UrbanBrain Inc., a registry back-end service provider, announced today that it plans to offer individual Internet users, hobbyists, and business owners the opportunity to extend their reach out into the world by securing a URL under .SITE, an easily identifiable Internet extension (Generic Top-Level Domain or “gTLD” (1)).
Representative Director and CEO of UrbanBrain Inc., Kevin Saimon, indicates the addition of new Internet extensions will increase competition in the market. “The extension .com was initially intended for commercial websites, .net was for organizations involved with network technologies, and .org was for non-commercial organizations. Restrictions were never upheld, lines were blurred over time, and .com prevailed as the dominant player with nearly 90 million domain registrations worldwide.” In June 2008, recognizing the need for greater competition, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the nonprofit organization which oversees the Internet naming system, laid out plans to liberate the namespace and allow new gTLDs like .SITE to be introduced.
Hundreds of new gTLDs are expected to be introduced over the next few years. Jacob Williams, Director of Business Development, UrbanBrain Inc., suggests “there may be somewhat of a learning curve for consumers to overcome before they get comfortable with new gTLDs, but competition will bring about new business models and ultimately the consumer benefits will be tremendous.”
Further information about the .SITE gTLD can be found at (http://dotsite.org/). Information about the New gTLD Program can be found at (http://urbanbrain.jp/en/).
(1) Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) is the right-most label of a domain name. For example, “dotsite.org” belongs to the top-level domain of .org. Currently there are 21 gTLDs in operation with many more to be operational in the few years.
About UrbanBrain Inc.
UrbanBrain provides a robust back-end registry solution and comprehensive consulting and operational training services for perspective new gTLD applicants. UrbanBrain is preparing to be the official registry operator of the new gTLD, .SITE and will also handle back-end operations for the winner of the world’s first New gTLD contest, World Domain Cup (http://www.worlddomaincup.com/).