When you have 3 kids six and under, then there is likely a chance that YouTube for Kids isn’t far from being a daily part of your life — whether 30 minutes, the whole day, or somewhere in between that expansive time range.
This given morning as I retreated from our bedroom to start our day with family prayer, and head off to the office for a days work, I paused a video my kids were held captive by.
In most cases, I’m not held captive by the same material, but this day was a bit different when my eyes landed on what looked to be a new domain extension: .watch.
As you can see in the image above, the video title is pocket.watch Ryan Toys Review Ultimate mishmash.
If you’re not familiar with Ryan, he’s a very popular little boy — 4 years of age at the time — who went from obscurity into prominence simply playing with toys, and his mother posting the videos to YouTube.
From 2015 fast forward to 2017, and Ryan’s parents signed a deal with pocket.watch, a startup children’s media company that markets and merchandising Ryan’s YouTube channel.
I personally had never heard of Pocket.Watch, and didn’t realize — or maybe I forgot due to the sheer number of new extensions — .watch was a valid domain extension.
Nevertheless, I decided to do a little digging around to see what one might uncover about the .watch extension.
I was quite surprise to uncover that approximately 55 percent of .watch domains have been registered with Name (36%), GoDaddy (11%), and NameCheap (8%) in their respective order.
At the time of publication, .watch domain registration pricing is between $6.88 to $9.99 for the first year. After initial year, domain renewals range between $20 and $40.
Having launched midway through 2014, .watch domain registrations are steadily risen to 9,346 with nearly 3.9K as parked domains.
Performing a site:.watch search via Google yielded that there are nearly 1.18 million results indexed using a .watch domain.
A quick scan of the first page results leads me to believe that .watch could capitalize and the ride trending consumption of video, especially with a younger generation that doesn’t know life without video.
While it’s easy to see why .watch would be applicable for video, gaming and news industries, let’s not also forget about the actual time piece itself.
Of course, I forgot that Apple launched its signature timepiece having branded Apple.Watch.
While short, symmetrical, and easy to remember, typing in Apple.Watch redirects to the Apple Watch page on Apple.com.
Upon further review, It was interesting discovering a growing number of up and coming watch companies using the .watch extension to promote their online presence. Trying to follow in the footsteps of a brand giant, maybe?
Regardless, I guess we’ll have to keep a close watch on where .watch goes as it approaches it’s 5th birthday and beyond.
Will it eventually become the go-to domain of preference for watch makers and companies, or can the video, gaming, and news industries stake their claim as the face of .watch?
Only time with tell, watch and see! 😉
As a domain investor and business consultant, Alvin actively participates in daily domain auctions. Outside of auctions, he passionately shares his views, opinions, and vision for how businesses should and should not use domain names to generate greater customer growth and revenue.
