A New Internet

Well, not an entirely new internet, but a whole new breed of domains.

We've all heard of .COMs (you're at one right now) and .NETs and .ORGs.  They're the things on the end of website names.  Google.com, microsoft.com, blogger.com, pbs.org, etc.  Over the years, the list of possible domain names has been dwindling to the point where it's hard to start a business because you can't buy a domain name.

Enter the .CO.  Registration for this domain extension began on April 26 (2010, of course) and will continue until July 20 at 2 PM Eastern time.  Oh, but you don't actually get your domain until July 20 at 2 PM Eastern.  And it's expensive too!  Godaddy.com (there's a .com again) sells the "priority" registration for $300 and the "standard" registration for $30.  Oh, that's only for the first year.  Currently, .COMs are running at $10.69 per year.

Overall, I'm sure it will benefit the internet as a whole.  Registrar companies (Godaddy, NetworkSolutions, etc.) claim that it a "global, recognizable, and creditable domain" and that "it's meaningful, memorable, and intuitive to use for people around the world", obviously trying to stimulate international trade.

I intend to make sure we get Speedshow.co in the mix.  For those of you who don't know, Speedshow is a photography scoring system my dad and I are building.  More details later, I'm sure.

About .CO domains: http://marketing.networksolutions.com/dms/DOM/dotCO/index.php