Canon to Acquire .canon Top Level Domain
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will soon be accepting applications for new generic top level domains (gTLD) to be created, potentially ushering in a new Internet land rush.
Currently, only a handful of gTLDs exist, including common ones such as .com, .net, .org, and less known ones such as .aero, .asia, and .travel. When ICANN opens up the application process, it may lead to an explosion in the number of gTLDs.
While many large corporations are presumably waiting to pounce on a gTLD for their business, Canon has decided to openly announce their intention of registering “.canon” in a press release. If everything goes according to plan, you might soon be seeing websites with domain names like “my.canon” or “buy.canon”.
Regardless of whether or not companies succeed in claiming their own gTLD, convincing the general public to use that gTLD might be much more trickly. Canon states,
With the adoption of the new gTLD system, which enables the direct utilization of the Canon brand, Canon hopes to globally integrate open communication policies that are intuitive and easier to remember compared with existing domain names such as “canon.com.” [...] Following approval for the new gTLD system, which is expected to take place after the latter half of 2011, Canon will make full use of the new domain name to increase the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications.
I’m wondering whether Canon really believes .canon to be more intuitive and easier to remember than .com, which has become seemingly synonymous with the Internet. It might simply be an attempt to secure the name so no one else can steal it.
Do you think “canon.canon” is more intuitive than “canon.com”?
Thanks @eugenephoto, for the tip!
Join the PetaPixel Flickr Group
Follow @petapixel on Twitter
[...] at PetaPixel.com, Michael Zhang writes today that Canon has openly stated they want want to register the generic top level domain “.canon”. (Generic top level domains are the .com, .net, .org, etc, found in [...]
well Canon.canon isnt good..
but how is http://1000d.canon ?
or http://india.canon or http://products.canon ???
Or some community ilovemy.canon ;)
In Dutch we have a saying that goes like this (translated): “shooting with a cannon at a mosquito”. Somehow this came to mind the moment I read the article…
i think it's all about cleaning up the url and making it easier to remember.
eos.canon is cleaner than canon.com/eos
not sure whether it's possible to have http://.canon/500d
maybe something like ilovemy.canon/7d would be more logical
i think it's all about cleaning up the url and making it easier to remember.
eos.canon is cleaner than canon.com/eos
Perhaps that will be true, given enough time. But we have a couple of decades of ingrained habits to unlearn. For me, I'd instinctively try “canon.com/eos” right off the bat.
I hope they'll resell domains to their customers. photographerX.canon – why not? Guess I would grab one.
It is possible, though it'd be written http://canon./500d
Check http://bi./ for example. The TLD of Bosnia-Herzegovina has an actual A record here, and judging by the content on the site the guys have been testing if this very thing worked.
who needs to remember it? just google what you want.
May have been a marketing ploy to trick people into writing articles about Canon. If so, it worked on you.