Notes
ICANN Opens Up Top-Level-Domains To .WhateverYouWant
ICANN, the international body in charge of domain names, says it has a way to rid the Web of cybersquatting. Late last month, the group voted to create Web addresses that end in a much wider variety of letters than .com, .org, .net, and the dozens of country-specific suffixes that are currently available. When the proposal goes into effect later this year, businesses, municipalities, and other large organizations will be able to purchase domains of their own creation.
So here we are in 2009 and we’ve got a huge first-world problem. All of the “real” domains are gone now. Unless you or your business has an obscure name, chances are that the first-rate (“pure”) domain name is taken, so you’ll have to go with some modified version of it. Ever wonder why Web 2.0 companies have crazy names with no vowels in them? Because the domain name for the real word wasn’t available.
ICANN’s solution is an interesting fix, though Slate makes a good point about domain names not really mattering as much as stuff like Google ranking. Meh, I’d still rather have http://scottjackson.org than scottjackson_.com.
By the by: look out for my new domain name: scottjackson.isawesome.
