The Southlander Syndication Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:24:42 -0700 sales@southland.la (Southland) IP.Blog 60
1) Facebook and Myspace have captured the imagination of millions of people and businesses throughout the world. Both technologies allow us to build profiles, add friends, and connect to the outside world. But, there's one thing neither does very well, i.e. associate themselves with a particular city/region. If you create a page on Facebook or Myspace, you get the usual url, i.e. www.facebook.com/######## or www.myspace.com/whatevername. While the technologies are great, they don't connect you to your city or region. However, what if this technology were superimposed onto the DOT-LA domain space, i.e. www.burbank.la/##### or www.southland.la/##### using Facebook technology or www.burbank.la/johndoe or www.southland.la/johndoe using Myspace technology? Wouldn't that be super cool? Sure it would. Some individuals might want to associate with a particular city and be fine with sharing that information with the public and/or their family/friends (i.e. www.burbank.la/##### or www.burbank.la/johndoe) whereas others might decide to limit their geographical location to the region for added privacy (i.e. www.southland.la/##### or www.southland.la/johndoe). Either way, they can achieve that extra level of personalization that's not available to them via www.facebook.com or www.myspace.com. Also, what if you could have both technologies available on the same DOT-LA city/region domain names and you were able to migrate your existing profiles from the DOT-COM url page to the DOT-LA page with just a click of the mouse and have the ability to keep both sets of profiles between DOT-COM and DOT-LA automatially synchronize when updates are made on either url page? Also, why limit yourself to just one particular networking technology when you can have both, i.e. Facebook and Myspace on the DOT-LA domain space. Finally, since there are millions already on Myspace, it's very difficult to get a desireable name that's not taken, i.e. www.myspace.com/johndoe. Significantly more variations would be available under the DOT-LA domain space, i.e. Southland.LA or the 200+ DOT-LA City TLDs in that region.

2) I often ask myself about the future of yellowpages. Sometimes I think companies will eventually migrate away from yellow pages to social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. If that's true, wouldn't businesses be even more interested in migrating to Facebook and/or Myspace if these technologies were used on the DOT-LA domain space, i.e. www.burbank.la/joespizza or www.southland.la/joespizza? Under these conditions, they get to create their webpage that's associated with a city/region. How cool would that be? And, there's no reason why they couldn't be charged a reasonable rate to utilize such technologies/domain spaces.

3) Both Facebook and Myspace have a relationship with Oodle (www.oodle.com) to accept/serve classified ads. Imagine how much eaiser it would be to reach individuals in your city/region when posting/searching classified ads via Facebook/Myspace when you have a presence via a geographical domain name such as DOT-LA instead of DOT-COM. Wouldn't that make the effort of connecting buyers and sellsers much easier? Sure it would!

4) What if individuals/businesses using Facebook/Myspace technologies also wanted a cool e-mail address that connects them with there city/region? Well, the DOT-LA domain space could make this feasible, i.e. johndoe@burbank.la, johndoe@southland.la, joespizza@burbank.la, or joespizza@southland.la.

5) I sometimes wonder what social networking might be like if you combined Facebook/Myspace with Second Life. Say someone comes to visit you on Facebook/Myspace and you want to have a three-dimensional encounter rather than the two-dimensional type chat. Well, what if Facebook/Myspace had a button that you could click where your social networking page turned into a virtual page where you and your friend(s) could visit your places of interest in LA. You could have preset virtual pages for your city/region where you go to hang out with your friend(s) in the virtual world. The surroundings could be actual, or animated, with three different settings: 1) private - where only you and your friend(s) are present; 2) semi-private - where only you and your friend(s) are present with make believe avatars in the background; or 3) public - where you and your friend(s) see avatars of others traveling in the same area. Travelling could be done by car, bike, or foot, or you simply beam yourself down to an area like Star Trek. Select an interesting cafe and start up a conversation with your avatars. The owner of the cafe can see who's visiting and may decide to offer a coupon in case you want to meet in person outside the virtual world. For those on a first date, this might be the preferred mode of interaction before taking the next step. Or, perhaps you visit a nearby dealership in actual mode and checkout prices before actually driving down to the store. Or, maybe you don't feel that well and decide to attend your class remotely as a courtesy to your classmates. Or, perhaps an employer wants to perform an initial virtual screening interview before having prospects visit in person for a live interview. Imagine all the possibilities of combining Facebook/Myspace technology with Second Life. And, imagine combining these technologies with the DOT-LA domain space.

