I just read a comment Mike Berkens posted (HERE it is), it’s about the fact that his .me adventure turned out well and that his .xxx adventure didn’t turn out all that great.

He said the following about the lesson he learned:

“without knowing the operator of the registry you can’t predict the success of the extension.”

I couldn’t agree more.

One of the most important things you should ask yourself about an extension is exactly that: which company is in charge of it?

You have to understand that there will be a *lot* of competition.

And I don’t mean a lot as in what we have today, ie dot biz vs dot info vs dot tv vs…, not by a long shot. What we have today is nothing compared to what we’ll witness after the new gTLDs will be released.

Every registration will count.

Every potential customer will count.

I’m sure lots of registry operators will make lots of money, just like I’m sure lots of them will go bankrupt.

Therefore, the registry operator will play a huge role.

Will they manage to successfully market their extension?

Will they manage to continuously maintain the momentum they’ve generated?

… you get the point.

If the company behind the extension doesn’t know how to “shout” to make its voice heard (and make no mistake, in the environment we’ll be seeing, you have to shout if you want to stand out), the gTLD in question will most likely fail.

I’m not just saying this because I own a domaining blog and am drooling over the extra ad revenue (not that it isn’t true, I’d be a hypocrite to say that I’m not looking forward to the extra revenue), I’m saying this because it’s marketing 101.

If you’re the only fruit salesman in town, you don’t need a marketing team.

If another fruit salesman appears, you’ll start needing one.

If 3 other fruit salesmen appear, you had better give your marketing team a raise.
…

If 100 fruit salesmen appear, your livelihood will depend on your marketing team, it will probably become the most important component of your business.

Just something to think about 😉