ICANN: .anything is the next domain craze

Marketers, tighten those caps! The Internet is about to get just a little bit more exciting - or maybe the word is confusing. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted to open up the registration for domains such as “.anything” domains.

by Kristina Knight

“.anything” domains are - literally - any domain extension that isn’t already taken and that has at least three characters. This would allow companies to own and host their websites at their own root level domain. For example, Google could rename their root level domain “.google” and could rename their other extensions accordingly, for example search.google or blog.google, leaving off the “.com”, “.net” or other three-character extensions that have been used for years.

This also means specific brands, for example Ziploc, could host a top level as “info.Ziploc”. Big corporations - like the BBC, the New York Yankees and even IMAX Theaters would likely not have any problem adding a vanity domain because consumers are already familiar with their brands.

For some advertisers, this is a great chance to increase their web presence, but be careful, without very strong brand recognition, marketers could also lose some consumers. Those who aren’t familiar with a specific brand may miss the boat because they wouldn’t know to log on to a “.myproduct” domain.

According to ICANN, it will be upwards of two years before these vanity top level domains are released for general use.