As you may have heard, ICANN, the internet’s governing body announced a new gTLD (generic Top-Level Domain) program in June last year. This program plans to liberalise the creation of new domain extensions in addition to the already existing .COM, .NET or .ORG etc. meaning that any company or organisation could apply for their own extension such as .APPLE, .BLOG or .BERLIN. Actually it’s not as simple as that because you have to fulfill certain financial requirements and also need the respective technology but there is no denying the fact that this change will bring more competition to the domain industry and even more important be as much revolutionary as evolutionary to the Internet in general.
In our opinion we have only touched the surface of what is possible with an Internet address system. Over the last 10 years, since ICANN began, a foundational structure has been put in place to manage the huge growth of the Internet. Firstly, there is an extensive registrar / reseller channel to deliver domains to the consumers including the big players such as Go Daddy, Network Solutions and smaller ones like our own iWantMyName. There is also a significant secondary market for trading with domains including the platforms of Sedo or Afternic, infrastructure providers, e.g. Pool’s auctioning platform or HEXONET with their Registrar-as-a-Service offering. Finally ICANN has made considerable progress with the standardisation of legal frameworks and continues to build on these efforts.
But now it’s time to move on to the next level as new services begin to emerge out of this ecosystem. That’s where the new gTLDs come into play. More competition will drive innovation and as we have discussed earlier this is certainly needed in an industry which is sometimes perceived as slow to adapt. To demonstrate how opportunities are emerging from the new TLD regime, we have picked three clear examples of innovative products and services:
.TEL
The recently launched .TEL domain (available for public registration on iWantMyName from Mar 24th) is not part of the aforementioned new gTLD program, but it already showcases the potential of the other upcoming extensions. It indexes all your contact details on your domain name without the need for a website and is accessible to third-party applications through the standard DNS system. You can think of it as a virtual telephone book entry for all your identifiers online and offline. If you have to change your phone number, Skype address or business email you just need update your .TEL domain and all individuals and applications that have access granted to your domain are up to date immediately.
Let’s think one step ahead here: with the rise of Software-as-a-Service offerings and more and more web-based applications, could the new domain extensions even serve as trusted de facto file extensions? In the very near future, it could be possible to fully personalise your experience of the web by securing all your hosted services and documents under a single domain. Having your domain managed by an independent and trusted source will be critical to the integrity of such a service.
.ECO
At last week’s ICANN Mexico meeting the .ECO initiative gained some momentum after Al Gore expressed his support. It was immediately deadpooled by some commentators, but we are asking ourselves: why not? It is basically putting a quality label on something just like we already have for so many things in the real world. There is ‘gluten-free’ for food, ‘Made in Germany’ for manufactured goods, ‘Full HD’ for TVs and so on. So why shouldn’t we put a .ECO label on projects that support environmental causes or activities? Plans to donate a part of the registration fees to environmental causes further validates the argument in favour of creating new business models in the industry based on new top-level domains.
.INDIGI
The .INDIGI project aims to provide a home for indigenous people on the Internet. It is especially dear to us because we reside in New Zealand which has its own original inhabitants, the Māori. The project is founded by Karaitiana Taiuru who already brought the official .MAORI.NZ to the .NZ namespace and therefore has been a strong advocate to make this happen. However, there is one challenge these TLDs are facing. They absolutely deserve to exist but as Anthony van Couvering pointed out the fees ICANN decided to put on those applicants could simply be too high. Nonetheless, ideegeo is supporting their efforts with our technical advice and we look forward to the success of this significant project in particular.
These were only three examples out of many ideas that exist already and we haven’t even touched the topic of IDN top-level domains which finally makes Internet addresses more accessible for users in non-Latin alphabets. It has still a long way to go and the initial plan to introduce new gTLDs has been delayed already; but it will happen and we are a strong supporter of these changes. If you want to find our more about the latest timeline, consulting firm Minds + Machines has published an excellent overview.
What is your opinion on the new domain extensions? Have you heard about any other? We are looking forward to your comments.
With 2010 rapidly drawing to a close we’d like to thank all our friends, customers and collaborators who encouraged and worked with us throughout the year. It has been another year of achievements and hard work as we refine our domain registrar technology iWantMyName and steadily build our support base globally.
