Forget about new gtlds we have Star domains

W.Kenneth Ryan has a dream and it is for a multiplexed naming system. Ryan has created the Asterisk browser to make for the possibility of his naming system, he shows an example of how it would work using Johnson.com for example.

This browser makes domain name translations completely invisible to the user.  Any name*number address will be translated into the corresponding native format for domain name resolution, and any domain name registered in the test format will be presented to the user as a convenient name*number web address.

The premise in the example is that only one company can have Johnson.com, but there are plenty of companies that would like Johnson.com so they can get a star domain such as Johnson*4.com. The real address would be http://www.mlx–johnson–4.com/

Mr. Ryan seems to not like the new gtld program or domain speculation as he mentions in Faq #2 at the end.

I would say people are more likely to accept .web before Johnson*4.com, but that’s just my opinion.

From the Faq section:

Q1 – More than 112 million .com names are registered. Obviously it hasn’t been hard to create new names. What’s the problem?

A1 – The problem is just that: over 112 million .com names are registered. Each name must be unique. Many of the names are held for speculation. That keeps content, and commerce, off the web.

The legacy system allows one person to ‘own’ a generic term. Example: worldwide there can be only one plumber.com on the Internet.

As early as 2004, only 3.7% of corporations around the world had identical corporate and dotcom domain names.

Imagine the telephone system following Internet rules which allowed anyone in the world to register your name and thereby prevent you from getting phone service under your own name.

Or just try to register a domain name that is meaningful, short, and easy to remember.

Q2 – Does this require a new naming system?

A2 – No, we’re suggesting an evolution of the existing system, the fundamentals aren’t changed at all.

Here’s how it would work:
Domain names are registered in a set format, then a little new technology is used to introduce a keyboard character that hasn’t been available in domain names previously. This character is restricted for use as an ‘addressing token’ in much the same way the @-character is used in e-mail addresses. This character plus a number allows you to register names that are the same as – but at the same time different from – existing domain names. This simple device would bring the Internet into better alignment with the real world, where different people and companies often share ‘the same’ name.

If we look at the alternatives:
We know that ‘all the good names are gone’ and have been for years. If you’re creating a new venture you may be able to register a short, catchy domain name and name your company after your domain, but if your company already enjoys name recognition and goodwill, even having a registered trademark won’t help in most cases.

ICANN is now taking applications for new generic Top Level Domains – at a cost of $185,000 per application. This may be good for ICANN, but is ‘fragment and confuse’ a good policy for Internet users? New top levels have been introduced before, starting more than a decade ago, but haven’t been very successful.

The most successful new generic TLD, .info, was introduced in 2001 and now holds 6.6 million registered domain names, compared with .com’s 110 million. Another gTLD, .biz, was opened in June of 2002 to complement (or compete with) .com. It has about 2.3 milion registered names.

Other expansion TLDs such as .aero (from June, 2002), .coop (June, 2002) and .pro (June, 2004) have only about 10,000 registrations each. Do you even know they exist? Users tend to treat new top level domains with suspicion and businesses rightly view them as second rate addresses.

A wait list (back-order) system is available for ordering names that expire, but how many people do you think are in line ahead of you to buy the ‘good names’? How long can your business wait for a name, and do you want one that the previous owner may have run into the ground?

There is a secondary market in domain names, fueled by speculation. If it normally costs only a few dollars to register a name for a year are you willing to pay thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same name? Someone is getting rich on scarcity, but the scarcity is artificial and it promotes neither communication nor commerce. In fact, it impedes both.