Comments on: Why .eBay and .IBM Make No Sense

By: Gerry

Gerry — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:50:34 +0000

I have read all the comments.

And there is an overall point that many are missing.

They are mentioning “I type in ebay and nothing happens” or this doesn’t work or that doesn’t work.

Do people honestly think the internet is going to stand still in this very moment in time?

Come on, y’all. This is not 1998 and technology is happening at a blistering pace.

Honestly – think! Not as a domainer but as a consumer.

A few years from now what, if any of this, will matter when you simply give a voice command to access what ever you want to access. Or Hiro in Japan makes a site in Japanese but the browsers are so intuitive that I see it in near perfect english.

It does not matter what has or has not happened to .net or .org.

Which one of those had the backing of such strong brands as ebay or coke or ibm?

Which one of those have had money pumped in to an awareness campaign?

How many ebay users are there?

Nothing will stay the same. Nothing.

But if you don’t have the foresight or the ability to step back and not be a domainer – and look at all this from a branding standpoint and a strong push by global brands to speak to their customer(s) and win new customer(s)…

then everything will be the same as it is right now at this very minute.

ICANN is getting much heat and a lot of flack and negative press over this proposal. Many brands are not for this proposal. And many cities are not as well. Who, as a governor or mayor, wants to not have a say or control over their incorporated names? Many cities and municipalities are incorporated.

So simply saying “here’s the $150K. Give me .hollywooo” does not mean its a done deal.

Honestly, as long as I have been in this business, I am still shocked and amazed at domainers inability to change and adapt and recognize this while it is happening.

There always is such strong resistance to anything new.

It bears repeating when I say domainers do not control the internet – they just wish they did.

And in the end, the consumer wins out.

What if all .ibm represents is email? Then IBM not only is the registrar, they become their own consumer. A branded URL to tie in their global businesses and employees.

It does not HAVE TO make sense to any of us.

It only has to make sense to the user, the consumer.

Am I for this?

Hell no.

It just clouds and confuses and makes the internet a very crowded place.

ICANN’s focus and emphasis should be on IDN. They have moved to slow on this issue and global giants like India and China are not going to sit idly by waiting much longer when they have clearly expressed that want an internet in their native scripts.

That is why I think ICANN’s usefulness and uselessness has lived it’s days.

I truly look for a new governing body to come along out of this continual inability to police itself.

By: John Colascione

John Colascione — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:53:18 +0000

I didn’t like this idea when I first heard it and I like it even less now. It’s a complete waste of a companies time, money, and effort to secure these follish TLD’s… These names are more a problem than a solution. It’s a cyber-catastrophe in my opinion and most will buy them to protect their brand rather than promote it… Complete waste.

By: Mario Koch

Mario Koch — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:53:41 +0000

todd:
“In what way is that more monopolistic than .jobs, .biz, .travel, etc, or allowing some domainer to sit on law.com, hotels.com or jewelry.com?”

Seems you miss the point. Anybody can sit on generic dot anythings. No allowance needed. .jobs .biz .travel extensions in hands of a public registry is far from being monopolistic.

But I dont think one company should be allowed to own any generic extension. Just public registries.

No WORLDWIDE known trademark no extension for just one company. That would be my plan. .microsoft for microsoft? Why not? If there is absolutely no doubt release it. Should a .apple be auctioned? I dont think so. Two companies sharing it, even the fees? Why not.

Todd, you do not realize who will own potential new extensions. These will not be common registries like for .com .net .org where anyone is able to register domain names.

New extensions can only be held by the rich.
That puts an enormous pressure to refinance such project.

“New TLDs will fail. .com will always be king.”

I did not say so and Im absolutely not against new TLD’s in hands of registries as we know them. Nothing is wrong in adding new extensions carefully here and then instead of letting the internet as we know it to explode.

By: ojohn

ojohn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:38:02 +0000

If the “Top 2500 Generics”, the “Top 2500 Brands“, and the “Top 2500 Geos” are all made into TLDs then almost any combination of the two Generics, Brands, and Geos that people normally type in or search for can be made to resolve to sites with relevant content. This has the potential of changing the landscape of domains and domaining in the near future and could even affect the way people do search. IMO

By: Domain Offerings

Domain Offerings — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:09:04 +0000

I agree, if .net and .org have so much trouble catching up with .com, all the different tld’s will be completely useless. I believe google already takes you to the site if you type in the name in the search without the .com tld or in the Chrome, of course.

By: Andrew Allemann

Andrew Allemann — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:14:46 +0000

The original point of the post was that corporations using their brands at TLDs didn’t make sense. But I obviously have opinions on the other aspects of new TLDs too

With regards to generic TLDs such as .cars, they make as much sense as .info, .biz, .travel, etc. Same idea. Only when the market is flooded with them, they become worth less. New TLDs won’t bring down .com, but they will bring down .info domains and other alternative TLDs. And the sum of them will hurt the survival of each other tld.

By: todd parker

todd parker — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:10:16 +0000

“.com is and will remain as the defacto and URL. .de and .nl at first target a national market. Internet 2012 will not look much different than nowadays and ICANN cannot go on with doing whatever they want. They are creating a real mess right at the beginning of a recession. They are far away from being independent. But some things must change.”

I see this all the time:

“New TLDs will fail. .com will always be king.”

immediately followed by:

“ICANN is out of control. The new TLD round is a terrible idea and needs to be stopped.”

I fail to see the connection between believing that new TLDs will not be widely used by consumers and believing that the round should be stopped. Plenty of people think the new TLDs will be a success and are willing to pay up to see them created.

“And assigning a generic TLD such as dotLaw, dotHotels or dotJewelry to one person or company for their sole use is too monopolistic, in my opinion, to survive a serious legal challenge.”

In what way is that more monopolistic than .jobs, .biz, .travel, etc, or allowing some domainer to sit on law.com, hotels.com or jewelry.com?