Making Sense Of ‘.Com’, ‘.TV’, ‘.Org’…

This irks me. It’s irked me for a good long while. Now I want to say something about it.

“It” has to do with domains. In particular, their suffixes. You know, ‘.com’, ‘.net’, ‘.org’.

You see, the use of these suffixes way back when didn’t mean much. Anyone could register just about any two, three, or four letter abbreviation (those made available by the overseers of these things, that is) to the end of their domain name with little care. Everyone sought their desired names with the ever-more-precious ‘.com’ attached at the end, but if that one was taken, they still had those other options to choose from. That’s what all the various non-dot-com suffixes were, right? Extra options. Apart from ‘.gov’, of course. That was (and still is) off-limits to the general public.

But then Web-based businesses and institutions hit it big time, and lots of people with lots and lots of money got involved with a great number of things to do with the Internet. They made investments. They made a hell of a lot of investments. Too many. They forced the bubble to burst.

Later, things settled, people picked up the pieces deemed worth picking up, and they started to reestablish the online industry as a serious, highly-profitable, sustainable world of business. And today, we’re dealing with a quickly growing world known – sometimes infamously, sometimes not – as Web 2.0, that’s fueling another boom – this one more seismic (in a good sense) than the one before. Blogs are now seen as sources of journalism to be respected, and podcasts – audio and video – are gaining audiences that rival (and sometimes exceed) the sizes of those in old radio, television and film. Very cool, stuff, yes?

Yes, I think so. In all, things have gotten all the more professional on the Web, attracting serious investment, and, in some cases, offering back serious returns.

So should we not take such seemingly trivial things like domain name suffixes, a little more seriously nowadays?

Online media is pretty big, it’s getting bigger by the month. What began as a mini industry of operations revolving around homebrew productions has evolved into a medium in and of itself now home to entities big and small, single-purpose or multifaceted.

A case in point, the TWiT Netcast Network. TWiT series of some dozen or so “netcasts” (podcasts with a twist in nomenclature only), just about all of which are audio-only productions. Which leads one to wonder why the network’s corresponding domain name has ‘.tv’ affixed to it. A bit misleading, no? Perhaps ‘.net’ would’ve been a better fit.

The same can be said of at least several others – GirlsGoneGeek.tv, and PixelCorps.tv, are two examples. The first URL leads one to the homepage of an audio podcast, while the latter offers a mix of audio and video, depending on one’s choice of programming.

And others fortunate to reside in the ‘.com’ world are adversely misleading. Rocketboom, though I love the content produced there, has with it a ‘.com’ suffix rather than a ‘.tv’, save for the fact that it is almost entirely an IPTV venture. The same goes for Wallstrip. And WebbAlert. And…well, you get the idea.

Before some of you respond in the comments with points concerning domain name availability and whatnot, my argument is a rather simple one, and it’s more an expression of a pet peeve than anything else.

In short, it is essentially misleading to attach a label of ‘.tv’ when there isn’t anything to do with television of the old or new varieties at the other end of the rainbow, and the same goes for Internet establishments living seemingly erroneously under ‘.com’ and a host of other abbreviations.

Think differently? Let it be known in the comments below. Don’t care? Let it be known as well.