A topic which probably straddles a few modules - and I'll try to cross post.
You have probably seen reports of the ICANN initiative to allow (for a very significant price) organisations to bid for their own top level domain name. The link below
http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/application-results/strings-1200utc-13jun12-en
should take you to the current state of affairs. What do you think? My own feeling is that many of the names applied for will never be commercially successful. In itself perhaps not new with ICANN. There have been a number of top level domain names - such as .biz - which have been established and failed miserably in the market place.
My own feeling is that many of the names applied for will never be commercially successful.
ReplyDeleteThis may well be true. However, unlike the generic TLDs, which were designed for general appeal (even within specific use cases), a lot of these new names have been bought by individual companies — presumably either as a defensive registration, or else for commercial exploitation. It feels like a different use case to me?
For example, rather than being:
apple.com/uk/store
it would be:
uk.store.apple
or
itunes.help.apple
This looks rather classy to me.
I did have a look at registering .brown, as I thought I'd fine enough people to buy domains, but the cost was simply prohibitive...