The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the ruling body for all domain names, will be opening the flood gates early next year. Where there is now domains like microsoft.com, soon it will probably be something like windows.microsoft. That's right, anyone will be able to put whatever they want on the right side of that dot, provided you have the money to do it, of course.

Many people are saying "don't do it." It sounds like it will be very expensive, at least at first, so only larger companies will be doing it. I remember the days when one year of a normal domain registration cost $180 (versus about $10 now), so the price will come down.

gTLD's (generic Top Level Domains) are expected to increase choice and competition for domain names. Personally, I think this is going to be good in the long run for small businesses. The push has always been to get a .com domain name, because it's the TLD that people recognize. That thinking has lessened with all the new extensions out, like .tv, .info, and the rest, but this new option will really break the chain of needing a .com.

More information on the new gTLD's can be found at www.moderndomainer.com.