Donuts has once again expanded its impressive portfolio of new generic top-level domains. The registry acquired the rights to manage .OBSERVER and .REALTY. Both domains are active, although they do not have a large number of registrations. The sellers are Top Level Spectrum (TLS) and Fegistry, both of which are managed by renowned domain investor Jay Westerdal.
The .OBSERVER domain was initially delegated to the British newspaper of the same name, and in 2016 it was acquired by TLS, which then launched it. It is marketed as being specifically designed for news outlets, although anyone can register in it. The number of names registered in the domain zone has been hovering around 1,000 for two years now.
As for .REALTY, Fegistry paid $5,588,888 for it at an ICANN auction, outbidding Donuts. The domain is intended for professionals in the real estate market, the cost of an annual registration in it until recently was about $300, and the number of registered names was about 2,200. But in the summer of this year the Epic domain registrar announced a promotion, during which the cost of the annual registration was reduced to $0.99. Naturally, this led to the rapid increase in registrations and, by the beginning of October, almost 18,000 names were already registered in the domain zone.
However, most of these registrations are likely speculative and are unlikely to be renewed next year as the renewal cost has remained $300. It is hard to believe that the Donuts executives were not aware of this when approving the purchase of the domain, Domain Incite reported. One way or another, the deals took place (their amounts were not publicly disclosed), and time will tell how the new owner will make use of these domain zones.
