In case you haven’t heard, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the governing body for domain names around the world, has made a breakthrough decision that could change the direction of the Internet forever. That decision is this: Anyone with $185,000 can now apply to start their own generic top level domain (gTLD). What’s that mean exactly?
To Frank Reed, it means that global corporations with brand identity will likely be the first, and maybe the only, entities that are approved for a gTLD.
I don’t disagree with Frank’s interpretation of ICANNs ruling. However, I do take issue with his limiting that interpretation to corporate brand identities. If you read the original ICANN announcement, that’s not what it says at all, to wit:
In addition to familiar TLDs such as .com, .org, and .net, Internet users could potentially see new domain name extensions made of almost any word, in any language.
In other words, anyone with $185,000 can submit an application for a gTLD. That includes:
- Donald Trump: $185,000 would be a drop in the bucket for the old Trumpster. And he looks like he’d just love to gobble up .realestate and keep it all to himself.
- The shoe cartel: Adidas, Nike, and Puma could team up to secure .shoes just for themselves.
- Wall Street: A group of financial wizards could form a loose coalition of investors and each go in with $5,000 (that’s 37 investors for you non-mathematicians) and virtually own .wallstreet.
- Internet marketers: A group of Internet marketers could start their own PAC-like non-profit group and invest $10,000 each (X 20 = $200,000) to take .seo only for themselves.
News Vs. Opinion
Is Frank Reed right? Would it only be big brands that got in on this gTLD application process, which begins in January 2012? Other publishers around the Web weigh in on the issue:
- Reuters: “.brands” approach with Internet name shake-up
- Associated Press: Internet braces for ‘.Vegas’ and other not-coms
- National Public Radio: A reprint of the Associated Press article
- ABC News: Another reprint of APs article
- ZDNet Asia: Councilor: US power over ICANN merely ‘moral’
- TechCrunch: ICANN To Expand Top-Level Domain Names, Applications Start Jan 12, 2012
- WebProNews: ICANN Votes to Open the Domain Name Floodgates
This is just a smattering of voices talking about this development. The ruling took place just two days ago and some of these sources were discussing it before then. Frank Reed ran his story, in response to TechCrunch’s, on the day the news broke. But it’s interesting to see the different angles from which these sources discuss ICANNs ruling.
We’ll eliminate the reruns of the AP story right off the bat (NPR and ABC News). The AP itself seems to interpret the ruling the same way that I have, citing such movements as a group of Las Vegas investors trying to secure .Vegas and an athlete trying to garner support for the .sport TLD.
The Reuters article fixates on big brands as did the Frank Reed story. TechCrunch, too, seems to focus on the big brands angle. The WebProNews article takes the broader view while mentioning the brand angle. Only the ZD Net Asia story is unique in focusing primarily on the U.S.s symbolic authority over ICANN.
So where is the news? Where does the “informational” aspect of this story cross into opinion? Or does it matter?
I think every publisher has its bias. I also think they each have their motives for covering the story the way they do. I prefer the hard news angle over the bias toward (or against) big brand names. It may be the former journalist in me that shows that preference, but it’s there.
What Does This Have To Do With South Central Pennsylvania?
Few people or entities in the South Central Pa. area may care about any of this, but they may care come January 2013. That’s when the new TLDs are set to go live. The application window is a 90-day window beginning January 12, 2012.
What if one of the new TLDs approved in this process is .autos? And what if the owner of that gTLD, let’s say a conglomerate of auto manufacturers from around the world, decides to sell domain names on .auto for $1,000 each. Would you be interested? You might, if you could have a reasonable expectation that people looking for your website would find it on that TLD.
The Internet is an ever-growing, ever-changing Web. It is conceivable that the search engines could change their search algorithms to include these new TLDs, maybe even prefer them in some circumstances. Most likely, given the competitiveness between Google and Microsoft’s Bing, I think you’d see both search engines experiment with those changes. If so, then it would become much more valuable to own a domain name on one of these new TLDs.
Imagine some of these domain names:
- pennsylvania.autos
- ford.autos
- sportscars.autos
- harrisburgdodgedealers.autos
- sprintcars.autos
- salvageparts.autos
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Go through the same process on any other potential generic TLD, whether that TLD is a generic keyword like “autos” or a branded name like Ford (.ford).
$185,000 is a huge price. I wouldn’t expect too many businesses in this area to shell out that kind of money for the vanity of owning their own TLD, but I can imagine that a trickle down effect could lead to businesses in this area buying domain names on a TLD with the right focus. If that happens, you’ll need to think about how you will brand your business for online development and build your Internet marketing strategy around that plan. Say you heard it here first.
Related posts:
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments