Rebellion in the Dotcom Kingdom
It has been relentlessly promoted by hundreds of millions of businesses worldwide as their most cherished dotcom web address. It has been typed, uttered and chatted hundreds of millions of times each and every day, year after year. No other word could claim such usage in the daily activities amongst the populace of global e-commerce. The success of this suffix is also reflected in the sale of 120 million plus dotcom domain names worldwide, ensuring its 99% image supremacy in the global market place as the most powerful and credible suffix of all times to date. But now there is a grand rebellion at the dotcom kingdom.
Starting January 2014, ICANN, the governing body of the internet began rolling out a fresh new army of some 1500 new 'generic top level domain' suffixes called gTLDs the likes of .wine and .cheese to .rockets and .stones. These new suffixes will start flexing their muscle at each other and start a fresh new domain spring. The entire list can be viewed at www.icann.org.This revolutionary and rebellious force is poised to change the landscape of global ecommerce and bring colourful collage of zillions of new name identities. As a disruptive force, it will lead a new age of global domain name usage and alter the corporate nomenclature scene forever. Just like the first shockwave decades ago when the internet brought a new twist to global corporate communications and introduced brand new elements to business models.
The intensity of this topic is being discussed in Dubai on 12 March 2014 - see www.azna.com.
Expect massive, rapid changes
Example: The owners of the gTLD dot loan will let the public choose, like easy.loan, small.loan, business.loan, dallas.loan etc. Now, imagine thousands of such new name brands times the 1500 master roots. An amazing new picture emerges. Equally, this threatens the old-fashioned or long and dysfunctional brand identities.
Unlike the early start of domain name which grew slowly over years and later suddenly caught fire, here a massive influx of new game changers will blanket all over the world almost overnight. The question of the day will be 'what's your name identity' and how can you prove if it will successfully skate in all directions in the maze of global digital highways. The answers will make direct impact on the value of the organisation. Any name-combination lacking lustre or incapable of swinging from platform to platform will be left behind. Remember, at the dawn of internet those companies that resisted domain names, websites, emails and e-commerce simply faded away.
Are you in the race to win?
The selection of your corporate nomenclature will define whether you are in the race for a win or be lost somewhere in between the cracks. The powers of your customer acquisition technology based on nomenclature and cyber savvy skills will determine your image supremacy in the marketplace. The complexity of digital mazes and endless bandwidths will make last century names almost obsolete. Global marketing and branding will be shifted from logo-slogan to domain-name centricity. Long and twisted names will be replaced by cute and simple, easy to type and remember name identities. A new age of post social media and branding will also emerge.
The Dotcom Kingdom will retain its lustre. The reputation of top quality dotcom domain names will increase in power and stature as they will clearly stand out in the new jungle. The highest mortality will be the longest names, where tens of millions of dotcoms are currently gasping; Long or meaningless names like 'thebestsilkontheplanet.com' will be simply replaced by silk.nyc or silk.shop. 'thebestusedcardealsindubai.com' will become cars.dubai or used.cars. Such simple solutions will become overnight darlings to the public at large all over the world. The numbers of new dotcoms purchases and renewals of existing names both will sharply decline in favour of new options. Good and meaningful dotcom names will remain the high-quality benchmark domain names while new gTLDs will provide newer styles naming options to divert traffic.
