Photo: schoshie/Flickr
On Tuesday, the list of new proposed top-level domains, and the companies seeking to control them, was published by ICANN.
The new contenders to the throne of .com’s dominance include Amazon with .book, Google with .youtube, and three companies seeking .sucks. There are also applications for .lol, .bar, and .beer.
While the list is interesting to read, it’s lacking in entertainment value — perhaps because the $185,000 fee to apply for consideration, which you pay even if your application is rejected, is prohibitive of amusement.
So with some help from Wired colleagues and Twitter friends, I’ve compiled a list of domain names that should exist, but never will. Most wouldn’t pass muster for technical or policy reasons. But since this is a wish list, I’ll propose them anyway, in the hope that a vast army of .keyboardcommandos can manifest them.
In no particular order, the list:
- .inbed – As the old fortune cookie joke goes, everything sounds better with .inbed in the end. cuddlybear.inbed; miketyson.inbed (Noah Shachtman)
- .pwned – The top-level domain that pays hackers to own a .com domain and redirect it to .pwned (Ashkan Soltani)
- .|≠£ß∫ – A domain suffix so painfully difficult to type, it would only be appropriate for hardcore masochism-fetish sites. (Jon Phillips)
- .wtf? – skinnyjeansandbigphones.wtf? Need we say more? (Shoshana Berger)
- .not – Simple but effective, for the contrarian in all of us. iloveyou.not gododgers.not (Ken Denmead, Robert McMillan)
- .amish – As part of a devilish plan to lure the Amish to the web. (Lore Sjöberg)
- .official – Trademark owners will pony up big bucks to get a certified domain name. (Sjöberg)
- .thatswhatshesaid – Michael Scott would be so proud. Microsoft.thatswhatshesaid and zynga.thatswhatshesaid
- .txt – Kicking it old-school style. Think instagram.txt, where every photo gets rendered in ASCII. (Michael Calore) See also .1994
- .dot – Just for the fun of saying it.
- .dotdot – For those who can read between the lines. (Amy Zimmerman)
- .dotcom – Anyone who failed to get the .com domain they wanted can settle for this lesser cousin.(Sjöberg)
- .kahm – Same as above. (Sjöberg)
- .ptth – Think http://AManAPlanACanalPanama.ptth It taps into the lucrative palindrome market (James Losey)
- .onomatopoeia – Think ping.onomatopoeia. How much would Apple spend to have that domain for its rocking social-music service? A lot, I say!
- .smh – yahoo.smh and hedidntknowwhatsmhmeans.smh (Meighan O’Toole, Zimmerman)
- .dtf – For personal dating sites catering to those who aren’t choosy. If you don’t know the acronym, you probably don’t want to. (O’Toole)
- .www – Not too many sites bother with the web prefix these days (especially since the web be dead), so this would take you back to the basics. Think www.geocities.www
- .dude – You know, for sites that are for, like, dudes – beerme.dude; shessmokinghot.dude (Roberto Baldwin)
- .sandwich – Because anything is better when it’s followed with a sandwich (Sjöberg)
Got your own idea but not $185,000? Drop it in the comment section or share it on Twitter using the #fakegTLD hashtag. I came up with that myself, and unlike those new domain name owners, I won’t charge you to use it.
Photo: schoshie