The Grouse has his doubts about the proposed .eco top-level domain
Posted 03.26.2009 at 10:25 am
11 Comments
Earlier this month, an unknown little startup grabbed big headlines when it received Al "Internet Earth Soldier" Gore's official endorsement for a proposed ".eco" domain name extension (aka TLD, aka top-level domain). Dot Eco, as the company is appropriately named, hopes to ride the current wave of trendy corporate environmentalism into a pile of that other type of green. But with other "alternative" TLDs like ".biz," ".info" and ".mobi" already going largely ignored by Internet users and site owners alike, do we really need yet another URL naming convention on the Web? I don't think we do.
If given the thumbs-up by ICANN, the nonprofit registry in charge of top-level domains, Dot Eco hopes companies, organizations, and individuals will pay for the additional ".eco" domain and use it to host environmentally-friendly content. So, for example, an individual could launch a green blog at "granoladude.eco," while PopSci could use "PopSci.eco" to host all of its Earth-centric stories. But really, I think Dot Eco's intention is to guilt big business into buying domains such as "walmart.eco," "ford.eco," and "pepsi.eco." After all, Earth-consciousness is so chic these days, and if just one mega-corporation gets even a hint of good buzz from a branded ".eco" site, others will follow, and Dot Eco will have a gold rush on its hands. With more than 50 percent of profits from ".eco" sales going to various environmental organizations, that's not such a bad thing.
But I still think it's pointless.
One argument for alternatives to the big five (".com," ".net," ".org," ".gov," and ".mil") has always been that they open up more domain names to more people. But that's not really true. Laws and lawsuits would prevent an individual from launching something at, say, "Starbucks.eco." And for domain names not associated with a trademark, who really cares about anything except ".com"? Sure, a few sites like del.icio.us and last.fm have done OK without it, but more often than not, a site without ".com" on the end has to be repeated a few times before a person understands it. You tack ".com" onto something in an ad, a movie trailer, or a box of cereal, and the public knows what to do with it -- no need to muck things up with that ghastly-looking "http://". And, though not necessarily true, I think there's this general sense that whoever lays claim to the ".com" version of a domain is the legit owner and everything else is suspect or secondary. How else can you explain all of those cutesy Web 2.0 misspellings of words like "Flicker"? I always kind of figured a company would rather misspell for the sake of a ".com" address than get stuck with the indignity of a ".biz" or ".info" URL (though, I'll admit "Flickr" definitely has more cachet than "Flicker").
I'll wager most folks aren't even aware of how many top-level domain name options there are to choose from today. There are 21 of them, and that doesn't even count the multitude of country-specific TLDs often used for vanity purposes (like using ".tv" to imply "media-rich" instead of the country of Tuvalu).
Type "Google.net," "Google.info," "Google.biz" or "Google.tv" into your browser and you'll find yourself redirected to Google.com.
Priceline.com owns the "Priceline.travel" domain, but does nothing with it except redirect traffic to the main site. Travelocity does the same. Expedia doesn't even bother.
I tried finding the Museum of Modern Art by typing in "moma.museum", but with no luck. I looked for the Guggenheim at "guggenheim.museum" and struck out there as well.
If I ever needed career counseling, I'd be wise to steer clear of "Monster.jobs," which doesn't offer so much as a redirect.
There's also the ".name" domain. Ever seen one of those? I hadn't until two weeks ago, but it's apparently been around since January 2002.
The point being: there is no point. These extraneous TLDs -- the proposed ".eco" domain included -- succeed only in confusing users and bilking Web site owners out of an additional $30-$50 each (if they even bother with them at all). In order for ".eco" and similar TLDs to gain widespread acceptance, there needs to be some kind of standardization in the way they're used. For example, if you type in "Google.jobs," you're simply redirected to the Google homepage. But if you type in "CareerBuilder.jobs," you're taken to the section of the CareerBuilder site that deals with employment opportunities specific to the CareerBuilder organization. The latter makes a lot of sense. If users expected to reach the human resources department of a given company by typing in ".jobs" instead of ".com", I think ".jobs" would have a shot at being something people use. Similarly, most sites buy up the ".org" domain just to redirect it to a homepage. This makes ".org" completely meaningless. "Google.org" on the other hand, redirects to a page dedicated to the company's philanthropic initiatives. Again, that makes sense.
Of course, there's a giant roadblock standing in the way of this kind of standardization: the fact that the owner of the ".com" domain and the owner of, say, the ".net" domain often aren't the same person or organization (check out "Google.aero"). Even if they were, selling every possible domain extension to the same owner as a package defeats the purpose that the various TLDs were originally intended for. Namely, opening up more URLs to more people.
If approved as the next TLD, I don't think ".eco" will amount to much. Some companies will purchase it just to park it. Others will redirect it to their homepages. Some companies will use it in the hopes of drumming up publicity. A few individual green bloggers may choose to brand their sites with it. A handful of environmental organizations will purchase it, but will stick with ".org" as their primary URLs. Instead of buying ".eco" to showcase environmental policies and initiatives, Website owners should simply employ one of the two URL naming conventions the public is already conditioned to recognize: the backslash and subdomain. Why pay money for "yoursite.eco" when you've already got "eco.yoursite.com" and "yoursite.com/eco" for free?
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We have never seen a new top-level-domain (TLD) before that was associated with a social movement. Confusing .eco with .travel fails to grasp the attractiveness that .eco will exert.
The power of branding is no longer restricted to large companies. It’s about the power of personal branding.
Are there five million people willing to pay $20 per year for a .eco brand? Within four years of its go-live date, I say yes.
