ICANN Approves Two More Top-Level Domains

Cpyder writes "ICANN has decided to go forward with the implementation of two new top level domains, namely .mobi (for mobile use, sponsored by Nokia and T-Mobile) and .jobs (for job sites). The ICANN Board meetings regarding the approval are available. It is not yet known when these domains will be available for registration, as this decision merely starts the technical and business negotiations for terms under which these domains will be registered. Normally the domains should become active somewhere next year. Several other new TLDs are still up for discussion. These include .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx. Last October, ICANN approved .travel and .post. More on these new TLDs at PCWorld and Google News."

Comments

Death of the . but Keywords live on

[slashnutt]

ICANN can give .* extensions and one day people are going to abandon that idea and start using AOL keywords type of scheme.

Now we'll have whitehouse.gov - the real one, whitehouse.com - the sexy one, whitehouse.mobi - while Clinton was sleeping on the couch, whitehouse.sux - advocate site for the Whitehouse, whitehouse.net - no not Watergate, whitehouse.letsmakeanewdotextentiontomakemoremoney - An example of how the ICANN just makes up new dot names to generate more revenue as a businesses don't want customers to confuse extensions with a competing web squatter.

Have you noticed that people have already ceased using www. on most advertisements? At least my domain the www is optional, as most other websites have adopted this too.

Re:Death of the . but Keywords live on

[timster]

The "www" prefix is pretty obsolete anyway, and hearkens back to an era when a given domain name likely represented a specific computer. Nowadays people typing in pointless prefixes probably costs the economy like a billion dollars a year.

Re:Death of the . but Keywords live on

[SavoWood]

Have you noticed that people have already ceased using www. on most advertisements? At least my domain the www is optional, as most other websites have adopted this too.

A lot of this drop has to do with the language. In Germany, I still hear "vay vay vay punkt irgendwas punkt day eh" where in the US, it takes about three weeks to stumble through "double-you double-you double-you dot something dot com". It's mostly because the professional speakers hate to pronounce the "w" incorrectly and sound like an uneducated backwoods hick.

I've been saying "triple double-you" for years, and I occasionally hear it on ads. I often hear students saying "dub dub dub", and it drives me crazy. It's laziness in speech mostly.

With a little practice, you can say each "w" completely. Most of us have been speaking English for decades. Something as simple as a single letter of the alphabet, the same letter you sing correctly in that inane song, shouldn't be that difficult.

I also notice the mispronunciation more in the southern states. How is it the southern dialect can drop complete syllables from some words and add syllables to others? It's like the old joke about why the pregnancy rate is so high in the south. (It's because it takes the girls so long to say "kuh-wheeeee-uuuuht.")

I guess it comes down to, "Just because the President can't say the letter right, doesn't mean you shouldn't."

needs inforcement

[jellomizer]

What is the point of these extra sites? Well .mobi makes since so mobile devices can talk to each other without filling up valuable .com domains or forcing calling a static IP Address. But for .jobs and the others. Nobody when they are looking for a job will try jobs.job they will still go to .com The only ways this can work properly is force people to use the correct Top-Level Domains. All Commercial Enterprise must use .com All Educational must use.EDU all job sites must use .jobs and not use .COM/.ORG That is the only way to get these to be useful, is to force proper use of top level domains. .COM is the standard for everything and that is what people will try.

I get mobi...

[terraformer]

...But why .jobs? That makes no sense as job sites are just commerce sites.

.mobi?

[twofidyKidd]

I guess they thought .mob just didn't have a friendly ring to it. And why are they getting longer? I tell you, in two years time, we'll be seeing .internetwebsite and .ecommerce. Idjits...

Need a change...

[alexre1]

The whole idea of TLDs worked really well over the past few years, but I think its time for a fundamental change in internet addressing. If ICANN just keeps adding new TLDs, they'll accomplish nothing other than to confuse most consumers. Remembering .com/.net/.info/.biz/.mobi/.mail/... probably won't be an issue to most /. users, but I think the vast majority of internet users are going to start getting very confused, very fast.

Maybe we can solicit an "Ask Slashdot" question about alternatives to the TLD problem? What alternatives do you see as being feasible, practicable, and easy on the average end user?

Re:.mobi? why the i?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at your mobile phone keypad. To enter a letter "i" in a sms message, you've got to press the number 4 3 times, unless you've got a PDA or other fully functional input device.

Re:flop waiting to happen?

[68kmac]

Erm, .tv is a country TLD ...

And .biz is actually useful - for recognizing spam :-)

Re:You know it'll happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

[9:31am] blo, blow, bhlo, bl.oh, blough are all registered

Phew! Looks like 'rim' and 'hand' are still available!

VC phone home

[Doc Ruby]

" sponsored by Nokia and T-Mobile"

What the hell is ICANN doing endorsing two private companies in the root domain servers? Is the control of mobile devices now to be defined by these two partnering competitors in the vastly important mobile communications industry, on behalf of the global public supposedly served by ICANN? Now we see why it takes ICANN so long to approve domains: telcos take time to complete their bribe negotiations with such a distributed organization of crooks as ICANN. Maybe I can bootstrap a deal with Larry Flynt to buy control of .xxx , and deprioritize lookups for penthouse.xxx . At least Larry's got a sense of humor, and tasty perks - these telcos are just about the cold, hard cash.

.mobi unsafe at any speed says TB-L

[wombatmobile]

.

A separate domain for mobile device access is directly contrary of what the W3C is working towards with web standards.

Says Tim Berners-Lee.