Another heavy hitter: famousfourmedia.com, who are responsible for the majority of the "dot [tld string] Limited" filings. They seem (I suppose "claim" is more accurate) to be registering on behalf of many companies, but from my rough count (60 filings), they are pretty close to Google (about 101) and Amazon (about 76).
Not to be too judgmental, but the site for famousfourmedia.com has so much stock photo that it hurts. Then again, with 60 filings, they probably can't hear my criticism over the sound of all the money they're making.
There are many companies applying for .app TLD. Edit: Google is one of them under an alias.
What was noteworthy was that many companies seem to be formed for this purpose only. There's "DotApp Inc", ".app registry inc" and a bunch of other names like that.
Skimming through the page, Amazon is going for a landgrab too with 76 gTLDs. Interesting to see how the major web player prioritized this. Microsoft went for 11 highly relevant gTLDs and Facebook for none.
These applications (the Google ones) are registered under "Charleston Road Registry Inc." Anybody knows why ? The mail address is in @google.com, so I suppose Google has some relation to it, but still..
FWIW, in google's list, what the heck is ".srl" supposed to be? (maybe the italian/spanish/romanian equivalent of .llc)
EDIT: I meant, is google really asking for "a domain for limited liability company acronym in some romance languages" or is there something that makes more sense?
I'm not sure what to make of Apple only asking for .apple. Do they just not think this is worth getting into (I'd agree with that) OR have they been the most sneaky and used some shells to hide their other applications. I assumed they'd at least want to throw they hat into the ring for .app or .cloud or .book.
I'm also concerned about the gTLDs that are file extensions. I think that could be confusing at best... and a disaster as worst.
I mean which usually they can be a clever websites. You've gotten very much discovering regarding it subject, for that reason a whole lot curiosity. You furthermore may get experience to become people to proceed in back of the software, evidently from complications.
http://www.seocorporation.ca/
Yeesh...in case there was any doubt beforehand that this is a terrible idea, the initial list is now proof. They have taken something that has a valid technical reason to exist and turned it into a cesspool.
Hopefully those in control of infrastructure take a stand and simply reject these "domains" entirely. Shouldn't be hard to set up sanity-restoring filters...let us please just pretend these are spam domains and never acknowledge their existence.
Ironically anyone vain enough to reserve ".<whatever>" is surely ALSO going to keep a death grip on "<whatever>.com" so this will do nothing to improve the size of the name space.
$ cut -d, -f1 < tld.csv | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20
13 APP
11 INC
11 HOME
10 ART
9 SHOP
9 LLC
9 BOOK
9 BLOG
8 MUSIC
8 MOVIE
8 DESIGN
7 WEB
7 STORE
7 NEWS
7 MAIL
7 LTD
7 LOVE
7 HOTEL
7 CLOUD
6 [Many domains]
So basically, we are creating a two-tier internet where people with money can pay a lot for nice names and others will be considered cheap for having a .com at the end? Way to go democratic internet....
I wonder if they actually stopped long enough to consider the actual pros and cons on this.
I've personally always thought that tlds was dumb. I never understood why things needed to be partitioned like that. Is there any technical reason to have them?
Also, it's very bothersome that domains are backwards. It's always irked me.
That being said, the amount of money required for a gTLD is absurd.
Seems like exposing readable unique resource identifiers inevitably brings some sort of confusion and/or unjustness.
The only fair alternative would be no visible URIs (UUIDs or plain IPs could be used) and better search. There still is the ordering of results and SEO issues, but it's up to user—change your query or search engine if you aren't satisfied. The security issue (phishing) would require a bit more work to sort out, but I'm sure that's doable.
Domain names could still be used, but strictly for basic infrastructure-related things, like search engine directory.
I'm curious why some of those rows are colored blue (IDN, KIDS, UMMAH). I also wonder what effect this will have on domain squatting (probably very little, all told).
