Interesting post

Kalyn Denny — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:23:45 -0500

I agree, it will be very interesting to watch it unfold. Previously I would have said that a top level domain that's short, quick to type, and easy to remember would be best, but who knows what might happen?

Kalyn Denny
Kalyn's Kitchen

You can have your own top level domain

Virginia DeBolt — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:10:38 -0500

Have you had it with .com and .net? Want your own top level domain name? Maybe an address like www.virginia.debolt all your very own? Well, now you can have it, for a slight fee.

ICANN (The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) just announced Biggest Expansion to Internet in Forty Years Approved for Implementation. Here's some of the announcement:

Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info. . . . This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere).

Sounds nice, right. But I haven't given you the price tag yet. The number that is floating about in most of the reports I've seen is that is could cost up to $50,000 to register one of these designer domain names.

I've always been frustrated by my lack of opportunity to grab the .com or .net for my www.webteacher.ws site. Think I should shell out $50,000 in a effort to buy the domain .teacher so I could have the site web.teacher? It would only take me about a thousand years to make the money back. Actually, owning the domain .teacher doesn't sound like such a bad idea. You could do a lot with a domain like that, much more than merely use it to post my small blog. Any of you teachers out there want to get together and buy it as a group?

How about .mommy? Wow, do we have a lot of BlogHers who could fit under a domain umbrella like that. Or, how about .blogher?

Reactions to the announcement are mixed. As Marguerite Reardon speculates in ICANN to vote on new Internet domain names,

The high price is also likely to deter cybersquatters. ICANN is expected to give priority to companies or organizations with trademarked names.

Many people spoke up saying that .com was the standard and no one would be interested in learning new ones or changing to something different. However, Melissa Change writes in .anydomainnameyouwant soon to be available for purchase that,

Since this announcement, I have heard a lot of people making the case that the only domain name that really matters is .com. Although I agree that the .com domain name will stay the strongest for the foreseeable future, this thinking is really short-sighted. Although technology is advancing quickly, the Internet is still in its infancy. It’s hard to predict what will happen in two years, let alone in 20 years. I think that there is a very good chance that other gTLDs will become important.

Melissa Chang also pointed out that there will be significant trademark ramifications, a point echoed by Karen Monteith in New Gold Rush in Domain Names, who said,

Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN, describes the changes as “[A] massive increase in the ‘real estate’ of the Internet.” While we’re not trying to rain on the parade, new TLDs may result in a massive headache for trademark owners, as it will be incumbent upon them to monitor new TLD applications and file objections based on their existing legal rights.

K, at ICANN Says Yes You Can To More TLDs said,

If I were Google, I would be very happy this morning as all this is good news for a search engine. If you were confused or unable to find the business names anymore by your .coms or .nets or .biz options for a name, you would naturally turn to a search engine. The results shown by Google are going to be even more important down the line when there are a zillion more sites with crazy names attached to them with no apparent structure.

Everything is up for grabs right now, it will be a free-for-all as people try to get what they want and work out all the brand and trademark issues involved in arguing over who should really be able to own a certain domain name. ICANN has moved the Internet back into the wild and wooly phase of change and growth that we'd almost outgrown. Should be interesting to watch it all happen.

BlogHer - You can have your own top level domain - Comments

Interesting post

You can have your own top level domain