At a meeting in Paris Thursday, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- also known by its acronym ICANN -- unanimously approved key proposals to allow domain names using any combination of letters and numbers, including non-Latin characters.

The decision could spell the end for traditional Web addresses ending .com and .org and country names like .jp or .fr with Web sites able to use easier-to-remember suffixes such as .hotel

Yes. The article was posted already:
http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread25970.html

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Jennifer Karlen & Jon Karlen
Kentucky Horse Farms - Louisville Kentucky Real Estate - Lexington Kentucky Real Estate
Serving the Louisville KY metropolitan area including Jefferson County - Prospect Shelby County - Shelbyville Oldham County - Goshen, La Grange and the Lexington KY metropolitan area including Fayette County - Lexington Woodford County - Versailles Scott County - Georgetown Jessamine County - Nicholasville

Interesting but not really sure how it would spell the end to a well branded website (company) -- no matter what the extension is.

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I agree. The net will continue to evolve, but many .com's are established and branded. The new rules will not affect the top websites.

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John Allen
Realtor®/Broker
Allen Real Estate Services, Inc.
Sarasota, Florida
Representing buyers and sellers of fine Sarasota real estate.

It seems like having different ICANNS will make it difficult for the general public to find your website. I will stick with .com

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Holland Michigan Real Estate | Holland MI Real Estate | Lake Michigan Real Estate

I think .com will always be what people think of first. It is just simple to remember and has been around so long already. I wouldn't change the domain I have because of this. Maybe I would consider realestate.alaska but even that seems hard to remember.

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Ryan Tollefsen
Prudential Jack White Vista Real Estate

Alaska Real Estate | Anchorage Real Estate | Alaska Market Snapshot

If you believe that you have "illusions of Grandeur". That decision will only strengthen the .com and .net not hurt it. Just like in real estate where it's location, location, location.... .com and .net is the only place you really want to be. I consider these other extensions more of a fad then anything else.

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Jerry Campbell, CRS, GRI
Muljat Group
Bellingham, WA 98225
Professional REALTOR for 15 years
BA WWU Management of Information Systems
Bellingham Real Estate | Bellingham Homes For Sale | Whatcom County Real Estate

Aaron Wall also thinks the ruling will increase the ".com premium" for domain names.

http://www.seobook.com/icann-approve...l-domains-tlds

His has some pretty interesting predictions.

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John Allen
Realtor®/Broker
Allen Real Estate Services, Inc.
Sarasota, Florida
Representing buyers and sellers of fine Sarasota real estate.

I agree that .com will always be remembered but disagree for your reasoning. .Com is no more rememberable than .hotel or .cars. It is the first to break onto the scene and so most will remember it forever.

Very interesting topic to debate. One thing we all must remember is that we are impacted by the environment/system/processes we exist within. Just because we are familiar with .com doesn't mean that it will always have the utmost of traction for new generations. Also, we don't teach our children .com, we teach them to search - and ultimately, capitalism will define the outcome as business drives everything these days (from a North American perspective only). As consumers and contributors we have a voice, but it is almost a certainty that individuals won't boycott new extensions just because they aren't familiar. What Google/Yahoo/MSN serves, we eat.

RW

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