Anyone have any favorites? I see .DOT (dot.dot, anyone?), .WINNERS, .SUCKS (more desirable than .SEX), .NINJA, .MATRIX (registered by L'Oreal rather than HP, sadly), .IRA (financial planning and domestic terrorism in one convenient location), and absolutely no sign of .CAT (what do you think the internet is for, anyway? (No, wait, .PORN is right there.)).
The most contentious domains are .app (13 applications), .inc (11), .home (11), and .art (10), followed by .shop, .blog, and .book, and .llc at 9. Rough list here: https://gist.github.com/2923898
I could see pay.barclaycard or apply.barclaycard. shop.bloomingdales and fashion.bloomingdales would work as well. donate.cancerresearch would work, but I'll grant you the money could be better spent.
Basically what these new TLDs are for is to eliminate the .com in shop.bloomingdales.com.
Interesting to note that Google has applied for 101 TLDs (search for @google.com in that list) including a lot of generic words like car,book, dad, dog, eat, family, film, fly. While some words are related to Google's business many aren't.
A little over $21 MM[1] in application and first year fees. $185,000 for the application fee and $25000 for the annual fee.
With a quick look there are some interesting things. Doesn't look like too many consumer companies came out to play. One of note is that Coca-Cola did not bid on .coke nor did P&G bid on anything.
A great way to squeeze the last dollars out of domains, now that all are squatted.
The application fees were $5k registration + $185k or $47k evaluation, so they collected something between $100 million and $366 million dollars, annual fees excluded.
I can see two possible outcomes:
1. all conflicts are resolved by agreements/bidding, process goes smoothly. But usage nevers picks up, and in a years'time it's all money down the drain.
2. ICANN backpedals and decides to cancel this stupid idea, while deciding to (legally) keep the application fees. Fighting ensues and we get a new, better management organization. Or worse.
"I can't say it any better than this: "Non .com extensions will leak traffic to the .com version of that domain name. Every business set up on a [non .com extension] domain will lose a proportion of their traffic to the dot com version of that domain name, although the amount of that leak will be difficult to predict.
The leak occurs because customers/ potential customers will frequently recall the name of the site and add ‘.com’ almost instinctively, unless they recall that it is on a relatively unusual extension .net, .org etc.
Inevitably, the more the [non .com extension] site is marketed, the more traffic is sent to the .com, however, the problem is that the .com domain may well resolve to a competing business’s website.
Some businesses are willing to live with that loss (perhaps because the [non .com extension] is a relevant, memorable generic, for example) – for them the [non .com extension] is a viable option.
However, without a compelling reason like the one mentioned above, I would argue that a business on a limited budget just cannot afford to develop a site using a [non .com extension] domain name. It is as simple as that."
Is there a default domain for these tlds? Let's take .home for example. How will this work when typing it into a browser?
If you have my.home, it makes sense. If you type www.home, it really looks ugly, but I guess it works, and we've spent the past few years moving away from including "www" as a whole.
Typing "com" into my url bar doesn't get me anywhere, so I'm assuming typing "home" won't either. If I bought "apple", is there going to be a conventional or canonical "default"? home.apple?
Can you imagine what would all these look like in 5 years (even 2 maybe)? It is going to look messy! I mean I like the idea of it and surely it would looks elegant if it weren't abuse...but I think this is not happening..
People are pouring money into these TLD as well...
Sad to say, but I see a totally different future, these are totally different to real estate, this is a digital world, maybe these .com, .app thing won't even needed, no address at all in the future, replace by something else, like on Facebook where you type say Dropbox, then suggested site just come out
The list appears fear-driven to me. High probability the investment will not pay off, but everyone is afraid of not taking part in this historical moment that MIGHT change users' assumptions and behavior.
[+] [-] seiji|13 years ago|reply
What the holy hell? Did google just have an employee suggestion box and they applied for all submitted names?