I'll continue to provide additional ideas to this particular blog as they come to mind. Hope you find these ideas as fascinating as I do. Thank you for visiting this blog!]]> Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:57:46 -0700 DOT-LA Websites


The idea of a DOT-ROMA TLD shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's been following the developments at ICANN since June, 2008. As we approach 2010, it seems more major cities from around the world are becoming aware of the possibilities of having their own DOT-CITY TLD. And, as more major cities publicly announce their intent to acquire a DOT-CITY TLD, the more likely others will jump onto the DOT-CITY TLD bandwagon.]]> Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:57:56 -0700 DOT-LA Websites

NBC's new show Southland premiers on April 9th. The staff at Southland.LA are really looking forward to this show as well as participating on NBC's Southland forum website.]]> Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:29:53 -0700 SOUTHLAND.TEL on March 28, 2009.

Until recently, our DOT-LA product offering was fragmented and not centralized at any one location. With SOUTHLAND.TEL, we now have a control panel that compliments our DOT-LA product offering by placing all of our DOT-LA websites on one central location. In essence, SOUTHLAND.TEL teleports Internet users to our DOT-LA product offering such as 200+ DOT-LA city websites in the Southland for classifieds, or DOT-LA websites that offer coupons, domains/website templates/webhosting, Yellow Pages, or DOT-LA websites that offer world destination travel information via international DOT-LA city websites, or DOT-LA websites that target personal interests. Another advantage of SOUTHLAND.TEL is that DOT-TEL is being embraced on a global basis by several consumers and businesses including Myspace. With the ability to link SOUTHLAND.TEL to other regional/city DOT-TEL websites, we hope to connect our DOT-LA product offering at the local level with DOT-TEL surfers at the global level. In essence, we have converted our two dimensional product offering to a three dimensional product offering via SOUTHLAND.LA, SOUTHLAND.MOBI, and now SOUTHLAND.TEL.

ENJOY!!!]]> Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:12:01 -0700
I've got some great news for you. The folks that have been working very hard over the past several years to acquire their DOT-CITY TLDs have decided to create a "City Top Level Domain Constituency" within ICANN. This effort will push the concept of DOT-CITY TLDs much closer and faster to global recognition and acceptance. The organizations pursuing their DOT-CITY TLD for DOT-NYC, DOT-PARIS, DOT-BERLIN, DOT-LONDON, DOT-HAMBURG, etc. are behind this effort and will become the primary members of this constituency. In addition, this constituency is also inviting "Associated Members" to join this group. I've already requested to have my name added to a waiting list for this constituency as an Associated Member. The criteria for joining as an Associated Member is broad enough for those that like the Internet, support the concept of DOT-CITY TLDs, and have a desire to join this group in order to help them push the DOT-CITY TLD concept along. The more we help each other, the quicker DOT-CITY TLDs will take flight and change the way we see and use the Internet.

I recommend that you send your request to Dirk Krischenowski at dirk@krischenowski.de and request to have your name added to the waiting list. Let's combine our efforts and work together to make DOT-CITY TLDs a reality throughout the globe.]]> Sat, 07 Mar 2009 13:30:09 -0800
Instead, we should ask ourselves if we can address this issue from another direction, e.g. from the left side of the url. Do we really need to have the "WWW" when we are attempting to develop local TLDs? If not, the answer is very simple. We can simply replace the "WWW" with the country's ccTLD (e.g. "us" for the United States, "fr" for France, "de" for Germany, etc.), and, where a particular country (e.g. U.S.A.) has the same city name in various states/provinces, we can resolve that issue as well by inserting another identifier after the ccTLD (e.g. "us.il", "us.tx", "us.tn", etc.).