Never underestimate the power of branding and personal commitment. The combination of the two is long overdue, especially given what is at stake with climate change and environmental degradation.
The .info Web site owners that are actively promoting their Web sites all have a nearly universal comment - because .info is about INFORMATION it is a BETTER choice for them that .com.
You can read these comments directly from these site owners here: www.info.info/directory
The additional computing power (i.e., add'l servers) required to support yet another namespace(*.eco), certificates, etc. will only result in increasing the demand on electrical utilities, many powered by environmentally detrimental fuels. So let's all improve the environment by making our environmental problems worse. Good idea! Another brilliant politician.
The big question is if all these TLDs are just irrelevant and under used then we do we bother at all.
We have already practically done away with WWW. It still exists but browsers simply auto complete it if you skip it. So if everyone is using .com then why don't the browsers auto complete that as well.
Sure the country codes are somewhat useful but how often do you get a country code that just redirects you to the .com. For example something like www.somesite.ca might redirect you to www.somesite.com/ca/ or something like that. So again why bother with the country codes.
Incidentally the .tv extension was promoted for media rich sites by a group of people who were trying to provide an additional income stream to the country of Tuvalu which I believe has little or no exports. It was sort of a help the poor initiative. At least that is how it started. It may have changed since the beginning.
Having spent 14 years as a minor league government official here in New York City, I’m aware that local civic communication is, to put it mildly, the pits.
The community district over which our board held sway had 200,000 residents and not a single TV or radio station, nor a daily newspaper to facilitate local communication. (Weekly papers served sections of the district.)
So when it came to identifying opportunities or local problems and to organize to effect their resolution, we were, and remain, networking-impaired.
The Net might have provided more of a solution, but it essentially escaped unplanned and untamed from a lab with era-changing globalization powers and conquered the world. It helps but could have been so much more.
When asked why we created Connecting.nyc Inc., (the not-for-profit established to acquire and develop the .nyc TLD), I sometimes say it’s because our small businesses need good domain names - short, descriptive, and memorable - that provide identity and say “made in” or “from” New York City.
Other times I explain that they will provide the opportunity to organize our resources so the world might more readily find them.
But the highest hope for .nyc is that it provides the opportunity to rethink and rework the Net (not the whole TCP/IP Net, only the DNS part), so that it enables city residents to better find and connect with one another.
See our website and link over to our wiki for a lot more on this.
Tom Lowenhaupt, Founder and Chair
Connecting.nyc Inc.
Why spring for a .eco where "more than 50%" of the profits go to an environmental organization when you could give 100% of the difference between a .com and a .eco to an environmental organization. Basically this just steals money from environmental organizations or organizations that use .eco to make the Dot Eco people rich and Gore slightly less irrelevant.
And yes anybody who settles for an alternative TLD without the .com to back it up is committing internet suicide.
Yes, it is no secret that the world is .com focused in marketing, domain investments, and the like. But, I can't imagine that anyone would think that we should limit our information source to just .com. That is ridiculous.
These category specific tlds are just one way of organizing the Internet, which has had no organization or a road map. Can you imagine a library without an organization structure? I would imgagine not.
With the end consumer's increased awareness of new tlds that are category specific, I think we will see a dramatic shift in search.
I know I am sick of the 8 million results in 0.2 seconds and many of them not being relevant.
Doemainer
http://www.thedomainscene.com
Some of my thoughts:
1) There is an exiting social movement with a TLD. It's called the global cooperative movement. dotCoop. It is reserved for cooperatives and requires a process and criteria to verify an organization.
2) PIR (Public Internet Registry) that operates the dotORG registry is a non-profit, so TLD registry providers do exist as non-profits. Existing registry infrastructure could be used by the dotECO folks instead of creating their own.
3) If dotECO got drowned by green-washing players, then it would lose its potential power and be worth as little as .info....another web-forward.
However, the specifics of how dotECO will operate are not totally decided from my understanding, despite the authors clarity on his personal perspective. Maybe it will be something like a digital environmental labeling that allows businesses, organizations, and individuals to opt into a environmental footprint information standard. And the key will still be, if it gets greenwashed by use it will never become more than another web-forward.
The reality is being green is not as sexy as it's built up to be. It's about very on the ground fundamentals of determining embodied and use based environmental footprints and reducing those footprints actively and persistently. Standards and science based information is more important in the long runn, than what looks good.
~~~~~~
Charles Uchu Strader
Worker-Owner at GAIA Host Collective
del.icio.us is actually now redirected to delicious.com
I wonder if people will continue talking about it using the old spelling?
It's a shame, because LTD's that are regulated well actually have meaning like .edu and .gov sights. The point of these LTD's is to show that they are of a higher standard. If there were more standardization for what each was used for that it would make more sense. Also having to pay for each LTD is going to prevent anybody from wanting to use them for things like that .jobs LTD which actually sounds like a good idea. With .com/jobs being cheaper and just as effective, using this alternative is perfectly useless.
So many factors contribute to climate change. The earth's tilt and wobbling which no politician can control is what gives us spring, summer, fall and winter. The fluctuations in the heat generated by our sun, which no politician can control, is what produces variations in average temperatures not only on this globe of ours but also in the other planets and whatever else rotates around the sun. We may soon see the return of an Ice Age...let's see how the Al Gores of tomorrow will react. Reminds me of a commercial's punch line some years ago -- "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" This global warming "crisis" is man-made. We are being suckered into buying this and buying that, don't do this and don't do that. We will get all this "info" in the new dot-eco TLD.