.APP Domain Names Will Create New Naming Opportunities For Developers

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文章出處：http://iwantmyname.com/blog/2012/06/...evelopers.html

As you may know, the web address space is about to grow by hundreds of new suffixes in addition to the well-known .COM, .NET or .ORG over the course of the next few years. While the announcement of the final list of new top-level domains (TLDs) by the internet's governing body ICANN is only two days away, there is one domain extension that gets us particularly excited at iWantMyName and that is the proposed .APP TLD. Today we are having a closer look at this future naming option for application developers, web apps and everyone's beloved smartphone software goodies as an example of how the name space expansion can benefit domain owners as well as end users.

YourSoftwareApp.com vs YourSoftware.app

So what does the .APP suffix offer to application developers? First of all, the days of simply appending 'app' as in yoursoftwareAPP.com or prefixing your domain with 'get', e.g. GETsoftwarename.com and settling for an inferior web address will finally be over! We see these type of domains being registered almost on a daily basis at iWantMyName and .APP domains would certainly increase the chances of getting the name you really want for your site. The dotAPP ending could be used for marketing desktop software on Mac, Windows or Linux, general web applications and obviously apps for iOS devices such as iPhone or iPad and Android powered smartphones or tablets. It's simply a platform-independent internet address for any kind of software but at the same time easy to recognize as a trusted source to find information about an application.

Just imagine a popular game, for example Angry Birds, on the domain AngryBirds.app with links to app stores where it can be downloaded. Wouldn't that come in handy? Of course, the naysayers will tell you that the same can be done on any other top-level domain. If users who want to download your application see .COM and .APP web addresses in their search result which one will be more likely clicked, though? Adoption might take a while but once they know that .APP gets them faster to the desired information, it will become their preferred choice.

What are the next steps for .APP?

We don't know yet which company will manage the back end for .APP (there are three companies competing already) and the winner might bring even more to the table such as integration with existing app stores or an integrated website builder for apps. They could also play an important role in your app's distribution channel and make it the go-to place for managing content or submitting new versions for different marketplaces. Let's just hope the future registry — whoever it may be — will not restrict the namespace in a way that makes it difficult for the global developer community to register domains.

For now, you can still relax. There will be at least 12-18 months until you might be able to register .APP domains. Once it's clear who will be managing the namespace, we will provide you with further information. And if you need a web address for your app in the meantime, our domain search can help.