SUN 01 OCT 2000 SUPPORT GoobNet SPEED

WEEKLY WHINE

Name that domain!

So one of my friends now has her own domain name, which got me thinking about domain names in general. In domain names, you can't get much more general than the top level domain name, the com or org or edu or whatever. The US has six major top level domains, each intended for a different type of establishment.

com	Commercial business
org	Nonprofit organization
edu	Educational institution
gov	Government organization
mil	Military organization
net	Whatever

In addition, there are also two letter top level domains, one for each nation. There is us for the US, ca for Canada, uk for the UK, de for Germany, dk for Denmark, ru for Russia, jp for Japan, tv for Tuvalu, and so on. In countries other than the US, domain names are organized differently. For example, UK businesses get domain names that end in .co.uk, UK universities in .ac.uk [as in academia], and the like. In other countries, all domain names end in that country's top level. Hence there is www.estec.esa.nl for ESA's field center in the Netherlands. Finally, there is one more top level domain, int, for international organizations like ESA itself, with the domain name www.esa.int.

There's a growing sentiment, though, that these domain names aren't enough. Indeed, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is now accepting proposals [until tomorrow] for new top level domains [TLDs]. Some of the perceived frontrunners include shop for electronic retailers, film for sites related to films, and a few others for various industries. One of the dark horses is sucks, as in microsoft.sucks. If you've an idea, you can submit your application for the meager fee of US$50,000.

However, since GoobNet's funds have been depleted by a recent wave of unforeseen expenditures [like $17 for a new album that Mr Goober absolutely had to have], we are no longer able to submit an application, even though we have a great many ideas for top level domains. So, as a public service, we offer the following as future top level domains, along with examples of sites that would employ them. Anyone who has US$50,000 sitting around should feel free to send any or all of these to ICANN on our behalf.

calm	This domain name would be for companies that want to have smoother IPOs than companies like Priceline.com, which has been meandering down during most of this year. A large number of new technology companies have been volatile in their first couple of years on NASDAQ, so companies that don't want such insecurity should be calm. » reviews.calm could post reviews of anything, like new products, webpages, competitors, recipes, or wombats.
band	This TLD would be for garage bands formed spontaneously on a weekend and then broken up spontaneously another weekend because the founder's girlfriend thinks the founder is spending too much time on the band's webpage than on its music. » sharksandsquirrels.band would have weekly journals about Salem, OR based Sharks and Squirrels, specializing in the genre of music known as "loud". You could read about Steve Pittmer's new drum set and see photographs of the day when he painted the bass drum with the band's logo, a squirrel firing a missile at a shark.
www	Although the domain name net already exists, it's too broad for some. Many sites, such as GoobNet, exist only on the Web and have no presence on other formats of the Internet. Hence the top level domain www could be used instead of net for some establishments. » wallabies.www would be a site devoted to wallabies. However, it would have no E-mail address, therefore meriting the www suffix.
lame	For some, there's no point trying to deny the lameness of their site. So why not give it the TLD lame? » hillaryis.lame would be the official site for Rick Lazio's Senate campaign. » rickis.lame would be the official site for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.