30 years of operation, the dominant position can continue to be questioned

NetEase technology News March 17, according to foreign media reports,. com is the world's most well-known domain name suffix, the global registered. com domain name has more than 115 million, accounting for the total number of global domain 42%. But 30 years after the. com domain name has been launched, many people are questioning whether it can continue to dominate.

. com was launched by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1985, originally intended as a "business entity" domain name.

March 15, 1985, technology company Symbolics first registered. com domain name--symbolics.com, which was acquired by a small investment company called Xf.com in 2009. Symbolics.com is still in an accessible state, making it the oldest registered. com domain name on the Internet.

At first, the number of. com domain names grew relatively slowly, with only a handful of companies registering. com domain names throughout 1985. The first companies to register their domain names were mostly High-tech companies, including Intel and Siemens, which registered a. com domain name in the late 80.

By 1997, the world's 1 millionth. com domain name was registered and the internet bubble was forming. By the middle of the 90 's, when. com,. org, and. NET domains were successively open and unrestricted registration,. com lost its previous relevance to the business entity.

At the same time, the Internet is rapidly evolving into a major channel for global Communication, Commerce and information exchange, from tools that are primarily used by academics and researchers, and it is hard to imagine what it would be like to live without the Internet.

Today, the. com Web site hits trillions of times a day. Millions of companies have established Web sites with. com as the suffix to open up their own online business. Some of the largest companies have a. com domain name with their own brand name. Some people think that. com is now almost synonymous with the Internet.

". com is more than just a Web site," says Jim Bidzos, president and CEO of Jim Videzos, the US domain registration service. It is a globally recognized and respected brand, and almost every major global brand, including 100% Fortune 500 companies, has this online identity. ”

However, as more than 115 million. com domain names have been registered with existing Web sites or investors, consumers and businesses are facing huge challenges unless they have very strong financial resources.

One way to solve this problem is to add country code, such as Avon.uk.com or activia.us.com--, to the. com suffix, although some people think it is an indecent solution.

To address the problem of a. com domain name, ICANN, the internet industry watchdog, is reorganizing the Internet by introducing more than 1000 new top-level domains.

For example, businesses in food and beverage lines can now get. Bar and. Rest domain names, and companies in the design industry will soon be able to buy them. The domain name of the design.

Some of the new top-level domain names also bring additional functionality, such as the upcoming. Tickets top-level domain name will provide consumers with the assurance that they are buying authentic and effective tickets from the authoritative channel.

Releasing these new top-level domains is not just about freeing up more internet space, but also to encourage more competition and more choices for consumers. Around proprietary top-level domain names, a costly bidding war often erupts. For example, September 2014,. Tech top-level domain names are sold at a high price of 6.8 million dollars.

While acceptance of the new top-level domain is still in its infancy, the number of new top-level domains is rising, and its popularity is expected to rise as its popularity increases. Some domain experts now predict that. com domain names could lose their dominance as early as 2020.

"The changes in the Internet have been profound and exciting," said Ben Crawford, chief executive of CentralNic, a domain-registration service provider, Ben Claufford. It's like the only drink that consumers can choose in 30 years is water, and now there is a sudden emergence of exotic juices, champagne and whiskey. ”

"Now, many. com's ' core tenants ' (anchor tenants) not only have '. Trademark ' top-level domain names, such as. Google,. YouTube and. Amazon, and so on. App and. Buy this kind of top-level domain name. ”

However, VeriSign insists that the emergence of the new top-level domain will not hinder the growth of the. com domain name. The company said: the number of possible. com domain names is 10 of the 98, so the dot-com domain name registration still has a lot of room for growth.

Mark Weston, Partner of Matthew Arnold & Baldwin law firm, points out that companies that want to use good domain names to promote themselves need to consider commercial viability and do some due diligence, To check whether their chosen domain name already exists and whether they have the right to use it.

He also recommends selecting a short and easily pronounced domain name. Shorter and more memorable domain names tend to have greater value because they are more likely to attract network traffic, he said.

"Even if 30 years have passed, the domain name is still the key link on and off the line," says Weston. As a brand embodiment and a new kind of intellectual property, the value of domain name is beyond doubt, and it plays a key role in the protection and development of a company's brand. "(Chun)