ICANN, the regulatory body that oversees Internet domain names, just announced that hundreds of new website suffixes should begin appearing by late next year after the organization voted to greatly expand domain names.
There are currently 22 suffixes (or gTLDs – generic top level domains) such as ‘.com’, ‘.gov’ or ‘.net’, but also about 250 country-level domains such as ‘.uk’ and ‘.om’, etc.
The new domains will be categorized by subjects including industry, geography and ethnicity and include Arabic, Chinese and other scripts; ICANN will start accepting applications for domains with new suffixes from Jan. 12 next year.
Experts say corporations and cities should be among the first applicants to register for new generic top-level domain names, resulting in domain names ending in brands like .toyota, .omantel, or place names like .muscat.
ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom said in a statement; “We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind.”
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I see the ".co" top domain suffix is already available. Only seems like scope for confusion to me! The more suffixes there are, the less immediate recognition there is or retention in the customer/visitor mind of the domain. Especially with ".co", so similar to ".com" and also the usual prefix to the ".co.(country)" second tier. Oman already confuses that for some reason by using ".com.om" quite a lot, as opposed to the international ".co.om".
ReplyDeleteAll of which is why I've always used a generic ".com" for everything and anything. Sure, it means you have to think harder on being distinctive with your name, but maybe that's not a bad thing! And with Arabic language domains available too, I guess that's a way to go - with an Arabic suffix on the way. I wonder if we will have ".كوم dot kom" or ".شركة dot sharika" instead, and which will become the default ".com" equivalent?!
Oman actually even more confusingly has OmanTel advertising that both com.om & co.om can be used.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which Omani conglomorate will get their brand up and running first
dot Nawras
dot Bahwan
or even the real vanity ones of your first name
dot Linoleum....that's going to cost some...
ReplyDeleteLino, the more personalised suffixes there are the less confusion there is. When it comes to Oman though, yes, the situation is really confusing. The TRA invited companies to pitch last year for the promotion of .om but not sure they know how to take it forward since no one has heard from them.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to Arabic I'm not even going there...:)
I bet though that .nawras will be the first as our friend 'Oman' said.
Yes, ICANN is a great registration service provider. They hold more that thousands domain names. It is really nice share.
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