.anything can happen

According to the PGA tour, Together, anything is possible, but the IT world has begun to believe that .anything is possible too.

AD: Hey, what's up?

BC: I'm looking for some information on books by Japanese authors.

AD: Why don't you search in search dot search?

BC: Why are you repeating yourself?

AD: I am not. I merely asked you to search in...

BC: Now you're definitely repeating yourself. So what's search dot search?

AD: Well, the online world was being held to ransom by cybersquatters who were registering popular domain names and were forcing large corporates to…

BC: …pay them fancy sums to vacate.

AD: Absolutely! That was when a few wise men and women got together to throw some light on the topic…

BC: So they gathered around the glow of a computer monitor...

AD: Very funny. They figured that the way ahead was by questioning the norm...

BC: Which is...?

AD: Why should life on the worldwide web be limited to .com, .net, .org and .biz?

BC: You left out .info, .edu, .gov...

AD: Well, there are 22 such suffixes authorised thus far.

BC: So who's authorising these?

AD: ICANN.

BC: That sounds like the sequel to 'Yes, we can'. You mean Obama and his team are out to save the world again?

AD: No ICANN stands for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. They may not save the world, but they're trying their best to save corporates from being held to ransom. This new system will also give companies and brands more marketing options as they go global.

BC: So no more dotcoms?

AD: Not really. Dotcom still stays, but a shop could have .shop, a car manufacturer could have .car, a computer manufacturer could have .pc and so on.

BC: Ok, so that's what you were referring to when you said search.search. Imagine, you can have a website with the address www.writer.writer and an email id like write2writer@writer.writer...

AD: You’re kidding! Getting a new domain will involve an initial registration fee of around 185,000 USD. Add another 25,000 USD a year as operational fees...

BC: And what if two cola companies were to bid for a .cola domain name?

AD: There will be a bid for the name and it will go to the highest bidder.

BC: So when's this race beginning?

AD: You'll have to wait until next year. A 90 day window has been fixed between January 12 and April 12 to apply for a name. The approved domain names will go live by the end of 2012.

BC: So even if the world comes to an end by 2012, the online world will continue to exist and send us spam and pop-up messages.

AD: Are all old folks this cynical or is it just you?

BC: Hey, I was just kidding. So what happens if someone asks for a Sanskrit name?

AD: Not to worry - domains will be available in any language, from Assamese to Zulu.

BC: Considering the fact that google has become such a generic term for search, imagine a scenario where a search engine named Control Online Matter (COM) applies for .google. In such a case, there could be a problem.

AD: What?

BC: Would you then use - google.com or com.google?