for instance, launched his new website on a .club domain (50inda.club) and honoured the launch party for the .club domain, which was held in May this year, with his presence. As for the busty country singer Dolly Parton, she associated her name with the .country extension, and registered dolly.country, 9to5.country, dollywood.country, and queenof.country. She belongs to the so-called “country pioneers”, who had the opportunity to choose .country domain names long before the public release, in exchange of the right to use their name in the marketing campaigns for these domains.

Coffee.club

The new domain extensions also seem to be fertile soil for new business ideas, and some businessmen are prepared to spend whatever it takes for a domain name that sounds pleasant with such an extension. Businessman Bill McClure e.g. paid $100,000 to the registry of the .club gTLD for the domain name coffee.club. McClure already owned coffee.org, but he found the domain name coffee.club more suitable for the development of his coffee subscription service.

Hot domains in view!

The domain extensions that already allow people to register domains, like .guru, .photography, .tips, .today, or .link, offer many attractive opportunities. But some heavy hitters, which will undoubtedly sell like hot cakes, have not been released yet. The adult entertainment industry is indeed where investors will spend huge amounts of money, and we will have to wait until March for the Sunrise period of the .porn and .adult domains to begin. And General Availability will then follow in early June 2015. One thing is certain: the hottest domains in this industry will definitely be hard to get hold of!