Apple wants: .apple
Microsoft wants: .azure, .bing, .docs, .hotmail, .live, .microsoft, .office, .skydrive, .skype, .windows, .xbox
Microsoft is just defending their own brands.
Only two applicants for .sex (and one for .sexy)
Amazon wants: .amazon, .app, .audible, .author, .aws, .book, .bot, .box, .buy, .call, .circle, .cloud, .coupon, .deal, .dev (nice way to snoop on poorly configured corporate dns too. in competition with google), .drive, .fast, .fire, .free, .game, .got, .group, .hot, .imdb, .jot, .joy (smells like zappos), .kids, .kindle, .like (only applicant), .mail, .map, .mobile, .moi, .movie, .music, .news (google didn't apply for .news), .now, .pay (dangerous), .pin, .play, .prime, .read, .room, .safe, .save, .search (woo), .secure, .shop, .show, .silk, .smile (aww), .song, .spot, .store, .talk, .tunes (ha!), .tushu, .video, .wanggou, .wow, .yamaxun, .you, .yun, .zappos, .zero, .アマゾン, .ストア, .セール, .ファッション, .ポイント, .亚马逊, .家電, .書籍, .通販, .食品
Amazon is part brand defense and part what-the-hell-are-you-doing too.
There will be no winners here. The best thing they can do now is cancel the idea of corporate TLD ownership.
[+] [-] chao-|13 years ago|reply
Not to be too judgmental, but the site for famousfourmedia.com has so much stock photo that it hurts. Then again, with 60 filings, they probably can't hear my criticism over the sound of all the money they're making.
[+] [-] exDM69|13 years ago|reply
What was noteworthy was that many companies seem to be formed for this purpose only. There's "DotApp Inc", ".app registry inc" and a bunch of other names like that.
[+] [-] dmaz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Wilya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|13 years ago|reply
EDIT: I meant, is google really asking for "a domain for limited liability company acronym in some romance languages" or is there something that makes more sense?
[+] [-] abrowne|13 years ago|reply
[1]: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/04/guge.html
[+] [-] grotos|13 years ago|reply
Google can use .plus domain to simplify links to Google+ profile. I would really like to see something like user-name.plus/photos.
[+] [-] jack-r-abbit|13 years ago|reply
I'm also concerned about the gTLDs that are file extensions. I think that could be confusing at best... and a disaster as worst.
[+] [-] simias|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaurz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yahelc|13 years ago|reply
VeriSign applied for all the various internationalized versions of ".com" in all the different allowed languages. (ie, קוֹם)
[+] [-] smithlee124|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rod110|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Dj0ul|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrys|13 years ago|reply
Nothing for facebook.
Nothing for ebay.
Nothing for nbc.
[+] [-] makecheck|13 years ago|reply
Hopefully those in control of infrastructure take a stand and simply reject these "domains" entirely. Shouldn't be hard to set up sanity-restoring filters...let us please just pretend these are spam domains and never acknowledge their existence.
Ironically anyone vain enough to reserve ".<whatever>" is surely ALSO going to keep a death grip on "<whatever>.com" so this will do nothing to improve the size of the name space.
[+] [-] goatforce5|13 years ago|reply
Monter (the job people) and Monster (the expensive audio product people) are both going for .monster
How do they resolve that? Toss a coin? Auction it?
[+] [-] tucson|13 years ago|reply
It opens new options for "local" addresses: biketour.berlin biketour.paris antics.london etc
wether this will stick is another story.
[+] [-] mustpax|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twelvechairs|13 years ago|reply
I wonder if they actually stopped long enough to consider the actual pros and cons on this.
[+] [-] AndrewDucker|13 years ago|reply
So give it time and you, too, can have a .fail domain.
[+] [-] jimktrains2|13 years ago|reply
Also, it's very bothersome that domains are backwards. It's always irked me.
That being said, the amount of money required for a gTLD is absurd.
