Battle for top level domains – ‘.com’ v/s ‘.ws’ v/s ‘.co’
With almost every person getting on to the net, people and organizations are looking for their own identity. What does this lead to? Domain registrars making huge money and most of the common dictionary works taken for the “.com” top domain. Currently there are 20m dot com domains and this will grow to 500m in the next 10 years. So with 20m names already taken and people finding it difficult to find the right name, what are the options? With the top domain “.com” almost not available and people trying out different permutations and combinations. People did sense the opportunity here.
The new domain names with “.ws” extensions are on sale at a premium. ws actually stands for Western Somoa, but the promoters Michael and Alan are marketing it as “ws=WebSite”. Western Somoa which has a population of less than 200,000 people is a perfect “country” specific extension and a new top level domain for organizations. Same with “.co” extension. “.co” has been assigned for Colombia specific business but is now being marketed similar to “.com” and now the new on the block “.ws”. Same with .”co.cc”. Nice way to promote it, but then there are a few questions that come up.
The problems with these new top level extensions would be identity. With the companies that have already built a brand, the likes of Google/ Apple/ Microsoft and Indian companies like, Infosys/ TCS/ Wipro, they will have to be on their toes to get these domain names for the same of brand identity and web presence. They would have already spent enough to buy out the .com domains and now if they don’t buy these new extensions they run the risk of losing their identity. e.g. The US entities seem to be active as on last check the likes of Google/ Apple/ Microsoft/ IBM were not available for “.co” extension but Infosys/ Wipro/ TCS is AVAILABLE!
Secondly, the new companies/ consortium’s that are coming up promoting these now extensions (which by the way are country specify and they have to pay a premium to that government or get into an exclusive deal with the government) are charging HUGE amount for the established domains. Isn’t that cheating, I think again. Why pay more to get my own identity.
Thirdly, how can the established companies or the new ones that are trying to build their brand keep on top of the new extensions coming up, at the rate of 2 per month.
Fourth, what happens to the domestic business. Many multinationals would like to buy the country specific domains for their use and what happens if these domains are bought by someone else!
Thinking Again.
For few years my roots and boots were continents apart, now they both are together.