Let's say we want to allocate Dot-Paris, however, we know of three cities in the United States and one in France that have a City of Paris. For France, we could create "fr.domain.paris". In the United States, we could use 'us.tx.domain.paris", "us.il.domain.paris", and "us.tn.domain.paris". For Dot-Berlin, the TLD in Germany would look like "de.domain.berlin" whereas in the United States is would look like "us.nj.domain.berlin". This solution allocates Dot-City domains by using an existing ccTLD list already in use for many years by ICANN. In addition, many users of the Internet are already aware of this ccTLD naming convention, e.g. they are already up the learning curve regarding the ccTLDs. Therefore to place the ccTLD in place of the "WWW" to visit the relevant Dot-City TLD would not translate into a significant learning curve issue. Provided below are examples of what this naming convention would look like:

1) fr.domain.paris
2) us.tx.domain.paris
3) us.il.domain.paris
4) us.tn.domain.paris
5) de.domain.berlin
6) us.nj.domain.berlin
7) us.mi.domain.berlin

This solution offers another advantage as well, e.g. greater precision on searches at the country level and city level. Companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. could modify their search engines such that individuals looking for cars in Germany would have the search engine check only for that keyword in "de.domain.berlin", "de.domain.munich", "de.domain.frankfurt", etc. Or, if the individual wants more precision, the search engine could search for that keyword in a particular city, e.g. cars in "de.domain.berlin". Also, if someone types in "cars.berlin" and leaves out the "ccTLD" in the beginning of the url, the browser could prompt the user to narrow their search to the country level or country/state level in which the Dot-City websites exist. Finally, if someone wants to create subdomains, they could expand the url in the middle, e.g. us.subdomain.domain.city or us.tx.joescars.dealerships.paris.

In essence, the ccTLD at the beginning of the url can represent a particular Country Wide Web ("CWW") just as effectively as the "WWW" represents the World Wide Web. Also, by having both a CWW at the beginning of the url and a Dot-TLD at the end of the url, we are able to pinpoint domains within a particular country/city or country/state/city which is something that is missing under the current url naming convention. There's no reason why we cannot have TLDs based on the WWW convention that serve a global need and TLDs based on the CWW convention that serve a local need. The Internet should be able to accomodate both and, no doubt, there is a need for both. We can either simplify the url naming convention process, or place more reliance on algorithms within search engines to effectively/efficiently navigate the Internet. This approach represents a win-win solution for both countries, states, cities, search engines, etc., in that we can allocate identical City-TLDs to multiple cities all over the world while enhancing the results of our searches within a particular country/city or country/state/city of interest.

With that said, I've submitted this idea to ICANN for its next meeting in Mexico City, Mexico.]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:58:57 -0800 DOT-LA Websites "Governments and Country Code Managers' Interest in the Fast Track Process". At first glance, this report didn't appear all that interesting until I came across row 16 within the first table titled "Responses from National Government:". The National Government covered in row 16 is LAO P.D.R., e.g. Country of Laos. What row 16 indicates is the LAO P.D.R.'s reponse to a form titled "Questions for Each Territory" which indicates the LAO P.D.R.'s desire to apply under the IDN/FastTrack process to receive the IDNccTLD ".ລາວ" which is Laotian for ".laos". To make matters more interesting, the LAO P.D.R. has indicated that it would be ready to participate under the IDN/FastTrack process by mid-2010.

