A Second Wind for .US?

By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com

Is the .US  Domain Extension Going Postal?

.US is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States and was established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States. (according to Wikipedia.org).

The big question for me is why the .us domain name extension has lagged so far behind other ccTLD extensions to date? An updated list of total ccTLD registrations at the end of 2013 is here (note .us in the 15th slot. Just behind Canada.)

.tk  20 million
.de 15 million
.uk 10.6 million
.cn 8.8 million
.nl 5.4 million
.ru 4.5 million
 .eu 3.7 million
.br 3.3 million
.ar 3.0 million
.au 2.7 million
.fr 2.7 million
.it 2.6 million
.pl 2.5 million
.ca 2.2 million
.us 1.9 million

There was a very interesting news release this past summer from the Neustar (Neustar.us) Registry regarding the .us domain name extension.  The release is here: Neustar to Launch usTLD Stakeholder Council.

This article got me to thinking about just what the Neustar.us registry and Stakeholder Council is up to. That is in regards to the development of the (massively underutilized) .us domain name extension.

From this article regarding the Council:

The Charter of this new Council sets its Scope of Work as follows:
The Council will address matters related to the operation of the usTLD in the interest of the usTLD user community. The work of the Council will be focused on:

1. Recommending to Neustar policies and other improvements to the management of the usTLD;
2. Ensuring that the needs of current usTLD domain name holders are considered in the management of the usTLD;
3. Providing input on mechanisms to enhance and improve the user experience and utility of the usTLD space; and
4. Improvements to the security within the usTLD and stable management of the space.

This is from the Councils principles and policies:

The Council’s Guiding Principles and Policies include:

• The usTLD must continue to serve the needs of existing Registrants, support innovative new uses of the name space, and respect the rights of consumers and rights holders.
• Innovation in the usTLD space should promote the public interest and benefit both commercial and noncommercial usTLD stakeholders.

So I started to think about who or what entity will end up taking the .us domain name extension to the next level if that actually does happen?

There is one public entity that came to mind that could do it and the reasoning relates to something that has been in the news a good deal lately.

The entity of the US Postal Service and the mechanism could potentially be through postal banking and financial services.

Some of you already know that the US Postal Service is in the process of very possibly expanding their offerings of financial services. The USPS already offers some financial services such as postal money orders and other basic services. The US Postal Service does have a history of offering expanded services earlier this century and successfully so. As it turns out, Postal financial services is already a fairly widespread practice in many foreign countries.

Here is a whitepaper (published this year) by none other than the US Post Office Inspector General regarding the USPS offering expanded banking services: Providing Non-Bank Financial Services to the Underserved.

A few more recent articles on the subject here:

Should the Post Office Offer Financial Services?

Could Plan to Offer Financial Servics Save the Post Office?

What Happens if the Post Office is your Bank?

How to Save the Post Office?

Yes, People Would Bank at the Post Office.

So why would the US Postal Service use the .us domain name extension to propagate its newly developed banking and financial services?

The answer is that many foreign countries are already offering expanded financial and banking services through their countries postal services.

Most of those countries also use their own country code domain name extensions (ccTLDs) for identification and clarity.

The use of the .us domain name extension may very well become a necessity for the US Postal Service. Particularly, if they go down this road of banking and expanded financial services to their customers. Especially with the accelerating trend of these services moving online.

Here are just a few examples of Postal Services who use their country code domain names for Postal Financial Services.

PostalBank.co.tz
PostBank.gov.ph
JapanPost.jp
ChinaPost.com.cn
RussianPost.ru
CanadaPost.ca
Poste.it (Banco Posta)
Correos.es (Spanish Post)

Here's an example to show another level of confusion and to enforce my point.

http://www.postbank.com actually goes to a German bank. 

If I were the US Postal Service, I'd be looking at .us.

The Fallout from the (gTLD) Rollout

By Duane J. Higgins, ceo
xtradot.com

Could the .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz extensions be in a prime position?

Many are talking about the new flood of new domain name extensions that are being poured onto the open marketplace. Some of the new extensions are .app, .buy, .bank, .cash, .city, diet, .film, .game, .golf, .home., .law, .mail, .movie, .news, .online, .sale, .shop, .tech, .web, .wow and .zone. The grand total of new extensions may be upwards of 1000 when all is said and done (for this round anyway).
There certainly will be significant fallout from the rollout of the new domain name extensions. The question is of course what exactly will that be? Some of it we do already know and some of it (the fallout) remains to be seen.

What I want to focus on is what impact with the new domain name extensions have on the "old guard extensions" such as .com, .net, .org, .info, and biz. Maybe I am an "Internet traditionalist" or I just have a hard time letting go. However, I will admit that some of these "old and worn out" extensions are near and dear to my heart. For example I have written extensively regarding the unique lofty position that the .com domain name extension holds in the Internet and real world landscape.

It is probably fair to say that I am very fond of the .com extension. Also, that I have no fear that any one of the (upwards of 1000) new domain name extensions will ever overtake or even challenge.com in popularity. (sorry .app, .shop and .web).

But since I'm looking back (to the old guard extensions) and not forward to the flood of new extensions, I have a few points I want to make.

Look for the .biz extension to have new life breathed into it. Many have written the .biz extension off at this point. Don't be so sure. What I'm seeing is for .biz to be branded as the "home business" and "mobile business" extension. Telecommuting and telework is the rage. .Biz may just surprise you. We (my company DONASYS) already has some projects in development on .biz names.
Look for .info and .net to be rejuvinated as well. All of the (upwards of 1000) new domain name extensions if anything are going to raise all of our consciousness regarding what domain names can be in our lives and how they can be used by us all for out own benefit and convenience. .INFO and .net are short and very intuitive. Something that you cant say for a large majority of the new extensions. I do believe that many of the new longer extensions will struggle. They have to many characters and are not intuitive.

The .org domain name extension generally occupies territory unique to itself. From Wikipedia we have this:

The domain name org is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) of the Domain Name System (DNS) used in the Internet. The name is truncated from organization. It was one of the original domains established in 1985 and operated by the Public Interest Registry since 1988. The domain extension was originally created for non-profits, but this designation no longer exists and today it is commonly used by schools, open-source projects, and communities as well as by for-profit entities.

There are no new real challengers to org. A few entities are making the attempt such as .ngo and .ong (for non-governmental organizations) however I don't believe that .org should be worried. .Org is to non-profits as .com is to the commercial Internet. No challengers and no challengers respectively.

So now I step down from my soapbox and make just a few final conclusions on this essay.

I (still) really like .com, .net, org, .biz and .info.

I like some of the new extensions too. Just haven't bought any yet. That is what we call a "wait and see attitude."

Until I see differently, .com is still my king.