‘MicroLink Modem 56K’
courtesy of ‘Markusram’
Late yesterday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the concept of the generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) which will open up a fairly wide landscape of domain suffixes like .com and .org to new members. While the number of Top Level Domains have expanded in recent years, the .dc suffix is still entirely unclaimed.
It could be a boon for the District to pickup the .dc gTLD to use for area businesses to highlight their work in the District, either to DC residents, or as proof they are a locally operating business. I know that we would happily pay for welove.dc, and I suspect that the various tour companies that operate tours to the area would make the investment if it was tied to some sort of competitive advantage.
It would be incredibly important for the DC OCTO to move quickly, though, as I suspect that they won’t be the only ones looking to be the registrar for that gTLD, and to lose control of that resource would be a pretty significant failure. Let’s get on it, OCTO, we’ll help you if we can.
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
I think there are other things DC should spend money on first:
“the application to register a gTLD costs $185,000, plus $25,000 a year to run the registry for your new dot-whatever.”
http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/06/20/www-dot-whatever-of-the-day
if it was cheap sure, but I think could use that money elsewhere
I guess it depends on how many domains are likely to be registered and what fees the market will bear for them. And of course the expenses will be more than what brian mentions, since that’s just what they’d be paying to be allowed to run it, not what it costs to actually run it.