[+] [-] goblin89|13 years ago|reply
The only fair alternative would be no visible URIs (UUIDs or plain IPs could be used) and better search. There still is the ordering of results and SEO issues, but it's up to user—change your query or search engine if you aren't satisfied. The security issue (phishing) would require a bit more work to sort out, but I'm sure that's doable.
Domain names could still be used, but strictly for basic infrastructure-related things, like search engine directory.
[+] [-] jerf|13 years ago|reply
Cons: Internet nerds whine a lot.
It was unfortunately a no-brainer for them.
[+] [-] kibwen|13 years ago|reply
Anyone have any favorites? I see .DOT (dot.dot, anyone?), .WINNERS, .SUCKS (more desirable than .SEX), .NINJA, .MATRIX (registered by L'Oreal rather than HP, sadly), .IRA (financial planning and domestic terrorism in one convenient location), and absolutely no sign of .CAT (what do you think the internet is for, anyway? (No, wait, .PORN is right there.)).
[+] [-] grose|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoody|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomGullen|13 years ago|reply
Not sure what the other part of the domain will be for these as well:
"Visit www.bloomingdales!"
Lots of confusion on the way!
I'm not too impressed with ones such as '.CANCERRESEARCH' paid for by the 'Australian Cancer Research Foundation'. What a waste of money.
[+] [-] freehunter|13 years ago|reply
Basically what these new TLDs are for is to eliminate the .com in shop.bloomingdales.com.
[+] [-] fijter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramanujam|13 years ago|reply
A little over $21 MM[1] in application and first year fees. $185,000 for the application fee and $25000 for the annual fee.
[1] http://mashable.com/2011/06/20/icann-top-level-domains/
[+] [-] Karunamon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnorthrop|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riffraff|13 years ago|reply
No french though, quick, let's grab .renault!
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Karunamon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uxp|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeden|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobeat|13 years ago|reply
The application fees were $5k registration + $185k or $47k evaluation, so they collected something between $100 million and $366 million dollars, annual fees excluded.
I can see two possible outcomes:
1. all conflicts are resolved by agreements/bidding, process goes smoothly. But usage nevers picks up, and in a years'time it's all money down the drain.
2. ICANN backpedals and decides to cancel this stupid idea, while deciding to (legally) keep the application fees. Fighting ensues and we get a new, better management organization. Or worse.
[+] [-] chris123|13 years ago|reply
The leak occurs because customers/ potential customers will frequently recall the name of the site and add ‘.com’ almost instinctively, unless they recall that it is on a relatively unusual extension .net, .org etc.
Inevitably, the more the [non .com extension] site is marketed, the more traffic is sent to the .com, however, the problem is that the .com domain may well resolve to a competing business’s website.
Some businesses are willing to live with that loss (perhaps because the [non .com extension] is a relevant, memorable generic, for example) – for them the [non .com extension] is a viable option.
However, without a compelling reason like the one mentioned above, I would argue that a business on a limited budget just cannot afford to develop a site using a [non .com extension] domain name. It is as simple as that."
SOURCE: http://www.domaining.org.uk/2007/12/10/spectacular-net-or-a-...
HACKER NEWS THREAD FOR ABOVE LINK: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108016
[+] [-] andrewheins|13 years ago|reply
If you have my.home, it makes sense. If you type www.home, it really looks ugly, but I guess it works, and we've spent the past few years moving away from including "www" as a whole.
Typing "com" into my url bar doesn't get me anywhere, so I'm assuming typing "home" won't either. If I bought "apple", is there going to be a conventional or canonical "default"? home.apple?
I really find this confusing.
[+] [-] billpg|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djbender|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] millerfung|13 years ago|reply
People are pouring money into these TLD as well... Sad to say, but I see a totally different future, these are totally different to real estate, this is a digital world, maybe these .com, .app thing won't even needed, no address at all in the future, replace by something else, like on Facebook where you type say Dropbox, then suggested site just come out
[+] [-] netrus|13 years ago|reply