As contributed by Roger Kay on Forbes.
So, I’ve already said it once this year: more than 12 months after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opened up the Web domain space to a potentially infinite number of new names, the greatest expansion has been in confusion.
Once upon a time there were only 22 generic top-level domains (sometimes called gTLDs, Internet domains, Web domains, or just domains ) with type suffixes like .com, .net, .mil, and .gov, and geographic suffixes like .uk, .ru, and .jp.
Now there are close to 500 — with potentially 900 more to come in the next few months.
After an initial flurry of apparent enthusiasm — a certain amount of defensive purchasing of adjacent name spaces (e.g., Apple AAPL -2.61% nailing down .mac, Amazon.com AMZN -0.81% snagging .book, and Johnson & Johnson JNJ -1.59% grabbing .baby), a large number of speculative buys of random handles like .tattoo, .bike, .attorney, .bingo, .broker, .lol, and .pizza, and a few successes oriented toward a specific geography (e.g., .london) or professional association (e.g., .realtor) — new registrations have slowed to a trickle. Read more