Death of Dot com?

        Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN), the body which monitors registrations of all doamin names worldwide has signalled sweeping changes in the way domain names will be registered going forward ending the domination dot com.

ICANN board has approved a plan to dramatically increase the number of Internet domain name endings called generic top-level domains (TLDs) — from the current 22, which includes such familiar domains as .com, .org, .co.uk and .net.

      New TLDs will change the way people find information on the Internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence. Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language and script , offering organizations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways.

     The fee for application is quite high ($185,000 per application) which will allow big brands and companies to replace their “.com” and “.net” with website suffixes of their choice. It is anticipated that high-profile entertainment, consumer goods and financial services companies will likely be among the first to apply for their own domain name in a bid to protect their brands.

     For example, .apple or .ipad, .hotel, .coke, .bank, .microsoft are quite strong possibbilities. Applications for new gTLDs will be accepted from 12 January 2012 to 12 April 2012.

    What does this mean for a small and medium business?

Firstly, as mentioned before the application process is arduous – the fee is $185,000 and the guidebook is 360 pages – and meant to prevent scammers from grabbing valuable domain names. This puts the customised domains out of reach for an average small and medium business. Big consumer brands and companies spend a lot of money on brand marketing and they have big budgets.

    Secondly, it is likely to change how searches will be conducted going forward but the affects are too early to predict.

T   hirdly, .com, .co.uk and .net domain names will continue to be used as .com alone as over 94 million registered domain names. There is no need to panic just as yet!

Finally, you will have to adopt the wait and watch policy to understand how this impacts your business. Web Strategy Marketing will ofcourse be keeping a close eye on the proceedings and will keep you updated.

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