“nTLDs”: Categorizing Top Level Domains
Joseph Peterson asks, “when is fresh not really fresh,” and proposes fresh terminology to clarify it.
Going into the fresh year, I decided to make a little glossary of domaining definitions. That includes words many people use by now, some terms I’ve been tossing around privately for years, and a few I’ve invented on the fly to clarify what (to me) seems vague.
This sounds presumptuous, but I’m not insisting on any of this lingo. This isn’t the “right” terminology. Helpful, at best. If a handful of you find a label handy, terrific!
The first, and the subject of today’s post, is:
nTLD – Short for “fresh TLD”, this refers to any of the hundreds of fresh gTLDs whose release began with 2014 and will continue throughout 2015. Although these TLDs are quite diverse and won’t always be fresh, they do belong to a discernible movement whose aim is to introduce widespread novelty online. Right now, they are discussed as a bundle, distinct from earlier gTLDs; and “nTLD” is one label that has arisen.
So if people are saying “nTLD” by now, then why belabor the issue? For starters, there has been so much talk regarding fresh gTLDs that a significant percentage of domainers would declare themselves pro-.COM and anti-gTLD – even though .COM itself is a gTLD, along with .NET, .ORG, and most established extensions apart from country codes such as .DE, .ME, .CA, and .IN. Since people have naturally sought a label, we’re better off using “nTLD” rather than see such confusion regarding the meaning of “gTLD”.
Even in the future, these nTLDs may be recognized as belonging – if not to a category – then to a “generation”, owing to the circumstances of their introduction. ICANN has flooded the market with nTLDs in a way drastically different from the slower pace we saw from .BIZ (2001) through .MOBI (2005) to .XXX (2011). At some point, people might begin to think of meaningful suffixes like .PRO, .TRAVEL, .TV, .FM, .ME, .US, .IT, and .ASIA as being grouped with .CLUB, .GURU, and .PROPERTY even though they preceded the nTLDs by years and include what are technically ccTLDs rather than gTLDs. If they blur the lines, then let them! Nevertheless, the distinction can be made. Not everyone will apply a a label, but we may wish to.
To be as precise as possible, “nTLD” ought to apply to this sizable set of domain suffixes regardless of timing, whereas the phrase “fresh TLD” ought to be reserved for recent or forthcoming releases. This may sound pedantic, but it does lead to practical advantages. For example consider this sentence:
The old nTLDs had higher first-week registration numbers than fresh nTLDs.
How awkward without the word “nTLD”! Ought to we say “the old fresh TLDs” or “the fresh fresh TLDs”? Wouldn’t “the old TLDs” refer to .COM, .EDU, and .GOV? Communication is much cleaner if “nTLD” has this recognized meaning. Moreover, we can use nTLD as an adjective, which permits us to make logical statements we otherwise can’t. For instance, we can ask:
How does nTLD adoption in the USA compare to nTLD registration and development patterns in Europe?
We’re asking regarding the past. Still, had we attempted to ask this same question without the “nTLD” label, then we’d accidentally find ourselves inquiring regarding the future:
How does fresh TLD adoption in the USA compare to fresh TLD registration and development patterns in Europe?
Substituting the phrases “adoption of fresh TLDs” and “registration / development of fresh TLDs” is no solution since “fresh TLD” remains ambiguous. Are we talking regarding the prior week’s 5 fresh TLDs or regarding the hundreds of nTLDs rolled out thus far? It does make a difference. Nobody wants convoluted circumlocutions, but we do need to rely on being understood. This word “nTLD” may not be a formal ICANN category, but it’s the simplest means to an end. Today its meaning is quite clear. Years from now, what an “nTLD” is may need to be revised; but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. At the moment, anybody writing regarding the domain industry may find the word “nTLD” a useful or even irreplaceable tool.
