21st Challenge No. 36

Dot what? New top-level domain names for fun, if not profit.

By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau

Sep 1, 2000 | In just a few short years the dot-com gold diggers have staked claim to all available surface deposits of short, recognizable English words. Latecomers who want to start a Web site are left to pick through the tailings or pay top dollar to claim jumpers for what once seemed rightfully theirs.

What's needed -- and everyone involved has known this for Internet eons -- is more suffixes. These are the top-level domain names like .com, .org, etc. To that end, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is soliciting proposals for new top-level domains.

And we're here to help. Readers are challenged to submit a new suffix and briefly describe its purpose. You're also welcome to submit a sample that takes advantage of your new top-level domain.

EXAMPLE

www.microstrategy.con

The .con domain is intended to help differentiate the truly egregious from the merely aggressive business innovators.

RULES

Send your submissions via e-mail only to salon21st@salon.com. Please include your full name and an accurate e-mail address so we can contact you if you're a winner. By submitting your entry you give Salon Technology permission to publish and reuse it. Deadline for entries is Sept. 8, 2000.

PRIZES

The winning response will receive a copy of Salon Technology senior correspondent Andrew Leonard's book, "Bots: The Origin of New Species."

In two weeks we'll publish a winner and some selected entries -- then start over a couple of weeks after that with a whole new challenge.

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