By the end of this year, what will New York, London, Paris, Melbourne, and Sydney have in common? Something that right now is quite impossible. Their own Internet top level domain address. That is, in our case, "xyz DOT melbourne".
Can you believe that the public Internet is only 28 years old? That's when domain suffixes were first made available outside of universities and the military. Since then we've grown used to .com, .org, .gov. There are 21 TLDs as they are called - home to 246 million domains.
The World Wide Web is even younger, released to the public by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. How a human idea can transform the world!
Well, over the coming year the cage doors are being opened and 1400 new names will flutter out. Including .London, .Paris, .Melbourne. This hasn't been easy. Every would-be name had to go through a rigorous application process. To get into the running you have to put in $185,000, and then fill in a 360-page questionnaire. So you won't be getting your own for a long time to come.
However major corporations are already clamouring for their own presence - or at least, not to be the only company in their field who is absent. And the money for applications and lawyers have been quickly found under the whip of urgency.
Also demanding democracy are other language scripts - Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic being obvious starters.
The international body that rules the net, ICANN, is constantly reviewing and releasing new names - there are already more applications than slots, though last week it was able to announce a guernsey for .melbourne.
It obviously has high expectations for the impact of this long debated move. ICANN's director of global media affairs, Brad White, painted an excited picture: "It will afford a possibility for innovation, creativity, branding, marketing. We know it will have tremendous impact. Nobody could predict the popularity of Skype, Facebook or Twitter. What we have done is removed a barrier to innovation."
In Australia, ARI Registry Services administers our three million .au domains, and it successfully managed the submissions, contracts and technical requirements for Melbourne and Sydney, working with a consortium of state and local governments, tourist groups and the like.
For all these, having that name is important. In Melbourne ARI expects retailers and industry to jump at the chance to use the domain.
"We're creating value for the brand 'Melbourne', like with the grand prix, tennis, footy." explained ARI Managing Director Adrian Kinderis. A business has to be based in Victoria to be eligible for the address, in fact it will be a reassurance that this is a truly Victorian business. "This will be home for anything to do with Melbourne, to take their brand on line."
With so many egos fighting for so few spots, you can bet that this will become a lawyers' picnic for years to come. Just the prospect of intellectual rights, copyright and patent laws raise their heads. Currently the World Intellectual Property Organisation is dealing with nearly 3000 cases - and that's just with 21 TLDs.
Expect to hear a lot about the new names later this year as they are promoted through billboards, advertising, promotions. If you think about it, having raised $360 million in application fees alone, they can afford to give it a splash.
ray@ebeatty.com
