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The latest ICANN plan to allow the global populace to assemble an entire domain name like www.yourname.yourname as their free-choice is a revolutionary and timely decision. This now opens doors to cyber-brands like my.ibm, hotel.chicago, it.jobs,
play.poker, fly.usa or go.dell, and applicants will submit a non-refundable fee of $ 100-500K USD for each name idea and the businesses are already jumping to get started.

A new study estimates that this new registration process would create $ 33 Billion in fees in the first three years. The prime beneficiaries will be ICANN, which operates as a not-for-profit organization, but they still would have to deliver a highly structured, high speed service, and meet global needs. Other big recipients will be the world-wide domain registrars and highly specialized experts and lawyers while the cascading revenues will go to IT and web support organizations. The public at large will become the real beneficiaries as a billion new users will come online, millions of new interactive gateways will open, and thousands of new global brands will emerge. This will make a global impact and bring a new face to the global E-commerce. The study also points out how in countries around the world, new national clubs of overnight billion-dollar domain name owners will emerge, all fueling the new global race.

In contrast, for over a decade, and after toying with nickel-and-dime registration fees and fighting over domain names, this mature approach will alter the domain name perceptions for the global business community, as by and large, domain names have been the most grossly overlooked aspect of a name identity assumed to be only handled by junior programmers and web designers. The new registration process has built-in controls and gone will be the days when billion-dollar businesses were on their hands and knees when some kid had their domain name squatted for a nickel and had the capability to pull the corporate strings. In those earlier days, at $ 70 USD per domain name, up to a million names per day were being registered. The success was so huge that VeriSign ended up being sold for $ 22 Billion USD.

This latest approach allows great ideas to catapult into overnight global-cyber-name-brands of extraordinary proportions, yet the game must be played fairly and with proper registration while accommodating all the trademark issues. However, the businesses will have to deploy smart and professional strategies with a commanding knowledge of global corporate nomenclature and cyber name identity ownership. The logo design driven methods of the previous century are rapidly being replaced by name identity-driven cyberspace. Names, like the ultimate flag carriers of the brand, will skate around the world, and tap the right customers, using the latest online multimedia-searching and cyber-branding tools, and this rule of owning a perfect name with a perfect suffix will propel a brand to new stratosphere overnight.

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Naseem Javed, recognized as a world authority on corporate image and global name identities, is a harsh critic of casual and accidental naming. He is a dynamic speaker on corporate image and branding issues, and is also the author of Naming for Power. He founded ABC Namebank International, an image and branding consultancy over 25 years ago.
Website: www.abcnamebank.com