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In the second quarter of next year, companies and other groups will ask for a new type of top level domain name, instead of using a dot-com name. But some companies think these new domains don't stand a chance of being as popular as dot-com.
People in the online community have been asking for new top level domain names for a long time. Starting sometime next year, they could get them. Here's a hypothetical example.
Jason Keenan is a spokesman for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He said, "People may think that there's a demand for ‘.widget,' and that everyone is going to get a ‘.widget' Web site. They're business model might be, ‘We want to start a registry, and then we'll start taking registrations from people to get a domain name under this top level."
The corporation coordinates which names become available. Keenan says, again hypothetically, if the Disney Corporation wants to create a new Web site called "playhouse. Disney" it can do so. But getting ".Disney" could be pretty pricey.
"The best estimate, it's a wide range, is $50,000 to $500,000 as the application fee," he said.
But, would creating a new top level domain really be worth the effort?
Orange Soda Co-founder Chris Finken said, "The reason a ‘.tv' or a ‘.mobi' or a new ‘.Paris' or a new ‘.widget' or any of those would work is if it were a specific business filling a specific need, but nothing works as well as a .com for everybody."
Orange Soda is a Utah County company that specializes in online marketing. Finken says these new domains may work for well established companies, but for a new company trying to get off the ground, ".com" is the way to go. Other top level domains don't attract a lot of people.
"'Dot-infos,' they still [get sold for] 99 cents, all the time there are sales going on. They gave them away. Registrars would give them away trying to get people to use ‘.infos,'" he said.
If a new company has to buy a ".biz" or a ".net", there are certain things the company can focus on keep its Web site from getting lost in all the ".coms."
Orange Soda Chief Operating Officer Derek Miner said, "How is the site built? Do the search engines get the right idea about what your site's all about and is your site search engine friendly?"
Miner says some sites are built with Flash Macromedia to show cool videos or pictures, but, some search engines can't read Flash, so they don't always find those Web sites.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
