More or less, I want to tackle two related angles....

.....Domain names for device specific websites
.....The distinct devices which require or should have a website done in a different way to that of other devices
.....Do we have distinct gTLDs which indicate that 'this website is specific to this type of device'.


I do know about .mobi for mobile devices, many would treat .com as a screen device TLD.

With .tv, many would treat that to mean 'TV device' even though in the proper right it is in fact a ccTLD for the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu


One thing that has got my interest here is, Google Adwords gives you a choice of selecting three distinct types of devices....
....Computer Devices, which many would use the .com gTLD for
....Mobile Devices, which the .mobi gTLD is designed for
....Tablet Devices. Is there a gTLD specific for them? Is there rumor of a nTLD going to come out later this year?


While I am here, what about other devices which may need their own style of HTML, or another language all together. Like TTY devices, devices which 'read the web page' or other like devices. Even devices like Projection, Braille, or other?

Such domain names are called sponsored where a specfic interest group have gain sufficient financial support and the infrastructure to support the management of the TLD

A Sponsor is an organization to which is delegated some defined ongoing policy-formulation authority regarding the manner in which a particular sponsored TLD is operated. The sponsored TLD has a Charter, which defines the purpose for which the sponsored TLD has been created and will be operated. The Sponsor is responsible for developing policies on the delegated topics so that the TLD is operated for the benefit of a defined group of stakeholders, known as the Sponsored TLD Community, that are most directly interested in the operation of the TLD. The Sponsor also is responsible for selecting the registry operator and to varying degrees for establishing the roles played by registrars and their relationship with the registry operator. The Sponsor must exercise its delegated authority according to fairness standards and in a manner that is representative of the Sponsored TLD Community.

.MOBI, >AERO, >TRAVEL, .MUSEUM and the latest addition of .XXX for the "adult" industry.

If you want to setup your own gTLD the info is here and there is a a FAQs list

Oh! And you do need to have the $185,000 evaluation fee of which $5,000 has to be paid with your application.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Oh! And you do need to have the $185,000 evaluation fee of which $5,000 has to be paid with your application.

I was always wondering if I could ever have my last name as a domain extension! I guess I will need to come up with $185,000 + $5000 first! I don't know if it is worth it at this point...

Originally Posted by WebcsPeter

I don't think it's worth that money.

Ok soo let's get this right.


You don't think that managing your own TLD where you could sell lease almost infinite sub divisions of for, lets say $5 a year EVERY YEAR, ad infinitum to be "not worth" that kind of investment.

Are you kidding???????????????

Just a suggestion at the mathematics.

There are 37 characters allowed in a domain name a - z (26) 0 - 9 (10) & '-' (1)
There is a maximum length of 64 characters in a domain name.
Therefore the number of allowable combinations is.

1.97720458214493e+27 and THAT is only if all 64 characters are used

there are also;
9139 combinations of 3 from 37
91390 of 4 from 37
749398 of 5 from 37

and so on


I'll leave you to work that out into potential revenue if all lengths of possible combimations of characters were leased.

Of course, you'd need to assume that your domain would actually mean something and be useful :P www.me.janice would probably not get a lot of registrations, compared to the huge .ly domains (bit.ly!). if you really had $190k to spend, you could get one like .tion or something like that, so people could register things like func.tion

Domain names are about making the address you type shorter. However the more domain names there are, the harder it will get to remember them all, so I think .com will stay the dominant domain for a long time.

One particularly cool domain name I've found is http://script.aculo.us/, pronounced 'scriptaculous'. It takes advantage of the domain, a custom prefix, and a subdomain. Very clever.

As did del.icio.us until they managed to get delicious.com