Latest plan for domain names is as doomed as .coop and .mobi

Will a plan to allow unlimited top-level domain names on the Web next year succeed? On the face of it, the plan has legs: Instead of .com addresses, people and busineses could create new endings such as "spiderman.movie," "wired.magazine," or "the.industry.standard" -- in theory, opening up many more possible URLs and reducing the competition for .com domains.

My forecast: It'll be only slightly more popular than .pro.

The non-profit organization that decides what's allowed on the Internet is ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. For years, Internet addresses were limited to five top-level domains in the United States, one of which went at the end of each address. There was .com, .org, .net. .gov and .mil. Originally, .net was meant for use only by the computers of network access providers, and .org was the catch-all for sites that didn't fit into the commercial, government or military categories. In reality, the lines between .com, .net and .org have been erased.

A decade ago during the dot-com boom, ICANN wrangled over proposals to expand the domain space. In the end, the corporation created thirteen new top-level names between 2001 and 2005.

Pop quiz: Name them!

You probably remember .biz and .info. But most Internet users are completely unaware of .name, .pro, .aero, .coop, .museum, .asia, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel and .travel.

Instead of branching out into alternate domains, companies and organizations opted to stay within .com, .org and .net, even if it meant using longer domain names such as righteouskill-themovie.com. 

USA Today's reporting on the issue is spot-on: It will be expensive for business owners. Thousands of firms have already spent a lot of money buying their company and product names, and even likely misspellings in the .com domain. Some even buy up potential names that competitors or grudge-bearing customers might want to use. For example, ABC Widget company might buy both abcwidget.com and abcwidgetsucks.com.

If ICANN's plan goes into action, it'll allow what will seem like an infinite number of possible URLs. Competitors and opponents can potentially register them, to steal traffic away from authentic sites. Business owners told the paper that they fear another round of spending to lock out domain claim-jumpers.

It's also not certain how well the new domains will go down with the public. Mainstream Internet users will probably see the new custom domains as too complicated, like 9-digit ZIP codes. The ad hoc standard of cramming a series of words into a .com domain such as thestandard.com, seems to work fine for just about everyone. Most Internet users have figured out that Googling the name of a company, person or organization usually finds the correct site, so there's no need to memorize a long URL in the first place.

To be fair, USA Today namechecks one potential hotspot: A .eco (or perhaps .green) domain, for organizations that want to position themselves as environmentally friendly.

But overall, business owners will shy away from non-dot-com domains, insider and Domain Name Journal editor Ron Jackson told USA Today. ".Com ... has been branded in the public's consciousness." he said. "If you're a small businessman and you buy a new extension ... it's going to be like being invisible on the Web."

I'm 100% certain Jackson will keep his site at dnjournal.com. He won't be moving to domain.name.journal next year.