TLD

Just in case you aren't aware, new top-level domains (TLD) are on the horizon.

In amazon.com, "com" is the top level domain, whereas "amazon" is the sub-domain. There are a few dozen TLD's today (besides the ubiquitous .com) , such as .net, .gov, .info, .biz, .edu. There is one for each nation in the world (all with two character), such as .uk, .de, .us. All of the domains are registered and administered by ICANN.

It's been this way since the inception of the net. Now, the TLD universe is about to explode. Imagine chiefs.football, yellow.taxi, hntb.engineering, nike.shoes, mercy.hospital, kc.art.institute, chicago.art.institute, allstate.insurance, you.tube. See this list of probable/possible tld's. Here is a categorized list. Each of these has been purchased from ICANN in auction for thousands to millions of dollars. The purchasers, in turn, will administer their tld and will charge an annual fee for each sub-domain registration. ICANN sub-domain registration for .com is typically around $10-$15/year. The new tlds are going for much more.

And the probable list is just the generic ones. Any entity (most likely, any company) will be able to set up and maintain their own private tld with ICANN. Expect such as .ford, .chicago, .ibm, .amazon. You can imagine sub-domains for private tlds such as books.amazon. fiction.books.amazon, scifi.fiction.books.amazon. So you might expect a url like this: http://scifi.fiction.books.amazon/animal_farm.

dot-com is way overused and is about to become old-school. Hey, there's one: .oldschool