Will the WS & OG have a field day with this development?

[Simon Says]

This looks like it will add an entirely new level of complexity to SEO and, quite probably, make it harder to find bricks and mortars. The reported (initial?) cost is high so see WS and possibly only the major OG - Just Flowers, for example - forking out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13835997

Just when one thinks things might be improving, a whole new door looks like it could be about to slam you in your face.

 

[Doug Munro]

I read this late last week and the first thing that struck me is "consumer confusion". When most people think of a URL the first that pops to mind is "com".

Obviously at over $185,000.00 USD per pop only the major players will be involved.

My personal feeling is that it may not work well for all companies. FTD is a natural as their brand is well recognized and is short (3 letters) and the same length as current domain endings. Bloomnet, 1800Flowers, Proflowers, and Teleflora are different issues. Adding these names as Domain ending would make for a very long URL and they are not top of the consumer as abbreviations (TF, BN, PF).

These companies could reverse their URL's in some fashion ie. www.flowerdelivery.teleflora but again the battle they face is lack of consumer recognition. Naturally they can redirect but it will still take a lot of time before the new endings do them any good.Of course only time will tell

 

[theRKF]

Very little benefit or impact, in my opinion. The new suffixes are about branding and categorizing (ex: www.OMG.xxx where the new "xxx" suffix will clearly signify a porn site). Buying the "ftd" tld won't help FTD rank any higher, but it might help with branding their members. As the WSs try to further segment the florist populace into teams, this could be a tool for the FTD web platform. Imagine if you could (or had to??!!??) use www.BobsFlowers.ftd as you domain name for your FTD web site?

Someone will spend a lot of coin to secure ".flowers" or ".florist" which could be cool for a little while (ex: www.toronto.florist) but let's face the reality that consumers still get muddled over .org .net and .ca. It's going to be a while before the middle curve of consumers gets that the new TLDs are really web site links. In the end, if the classification system works we'll just be doing Google's job for them even more than we have to now.

 

[Doug Munro]

Very little benefit or impact, in my opinion. The new suffixes are about branding and categorizing (ex: www.OMG.xxx where the new "xxx" suffix will clearly signify a porn site). Buying the "ftd" tld won't help FTD rank any higher, but it might help with branding their members. As the WSs try to further segment the florist populace into teams, this could be a tool for the FTD web platform. Imagine if you could (or had to??!!??) use www.BobsFlowers.ftd as you domain name for your FTD web site?

Someone will spend a lot of coin to secure ".flowers" or ".florist" which could be cool for a little while (ex: www.toronto.florist) but let's face the reality that consumers still get muddled over .org .net and .ca. It's going to be a while before the middle curve of consumers gets that the new TLDs are really web site links. In the end, if the classification system works we'll just be doing Google's job for them even more than we have to now.

I tend to agree, the realty is that look at how much confusion the introduction of something like a new phone area code causes, and there you have sometimes millions switched over. Even something like flowers or florist has limited value in my mind if only one individual is using it. I think the big guts like IBM, Apple, Coke, Pepsi, will jump on board quickly, probably someone like CBC as well (they will simply have the taxpayer cover the cost).

 

[Simon Says]

Here is another link - Marketing Week

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/disc...-recognition-and-search-boost/3027621.article

They, perhaps understandably, seem to see all manner of possibilites - TLDs such as. bank, .hotel et cetera. There is also the emphasis on the branding aspect but one voice feels the fewer the characters, the better as Ryan suggested, but that companies seem to be behind this and there is not, at least in this article, much concern for consumer confusion. I tend to agree re. consumers - if they can work out how Facebook or Twitter is set up and works, I doubt people will have a problem understanding that Apple can be found at .apple (probably initially along with a .com).