MIKE PESCA:

This week the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, decided to increase the number of possible endings for website addresses. There are currently 22 available extensions called generic top level domains. They include .com, .gov, .org. You know ‘em.

With the new rules companies and individuals are no longer limited to those 22 choices. President of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom, says the decision will, quote, “unleash the global human imagination.”

In terms of branding, the possibilities are endless. For example Mac could use iPod.apple. Citibank could be Citi.bank. But it comes at a price. The initial cost to own one of these top level domains is $185,000, plus an annual fee of $25,000 to maintain the domain. For some it's an exciting moment in Internet history, for others, neh, no big deal.

Ryan Singel is a staff writer for Wired.com. Ryan, welcome to On the Media.

RYAN SINGEL:

Thanks for having me on, Mike.

RYAN SINGEL:

What is it, the biggest, most glorious change ever or a snooze?

RYAN SINGEL:

It's gonna land right in the middle of those two. I think it’s gonna be –

[OVERTALK]
MIKE PESCA:

It always does!

RYAN SINGEL:

I know. I wish I could follow Rod Beckstrom’s  excitement that this is going to be, you know, the biggest world changing moment since the invention of email. But that’s just not the case. It’s gonna be interesting. We're gonna see some fun new things. But, you know, we’re still all gonna love dot com addresses.

MIKE PESCA:

Why do we need to expand the number of domains? Is it like you have to keep adding area codes ‘cause there's not enough numbers to go around?

RYAN SINGEL:

Well, there are still plenty of names you can get, but it’s hard to get a good dot com name. You know, think if you're a restaurant in say New York City, and you happen to be Mom’s Cafe. How many Mom’s Cafes are there in the world? So you can't get Mom’sCafe.com. So the idea is that, you know, maybe somebody would go and buy .nyc, and then, you know, if you’re Mom’s Café, you could choose to be Mom’sCafe.nyc.

MIKE PESCA:

But do people really still use the addresses, or do people just use search engines, you know,  specifically Google, and kind of bypass actually putting in www dot whatever dot whatever?

RYAN SINGEL:

Yeah, there’s – there’s so much of our navigation these days happens just straight through search engines, but names still count. You know, it's nice to have a, a cool domain name. You know, we still see them on advertisements.

So, you know, we might start to see some interesting ones that are more memorable. Citi.bank, the example you used, is pretty memorable, instead of trying to remember if it’s Citibank.com. But your point is well taken.

MIKE PESCA:

So is ICANN presenting this as a possibility to raise money for themselves or because they’re serving some sort of either want or need?

RYAN SINGEL:

They’re positioning more as like a kind of a want or need in a way to make themselves more international, ‘cause these names don't necessarily have to be in English script these days. There’s a huge number of languages that you can – you can have domain names in. So, you know, the new extensions could well be in, Greek or, you know, Cyrillic.

MIKE PESCA:

But the one thing this doesn't change your address is the supremacy of the dot itself. Will we ever get to a time when the dot doesn't rule over domain names with, with its iron but little tiny little fist?

RYAN SINGEL:

Generally, if there's not a dot, you're generally looking for something local, on your own computer or on the little sub network that you’re on. So that, that dot com sort of tells your computer and in – that, that you're actually looking for something on the greater Internet. So that dot is never gonna go away, even if, you know, its old cousin, www, did go the way of the dinosaur.

MIKE PESCA:

I remember, you know a decade ago that the thought was the domain name was going to be so important. And, of course, there was squatting. You know, since then I was trying to think, if the names were so important – I was just going  through some of the names that should be out there.

Sports.com, I have no idea what that is. Business.com, I don't really know what that is. I thought that was to be worth a lot of money. I've read that Sex.com has gone through so many owners, ‘cause no one really found a way to monetize it. And it does call into question what the conventional wisdom was a decade ago, of your dot com name being your brand.

RYAN SINGEL:

There are still a lot of people that actually, you know, when they want something, like coupons, they go and type in “coupons.com.” And I think that domain name is actually worth a lot of money.

There's a little bit less of that now because people are so used to finding things through Google. But the domain names are, are still – still worth money. You know, you can take a random set of words and just type them in and type “.com” and there’s probably a page that’s parked there, with ads.

MIKE PESCA:

Is there any reason to think that the change will affect spam sites or phishing sites or in any way affect the security of websites?

RYAN SINGEL:

Right now a lot of spam sites tend to gravitate towards kind of the low rent districts, like dot info, you know, where you can buy a site for two dollars, or –

MIKE PESCA:

Some guy who owns a dot Info site is saying, well, what do you mean – what, what do you mean, low rent?

[RYAN LAUGHS]

What are you doin’ to me over here?

RYAN SINGEL:

[LAUGHS] You know, it’s true though. You know, it just – it just happened dot.biz turned out to be the same thing. They didn't take off and then, you know, the people that ran ‘em dropped the price, and so than what did you get? You got people that just wanted to like create tons and tons of sites, and most of them are sellin’ you herbal Viagra.

You know, the problem of spam and security isn't so much the domain names. It’s just the fact that it's easy to make a site these days. And it’s great that, you know, anybody can make a site.

MIKE PESCA:

Right. The downside is anybody can make a site.

RYAN SINGEL:

And I think that's actually kind of a cool little possibility, that we all might end up with our own domain. [LAUGHS]

MIKE PESCA:

And if I know anything about the Internet, dot kitten, dot cat, dot cheeseburger and dot Ron Paul are all gonna go in a hurry.

RYAN SINGEL:

And the one I want, which I don't think ICANN would ever allow to happen, dot sucks, dot S-U-C-K-S.

[MIKE LAUGHS]

You know, ‘cause how much money could I charge Facebook to, to – to buy Facebook.sucks. And if they didn’t, you know, it could just be filled with complaints from anybody on the Internet.

MIKE PESCA:

But the Internet was invented for a dot.sucks. That’s a great idea.

[RYAN LAUGHS]

Thank you, Ryan.

RYAN SINGEL:

Thanks for having me on.

MIKE PESCA:

Ryan Singel is a blogger for Wired.com.