I sometimes get frustrated with this virus going around whereby everyone likens domain names to real estate. They’re not.

Domain names, indeed DNS in general, runs a very real risk of evolving or even being supplanted wholesale by a superior system; the “cloud computer”? Reinventing DNS is one thing, reinventing your real estate is something entirely different.

If domain names are really like real estate, what is a domain’s neighbourhood? Can we honestly say “shoes.com” and “toys.com” are in the same neighbourhood simply because of visitor stats and sales price? What if one of those were to plummet in value or rocket in value, did they thus move neighbourhood? Can we find direction or community in a domain name?

Real estate and neighbourhoods are relatively fixed objects. We can think of certain areas as affluent or slums or renowned for celebrities.

The nearest I can get to thinking of domain names as real estate is to think of the TLD, much more so that we are on the verge of being flooded with them. That .tv lives in an areas heavily associated with video… but I wouldn’t call it elite. That .com lives in a highly popular, average residential, area.

So let’s wait for the designer TLDs huh. Anyone up for a google TLD “.g”? Or a French Connection TLD “.fcuk”? Going to pay the price for one of those? - YES, that’s what I call something approaching a neighbourhood. Just wondering why Calvin Klein hasn’t sued the Cook Islands, “.ck” :-p