Those involved with new TLD projects have been waiting “in the wings” for the last couple of months, as it was very unclear how ICANN intended to move forward
After the meeting in Seoul ICANN seem to have found a way of moving forward, though we will have to wait and see exactly how that pans out.
As new TLD projects come out of hiding we’ll try to keep you up to date
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Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. (Of course you could also argue tht the converse is true … )
So how do big companies and the general public feel about the concept of new domain extensions?
This short video from dotBerlin shows one possible scenario:
So what do you think?
While I am in favour of the introduction of new domain extensions, there are quite a few people who are against the whole idea.
So what are the arguments against them?
Confusion is a common one.
According to some naysayers the public, that’s you, me and everyone else, is going to be “confused”.
Confusion is a wonderful argument. If people are confused then they may make bad decisions or mistakes.
But is it a valid argument?
I think not.
The “end user confusion” argument always brings a smile to my face.
Would someone please show me all these confused end users please?
The only “arguments” I’ve seen to date have been extreme “edge cases” presented by corporate trademark lawyers with an agenda. Just because one user in a million might do something evil with a domain name does not mean that all users are going to. In any case most Western democracies still try to uphold the “innocent until proven guilty” concept.
A year ago most users would never have visited a .ly domain, yet bit.ly is now an incredibly popular service … Are users of bit.ly confused? Are they special in some way? Of course not.
There’s no reason why users wouldn’t embrace new TLDs in the same way.
In any case it’s the services and content that is built on the namespace and not the namespace itself that will make the difference. The case of “.ly” is a good example of this.
Why the creators of a URL shortener chose the .ly cctld for their service isn’t important. It’s what they did with the name that makes all the difference.
So imagine if someone were able to setup .movie as a domain extension. Wouldn’t that be a lot more logical than “bighitthemovie.com” or “bigstudyproductionthefilm.com”, as is so often the case now? Look at the poster for any big Hollywood release and you’ll see what I mean.
Take “Transformers” and its sequel that came out earlier this summer. What domain name are they using? Transformersmovie.com. Admittedly transformers.com redirects to a Hasbro site, but wouldn’t transformers.movie be a lot simpler and more logical?
Or would that confuse people?
If you are living in London and you want to get a pizza from Pizza Hut do you really care about the opening hours of Pizza Hut in Denver?
Imagine if you could go to pizzahut.london or pizzahut.nyc? While you could go to pizzahut.co.uk, you’d still have to waste time trying to find the listings for London.
Bigger cities like London, Paris, New York, Barcelona and Rome have large populations that need services. If you could register a domain name for your business that showed exactly where it was located, wouldn’t that be a boon?
There are a number of companies and organisations who would like to launch domain extensions (TLDs) to service that very need.
Have a look at this video from the former mayor of New York Ed Koch:
Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?
ICANN is organising a “public outreach” meeting in Abu Dhabi on August 4th.
Image via Wikipedia
In the coming months ICANN, the international organisation that oversees the internet, will be accepting applications from interested parties who want to launch their own domain extensions (TLDs).
So we might see people and businesses advertising themselves using .movie (dotMovie) or .food (dotFood)
If you use the internet either casually or for your business the introduction of new TLDs could impact you.
But do you care?
Possibly not that much.
And why would you?
Domain names are like cogs in a wheel. They’re not very exciting, but if they break you know about it.
Over the coming months we’re going to try and help people get to grips with the new TLD landscape, as it changes.
We’ll try to explain what various companies and organisations are up to and why it might matter to your business.
If there are any things you’d like us to explain or if you think we’re not being very clear – please let us know.
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