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Net Gains (Jun 16, 98) |
Domain names are the familiar and easy-to-remember names for Internet
computers (e.g. "www.worldcup.com"), that map to unique
Internet Protocol (IP) numbers (e.g. 205.191.83.22) that identify
computers on the Internet. Since computers prefer numbers to communicate,
while we humans are more comfortable with names, the concept of
intuitive domain names was invented, saving us the trouble of
remembering long combinations of numbers.
Since the Internet was largely an American concept, when they started the domain name system, they decided on the following top level domains (tld) :
.com Commercial
.edu Educational
.gov Governmental
.mil Military
.net Networks (ISPs - like VSNL)
.org Other organisations (like non-profits)
They did not foresee the explosive growth of the Internet with
millions of computers being added every year, so these domain
names seemed sufficient. But as the Internet became more global,
standard two letter abbreviations were reserved as tlds for other
countries. England had the tld .uk, Austalia is .au, and India
is .in. And each country is in charge of registering domain names
under their own tlds. So while Tonga (.to) and Niue (.nu) allow
anyone to register domain names with them, India (.in) does not,
and requires that the server be physically located within India.
One interesting site I recently came across was indiadomain (.com
- what else?). The site has a list of servers with India in their
domain name (http://www.indiadomain.com/resources/domain.html).
Even though this list is not comprehensive, there are currently
208 such .com domains, and three each of .org and .net. You have
to see this list to believe it. Chances are if you're planning
on buying a domain name with India in it, it's already booked.
All these domains seek to identify themselves as sites related
to India by choosing a domain name with India in it.
Another page at this site has a list of servers physically located
in India (http://www.indiadomain.com/resources/india.html). A
quick look at this list shows that there are a measly 17 .co.in
domains. So why are there so few takers for the .in tld ? There
are primarily two reasons :
- A .com domain is ubiquitous, and is synonymous with a domain name. If a company is trying to portray a global image, the default choice is .com. Using a .co.in would automatically identify it as an Indian company.
- The costs for hosting a server in India are exorbitant as compared to the same hosting in the US, making most companies in India prefer hosting their servers abroad. Which makes them ineligible for the .in tld.
Private ISPs are expected to start operations by the end of this
year (but don't hold your breath - they've been saying that since
the past two years). When they do, costs are expected to drop,
and hosting may become cheaper than it currently is. That's when
we'll find out how many people will opt for a .co.in domain name.
But, what about you ? Knowing that a .in identifies you as Indian,
and if you had a choice between the following two email addresses:
[email protected] and [email protected], which one
would you opt for ? Take the 5 second online poll, and be heard
at my website. Those taking the poll will get links
to some great freebies after ten days. Go for it !