ICANN’s opening of top-level domains could be the modern-day Louisiana Purchase, spawning a wild electronic west for Internet entrepreneurs and established dot-coms. Now anyone can register a .anything to their hearts content (or pocketbooks’ depth, it won’t be cheap). The Industry Standard's own Jordan Golson seems to think this is just a scam to get companies to purchase more domains in order to protect their copyrights -- .ebay, .amazon, .whatever could theoretically be purchased by anyone willing to cough up the cash.

I, on the other hand, find the flexible TLDs an exciting new frontier for the Internet. Unlike the gimmicky .biz’s and .info’s of the past, the new domains have the ability to settle into normal Internet surfing habits. To be sure, the initial rollout in 2009 will cause copyright issues resulting in legal battles, and some initial confusion. But it will also free Internet businesses from the .com mentality that has existed for the last 15 years, helping them in their marketing efforts and helping their users explore the Web more quickly and easily.

Custom top-level domains have the potential to throw the URL game wide open, reinventing the way surfers navigate the Web. If properly implemented, a new URL and navigational grammar could develop, much like current sites use of sub-domains as shortcuts to content. News.standard, bets.standard, and opinion.standard all could allow users to directly access partitions of the site faster and easier. Better yet, imagine if Amazon.com combined a catch-all URL with a search feature. Who needs Google when all you need to do is type in Stephen-king.amazon, ipods.amazon, or any other search string placed before the .amazon domain? (Continued)