"After decades of operating with no more than 21 generic top-level domains, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is preparing to start registering up to a thousand top-level domains in a year, according to PCWorld. ICANN plans to post a new TLD application guidebook for hopefuls looking to join the ranks of .org, .net and .jobs as soon as November 9. ICANN has spoken of adding TLDs to the Internet's repertoire since 1998, and has pushed a few through since then, including .info, .biz and .jobs. While a handful of the new ones have met success, resulting in over a million domain registrations, none have been able to match the runaway .com, which is associated with over half of the 196.3 million registered domain names. Many entities have professed their desire to apply for TLDs of their very own, including .nyc, .berlin, and .unicef. Even registry operators for large TLDs like .org have expressed an interest in diversifying with variations of the ones they already own. The ownership scale may go still smaller, to the company level. Canon has announced plans to get its own extension, and IBM may be contemplating its very own .ibm. But that is about where the plausibility of TLD ownership ends— just filing an application for a new TLD will run $185,000, which rules out those of us running websites from our home offices. Of course, ICANN's dream of offering TLDs to every company has been some years in the making, and each time previous iterations of the guide have surfaced, they've left gaping policy questions unanswered. For instance, there were no rules regarding who could register which kinds of domains, such as whether a company could get a .paris address if the Parisian government owned the extension. This issue seems to have fallen by the wayside, as there are multiple URL shortening services that use Libya's extension (bit.ly, 3.ly). The downside is those services are subject to the whims of Libya, as when the government removed vb.ly for associations with pornography. Another problem pointed out in the last version of the guide was the issue of trademarks—for example, if Apple registered .apple, should someone else be allowed to register .aapl? Or once .apple is registered, should a hold be placed on all similar TLDs? ICANN has stated that it was addressing trademark concerns, among other things, in the imminent version of the guide, so it may have established a clear-cut way to manage this issue. ICANN plans to release its guidebook for more public comments on Nov. 9, and to approve it at its next board meeting in Colombia in the first half of December. If all goes smoothly, they will begin accepting applications in May 2011 for new TLDs that would start functioning sometime in 2012. ICANN has said they will draw the line at 1,000 new TLDs per year." Sources: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/11/icann-to-open-top-level-domain-floodgates.ars http://www.pcworld.com/article/209620/ICANN_Nears_Expansion_of_Domain_Names.html?tk=rss_news So what do you think? Will the value and prestige of .com sink as one thousand new TLDs are released into the wild?
I don't think so. Seems every time a new TLD comes on the scene that people start forecasting the decline of .com (this has happened with .biz, .us, .cc, etc etc). I don't think the decline of .com will come any time soon.
ICANN is simply trying to monetize with the euphoria that realizing new extension cause, nothing worth for domainers in the long run so I do agree, there aren't chances to get dot COM declining any time.
This. .COM will always rule. Everytime they talk about this, people always get all hyped up over it only to get let down. Take the recent ".co" release. Everyone thought it would be a .com killer, but nothing happened.
I never thought .tv, .cc or .co would ever topple .com but if there were literally 1,000 new choices along with all of the country domains, it would definitely make things interesting. IBM says they'd want .ibm but then I'd wonder, would they be www.ibm.ibm? or would they still have ibm.com and then links would go to places like support.ibm or something. At $185,000 for ownership of the tld, I think you guys are right and this won't affect much. If they were all truly opened up...as in anyone could register .*** at the same cost of .com then perhaps we'd see a new change.
- People are not stupid to remember a word after the dot. - People are not programed only to navigate .com, they are humans. - People are becoming more web-savvy. Grand-mas and kids these days knows their country's extension. - People evolve and in the future, people are going to get used to keyword.keyword. - People love new stuffs and change everyday. - People prefer to have domains such as sugar.free instead of sugarfree.com because of it's elegance and simplicity. - People prefer short domains with short extensions. - People remember original and brand-able domain names better such as WHO.IS then lame unoriginal ones like WHOIS.COM - .Com used to be a "command" extension for early web-browsers. - .Com is an american thing and a made-up american abbreviation of the word "commercial" it never existed in the dictionary since 1995. - .Com will be remembered as the thing of the past and new generations are going to forget about it. - Some of them are going to be free. - Some of them are going to be cheaper then .info - Some of them are going to be much more easier to remember then .com such as .xxx - ccTLDs are becoming more popular then gTLDs - Type in traffic is nearly obsolete now a days. - It's going to be a war between 200 countries versus 19058800 english words. - It's going to be a war between 200 ccTLDs versus +1000 gTLDs. - .tv .co .me .cc are the only 4 ccTLDs that work like gTLDs.