Innovation and gTLDs IN THE SPOTLIGHT


IS THE DOMAIN NAME INDUSTRY READY FOR RADICAL INNOVATION?


you will be amazed at G


rowing up in the south west of the UK, I was always surrounded by prodigious feats of engineering. If you visit Bristol, the Cliſton Suspension


Bridge. Designed by one of my engineering heroes, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and hanging 250 feet above the River Avon, it is an awe-inspiring sight.


Why is Brunel one of my heroes? It’s not just that he could turn his hand to almost anything (he built bridges, tunnels and ships, among other things)—it is that almost every engineering project he undertook involved radical innovation, solving longstanding engineering problems in unique ways. He introduced ‘broad gauge’ rails on his railways, he built the first tunnel under a navigable river, to name but two of his feats.


Innovation on the internet


Years later, working in the domain name industry, I find myself looking at innovation from a different viewpoint.


Tere is a quiet revolution on the internet: a new naming convention where websites can end in almost any letters rather than the old style .com, .net or .org. Tis change, known as the generic top-level domain (gTLD) programme, has been seen by many as a playground for fresh thinking and innovation online.


46 Trademarks & Brands Online


ICANN, which regulates domain names, cites the capacity for innovation as one of the reasons for expanding the number of gTLDs.


If ICANN is to be believed, new gTLDs should provide fertile ground for internet innovation— but is that what the majority of domain name consumers (especially corporations) or those that advise and support them need, or even want?


While many have described the internet as the new ‘Wild West’, the truth is different. Te underlying internet is an ultra-stable and resilient technology platform that


allows people the


freedom to innovate on it. Without the internet’s stable technology, there would be no Wikipedia, Facebook or Twitter. And without a regulated domain name system (DNS), there would be no online banking or internet commerce. Instead of having a Facebook profile, you might have a ‘173.252.110.27’ profile, which is not quite so snappy.


Keeping the internet’s root zone completely stable is the overriding principle of the new gTLD programme. Tousands of technical and non-technical issues, some serious and many others trivial, have been raised to the appropriate committee for action and, where no such committee existed, special committees have


Volume 3, Issue 2


Encouraging novelty is one of the driving


forces behind the new gTLD programme, but that doesn’t mean the domain industry is ready for dramatic change just yet. Andy Churley investigates.


been formed. It has taken nearly 10 years to get to the stage where the first new gTLDs are now launching on the internet.


Types of innovation


What kind of innovation are we seeing and how will it alter your advice to clients on their domain name registration


strategies? According to


management textbooks, there are many types of innovation, but I have listed four:


• Product innovation: changes in things, such as reversing sensors in cars;


• Process innovation: changes in the way in which things are created or delivered, such as movie downloads to your television;


• Position innovation: changes in the context in which things are perceived or communicated. Jeans, for example, are no longer work wear— they are now fashion items; and


• Paradigm innovation: changes in the essence or nature of what a business or sector does, such as mobile phone manufactures no longer manufacture phones, they manufacture ‘smart lifestyle devices’.


With the introduction of new gTLDs, the


temptation for radical and disruptive business www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com


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