Domain Mondo: Are Domain Names Dinosaurs?: ".... domain names altogether are increasingly irrelevant. Need a web page? Facebook or Google or Amazon or Tumblr or Twitter or LinkedIn or Pinterest (and many, many others) will gladly provide you a web page with its own distinct URL, on an easy to use platform with lots of traffic, accessible on any device, including mobile devices through a native app, all for free! So the real competition for new gTLDS are Facebook et al, and apps--a "Billion-Dollar Trend" that alone is a major domain name killer..."Is there any hope for the mobile web or are we doomed to a world of native apps on mobile devices? There is hope--the new OS is the browser, and virtually all new software is moving to the cloud:
On HTML5 and the Group That Rules the Web: "[HTML5].... made it possible to load in new data without refreshing the browser—in the form of “web apps” like Google Maps, Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook.... We still call Web pages “pages,” but many of them are actually software applications—“apps”—as complex to engineer as any word processor or video game. (Often, they are word processors, such as Google Docs, or video games, such as HexGL.)...."
What will make the Web a first-class citizen on mobile devices? What needs to happen, and who is most likely to make it happen? "I think the competition between Google and Apple will make it happen. As I mentioned before, Google has a very strong incentive to keep users on the Web, as search ads continue to be their lifeblood... Expect to see a much tighter integration of Chrome (and, therefore, Web technologies) into Android over the coming years... As for Apple... I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of Safari on iOS. In particular, the work they've been doing on JavaScript performance is just stunning..."
However, saying that the mobile web is not dead, is NOT the same as saying there is (or even ever was) a need for the new gTLDs--new generic Top-Level domains--this is not 2005--today, internet traffic is moving to mobile devices where platforms such as Alibaba and Amazon and Facebook dominate and provide users with the ability to publish a web page (without buying a domain name) AND a native or web app for distribution of that web page to the internet. Most people on mobile devices are using only a handful of apps the majority of time. For those people and businesses who have an actual need for a domain name, most are choosing, and will continue to choose, a domain name in the trusted, high-traffic, domain name extensions of .COM and well-run ccTLDs (see also full list of ccTLDs).
ICANN has admitted it never considered "demand" as a relevant factor in deciding whether and how many new gTLD domains to delegate into the root. ICANN policy was to delegate as many new gTLDs as there were applicants who could pay $185,000 and withstand ICANN's application process. ICANN said consumers would pick the winners and losers among new gTLDs, meaning, presumably, all the new gTLDs might fail. ICANN never understood the difference between healthy competition and destructive competition and all the negative consequences which result. ICANN just saw the opportunity to make a lot of money in the short term, and beyond that never fully considered all the unintended consequences of its own foolish and irresponsible program.
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