Let's talk .app

Discussions
#1

I’m a huge believer in .app. If you’re starting a project and using a .io or similar I’d switch ASAP. If you have a bad .com, I’d switch. If you have a good .com then ummm keep it :slight_smile:

The internet has needed new real estate for a while. All these random extensions suck though, the internet needs a new semi-default TLD where the average person knows to look and understands what it means. .app is the first one to have a shot. There’s not a person on earth who doesn’t have some idea what an app is. If you’re building a mobile or SaaS app owning your .app domain is a must.

Is a great domain as important as it was in 2002. Nope. We’re all beholden to Google now. Nevertheless a good memorable name/domain IS important and .app is the first chance in years to grab a good solid domain normal people will get and without paying a huge premium.

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#2

Does anybody have any insights on why so many single-word domains are unavailable to be registered at all? They don’t appear to have been registered. It seems to be domains that were blocked from being registered at all.

The only commonality I’ve been able to find is legal/trademark related. Maybe Google proactively blocked some trademarked app names from being registered?

#3

No they’re all gone and registered Garrett. The communication of how that all worked wasn’t done very well. At certain registrars there was the opportunity to pay extra for early access to the domains. So while most people thought you couldn’t register until May 8th, if you knew about the early access program you could pay the extra fee to register anything you want.

As far as I know Google hasn’t reserved anything, pretty sure they’re not allowed to actually. In fact Google’s own domain service couldn’t sell them until the release day it was only third party registrars that could sell them under the early access program.

#4

All of the cases I’ve seen, the domain is registered to Google, Inc. So that made me wonder if something fishier was going on.

#5

Registered to them or as the registrar? I own a pretty good number of short dictionary word .app domains :slight_smile: but I mean it’s possible I guess they grabbed some. Just haven’t seen it myself.

#6

Based on the whois, they appear to be registered to Google. Both the administrative and technical contacts are the same across all of them.

postmark.app is one example.

#7

You sure? When I run the whois on the command line shows me it was registered by Yay.com. http://drop.userscape.com/NEgyIL

Yay is the registrar and the identity is protected.

#8

Yeah if you just go to https://postmark.app/ it’s the Yay landing page so def not Google.

#9

I see now. Weird that the administrative and technical contacts are Google?

So it’s more likely to be a domain squatter, I suppose. How would one find the contact information to reach out about the domains? I don’t see any such contact Info in there like you would for the administrative and technical contacts for other TLDs.

#10

Squatter is a bit harsh not sure Wildbit invented the term postmark :slight_smile: but could be a domainer who would sell or just a co that wants to use it. They have privacy on but should be an email on the record that will forward to them.

#11

May be a bit harsh, but when a search for “postmark app” returns the entire first page of search results dominated by postmarkapp.com and related sites, it seems a little questionable. :slight_smile:

We’ll just have to keep an eye out to see if contact information pops up for it and reach out.

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#12

Glad you mentioned it @ian

I went off last night and got the three I wanted. :smile: at normal price. Few ones I would have liked had already vanished but that was no surprise.

#13

I picked up 6 of the 8 i wanted with a pre-reg order at the standard price, missed out on 2, one of which I’m not bothered about the other would have been nice.

after sales opened I picked up 5 .app’s of my soon to be major competitors, they are getting listed for sale.

Once I want is a single word domain but is up for $369, can’t justify that at the mo on something i ‘might’ build one day.

if it’s free next month then i might go for it.

Defo think .app is the new alternative .com though.

#14

Wow that’s great! To get in last night and still get your main ones is good stuff.

#15

Nice. $369 isn’t too bad if it’s a good word. Can always sell it, if it becomes the main alternative to .com for mobile/saas apps won’t be a problem to at least get your money back.

#16

The TLD concept is outdated.

A few years ago I noticed that I do not bother remembering the suffixes of sites anymore. I just google (duckduckgo actually) “servicename trait trait …”, adding traits such as location (“fireview mall toronto”) or specific context (“postmark smtp”) and the top results are always what I was looking for.

Instead of “postmark in .com” the users are shifting to think of a more natural “postmark that sends emails”. Adding more TLDs only dilutes the value of existing ones, accelerating this shift.

So my thinking - the TLD is not important and will be totally irrelevant in a few years, remaining just a low-level technical detail, just like where you host your site today (users do not know and do not care).

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#17

Certainly it’s less important than in 2001, but I don’t agree with that completely. Most obviously, companies that are big enough to advertise won’t want to send you to google to find them. They’d rather say go to xyz.com or xyz.app to learn more.

Secondarily as an internet user what you’re saying should pretty much terrify you (not that people care these days about stuff like that). Offloading everything to google is a recipe for disaster when google decides to change something, like say drop Postmark way down the list on ‘postmark smtp’ searches unless it pays.

#18

Yes, for direct navigation .app beats .io.

But .app doesn’t beat .com - simply because I, as a user, don’t have to remember the .com part - I just remember it a normal business domain, need only remember the name part.

I do realize we get into more dependency on “Do More Evil” corp, but can’t do anything about it - remembering dozens of services with their TLDs is beyond my capacity.

Googling just wins as a more practical way.

#19

Of course, nothing will ever beat .com but there are many many more companies than there are .com domains available. You have to put your site somewhere. And even if your example, at this point there’s not many variations of Postmark in a .com available. So you going to name your site Postmark123456.com? Or Postmark.app or PostmarkMail.app or whatever. The internet still needs the real estate.

#20

Postmark.app, of course.

And because of that, I expect that adding .app doesn’t solve much of the real-estate problem you mentioned in your OP - because the owners of .coms would try and buy the matching .apps. So much for extra naming space, eh.

BTW, you know how it is advised to have a long funny and easy to remember phrase as your password instead of random letters and digits? I wonder if the printed ads could do the same - instead of “see more at blablabla.com” print

google funny & easy to remember phrase

And make sure they have that phrase in their materials. That would make the TLD completely irrelevant. As well as the domain name. Of course, there is a risk a competitor highjacks the phrase. :frowning:

Actually, the slogans are already working like that. If I google “just do it”, I can’t get anywhere but to Nike. No domain required. The protection from highjacking is that the phrase is trademarked.