You will be able to visit this blog at iface.thoughts, that is if ICANN lets me have the domain, and if I cam come up with all the money. Not much probable! But ICANN has approved expansion of the Top Level Domains (TLDs). Which means that now businesses can register for new suffixes of domain names.
It sounds attractive and liberating initially, but it will have its own problems. You could guess the web site address by visiting the popular .com, .org or .net domain names. Guessing might not work any more. The only way to get it would be to use search engines to look for them, hoping that they have not been dropped from the index.
It will be interesting to see the new subdomain organization here. I hope we do not start seeing company.apple.
I also believe that already a lot of confusion exists because of the other part of the URL – www. Many, including yours truly, believe that www is no more required. http://ifacethoughts.net/ is enough, http://www.ifacethoughts.net/ adds cruft and creates confusion. This is not only with web sites – I have seen email addresses given me with someone@www.example.com. I know a lot of web sites where the developers have failed to handle redirection between these two. I hope this will be addressed some day at a higher level.
Coming back to the new possibilities in the TLDs, this might actually start another industry, unless ICANN restricts. People might buy the more global domain names like .products, .mumbai or .blog and make them popular enough for people to get subdomains there.
Interesting developments, it will keep us busy for sometime.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
As you said, an industry will grow around the new domain TLDs.
Actually, is there a need for TLDs?
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
[...] It was heavily criticized by corporate and individuals alike about its possible misuse, leave aside confusion it can create. ICANN has now composed a second draft (pdf) and is inviting feedback. I feel that this proposal [...]