When I was a kid we used to use Letraset to make signs including our names on our schoolbooks and the like. Now, it’s a lot simpler to see your name all over the place: buy your own personal domain name.
But when you do that you’ve always got the difficulty of deciding whether to go for a .com, .co.uk or .org (or 19 other top level domains and variations thereof). That’s all fine if, like me, you’ve got a slightly unusual name, but it’s not if you’re a John Smith or Claire Jones, where your name has probably already been taken.
That’s all about to change with the ultimate in online vanity – the opportunity to buy your own truly personal domain name. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – the people who decide website addresses) have agreed that instead of having only 22 types of top level domain, you’ll be able to have whatever you want. So, John will be able to have .Smith and Claire can get her .Jones – or whatever they want.
But of course it all comes with a cost. If you wade through the guidelines, it becomes clear that this is aimed more at businesses that have the time and money to spend on their ‘general top level domain’s (gTLD), as they have been named. Rather than less than a tenner for a .co.uk, you’re looking at £100,000s to apply for one of these.
It could be good for companies that want to establish their identity online and the high price is obviously designed to put off cybersquatters. Also, it’s not uncommon for branding companies to start with the domain name right at the start of the process when devising a new product or business – with these new domains, they won’t have to worry. Still, reading through comments on the web, people are criticising it being too complicated and expensive for small businesses to get involved.
Of course, it won’t be so much whether .nike beats .adidas to a gTLD: people will be more interested in gTLD celeb spotting. Personally I can’t see Stephen.Fry being that bothered, what about P.Diddy? It could also be a challenge for celebs who split up – and then end up arguing over who gets the .cole
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