Is The Name Game Over?

In the red corner we have ICANN, the most powerful body on the Internet today. They introduced the dot com, dot net, and dot org top-level domains (TLDs) to the world, and will be responsible for introducing new TLDs in the future.

In the blue corner the domain name speculators. People that create and register new domain names, normally of the dot com variety, in the hope of selling them to web site owners for a profit.

ICANN have big plans to introduce new top-level domains in a bid to reduce the artificial scarcity value of the current TLDs, dot coms in particular.

They aim to deliver the first punch early next year when they introduce several new TLDs to the marketplace. And they plan to keep the punches flying over the next few years, by phasing in the gradual introduction of hundreds of new domains.

So should domain name speculators be throwing in the towel, and selling their names to the first buyer that comes along? Lets take some time out to examine the facts of the matter.

As of August 1st 2000, the numbers of top-level domains that had been registered world-wide were as follows:

# Registered % of Total
.com 9,482,427 72.6%
.net 2,265,298 17.3%
.org 1,318,818 10.1%
----------- --------
Total 13,066,543 100%

As you can see, dot com names account for nearly three quarters of all domain names registered. If there is a general shortage of TLDs, why then are comparatively so few dot net and dot org names registered?

Is there something inherently wrong with dot net and dot org web addresses? No. They work in exactly the same way as dot coms, they resolve on every Internet server in the world, and because comparatively few have been registered , there are still many great names still available.

So it seems that the issue is not availability, but desirability.

And thats the crux of the matter. Dot coms names are desirable because they have entered the consciousness of the global population. Billions of dollars have already been pumped into convincing customers world-wide that dot coms are the only names worth having. The ubiquity of the term dot com is a brand-builders dream.

In Thailand, where I live and work, children are given a nick name at birth to accompany their (rather long) forenames and surnames. Most are given short names like Sugar or Pig (honestly!) - when I heard a mother addressing her baby daughter as dot com, I knew that the dot com phenomena was global, and just as importantly, permanent.

So ICANN can throw as many punches as they can muster, but they will never be able to deliver the knockout blow. The truth of the matter is, the opponent in the blue corner is not really the domain speculators at all, but a much bigger and altogether more lethal opponent - the market.

About the author:

Lee Hodgson is founder and owner of DomainGuideBook.com a firm which specializes in helping small businesses choose and register the best domain names for their web sites.

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