Domaination
Brackett.Analyst.Bulge
BigSwinging.Richard
Excel.Pimping.Jockey
These are just a few of the potential new domain names you may be seeing at a worldwide web screen near you. A seemingly trivial but huge event in the (still relatively) nascent history of the internet is quickly moving upon us and it would pay for many of you entrepreneurial wannabes to pay close attention.
The organization that oversees the Internet address system is preparing to open the floodgates to a nearly limitless selection of new website suffixes, including ones in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. That could usher in the most sweeping transformation of the Domain Name System since its creation in the 1980s.More than 300 suffixes are available today, the bulk of them country-code domains, such as ".uk" for the United Kingdom and ".de" for Germany.
Hundreds or even thousands more suffixes could be created, categorized by everything from industry to geography to ethnicity. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will meet Monday in Singapore (Sunday evening in the U.S.) to vote on its expansion plan for domain names. If ICANN approves the plan as expected, new domains could start appearing late next year.
If you’ve got an e-biz or have ever built a site, you probably already know that there are a few domain pimps who control most of the action on the street. You may have the creative genius behind ienjoysexwithbiracialrabbits.com but chances are you had to ask godaddy or one of its competitors for naming rights before you went ahead and started supplying your lucrative niche market with hours of fun and excitement.
Since I’m usually the one voicing my opinion on a vast array of subjects, I want to open up the floor to you guys and get some input on how you think this potential event will or will not change the way business is done online. Can you see a reason why IPO activity may pick up down the line? Is there a market to be made in this arena? How much are you secretly willing to drop on registering .winning before going and making Charlie Sheen an offer he can’t refuse? Which industry, if any can expect to be most affected by this itty bitty big piece of news?
Patrick needs to get .oasis
Isn't the process of applying for one of these uber expensive? Like low six figures?
I think this is a total waste of time and just the result of a useless agency wanting to do something rather than twiddle their thumbs
And there's no real benefit...why should I have to type wallstreet.oasis instead of wallstreetoasis.com? This will be a failure...no one will use it (but the regulating agency will make a ton of money from all the paranoid/stupid multinationals buying up shit like .coke and .mcdonalds and what not)
Most people don't even consider whatever.io to be a reputable domain. If I see budweiser.beer flash at the end of commericial, it won't even register as a website in my brain.
It'll take years to condition people to recognize the random suffixes.
On the surface, to users, it does seem like (and, for the most part, is) a waste of time...but the benefit is for the new companies/organizations that would be able to attain a URL that reflects their business name, where that name may have otherwise been taken already by a similarly named group using ".com". This obviously benefits the site owners the most, but it could also help clear things up a bit for the users too.
As for them making a ton of money of this idea, I agree, they have a ton of leverage here.
EDIT: On second thought, if a company wanted a URL to reflect its name and its respective "companyname.com" was taken, they simply could add the industry right into the middle portion, rather than as a new expensive suffix. For example: Fordmodels.com works just fine vs. Ford.Models, for differentiating itself from Ford.com
With that said, the only remaining benefit I can see is that Ford.Models looks a bit cleaner and is easier to read, even if you don't capitalize the M....
Waste of time indeed.
The availability of domains with .com has caused startups a lot of problems over the last few years, which has led to many being forced to create these ridiculous company names just because that was a domain name they found open.
I think this has merit, particularly for start ups, allowing them to circumvent the people that are just holding on to all the .com domains
Problem is, they're making it expensive as hell to buy these suffixes. All the domain pimps will buy these left and right, not money-starved start-ups. Your argument is moot.
True, although it looks like they are going to eliminate the domain squatters - hence the 200 page application. "Applicants that look like cyber-squatters taking advantage of brand names or trademarks that clearly don't belong to them will be rejected, Icann said. An applicant seeking to register, for example, dot-cocacola, would have to be the well-known beverage company."
200 pages? They need TWO HUNDRED pages to verify that someone should have access to a particular domain suffix? And why charge an exorbitant $100K+ to get the suffix? That's why I say that this is nothing more than a scam for icann to make a ridiculous amount of money off the backs of the CMO/CTOs of the big multinationals.
