TLD needs TLC - Huh? www.areyoureadyforanything.holycow-whatsthesuffix

If you're not following it, you need to - the new TLD's (top level domains) on their way.  For a long time, we were used to the .com, .edu, .mil, .gov, .net and .org, along with the country ID'd suffixes.

They were joined by .biz, .info, and a few others some years later.

Now, ICANN and disciples are considering hundreds - make that thousands or even hundreds of thousands - of new TLD's.  It's all based on whether you have the cash.

So, what does that mean?

Well, if you have the dough, you could enable .mcd.  Then the URL might be bigmac.mcd and qp.mcd (which redirects to quarterpounder.mcd) or supersize.mcd or just mcd.mcd).  (I doubt if there will ever be salads.mcd.)  Other companies can do the same.  Individuals, too, if they have the bucks.

So, is it important?  Well, here are a couple of things to think about:

• To now, it's been pretty important to have .com if you were a commercial operation.  Owning .com meant that all you really had to communicate to clients and prospects was the site name (the preamble before the "dot".)  Google, Target, and the thousands of others.  As long as you had .com, you could be fairly sure that folks would find you.  It's why, so often, those with .org (the noncommercials) or the .gov's got passed over.  It's also why some folks got the shocks of their lives when they thought they were going to a government site but accidentally entered .com as the suffix and were directed to porn sites created by some enterprising-if-not-up-and-up folks.
  
  But think about it.  We made sure to get .com and off we went, promoting the site name.  Heck, even some of the browsers autocompletes added .com unless you typed something else.
• The second point is that we got those .com names based on trademarking.  After the squatters regulations were passed, we were protected.  Of course, Nissan Motors and The Nissan Restaurant in Clayton, MO. had the same right to the nissan.com URL if they had trademarked their name; in general, the big guns won out and the smaller ones drifted to nissanrestaurant.com or some permutation.  That said, how do you deal with all the possible new TLDs?  Should Intel be able to own intel.com plus .intel plus .chip and any other they want?  Should it be one to a customer?  Is it one more example of the golden rule (Them with the gold...you know)?

So it'll be interesting.  It hasn't been fleshed out but, like the rest of the web's development, we'll have innovation, forward movement followed by resolution (translation:  somebody will do something neat and new.  It'll take hold.  A bunch of otherbodies will fight to take it over or to force it into public domain, and it'll be resolved.

But this'll be a fun ride.  And, it'll mean new business as we get called upon to "get that URL out there!"  We'll have to think about the whole URL.  And with hundreds of thousands of them, it'll be a real challenge.  It means the whole URL is going to need that tender loving care.  Can you imagine the number of  '60's rock tunes that are going to be licensed just to reinforce URLs?  Hot damn.  Bring it on.  Just no Anne Murray. 

Gonna go now.  I want to register .wtf   The money I could make on that, ooooooooh.

http://www.icann.org/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/icann-reveals-new-top-level-domain-applicants.php
http://www.commlawblog.com/2012/08/articles/internet/new-broadcastrelated-top-level-domains-proposed-to-icann/