Actually no; it probably won’t be as drastic as the end of dot com, but this week does mark the release of the new ‘generic Top-Level Domains’ (gTLDs); they are set to change the way we use the internet and reduce our reliance on dot com.
What’s that I hear you say…?
gTLDs are less accurately, but more commonly referred to as ‘URLs’ or ‘Domain Suffixes’; they refer to the ‘endings’ we are acquainted with typing in order to access a specific website. In the UK, top ones include .com, .co.uk, .org etc; there are currently approximately 10 key ones worldwide, in addition to country-specific ones such as .fr (France).
Relatively speaking, intense competition for domains with these current endings mean that domain extensions are nearing exhaustion, with increasing difficulty to get the ones brands want or need. The solution? ICANN, the body in charge of managing and regulating domains made a decision several years ago to add approximately 1,000 more domain extensions to the market! What’s special about this week is that the first of these new extensions will be hitting the market; the result is likely to be a much changed system for using the internet and a much more specific and targeted way of searching.
Rather than waffle on for hours about what this means and how it will affect brands, we’re recommending this handy White Paper from Frank Domains. It gives a full overview of the process, the changes, the ways brand can protect their trademarks, the likely effects for the internet and even a brief history of domains. It’s free to download and is available here.
Download the white paper now…
http://www.frankdomains.com/pdf/frank-domains-tmch-white-paper.pdf