Will we see .news, .nonprofit, .health, .sports any time soon?
Today through Friday, ICANN — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — meets in San Francisco for one of the three meetings it will hold in different regions of the globe this year.
Among the items on the agenda: the next generation of top-level Internet domain names.
In this seven-minute video interview that I recorded last year, Elliot Noss, CEO of Tucows, talks about the next generation of Internet domain names. Elliot previews some of the revolutionary changes that may soon be coming down the pike.
In addition to the common top-level domains like .com, .org, .net and .biz, the urls you may be clicking on include domains like .solar, .health, .water, .search, .nonprofit, .news, .sports, .ibm — a new breed of domain extensions to the right of the dot.
— Elliot Noss, Tucows
“Social cause centered organizations shouldn’t miss out on what’s happening here,” Elliot points out. These new flavors of domains shouldn’t be seen strictly as a business opportunity but as a new way to communicate and reach new constituencies.
We could see potentially hundreds of new top-level domains and dozens of narrowcast corporate domains like .ibm, .dell or .intel. It won’t come cheap. Under one scenario, an initial application could cost $55,000 — but that’s only a deposit toward a fee of $185,000 for a full application. If there’s contention — say, Google and Microsoft duking it out over owning the .search top-level domain — then it’ll result in an auction process.
Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo
Liberalization of domains inches closer this week
Will ICANN settle this during the next five days? “Thousands of pages have been written. It’s still in process,” ICANN chief executive Rod Beckstrom told me.
This morning should provide a good overview of the global issues involved, he added. The opening session from 9 to 11 am showcases such speakers as Vint Cerf, Ira Magaziner, former White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin and Beckstrom.
This afternoon in the main ballroom the discussion will also focus on top-level domains. Elliot says whimsically, “This is reaching its bloody climax and you will see all the long knives out. The supporters will be shutting up and letting staff and board get to the finish line and the opponents will bring out the longest of their knives.” Thursday promises a robust public forum on Internet governance.
The public is invited to the ICANN sessions, which are generally open. See the plans for ICANN’s meetings at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square in San Francisco as well as the full schedule. (The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and GNSO are key committees on this issue.) Elliot will be there.
For more info on the expansion and liberalization of domains, ICANN has a page on the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space, which “will allow for a greater degree of innovation and choice.” And Wikipedia has even more info.
A production note: This interview was shot with a Kodak zi8 camcorder. The video fidelity is outstanding, though the audio is a bit compromised by the lack of a wind screen. But I’ll try to use a tripod next time and lavalier mike next time.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
I can see a Google top level domain soon. It makes sense.
Playing the TLD Game Without Spending $185,000 plus potentially unlimited costs
Internet users can create their own set of New Domains & TLDs totally free, without regard to ICANN.
Sites such as Dashworlds.com offer new Dashcom (not Dotcom) Domains. Dashcoms are brand new web addresses in the format “sport-com” or “stock-market” or “high-heels” (Examples Only). With users and members in over 90 countries worldwide, resolution is via an APP although ISP links are now available to negate that need (links that are also available to ICANN).
Not-so-long ago, people would have thought the Internet to be a total waste of time, effort and money. Why would anyone fork out for hugely expensive computers, sign up for extra phone lines, buy modems, routers and an OS… then learn how to use it all….just so they could buy a book or listen to the news? All they had to do was pick up a phone or simply turn on the TV. Having just one option in infinite cyberspace is as reasonable as saying you can visit anywhere in the USA, so long as it’s on Route 66.