Sites on Google’s Blogger platform have long used addresses of the form blogname.blogspot.com. Google is now applying the same regional detection it uses on its main site to Blogger, so many of those addresses will now show up in the form blogname.blogspot.com.au for Australian visitors. More »
If you’ve even briefly considered setting up your own domain with Google Apps, consider that after May 10, any new Apps “Standard Edition” sign-ups are limited to 10 users, requiring a Business Edition purchase to go beyond that limit. More »
Has the time come for you to construct a proper web site for your small business? Here are some key resources and ideas to make it easier to build. More »
Having an online presence is essential for a business these days, but setting one up and maintaining it can seem both time-consuming and expensive. Here’s five simple strategies you can use to enhance your online business presence for little or no cost, whether you’re a part-time start-up or a rapidly growing organisation. More »
A quick reminder of two things you might have forgotten over the holiday break. Tomorrow is the final day for submissions to the auDA review on how domain name rules might change in Australia. Meanwhile, the annual Whirlpool broadband survey remains active until the end of the month. Get involved!
A new top-level porn domain, XXX (e.g. http://pornexample.xxx), was approved today by ICANN, the non-profit organisation responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and approval of new top-level domains like .com, .org and so on. This doesn’t mean that all porn sites will leave their current cushy URLs for XXX – or even, necessarily, that you can’t host a non-porn site on a .xxx domain – but it’ll be an easy block for concerned parents. [PC World]
The Internet has seemingly gotten a long way with top-level domains — the last bits after the dot in any Internet domain name, usually abbreviated to TLDs — essentially limited to country codes (such as .au) and a handful of “global” options (such as .com). However, this week ICANN (which controls domain name policy) is voting on a proposal that would allow a much wider range of TLDs, including company names and trademarks. As the BBC reports, one of the first cabs off the rank if the proposal goes through will probably be .xxx for adult content, which ICANN has rejected previously. An approval committee will block any offensive choices, and in the event that several organisations want to create a new top-level domain, there’ll be an auction. If nothing else, that’s a good way for ICANN to get funding.Porn frenzy aside, what new top-level domains would you find useful? Do we need .social for social networking? .hack for code listings? .nsw and .qld, with every other state getting a go as well? Or is a healthy dose of creativity and a dirt-cheap .com domain name still the best choice? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
