When The Dot-Coms Run Out Of Valuable Domain Names

[morestar]

Well, from my perspective, although there are still hundreds and maybe millions of domain name variations left, in this day and age, you're lucky if you can find a valuable dot-com domain that has been reserved even if your business name is something creative like zoom, zumba or zerola.

We all know, there aren't too many valuable domains left (top level domains) and in my opinion a day will come, maybe in the near future - maybe not - when as a people we either demand from or propose to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) or ICANN a new top level domain (TLD) or they'll see the necessity themselves, if they haven't already.

Is it the time this issue should be looked at?

I might be viewing this from an SEO mindset but even if I was, the average new startup is generally lucky to find their trademark available as a domain name or they have to come up with some whimsical concoction of words related to their industry - or not, because finding a decent domain name is almost impossible - most of the times these days, at best, you're happy if you can come up with some configuration of your trademark. This isn't really fair.

Does anyone foresee a plan or are there any hosting/domain name experts out there who know about this topic and maybe have some answers?

We've all heard that IP addresses are running out so how does that play in too? Maybe it's not even possible to create another new top level domain, is it?

[SteveGerencser]

Wait, how TLDs do you need?? There are currently close to 300 different TLDs, including country ones..

There is an ICANN meeting going on this week where it is expected they will go forward with the guidebook suggestion we can expect even more TLD applications this year..

[d marks]

You can get pretty good relevant news regarding new extensions at the blog - thedomains.com where they cover this extensively.

[pingpipe]

It's conceivable that ICAAN could implement a policy that says a domain name has to be in use within a certain number of days of being registered or you lose it (similar to ARIN policy for IP's)...but I doubt it. There's just too much potential revenue in coming up with new tld's instead.

[GeoffreyYu7]

This is probably the reason that startup names become increasingly strange and unique as time goes on. In my opinion, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[MrGamm]

Not sure if I understand this...

How can it run out of valuable domains? Doesn't the scarcity of readily available cheap domains actually push up the value of the existing domains?

Just supposing, but, how many dot tk's does anyone come across when they are surfing the web? Not too many... perhaps there is some degree of favortism, and anything that might lower the value of dot coms has been taken into consideration by the larger internet companies who might have a real interest in protecting the commercial value of the internet?