DotCom will rise in value because DotCom is the default TLD for the public and branding anything, especially a business is going to be a logistical nightmare with all of these vanity TLDs. Correctly remembering a business's domain name is the foundation of successful branding and remembering all of these vanity TLDs will be impossible without the aid of a search engine. And if the public needs a search engine to find you everytime - your business isn't branded with the public.

That's a scary thought.

It's not a 'scary thought' because it'll never happen.

Just to add to my previous post, http://opendns.org check that out if you're interested in setting up "rick" > http://ricklatona.com on your own network, it'll never happen on the 'real' internet though, because that would totally abolish the current domain name network, losing ICANN most of their revenue. I'd hazard a guess, but a lot of ICANNs money is made from people registering domains and having them auto renew, if they abolished the system all these domains would be written off, also, add to that how much it'd mess up the way the majority of sites work, it just won't ever happen.

The furthest this will go is to companies being able to purchase their own .(whatever), but they'll always be very expensive and not worth it unless they're a massive company, they could end up being used by people like myspace myspace.com/user > user.myspace, but never individuals getting their own .name

@Samuel
I'm using OpenDNS to create a short cut within my network, this is a simple demostration on how easy to implement the idea.

In my network, I am using OpenDNS to create a shortcut for my domains.
when I type the letter "i" it redirect to my home page internet e.g. http://www.king.net
when I type the letter "e" it redirect to my email web page
when I type "rick" to my URL it redirect to http://ricklatona.com website.
In short, this simplify my browsing through this service.

I will not be surprise if ICANN allow the users to register their own .extension but it will be messy.

Also consider Google Chrome and Microsoft internet browser, they can default the search to their prefer extension. Maybe to .goog or .msft.

IMHO.
Emil

Interesting... you wouldnt need to brand each new extension, rather just the new order its done and in the long run it seems to makes more sense to have

blog.yourcompany
contact.yourcompany
products.yourcompany
news.yourcomapany

than

yourcompany.com/blog
yourcompany.com/contact
yourcomapany.com/news

as why should the type of site ( com , net , org , info etc ) necessarily be declared in the address each time its typed out. You dont write the organisation type each time with physical mail

Just to clarify the part on branding, if companies could register their name at GoDaddy and we started having blog.yourcompany, http://www.yourcompany or even just "yourcompany" branding wouldnt be an issue as consumers would soon see these new websites consistently.

Icann and registrars would actually be sitting on a windall.. people would keep their .com's etc and the new system would sell as well and possibly even could be auctioned off

I think the semantic web will have a play before this happens. I'm not quite sure how the new ideaologies in the semantic web will play out (or that I fully understand it) - but - theoretically it could eliminate the need for domains all together.

On the flipside - with every new technology - the old one does not die out. When the TV came around it did not kill the radio. And so might this be.

I think it is a certainty that the random creation of .whatever’s would not be a successful endeavor.
To get such a platform working you would be required to change the cognition behavior of every single person. This is very unlikely and I see no way a marketing division of any major company could justify adding confusion to their messages. It is an unnecessary loss of efficiency equivalent to vehicle registration numbers being allowed to be placed anywhere on a car and be any length or combination. Does ICANN really think people will like playing a game of spot the license plate?

If a consumer is shown blog.ford they will see the word blog next to the word ford. However, if they see blog.ford.com or ford.com/blog for that matter they it is easily identified as a domain name that when entered would result in a website being presented.
An identifier that tells the user that a string of text is a domain name is critical. Unless ICANN and Marketing firms have the billions of dollars required to make even the slightest dent in the average persons cognitive behavior then the added confusion of .whatever’s will only serve to increase the value of the existing domain name system.

Did anyone spot the extra potential extensions on this message.
How about these for domain names for to state a few in case you missed them:
message.How
combination.Does
critical.Unless
person.This
endeavor.To
ford.However

People considering using these or similar domains commercially need to rethink how confused they wish to make their audience.
Sticking to .com / .net / .org all of a sudden seems more viable.

.com - everything becomes good!

@Mason;

You've hit the nail on the head; .com functions not only as an extension, but as an identifier to what I'm looking at; a web address. Even with a lot of CCtlds people would be confused, I own squid.li and if I said to my mum (who only ever uses the internet for watching TV she's missed and recipes) "squid.li" she'd be confused, as opposed to "squid.com" where she'd instantly recognise it as a web address; because we're conditioned by society and media to do so.

As more gTLD's of any kind are added, and there most certainly will be more, it dilutes them all with the exception of .com because it will stand out in the sea of gTLD's.

Further dilution of gTLDs will help strengthen ccTLDs in usage and value.

Have you seen the old ICANN plans?
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-4-26jun08-en.htm

*

In a sense, "com" is just a word, and not a very meaningful one at that. The only reason it is so accepted is because it was the first identifier for the web.

Over time, .com CAN (and probably will) lose its cachet, especially if so many generics remain on parking pages. A lot of consumer confidence for .com is slowly eroding, what with all the phishing and content-lite pages. When you land on a page, are you able to trust the site, or will it launch a virus or worm?

I can see major corporations applying for their brand TLDs; such branding would be an attempt to instill consumer confidence in their products and assure consumers that a .company page will be safe place to land and have something to offer, other than a list of ads to companies that may or may not be honest.

I doubt if "boutique" TLDs will be available for the average person with a credit card and a GoDaddy account.

However, I do see a day when TLDs are obsolete, though maybe not anytime soon.

*