New York City might be on the verge of disturbing the statistics. As the second largest city economy on the planet, bested only by Tokyo, NYC is the first big name TLD to be released to the wild. In reality it represents a small percentage of the new GLTD’s.
The first batch of domain extensions, released in 1985, included .COM .NET .ORG .EDU and .GOV. By 2012 a total of 156 Top Level Domains were available to those seeking a web presence. 2013 to 2015 will yield a over six hundred additional TLD’s - bringing the total number of .? options to over seven hundred.
Traditionally the domain name game, overseen by ICANN, has provided a fairly level playing field. The release of new Top Level Domains will change the landscape. In order to qualify for a .NYC url the candidate buyer must prove to be a resident of “one of the five boroughs”, a new hurdle.
According to the .NYC website “Between August 4th and October 3rd, all businesses, organizations, and residents with a physical address in the five boroughs will be able to request one or more .nyc domain names for their chance to Own It.”
Staged release of new TLD’s is nothing new. A number of previous TLD’s have hoped to make a splash, but no release to date has shaken .COM’s hold on the “majority of domains on the web”.
Esther Dyson, founding chairperson of ICANN, states GLTDs "will create jobs [for lawyers, marketers and others] but little extra value." In 2012, the most expensive GLTLD, CDN.net, sold for $185,000, a clear separation from the traditional pricing model for domain names -- the cornerstone of commerce on the web.
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