Graffiti "Internet" on the wall in Vodice, Croatia.
Ronald Eikelenboom
It's been in the works for years, but the largest-ever expansion of the domain name system is now upon us. By Feb. 4, you'll be able to buy and start a website with dozens of new endings--like .coffee, .computer, .buzz, or .email--instead of more familiar options like .com or .net. And it's only the beginning: In the next year, about 1,000 generic top-level domain names (or gTLDs for short; like the "com" in PopSci.com) will become available.
Some of them will be cheap; other are much more expensive. Here are how much some of the new URL suffixes will cost, from Quartz:
The .guru TLD is open for pre-registrations (before it officially opens to the general public) on GoDaddy for $39.99 per year. A domain on .ventures is $69.99. One on .luxury starts at $799.99 per year. One of the applicants for .sucks has declared it will ask for $25,000 during the "sunrise period," a 30-day span during which trademark holders can register their domains to avoid domain-squatting.
(I think that last one .sucks, but maybe only because I didn't think of it first.)
There is some debate about whether or not the expansion makes sense--some say it is necessary because there aren't enough .com names left, while others think it is a bad idea, and argue that it will result in unnecessary costs for business owners looking to avoid domain squatting.
[Via Quartz]