The End Is Nigh For ".com"

2009, and almost any word will be able to replace ".com" in a Web page address - thanks to a decision made by the organization that manages the technical underpinnings of the Web, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN).

ICANN unanimously approved the new guidelines as weeklong meetings in Paris concluded.

Top-level domain names, or TLDs, refer to Internet name suffixes, such as the ubiquitous .com, .net and .org, among others. Currently, there are more than 200 TLDs, which also include the two-character country codes used by websites, such as Britain's .uk.

Under the new plans, a domain name, the suffix at the end of a website address, can now be based on any string of letters.

This will allow individuals to register a domain based on their own name, for example, as long as they can show a "business plan and technical capacity".

The result could be the creation of thousands or even millions of new addresses.

ICANN also voted collectively to open public comment on a separate proposal to permit addresses entirely in non-English languages for the first time.

"We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated," BBC quoted Roberto Gaetano, a member of ICANN, as saying.

Dr Paul Twomey, chief executive of ICANN, described passing the resolution as a "historic moment".

ICANN officials said some technical issues for the new system must still be worked out, but it could be reviewing the first applications for new TLDs as early as 2009.

How The Tech Companies Got Their Names

Apple - for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. Apple wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time.

eBay - Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. “Echo Bay” didn’t refer to the town in Nevada, “It just sounded cool,” Omidyar reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Google - a deliberate misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “HTML” — the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

Yahoo - a backronym for ‘Y’et Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver’s Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang jokingly considered themselves yahoos

And my personal favorite and most fitting: Lycos - from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.