There are currently 22 top-level domain suffixes:
.com / .edu / .gov / .int / .mil / .net / .org / .arpa / .aero / .biz / .coop / .info / .museum / .name / .pro / .asia / .cat / .jobs / .mobi / .post / .tel / .travel
Honestly, this needed to be re-vamped.
Do you see some of these? When was the last time you typed in: .museum or .pro?
ICANN will be accepting applications for domains with new suffixes starting January of 2012.
So what can we expect to see?
After forking over $185,000 to apply for a new suffix, companies will need to show they have a legitimate claim.
We can expect to see suffixes like:
.google / .coke / .BBC / .NBC / .apple / .honda / .windows
The list could go on and on!
Will we see domains like .god or .jesus?
More than likely, not.
Proving legitimate claim would be tough.
What about .saddleback or .someothermegachurchname?
At $185,000, that might be a stretch, but this new change will certainly open-up domain strategies. Being tied to a .com, .org or .info will certainly create some expansion.
Do you think organizations, domain dealers, or internet citizens will benefit the most?
[via BBC & MSNBC | HT: James Brooks & Jay Caruso | Image via 姒儿喵喵]
David says
How about ICANN & dealers. Though I do not fault them for it. If you can make someone buy 10 addresses instead of one, why not. coke.biz and coke.info are owned by coke, but don’t do anything.
diet.coke may be interesting. But, Coke is still going to pickup coke.com. People are still trained to expect coke.com/diet or diet.coke.com. even with the http://www.diet.coke just doesn’t look right. Is it missing part of the address? Does it really serve any purpose if my wife still types “facebook” into the google search instead of the address line?
It is just one more expense that Coke would add to the bottom line.
I wonder if Coke didn’t spend the 185k, what would happen to the address? Doubtful anyone else could make use of it.
Eric Dye says
Perhaps there will be a day when we say, “Remember dot-com – LOL!”
Then again, at 185k pop – sheesh!
Kyle McClain says
What I wonder is if industries or organizations will grab the domains for their use. For example churches could all benefit from mylocal.chuch Another benefit to the world at large would be forcing certain types of content to a particular domain, porn for example could be restricted to .xxx making it much simpler to filter.
Eric Dye says
Right. .xxx is a done deal: https://churchm.ag/icaan-approves-xxx-tld/
I’m not sure how .church would work, or how you would organize getting that approved with the $185k fee and paperwork, but we could be on a verge of .com’s etc coming to an end?
Kyle McClain says
Ha! Thought I had read that somewhere, probably right here.
Eric Dye says
You are right about restricting .xxx domains to pornography, though. They have yet to force all pornography to use it, so I agree with you on that they need to.
Kyle McClain says
Well if you pay the 185K does that mean you have control of that domain? Giving you the right to dole out all .church domains? I can see all kinds of loosely affiliated groups want to use top level domain this way. Unions, teachers, etc. Do you think they will let one hospital in the world have . hospital because they can come up with the fee? I hope not.
I would hope some of the more universal domains like .church would be handled in the same manner as .com has been.
Eric Dye says
That’s a really good question. I would think if a prefix costs $10 for a .com, that for $185,000, you would have full control over it.
Eric Peters says
Whenever I see something like this, I hope that it will spell the end of the “dot com” being king. A lot of the dot com domains are gone and are sold for an absurd amount of money. It would be nice to have many TLD’s out there that are widely used.
Eric Dye says
True story. We are, Churchm.ag after all 😉
Dustin W. Stout says
I wonder how most of the domain hoarders feel about this? could this mean that their .com domain investments are going to become less valuable?
i’m also curious as to how much control one has for $185,000… that may be a worthwhile investment… anybody wanna go in?! lol
Eric Dye says
Some domain hoarders may take a hit, and I don’t think anyone will mind.
G Victor says
I’d like to see .ch or .church, but heaven knows who will foot a $185k bill!
Eric Dye says
Very true. Although, if you figure $15 per domain, you would need about 12,500 domain regs to pay for it.