By now, you are probably thinking to yourself, "Okay, I understand what you are saying, but, how can this impact DOT-LA?" Very simple. Once the LAO P.D.R. has its own domain extension in Laotian, does it really need to continue owning its existing ccTLD, e.g. DOT-LA? The answer is a simple no. Why would it need to continue owning DOT-LA while operating a domain extension in Laotian? It doesn't need to. At the present time, DOT-LA is being marketed as a DOT-CITY domain for the City of Los Angeles via a long-term licensing agreement by LA Names Corporation from the LAO P.D.R. However, one of the problems with such an agreement is a lack of affiliation between DOT-LA and the City of Los Angeles. One way to strengthen that affiliation is for the LAO P.D.R. to acquire its domain extension in Laotian and then allow either LA Names Corporation or another entity to purchase the ownership of DOT-LA for the continued use of this domain extension in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. The sale of DOT-LA to LA Names Corporation or another entity could be used to finance the creation of the domain extension in Laotian. In essence, this scenario would represent the conversion of DOT-LA from a Country Code TLD to a City Code TLD. Also, such a scenario would represent a win-win opportunity for the LAO P.D.R., LA Names Corporation, and the residents/businesses of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Perhaps this strategy is already underway, but, hasn't been made public.

The implications of this scenario go beyond DOT-LA. In essence, this scenario represents an opportunity for other countries to use the IDN/FastTrack process to acquire their own domain extensions in their own languages and, in turn, to sell their existing ccTLDs to others that can make better use of the ccTLDs. In fact, the sale of the existing ccTLDs could even be used to finance the creation of the new domain extensions under the IDN/FastTrack process.]]> Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:34:08 -0800

Looks like Londoners may have their own domain space in the not-too-distant future. As we progress further down the path of innovation in the DNS world, we are seeing several communities all over the world forming organizations to apply for their Dot-City TLD. Will we see communities forming organizations to apply for other City-TLDs, e.g. Dot-Tokyo, Dot-Moscow, Dot-Rio, Dot-Cairo, Dot-Dehli, etc.? Why not. ]]> Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:53:43 -0800 dotPDX, Inc.

Looks like another organization is preparing to apply for a Dot-City TLD.

dotPDX, Inc. is seeking to acquire Dot-PDX to improve the local internet for the Portland Metropolitan Area (a.k.a. Greater Portland). To learn more about this initiative, visit the organization's website at the following link - www.dot-pdx.org.]]> Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:37:51 -0800 DOT-CITY DOMAINS AS REVENUE SOURCE FOR CITIES

The Southlander read a recent blog on New York City Council Action: Resolution 1495 regarding the NYC Council's desire to acquire DOT-NYC domain for the residents/businesses of the City of New York. One of the interesting points raised in that blog was the use of DOT-NYC as a revenue source for the city. Hmmmm. There's a novel idea. Acquire a DOT-CITY domain and receive revenue from the sale of DOT-CITY domains, websites, webhosting services, e-mail accounts, etc. Interesting! A critical distinction between a city-operated DOT-CITY domain and a domain operated by an independent registry is that the very survival of the independent registry and its domain are dependent on the volume of domains sold. However, Cities have pre-existing revenues through the power of taxation that they can tap to finance/subsidize their DOT-CITY initiative. This point is critical since it significantly increases the likelihood of sustainability for the DOT-CITY domains when operated by a City (a point that is not likely to be overlooked by ICANN). And, the Cities have an existing infrastructure to promote their DOT-CITY domain which, for an independent registrar, doesn't exist and will need to be ramped up and financed at a tremendous price. Another interesting point to raise is how the entire network of DOT-CITY domains could be networked together and promoted by the Cities.

No doubt this concept hasn't been overlooked by the various mega cities throughout the world. We mention mega cities because they are the likely candidates to win their DOT-CITY domain should the same city name exist in smaller cities throughout the world. Probably one of the main criteria that ICANN will use in deciding who gets the DOT-CITY domain will be the city's AGE and POPULATION. Another point raised in the blog was a desire to be recognized in the world for having a DOT-CITY domain. Certainly, there's city pride to consider as well.

We believe there will be a tremendous landrush from cities all over the world to acquire their DOT-CITY domain and effectively drive their stake into the cyberspace landscape and add a few more line items to their P&L Statement. The next several months should prove to be very interesting indeed!]]> Sun, 03 Aug 2008 12:28:59 -0700