Frank Schilling applies for 54 fresh TLDs, Juan Calle also in the mix
Schilling applies for 54 domains, notes Paul Sloan.
CNET’s Paul Sloan, who has been covering the domain name industry for many years, just wrote a piece on fresh top level domains that teases out more details behind Frank Schilling’s plans for fresh TLDs.
Sloan notes that uber domainer Frank Schilling is applying for 54 top level domains through his registry Uniregistry. He’s invested $60 million of his own money for the venture.
(Schilling told me a month ago “I wouldn’t expect anything earth shattering”. His definition is different from mine.)
Sloan also writes that Juan Diego Calle, founder of .co internet, is applying for 13 fresh top level domains through the same investment firm that backed .co internet.
Calle certainly has the hands on experience over the past few years to know what it takes to get a TLD off the ground. I appreciate this quote from Calle:
“Many of the firms involved in this are simply hoping that Go Daddy will add their TLD into its store and they’ll sell millions the next day. That’s what they are betting on, but it won’t be the case.”
Indeed, if applicants have these kinds of numbers baked into their assumptions, they’re in for a rude awakening. .Co and .me have been marketed very heavily over the past few years, especially by Go Daddy. .Co has in the neighborhood of 1.3 million registrations at last check; .me is in the neighborhood of 600,000 or so.
