On the contrary I believe that the internet is going to be dominated by the
"big" players more and more. Sure there will always be web sites arounds, but
content will be handled by fewer larger players.

This has happened with newspapers, magazines, and other news services. These
larger players are spending all their money manouvering for position at the
moment. Who has the largest portal, news service or search engine.

That is how control will be established in these markets. Domain names are but
one facet of this. Where the end user depends on search engines or portals to
find the domain name they want, what is to stop those search engines and
portals returning only "preferred" domains. Perhaps this means you get news
limited's advertisers sorted to the top of list when you search an microsoft
owned search engine.

So, we get back to the point that domain names are important. Companies will
spend a lot of money to make sure people remember them and so they want names
that are easy to remember.

Generic words are easy to remember.

Amazon would surely have preferred books.com if they had it. It gives users
the feeling that this is the "authorised" or recognised source for information
about books on the internet. In marketing we are talking about feelings and
opinions and other such intangible things. Generic words are preferable to the
advertiser.

Ari Maniatis


On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, 9:28:41 AM GMT Jim Birch wrote:


>The internet is a major leveller of opportunity, privilege, and power.  I
>think it's a good thing!



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