Hahaha...when I launched my firm the "xcapital.com" was taken...so i used "xfunds.com" instead...now I just checked and the "xcapital.com" is available...methinks I'm gonna buy it so I have both :)
"x" is a placeholder for my firm's name
you miss big pictcha grasshoppa
impregnate many wife of othaman you must
I'm pretty involved in my local Republican party and I've started pitching a public policy idea:
"Ban the mass registry and hoarding (within the U.S.) of toll free numbers and website addresses by parties who have no intention of using them for bona fide reasons. Make it illegal to re-sell for more than $100 a website address or 800 number that was never in use for a bona fide reason."
I have no idea where to start in drawing the details of this public policy (I'm not a lawyer), but it would be pretty difficult (foreigners could get around it, difficulty defining "bona fide", and would probably face subjective rather than objective rulings). I'm not one for a lot of government intervention, but I was looking up a few .com names and 800 phone numbers recently and dozens of ones I was interested in are already registered but not in use--they are merely being hoarded. I almost puked when I'd see random cool names I came up with related to my business being offered for sale for $3,000. It just strikes me as absurd--what legit right do these people have to sell for $3,000 something they purchased for $9.99 and that they don't use and will never use? It's like holding a business hostage.
Fyi, the legislation you are proposing is in stark contrast to Republican ideals, specifically that of oh...iono...a free market?
Hey, you could've bought it for $9.99 way back when. They were smart and realized those names were worth something. Who are you to tell them that they didn't earn that money by being smart and buying a mispriced asset? Stop being a commie or register Democrat...your call.
Actually, mass registration of phone numbers and websites is a hindrance of the free market. I couldn't find a single unique 800 number to use for my company because they had all been registered--and I mean virtually anything with an English word in it is registered. I tested out at least 10 800 numbers I was interested in and all but 1 or 2 weren't even in service. That's nothing but a hindrance to people doing bona fide business. Plus in a lot of cases it's borderline trademark infringement when someone registers a domain name that is VERY similar to your trademark name, and they're not even doing business with it, they're just squatting on the name. And half the time you can't even reach the owner of the site to negotiate a price.
Plus I'm in politics--my name in virtually every fashion has been registered and there's not a single site that is even in use. Just people squatting on the name--my guess is that the site owner doesn't even share the name personally. He probably just registered 10,000 or so common names. These kinds of business practices shouldn't be allowed. I literally can't do business online with a name that I could legally trademark. How is that free market?
FYI, your idea of crony capitalism runs in stark contrast to how we hard working conservative Republican small business owners operate in a free market capitalist society. Some giant company that provides ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE AT ALL WHATSOEVER by mass registering--probably through an algorithm--any and all names associated with a type of industry and holding hostage small businessmen is NOT our idea of capitalism. The truth is, true Republicans believe in commonsense regulation, not bureaucracy. I'm not a libertarian and I've never claimed to be. That you would claim that the Republican party supports, I don't know, purely unregulated free markets runs in stark contrast to reality. We don't and we never claimed to.
That's one slippery slope you're on. People like you are for "fair weather free markets", as in..."I'm all for free markets, as long as the market is not free when I don't like the free market outcome". Tons of them in the Republican party, quite sad.
What about spectrum squatters, people who buy spectrum as an investment? What about commodity speculators? I have zero intention of using the oil I buy, so do I have a right to buy it? What about real estate speculators that have no intention of living in the house? All of these people add value by making the market more efficient by correcting price discrepancies (a concept lost on most people who think speculators are "evil", a totally ridiculous assertion to anyone that truly understands economics).
Your logic leads to a slippery slope, my position, on the other hand, is consistent and rational. I don't buy that allowing people to buy domains freely is a market imperfection (I believe government intervention/regulation's role in the market should be solely to fix market imperfections). If anything, having people bid up prices ensures that the domain goes to the highest bidder (the person who will thus use it to generate the most profit - analogous to value to society). That's how price signals are supposed to work. These domain squatters are making the market more efficient. I found the domain with my exact business's name, and just did xfunds.com because xcapital.com (the real name) was taken. Yesterday, I did a search and found xcapital.com was available, so I bought it. I don't believe you when you say you can't find an adequate proxy; give us the name of your business, and I'm sure I or someone else on WSO can give you a suggestion for a domain name that is both relevant and available.
He is right though. The Republican stance eschews the kind of government intervention you're suggesting -- not that it's a bad idea.
To be honest, I don't know why you had to bring up political affiliation into this anyways.
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