As some of you remember, I tried a little experiment back when Dot Berlin offered 100 free domains. I did a bit of research, found out what the most widely used letters in Germany are and hand registered 100 LLL Dot Berlin domains. Next, I pointed them to a very simple “domain for sale” page with a message in English and one in German (my German is a bit rusty but decent nonetheless) and waited until renewal time came along. On each “domain for sale” page, I displayed a very low Buy It Now price: 295 EUR.

Here we are, one year later and it’s time for some conclusions.

The result: I’ll be dropping all of them 🙂

To be fair, I did receive one offer, 100 EUR for TTD.Berlin if I recall correctly.

Tried negotiating with the person in question but to no avail.

This tends to re-confirm what I’ve been saying about new gTLDs all along: yes, there may very well be a “pulse” (I did indeed receive one offer, which is better than nothing) but if you don’t own the best of the best domains, selling to end users will be an uphill battle to say the least.

Perhaps with LL Dot Berlin domains (two letters) instead of LLLs, the results would have been different. The bottom line is that if you aren’t able to secure the very best new gTLD domains, selling to end users or other domainers is easier said than done. In light of the fact that the best new gTLDs either come with premium prices or are reserved, the value proposition for domainers is just not there.