In an article in the Huffington Post, the CEO of ICANN said that fragmentation of the Internet was a primary concern.
From the article:
Fadi Chehadé, CEO Of ICANN, told HuffPost Live at Davos he thinks the “biggest threat” to innovation is a fragmented Internet.
“The biggest threat is to start building walls that create frictions. Frictionless Internet, where innovation is permissionless… is critical,” he said.
You don’t say, Chehadé?
That is too funny!
I forgot to add: DUH!!!!
So let’s create over a thousand new extensions and spread it thin.
That should help….
What was it they say, “united we stand, divided we fall.”
That site*8.com idea that’s being pitched sounds pretty solid too.
Great interview. Fadi is an outstanding CEO. ICANN is lucky to have him and I think this role will be for Fadi what Eric Schmidt’s role at Google was for him. Most interesting comes in the closing minute of the interview when he reveals that ICANN was expecting 300, 400, or 500 applications but was surprised to receive “quadruple” what they expected.
The breadth of that application spectrum is merely an underlying reflection (and educated driller’s estimate) of consumer demand by those who know what they’re doing. I estimate I can sell names in all extensions we applied for. Same with all the other applicants. We took a calculated risk based on an estimate of underlying demand. That estimate comes from a lifetime of learning and participation in the evolution of the Web.
We applied the same conservative logic as ICANN and they got quadruple what they expected. I think our estimates may have been on the low side and final demand will be greater than we thought. There is an old Godaddy estimate that has been making rounds in analyst circles where they estimated the new GTLD program would double domain name registrations in 3 years. Will be interesting to see where this goes and if they were right.
the loss of net neutrality and the segregation of the internet via new gtlds will definitely fragment the internet.
that’s the great thing about com/net/org…they aren’t owned by any one company. unlike all these new gtlds if verisign doesn’t do a good job they’re gone. when these gtlds can be bought and sold and whatever done with them, its not secure, its never a ‘sure thing’.
New gTLDs are not designed to save or protect the Internet. The whole business world revolves around the greedy.
How or why will they “double domain registrations in 3 years”? Is there suddenly going to be a need for double more websites, or are these people going to be registering them to protect their current website?
I suppose where currently you have just a .com, you now must register 1000s of new TLDs to protect your brand. That would be one explanation for double the registrations, I suppose.
Thank you, Frank, for pointing out that there was a point to this interview, and Fadi’s repsonses are direct and pertinent. What many people commenting here seem to be missing is that there is a real blowback in the wake of the NSA scandal here in the U.S., which a reading of this article, on Wired.com, will help to clarify: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/01/how-the-us-almost-killed-the-internet/.
There are myriad forces at work to build and tear down the walls and firewalls of the world wide web, and there will be some countries that, fearing they don’t have a stake in the multilateral approach, knowing they lack any direct stakeholder designation, may decide to put up barriers that cause the fragmentation being discussed.
Larger nations, being truculent and fearful, may do the same. In fact, Brazil is one such nation, leading a charge to segregate data by country, just so the NSA doesn’t mine data. While everyone is worrying about China, that particular country does not bother me as much as the smaller ones, like Germany, which are proposing national firewalls that could impede the flow of ideas, commerce and, yes, consumer data that is vital to building a free market system, in addition to the construct of a free system of knowledge.
Depending on your viewpoint and insight, this interview is either replete with great information or it is a way to be snarky and announce, “Duh!”
The more I see the new gTLD’s the more I like Dot Com, Net & Org & local country extensions – I will stick to building DBOStrategies & networks – Great Interview
Early suppliers of those mining on the gTLDS may make fortunes, or find their supplies not in demand, and will have to find other tools.
I’m leaning more on the side of Esther Dyson, who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN & is one of the most astute tech investors in the world. Dyson likens gTLDs to “creating derivative-like businesses on Wall Street that have no value”. She adds, “You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity.”
Like Esther, I’ve yet to see the true “value proposition” (pardon that over-used biz jargon) in these gTLDs.
Unless maybe if search will be a series of verbal commands.
In car, a guy wants to find a cool restaurant to take a girl on a second date.
,beach
Miami.beach
asianfoodMiami.beach
italianfoodMiami.beach
uh, make that diningmiami.beach
forget it,,,, yelp.com
Miami Beach
Restaurants
…the happiness of humanity, oh brother…
well, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing most the products we’re sold are completely necessary and “contribute to the happiness of humanity.”
they have value. maybe its only $10 for miami.beach but you cant buy miamibeach.com for anywhere near that amount today. and for arguments sake forget the $10 valuation for miami.beach that i made up.. theres a HUGE price gap between the .COM and .WHATEVER…make up whatever dollar amount you want, the choice is there now when it wasnt before and choice has value.
“Most interesting comes in the closing minute of the interview when he reveals that ICANN was expecting 300, 400, or 500 applications but was surprised to receive “quadruple” what they expected”. – F.S
@Schilling,
How can you make the above statement? Are you trying to kiss his ass. or do you really give credit to someone who woefully underestimated interest by a factor or 3 or 4?
Imagine if the National Telecommunications and Information Administration offered Spectrum Licenses for sale, the FCC determines how much spectrum to allot to licensees in a given band, were to underestimate interest by so much as ICANN’s Chehadé?
The determination of frequencies used by licensees is done through frequency allocation, which in the United States is specified by the FCC in a table of allotments. The FCC is authorized to regulate spectrum access private and government uses.
In some cases (e.g. CB radio), the public may use spectrum without a license. Commercial users (such as television, AM/FM radio, and some types of two-way communications) will receive an FCC assignment to a portion of spectrum, which may be a single frequency or a band of frequencies. In issuing broadcast licenses the FCC relies on “comparative hearings”, whereby the most qualified user will be granted use of the spectrum to best serve the public interest.
It’s not smart to be surprised
ICANN is no FCC..
@ontheinterweb
MiamiBeach.com forwards to Miami.com. It has a PageRank of 7 which would make your guess that you couldn’t buy it for anywhere near $10, pretty much guaranteed.
As far as Miami.Beach is concerned, I’d be surprised if the company that owns Miami.com doesn’t get it. ($imply for defen$ive reason$, of cour$e.) And I’d also be surprised if it only cost $10 or even $100… more likely it will be one of those ‘premium’ gTLDs that we’ve been hearing about that will cost a great deal more.
@Grim
ok, the point is there will be price gaps present that wernt before. that choice is value for somebody.
the .beach TLD doesnt actually exist in this round, its just an example i was following up on.
@Domenclature
thats an awful comparison..probably one of the worst ive ever heard. spectrum and domain names? theres a bit of a difference dude