There has been considerable
talk of the future of .info and .biz and what will happen to the old domains.
Basically (as long as everyone doesn't just let them wrot with holding pages)
.info in the long term will be a winner - it aspires to be an information source
on the subject in stark contrast to .biz which is offputting due to its hard sales
angle.From a business perspective .info portals could offer all the info you need
on the subject with optional extras at further cost. E.g. perl.info could offer lots
of articles and info on Perl programming, and sell scripts, books on Perl and even
a subscription to access extra articles and/ or scripts. This could be further developed
to act as a medium between recruiters and perl programmers, or have job boards, or
put consultants in touch with projects etc.
Perl.biz sounds stupid and really only
conjures up images of expensive scripts that you can get free elsewhere and maybe
perl book sales etc. The very sound of it is an implicitly 'smaller' site and it
doesn't suggest that community-type element that big portals have. The community
part of portals is important and enables a site to grow as its visitors submit comments,
articles etc and give eachother online support. For these reasons, many .infos have
a fantastic chance of being successful.
.Biz can really only hope for business
to business or blatent no-messing-about 5-minute credit card deals i.e. buying domains.
I
think B2B will be its main use, but they won't replace .coms. .Coms because they
are older and harder to get will be similar to vintage cars- like a status symbol,
more prestigious than a .biz
.Biz is basically like a .com without
character, or established reputation or a community keeping you coming back. .info
on the other hand suggests that it encapsulates everything in the .com site, and
gives you more- a choice, a resource, something where you have control and possibly
input, not just them having a sales pitch. It's geared around you, not them.