website design - Are the new generic top level domains confusing to users? Should they be used or avoided?

If you are not aware, ICANN has approved quite a few generic top level domains and they intend to approve more. By generic, they mean regular old words will replace the common .com or .net, so we will have the option for domains names that end in words like:

• .photography


• .media


• .education


• .finance


• .vision

ICANN provides an updated list for all of them.

I personally like the idea and I think it's been too long, but I'm not convinced I should switch my site over to an optimized version using one of these new tld's just yet. I think the average user, especially in America, sees something wrong with non .com's. Whenever I see a .net I always wonder why they don't have the .com. Also, I can just see myself getting "Is this a website" questions for a while if I start printing this on my business card and things.

What are the general advantages and disadvantages of using these generic tld's? If they are currently not a good idea, when will they be, if ever? What will it take to convince the populace that .com is not the gold standard in domain names anymore?

In my specific scenario, my company name is DigiVision Media. Our current website is DigiVisionMedia.com. Recently, I've purchased digi.vision and digivision.media. My current thoughts are that the main site can be moved to digivision.media and I can use digi.vision as a link shortener. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using these specific tld's for my circumstances?

Answer

It's all about branding and how your visitors are going to reach your site.

It seems like the majority of people just Google whatever domain they want to reach. I can only remember so many domains, just have a memorable name. So if Google indexes divi.vision the same way it indexes Digivisionmedia.com, I say... have both and market whichever one you want.

If the majority of your clients are clicking directly over from PPC or your company showing up in organic search results, once again, domain name is only there for branding reinforcement and trust.

So, that's the final question. Does the average person trust a .vision name? Probably not, not yet at least.

I'll stick with a longer .com anyday than a shorter, odd TLD.