Introducing the dot brand

Many businesses create websites, social media strategies and email marketing campaigns in order to increase their online presence and to communicate with their customers on the internet. This makes it especially important for companies to have a domain name that not only reflects the company brand, but is also short enough for customers to remember.
Much work goes in to researching and testing suitable domain names, but now the market for names is about to become a lot more competitive.
This month (January 2012), applications open for gTLD (generic top level domain) names. This would mean that instead of having a dot com companies could have a dot brand. For example, global icons such as Facebook or Coca-Cola could apply for the use of .coke or .facebook domain.
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the body in charge of allocating and managing the assignment of internet domains and is behind the move to extend the number of suffixes used on web addresses.
For some companies this is a golden opportunity for them to completely personalise their website offering. It could also allow them to steal a march on their competitors, by building awareness of their products through shortened domain names. For example, ipad.apple certainly has a nice crisp ring to it!
The application period runs from the 12th January until the 12th April 2012, which doesn’t leave much time to consider this option, and if a company were to follow through with an application they would have to ensure that their website and general online offering warranted a personalised domain.
However, for many companies, the cost is a huge barrier to entry as just applying will cost an estimated $185,000 (£120,000). This has led to arguments from smaller companies that the procedure is unfair, and that only incredibly successful megabrands will be able to afford such applications.
This does not mean that dot coms are destined to become outdated anytime soon. Many professionals have discussed the likelihood of dot coms disappearing in the next five years, but it seems much more likely dot brands and dot coms will co-exist in the future.