What’s in a Name? by Jim Laber, Partner

Apparently big money – at least for a new top level domain name…

What’s a top level domain? It’s the ending on the web addresses that we use every day such as .com, .edu, and .org. So far, only 22 of them that are not country specific have been approved by ICANN (the organization responsible for coordinating the Internet’s naming system).

The big news is that there are going to be a lot more of them now that ICANN has opened top level domains to the public. Fortunately, the number of them that will be accepted should be limited by ICANNs stringent rules, meticulous application process, and the $185,000 price tag. Regardless of all that, the naming conventions for web addresses as we know them are going to change.

What does this mean for individuals and small organizations? Not much, at least in the immediate future. However, it will be interesting to see what large corporations (such as Canon and Nike who have shown interest) will do with this opportunity and what unique web applications will emerge.

If you could submit a new top level domain for consideration, what would you suggest? Tweet it to @atnetplus and hashtag #domainideas. We’ll post the best ones in a couple of weeks.