They say the original .com era ended back in 2000. That's true when speaking in reference to the tech boom that created the thriving Internet industry of the late 1990s. However on Monday legislation was approved that could truly put an end to the .com era by allowing companies and organizations to list their Web addresses as .justaboutanything.
Peter Dengate Thrush who is chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit organization responsible for Internet addresses called the decision, "the start of a whole new phase for the Internet."
Indeed in the future Web addresses will be able to be named after anything from product names, to government agencies to political causes.
However it won't be cheap. So before you go rushing out to secure the rights to www.whatever.yournameis, you'd better have something to the tune of $185 grand plus another $25 grand in annual dues in your back pocket. That's a substantial fee hike from the ten bucks or so it generally takes to maintain a traditional .com address.
So with all the big money required to secure and maintain one, will personalized Web addresses become the next big status symbol? The digital equivalent of driving a fully-loaded Cadillac Escalade? After all, who but athletes and hip-hop stars will be able to afford shelling out 200 grand for a Web address?
Computers As Humans for one is looking forward to visiting Web addresses like; snoop.dogg, jay.z and lebron.james.
But in truth high profile entertainment, consumer goods and financial service providers are expected to be the first to snap up their domain names. According to an AP report put out on Monday, the Canon camera company already plans to secure .canon.
ICANN isn't taking applications for Web address names just yet. The organization plans to start accepting them in January of 2012. So the good news is that gives me almost six months to come up with the 200 grand needed to secure .computersashumans.
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