ICANN - Singapore & New Domain Names

The ICANN meeting had ended in Singapore last week, and the decisions made in this little island nation would have great impact on our global village.

The biggest impact is the introduction of new domain names, both the internationalised versions and more importantly the new gTLDs (generic Top Level Domains). Currently there are about 22 gTLDs, which include .com, .net, .org, .gov etc. Internet users are well used to such gTLDs in additional to country specific TLDs, e.g. .sg, .uk and so on.

The introduction of new gTLDs will have great consequences for Internet users. Primarily the concerns will be:

Confusion & Security Issues

Internet users will need to be accustomed with the new gTLDs when websites offer their services under the new gTLDs. There will be confusion. For example, should Yahoo obtain their own .yahoo domain, should an Yahoo email user in Singapore give his email as xxx@yahoo.com.sg (which is the current situation) or xxx@yahoo or would there be new variants e.g. xxx@mail.yahoo? These different variants will create possibilities for phishing scams if the websites do not manage their consumer education properly.

Intellectual Property - Trademark & such

Beyond security, there will be trademark issues between websites with confusingly similar names. While this issue exists currently, the magnitude is amplified when companies in different countries have to 'fight' for their trademark in the new gTLDs arena. These companies may be contented with their current country specific domain names, but they will have issues when the gTLDs are introduced. Don't believe me? Try typing in flower.com, flower.com.sg, flower.com.my, flower.co.uk and you will go to websites of different companies. If they are all fighting for the .flower gTLDs, who should ICANN give this domain to? 

Thus, would ICANN be the WIPO equivalent for Internet domain names, i.e. setting trademark equivalent framework for domain names? Interesting...

Costs for the new gTLDs

Of course, the issues above will not be apparent for the next couple of years. The reason is simple - cost. ICANN has set very high entry barrier for anyone to apply for the new gTLDs. The first step for ICANN to evaluate the application of gTLDs will be a whopping USD$185,000. Anyone who want their own new gTLDs will of course have to spend more than that amount overall. Thus I believe only limited number of companies will embark on this new route within the next few years. By 'limited' on a global basis, perhaps we are looking at a few hundreds in year 1.

Well, what will the new domain names be? For a start I believe Google, Yahoo, Apple, Nokia, IBM and other companies in the technology space will clamour for the new bragging rights. We will all know by 2012, when ICANN opens the application period (Jan to Apr 2012) for the new gTLDs.

Trade Nations - Building a Citadel without using Magic Beans

The Citadel is the latest 'castle' building in the Trade Nations game. It is also the most resource consuming building to build in the game so far! The option to build the Citadel is made available once the player reaches level 30 in the Trade Nations. However, it took me a long period (about 3 game levels) to accumulate the resources sufficient to build this enormous building.

A player will need 500,000 gold, 50,000 lumber, 75000 cut stones and 30,000 cloth to build the citadel. Of course, there is much satisfaction (and also experience to level up in Trade Nations) once the Citadel is built. I leveled up to 34 immediately upon building the Citadel. It is fun to see the little red Citadel icon when I logged into the Trade Nations.

I built the citadel without using any magic beans, and the solution is quite simple actually. Just build a lot of 'Large Stockpile' to store all the necessary resources. Whenever there are any excesses, just sell them (when the price is right) in the market. Activate the magic tower to accelerate the resource accumulation in the mean time. 

So yupz, the Citadel is yours to have soon enough in Trade Nations. Hopefully they don't introduce yet another mega building - I need time to replenish my resources and complete the other interesting buildings.

See also:

- iPad - Trade Nations: Review & Guide Part 1

- iPad - Trade Nations: Review & Guide Part 2
- Trade Nations 3.3 - Far East Additions

World IPv6 Day - 8 June 2011

The news reported that World IPv6 Day (8 June 2011) passed without too much problems (Facebook has a short glitch I heard). I guess it's not so for me, despite the fact that  there is no participants from my country.  Not sure how the glitch for me came about. At 3am (GMT + 8 timing), my Internet access was lost and I couldn't get it up. Of course I went to sleep shortly after.

Guess whatever problems there might have been had been resolved and Internet access is fine now.

For those who are interested in the entire day event for World IPv6 Day, Ars Technica has a good writeup about it.